Trump spent $200,000,000 on the election stunt of sending 6,000 troops to the border, then withdrew them before the caravan arrived

The next time someone reminds me of the migrants laughably coming to invade us I’ll remind them this useless baboon’s cock splat wasted 200 million dollars on this stunt that did nothing

4 Likes

I think it accomplished as much as he could’ve hoped for. His base ate it up, and will eat it up further when he reminds them in 2020 how far he’s willing to go. Even more, it’s a loud and clear signal that he is willing to use the military for domestic crises real and imagined. Considering prevailing rhetoric on right which posits that anyone not republican is a communist enemy of the state, you neednt excerxiae much imagination to see where those guns might be pointed next. He wouldn’t even need to follow thru (he doesn’t need to follow through on anything, and it’s likely that he never really has) all he has to do is offer up the implication.

Almost certainly migrating animals will die horrible deaths in the miles of concertina wire dropped in their path, and I don’t imagine anyone’s gonna be pulling it up anytime soon.

I should add, it will definitely make an already fraught migration worse for refugees as well. And this caravan is the first drip of the flood.

8 Likes

Making America say… sigh…great, again?

Get yours before they sell out! Like the rest of OUR representative’s have!

1 Like

Oh, ugh, brain bleach… Damn, man, that is… awww, fuck…

I really really hope that thing doesn’t have an internet connection :cold_sweat:

1 Like

There was more involved in it than that, and it was passed fairly late in WWI. 1917. Apparently one of the other issues was that Puerto Rican citizenship didn’t have any international recognition, which is bad. Particularly for Puerto Rican citizens who volunteered for the US military at the time. Have an uncle who’s grand father did that. So there’s very much another side of it. And it very much does not replace or remove Puerto Rican citizenship.

And voluntary or not they still have citizenship rights today. The disenfranchisement is something of a geographic technicality, that persists because it hasn’t been addressed. If I moved to Puerto Rico I wouldn’t be allowed to vote in Federal elections either.

1 Like

Yeah, in my experience too. But actual conservative values include things like minority rights being held equal under the law, (Abe Lincoln anyone?). The problem here is that modern (American) users of the word conservative have mashed up the worst sides of conservative and liberal traditions (and liberals are not innately socialist). We could do worse than sort out just what are the roots of conservative values and see why so many people continue to adhere to the party despite the contradictions between the root value system and the reality we see. I don’t think we’re going to solve this real problem without making an effort to understand where people are coming from. And I don’t mean the hateful biggots who are making themselves the voice of conservatism right now, but the majority who have a decent moral code they are trying to pursue, even if I think they are misguided.

Trump spent $200,000,000 on the election stunt of sending 6,000 troops to the border, then withdrew them before the caravan arrived

IDK, that title does not seem unfair at all.

3 Likes

I know this question sounds hopelessly naive, but I can’t help myself:

Will this have any effect on Trump’s popularity? Will it lead to anyone reevaluating their opinion of him? Will this information change anything in the real world?

I’m not saying it’s not important or that no one should bother reporting it.

I’m just so frustrated and unhappy about living in a world where (it seems?) facts, evidence, information, proof, and knowledge have been ruled irrelevant.

4 Likes

Going by previous events, not in any major way. Nothing so far has moved the needle more than a few points in either direction over the last couple of years. The lines are drawn and nobody is moving.

4 Likes

Wasn’t a conservative party. The GOP was founded as a mostly Urban, abolitionist party. It mostly cribbed progressives off from the existing parties. It’s currently format as the conservative party is very recent. Dating to this century at the earliest.

“Equality for all” is not a conservative value. The origins of the conservative/liberal divide date back to early modern europe. Where the central debate was who should be involved in government. If it should be restricted to the hereditary nobility (conservative). Or if the franchise should be expanded to other classes (liberal).

At the fundamental base of the conservative movement your looking at an argument that less people should have a voice in their government. That people are not equal, based on circumstance of birth. Modern psychology studies comparing people based on politics show that conservatives are more fearful, more judgemental, more accepting of false belief.

11 Likes

And it only takes about an hour 45 minutes for us to add that much to the deficit (never mind spending it, which only takes us 30 minutes). The federal budget is insane. Seriously, we need to get this shit under control, chump change like 200 million at a time.

I worry that since humans have a difficult time grasping enormous numbers, society can only scale up so far before people just go “fuck it, it’s a big pile of money so nothing matters anymore”. Seriously, when are the adults, from any party, going to tackle this?

3 Likes

Not sure the horrific overcharging is Trump’s fault… maybe buying every soldier his own one-use car for the trip wasn’t a good idea, USArmy…?

It was late in WWI for the rest of the world^, but NOT as far as the US was concerned.

19 Jan 1917 - Zimmerman Telegram sent, and intercepted by British
01 Feb 1917 - Germany resumes unrestricted sub warfare
03 Feb 1917 - US breaks of diplomatic relations with Germany (because of subs)
19 Feb 1917 - British reveal Zimmerman Telegram to US
28 Feb 1917 - Woodrow Wilson releases Zimmerman Telegram to press
02 Mar 1917 - Jones-Shafroth signed
03 Mar 1917 - Zimmerman confirms authenticity of Telegram(!)
06 Apr 1917 - US declares war on Germany

^ and not even that late for them; Mar 1917 was only about 3/5ths of the way through the war.

8 Likes

RE: Abe Lincoln, guess I have to bone up on my American political history.

I’m not saying ‘Equality for all’ is a conservative value, I’m saying that the conservative values the letter of the law above the spirit, discouraging the flouting of law for friends and family, so to speak. In that the Republican party in it’s current incarnation isn’t very good at this, I’d say they are gravely straying from conservative values. (I’m also not advocating for this position). I would also say that the Liberal idea of extending franchise to other classes was not a socialist ideal, but rather an opinion that power should not come from hereditary nobility, but rather from current financial status. That is- the Liberal ideal was that a rich commoner had more right to govern than a poor nobleman. The conservatives had a much more socialist bent- in the idea that everyone had their place in the social order, and that in exchange for their unassailable position, the nobility had an obligation to make sure that the other classes had some level of stability. The Liberal ideal on the other hand was that as power was a function of the individuals effort to seize it, the poor were responsible for their own condition. Now (and probably then) we have people that want to mix this up so that they have an unassailable position and no responsibility. I’m all for rewriting the Liberal ideal along a more socialist track, just as the conservative ideal has been rewritten into a more authoritarian track.

1 Like

Incidentally, does anybody recall this post from 3 weeks ago?

I do.

8 Likes

Or if the franchise should be expanded to other classes the upper middle class (liberal).

For universal male suffrage, you need the Radicals. And then wait some more for feminism to enfranchise the majority.

2 Likes

This mishandling of public funds is beyond the pale!

Just think how much golf that would have paid for!

1 Like

Not sure, but I think that Trump has figured out a way to get taxpayers to pay him for all his golfing since he tends to do it on his own courses.

9 Likes

That’s ok, we have welfare programs we can cut to make up the difference.

7 Likes