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Trump is being urged by some advisers to formally address the nation and call for calm, while others have said he should condemn the rioting and looting more forcefully or risk losing middle-of-the-road voters in November, according to several sources familiar with the deliberations.
[...] During a staff call Friday, Trump's top domestic policy aide Brooke Rollins argued for a measured response to riots the night before, advice that was echoed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Several advisers feared, and hoped to avoid, another Charlottesville moment, when Trump was criticized after declaring in 2017 that "very fine people" were among the Nazi mobs that descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia.
[...] While aides like Kushner have pushed for a more restrained response, Trump is also hearing from several advisers who warned that by not condemning the protests after the death of Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man, that turned into rioting and looting, he is risking losing some demographics that will be key to his election victory in November, like suburban women voters.
As Protests and Violence Spill Over, Trump Shrinks Back
The president spent Sunday out of sight, berating opponents on Twitter, even as some of his campaign advisers were recommending that he deliver a televised address to an anxious nation.
how the George Floyd protests left Donald Trump exposed
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end.”
These were the words of Donald Trump, not in May 2020 but July 2016, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Cleveland.
[...] Not even Trump’s harshest critics can blame him for a virus believed to have come from a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, nor for an attendant economic collapse, nor for four centuries of slavery, segregation, police brutality and racial injustice.
But they can, and do, point to how he made a bad situation so much worse. The story of Trump’s presidency was arguably always leading to this moment, with its toxic mix of weak moral leadership, racial divisiveness, crass and vulgar rhetoric and an erosion of norms, institutions and trust in traditional information sources. Taken together, these ingredients created a tinderbox poised to explode when crises came.
Antifa: Trump says group will be designated 'terrorist organisation'
"It's ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don't lay the blame on others!" Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 05 2020, @08:21PM (2 children)
What I'm saying is: I agree with Heinlein. Absent radical aggressive policy maneuvers by the Reagan/Bush admin in the 1980s, the USSR would probably have come apart within 30 years, instead of 10. At the time I was pretty solidly opposed to what they were clearly doing, but 30 years later I can see a fair amount of good that came from it and how "business as usual" might have been quite a bit worse for a lot of people.
The price of bread in East Germany was 10 phennig per kilo in 1990, I heard that it had recently been raised from 5 phennig per kilo. Conversions from East Marks to West Marks are nearly meaningless, but even giving the East Mark a 1:1 with West Marks at the time, bread was less than US$0.04 per pound, at a time when "free market" bread in the US and Europe was basically $1 per pound. Rent and basic utilities were similarly controlled to crazy-low prices, but apparently getting permission to change apartments was a decades long ordeal.
The thing about food in East Germany was: it wasn't traded for money in stores - good food changed hands in the black market. About all you could buy for money was (usually) that bread, sometimes some really really bad sausage, maybe lemon drink in a bottle. In 5 days, I encountered a dozen markets that were basically empty except for one or at most two of those items, plus one very very busy little store that had about as much selection as a picked over gas-station quickie mart in the U.S. (still, orders of magnitude more than the other "stores.") Still, the two private homes I stayed in, and even the youth hostels, had much better food available for guests - but they couldn't articulate where to buy it, you knew someone who knew someone and it wasn't traded for money.
Yep, Iran-Contra, Ollie North, if anybody cared that should have been enough to flush every Republican out of the House and Senate... apparently we don't actually care - I think we should, but what I think doesn't count for a lot come November.
There's so little that we can actually trust in the news / blogosphere - I prefer to disregard the wilder side of speculations.
Things we actually do know: there was an invasion (who told who it was O.K. will always remain a speculation) - there was a response - the response was both successful and impressively cleanly executed (no, I'm not forgetting Gulf War Syndrome... just comparing Gulf War I to the other overseas quagmire disasters.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @08:50PM
"Yep, Iran-Contra, Ollie North, if anybody cared that should have been enough to flush every Republican out of the House and Senate... apparently we don't actually care"
The power of mass media and lies. Only many years later did the details become more widely known, and if you ask the average person on the street they wouldn't be able to tell you much about it.
We need true transparent oversight and an educated public that can at least grasp the basics of such stories.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday June 05 2020, @11:09PM
I'd say Heinlein simply overestimated their longevity. By the time Reagan came to power they were spent. Instead of fielding more weapons they were only able to lay out more decoys. Their economy was moribund, their people hungry. They were putting on a brave face but they would likely have collapsed shortly no matter what he did or didn't do.
"Things we actually do know: there was an invasion (who told who it was O.K. will always remain a speculation)"
Nope, wikileaks published the cables. https://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/02/glaspie-memo-leaked-us-dealings-with-iraq-ahead-of-1990-invasion-of-kuwait-detailed/
"there was a response"
"A response" you say? Let's make a little analogy here.
Your having trouble with your neighbor. He's undermining your property lines stealing from you, and refuses to negotiate, refuses arbitration, just thumbs his nose at you and dares you to stop him. You come talk with me, I live all the way across town but I'm heavily armed and I talk to both of you; sometimes I even have this neighbor of yours come over and shoot in my range, as you've also done on occasion. You're worried that if you get into it with this neighbor I might come in on his side; but I reassure you that I have "no position" on the issue, it's between y'all.
So then you go back again to negotiate, again get nothing but the middle finger, and now reassured I won't be jumping in you go ahead and confront this troublesome neighbor - and then I just jump right in anyway.
A response? A response from halfway across town, from someone who's not involved and proclaimed no desire to become involved... not a response. Just a trap.
"the response was both successful and impressively cleanly executed"
Tens of thousands of men were murdered, "impressive" in a sense but certainly nothing to emulate.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?