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from the why-do-we-let-him-get-away-wiht-this-behavior dept.
Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman write in The New York Times that, with his enormous online platform of six million followers, Donald Trump has used Twitter to badger and humiliate those who have dared cross him during the presidential race, latching on to their vulnerabilities, mocking their physical characteristics, personality quirks and, sometimes, their professional setbacks. Trump has made statements that have later been exposed as false or deceptive — only after they have ricocheted across the Internet.
For example, Cheri Jacobus, a Republican political strategist, did not think she had done anything out of the ordinary: On a cable television show, she criticized Donald J. Trump for skipping a debate in Iowa in late January and described him as a "bad debater." Trump took to Twitter, repeatedly branding Jacobus as a disappointed job seeker who had begged to work for his campaign and had been rejected. "We said no and she went hostile," Trump wrote. "A real dummy!" Trump's campaign manager told the same story on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." For days, Trump's followers replied to his posts with demeaning, often sexually charged insults aimed at Jacobus, including several with altered, vulgar photographs of her face.
It is not just that Trump has a skill for zeroing in on an individual's soft spot and hammering at it. It is that he sets a tone of aggression against the person, and his supporters echo and amplify it. Jacobus sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump and his top aide, citing electronic messages that showed the Trump campaign had courted her and not the other way around. "I have been trashed and ruined on Twitter," Jacobus says adding that Trump's lawyers had responded to her letter, but that they had not yet reached a resolution.
This week, Trump sent out a menacing message on Twitter about the Ricketts family, a wealthy clan of Republican political donors, after it was reported that Marlene Ricketts donated $3 million to a group opposed to Trump's candidacy. "They better be careful," Trump wrote of the family, "they have a lot to hide!" "It's a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom," Marlene Ricketts's son, Tom, later told reporters.
"At what point does it cross the line into something that's defamatory and might be actionable?" says Parry Aftab, a lawyer who leads the Internet safety group WiredSafety. "At what point does it cross the line into encouraging violence against groups and individuals?"
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @03:41PM
It is time to vote for Donald Trump for president. He will Make America Great Again! We will build a wall and Mexico WILL pay for it. Middle class taxes will go down greatly. The poor will pay zero income tax. We will prevent jobs being given to foreigners. It is all yours by voting for Donald Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @03:57PM
Here's some fun. If you build it using traditional labor techniques, then Mexcian labor, which will be cheap and plenty at the border, and you can hardly stop anyway, you can make the case that Mexico has subsidized it's construction. If you build it, ironically, yes, Mexico will pay for the wall.
As far as the jobs given to foreigners... you can't stop globalization, really it's only America's freedoms that are keeping the big companies based in the U.S. So, really, America is already great, or at least better than the alternatives... all of that said, if it was within the power of the office of president to cancel the H1B visa program, and I believed Trump would do it if he were president, then yes I would vote for him, even though he's a big rich buffoon.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @04:44PM
all of that said, if it was within the power of the office of president to cancel the H1B visa program, and I believed Trump would do it if he were president, then yes I would vote for him, even though he's a big rich buffoon.
Great, so all of his other authoritarian policies wouldn't matter to you. What matters is The Jobs. Censoring the Internet? Mass surveillance? Forcing companies to defeat their own security schemes? Yeah, that's real freedom. Good economies are worthless if the country is not free.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 28 2016, @06:40PM
While true, if people can't eat etc. because they can't get work, they tend to focus on that and all sorts of crazy shit can happen (do I really have to godwin myself here?). You just can't eat freedom.
The establishment on the GOP and DNC sides have been exporting American jobs for decades now, and profiting handsomely, while the rest of the country gets hungrier. It is inevitable that there will be a break at some point and then we'll be getting what we get. I'd prefer it be a Sanders style orderly walk-back of establishment policies, but considering how powerful that establishment is, and how well it can prevent any real change, it will probably end up coming from a radical like Trump.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 28 2016, @07:37PM
Seems to me that there is less actual hunger, simultaneous with greatly increased fear of falling into a circumstance where you lose your house, car and ability to feed the family, as compared to the late 1960s through early 1980s in the USA.
Would be nice to ratchet down the culture of fear a bit, I think it's bad for everyone's health (but, then, good for the medical industry, so....)
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday February 29 2016, @09:31AM
You just can't eat freedom.
That's like saying "you can't eat a farm". The ONLY thing that prevents people from having enough to eat is a lack of freedom. People starve in Africa because their governments steal the food. People go jobless in America because regulations make it hard as hell to create a business, and patents/copyright usually make it illegal.
There is enough food for people, and there is enough sympathy for those who really can't provide for themselves. There isn't enough freedom for people to work to obtain it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @07:45PM
Nope, it's just that this is what matters to me, and Trump happened to be peddling it. If Rubio, Hilary or Sanders show up on the ballot, and they give some tough talk about the H1 situation, they can get my vote too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @08:43PM
Then you're a worthless fool and should never vote, because you will surely elect the worst kinds of authoritarians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @10:22PM
The Anonymous Coward's Democracy: People Who Vote For People I Don't Like Shouldn't Ever Vote
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trump
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @11:43PM
The Anonymous Coward's Democracy: People Who Vote For People I Don't Like Shouldn't Ever Vote
Yeah, that would be nice. Or are you saying that you want people you don't like to be elected?
My position is that people who do not respect the constitution are not fit to be judges, presidents, or politicians. Which means a grand majority of republicans and democrats are not fit to be in power, Trump included. By voting for Trump, you vote for censorship, more surveillance, the government stealing people's property and giving it to the rich, and a number of other horrid policies he has claimed to support. That makes you a fool. Fools like yourself should not vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @01:02AM
Seems like you have bought Trump's rhetoric, why should be be able to do what he says he can? He's a bullshitter. He just happens to bullshit better than the politicians he's running against, from an empirical point of view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @02:05AM
I don't necessarily think he will do everything or even most things he says he will, but anyone who would claim to support these types of policies is a scumbag and shouldn't be voted for. I also don't think he's a better bullshitter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @01:12AM
> Then you're a worthless fool and should never vote, because you will surely elect the worst kinds of authoritarians.
That's freaking hilarious. You think you don't vote your pocketbook too? At least the first AC admits it. The second tries to lie about their intentions; THOSE are the worst kinds of authoritarians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @02:11AM
Maybe you don't care one iota about freedom, but others do. Don't tell me what my intentions are.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday February 29 2016, @12:43AM
Do you think Hillary will be any different? It's one thing if it's Sanders, but if it's not, then reforming the H1B program might be all that's really at stake.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @02:08AM
Clinton is a worthless authoritarian scumbag and I would never vote for her. I'll be voting third party, as usual. Anyone who votes for republican or democrat authoritarians is complicit in overthrowing our constitutional form of government.
(Score: 2) by Anne Nonymous on Monday February 29 2016, @03:18AM
> Censoring the Internet? Mass surveillance? Forcing companies to defeat their own security schemes?
I'm no Trump-Humper, but the current regime (and the one before that) have a pretty abysmal record in these areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 29 2016, @05:36AM
That's why you shouldn't vote for any of them, either.
(Score: 2) by Anne Nonymous on Monday February 29 2016, @05:39AM
Thank you Captain Obvious.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @08:23PM
Don't worry if Trump is elected both Mexico and Canada will build their own walls.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 29 2016, @10:11AM
Interesting idea. If the EU and Africa then built a giant Atlantic wall and Asia & Australia built a Pacific one, and if all four walls were joined up, watertight and sufficiently high, the US would be immune to rising sea levels caused by global warming.
TRUMP WILL STOP GLOBAL WARMING!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 28 2016, @09:10PM
And he'll put an end to crony capitalism, abuse of the immigration system by greedy businessmen, and moving money offshore to avoid paying taxes. Of course you can believe him - that's why he is YELLING SO LOUDLY!