Pelosi calls Trump and his supporters “enemies of the state.”

And National Review has a collection of some reactions when Trump called the media “the enemy of the American people” in 2017:

the Times called the allegation “a striking escalation” and likened it to “the language of autocrats who seek to minimize dissent.”

Then-New York Magazine national affairs editor Gabriel Sherman warned it was “full-on dictator speak.”

The Washington Post assured its readers that neither description was “being pedantic,” before going on to explain how the term was used in the past by the Nazi, Stalinist, and Maoist regimes.

“The language of an aspiring tyrant,” Atlantic contributor and dean of John Hopkins’s School of Advanced International Studies Eliot Cohen tweeted. “And no, not a joke, and not an exaggeration, and not a thought spasm from a disordered intellect.”

NR also notes that fuckhead David Frum at the time said, “Hard to read this twice posted tweet other than as incitement to vigilante violence.”

>1 Carnophile:

It appears from the Fox News report that Pelosi has stated clearly the actions of Trump which she considers to justify her allegation, namely his opposition to mail-in voting. She speaks specifically of "the domestic enemies to our voting system and our honoring of the Constitution". She also compares it with Russian interference in US elections, and appears to be making the point that any inteference with the election makes one an enemy, whether it is by international players such as Russia or by domestic actors. Her statement is aimed at minimising interference in the US elections, not minimising dissent. There is a difference.

Note that Trump is the "autocrat" in power, so when he makes such allegations against the media it could indeed be construed as seeking to minimise dissent. Pelosi is not in power.

Yes, Thank goodness, Trump & Co. are enemies of the former state regime. The post omits the key term "Deep" which properly belongs just in front of "state," to rightly read, "“enemies of the deep state,” L'Ancien Régime."

Stalin's shade, looking on approvingly at the vile Obamas, the Clintons and the Bidens, turns to that of FDR and says, "What have you to say for your illustrious country now, Товарищ?"

Meanwhile, Trump's carefully-chosen words of 2017 regarding the mass news-media are precisely correct, and have been proven to have been fully correct again and again ever since:

“the enemy of the American people”

(emphasis added).

My ambition in life is to survive to see that bitch Pelosi and her gang of crooks rotting in prison.

___________________________

(Foreign Affairs Quarterly journal) |
The End of American Illusion | Trump and the World as It Is | By Nadia Schadlow* | September/October 2020

"Since the end of the Cold War, most U.S. policymakers have been beguiled by a set of illusions about the world order. On critical issues, they have seen the world as they wish it were and not how it really is. President Donald Trump, who is not a product of the American foreign policy community, does not labor under these illusions. Trump has been a disrupter, and his policies, informed by his heterodox perspective, have set in motion a series of long-overdue corrections. Many of these necessary adjustments have been misrepresented or misunderstood in today’s vitriolic, partisan debates. But the changes Trump has initiated will help ensure that the international order remains favorable to U.S. interests and values and to those of other free and open societies.

"As the administration’s first term draws to a close, Washington should take stock of the crumbling post–Cold War order and chart a path toward a more equitable and secure future. No matter who is U.S. president come January, American policymakers will need to adopt new ideas about the country’s role in the world and new thinking about rivals such as China and Russia—states that have long manipulated the rules of the liberal international order to their own benefit.

"A new set of assumptions should underpin U.S. foreign policy. Contrary to the optimistic predictions made in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, widespread political liberalization and the growth of transnational organizations have not tempered rivalries among countries. Likewise, globalization and economic interdependence have not been unalloyed goods; often, they have generated unanticipated inequalities and vulnerabilities. And although the proliferation of digital technologies has increased productivity and brought other benefits, it has also eroded the U.S. military’s advantages and posed challenges to democratic societies."
...

_________________________

* Hudson Institute faculty, formerly Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy (2018) in the Trump Administration

>4 proximity1:

You won't.

It's far more likely you'll live to see many more members of Trump's personal family, crime family, and corrupt political family convicted and found liable. Too bad you hitched your ego to the wrong wagon, the end of this era is going to be particularly painful for you.

The first night of the Repub convention was a parade of racists, revisionists, and irrational whackjobs. American voters are sick of the Trumpian sh*tshow and the adherents to it. The country is letting Trumpty-Dumbpties know that slavery lost; the 50s were boring and ugly; the content of one's character can't be hidden by lies, false aggrandizement, and fawning sycophants willing to abase themselves for promises of riches.

Facts have a liberal bias we were told years ago by disgruntled white right-wingers. The facts show that thousands and thousands of Americans have abandoned what was the Republican Party and publicly proclaimed it is because of Trump who corrupted and destroyed it from withing like a worm in an apple. Look at those who've left -- the "common man" to former well-respected Republican Party leaders, major former donors, organizers, advisors, electioneers, federal office holders, and captains of power in former Repub administrations. The vast majority of them actual former Trump voters and supporters. No more. Now they're "radicalized leftists" in you eyes. The trouble is, they view themselves as reborn Americans.

Face it, Americans aren't willing to die for Trump and his idea of the economy any more. His failure to effectively address the Covid-19 pandemic is what has "killed" his ambitions for another term. A "death" that will be little mourned in this world. I'm afraid that for you and other Trumpty-Dumbpties "it is what it is."

>4 proximity1: Your use of the term "deep state" is noteworthy. This is of course what normal people call the civil service - it's the men and women who are in the business of getting things done for the rest of us. And yes, Trump and his ilk are enemies of anything that functions normally. They are chaos monkeys, people who cannot succeed in a well-ordered world, who cannot abide or abide by law and order, who feel they need to cheat, deceive, and dissemble in order to get what they want at the expense of the rest of us, and who feel justified in doing so by some sort of sick perversion of the idea of self-interest.
Of course, nobody has a self-interest in poisoning the well from which we all drink, but these fools are somehow deluded into thinking that once they have destroyed a great nation, that they will somehow manage to float above the wreckage.

The fact that you choose to celebrate their psychotic behavior while reaping no benefits from it tells us that you are not capable of thinking seriously about even your own best interests. You are literally a danger to yourself and others.

>3 John5918: It appears from the Fox News report that Pelosi has stated clearly the actions of Trump which she considers to justify her allegation

Pelosi claims she has a good reason for her accusation. Well, case closed! Thanks for clearing that up.

Her statement is aimed at minimising interference in the US elections

No, it’s aimed at facilitating electoral fraud so people like her can stay in power.

Pelosi is not in power.

Right, she’s just the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Who led an impeachment of the President. Totally powerless, poor girl.

Psychologically, you continue to fascinate me. I’ve never encountered a person who so consistently asserts such brazen falsehoods.

I just want to dwell on this for a second so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle:

The writer of post #3 claimed that the Speaker of the House of Representatives "is not in power."

>6 kiparsky: Your use of the term "deep state" is noteworthy. This is of course what normal people call the civil service - it's the men and women who are in the business of getting things done for the rest of us.

Like falsifying evidence to overturn an election.

Trump and his ilk are enemies of anything that functions normally. They are chaos monkeys, people who cannot succeed in a well-ordered world...

Which side is setting US cities aflame?

>9 Carnophile: It's Trump and his handlers that have completely failed to respond to COVID-19. It's Trump and his handlers that have set about systematically destroying all of the systems of government which stabilize our nation. It's Trump and his handlers that have made the US an unreliable partner to our allies. It's Trump and his handlers that have upended trade relations, destroying markets for our farmers and factories. It's Trump and his handlers that have sent armed military forces into American cities to further destabilize them. It's Trump and his handlers that have chosen to create chaos even in something as simple as our payroll taxes, leaving employers and employees with no idea of even what their tax bills will be next yearIt's Trump and his handlers that have threatened to destroy social security by refusing to collect the taxes that support it, which would upend the lives of millions of Americans approaching retirement age.

There's plenty more where that came from, but you get the idea: Republicans cannot govern because they are not competent to do so, and because they do not wish to do so, and because they hate the idea of government. Anyone familiar with the last forty years of American politics is well familiar with this, anyone not familiar with it needs to review the history of failure which is the Republican party since the rise of Reagan.

The basic purpose of government is to maintain a stable environment where people can live and do business. Trump and those who have aided and abetted his thuggery have shown that they have no interest in and no competence for promoting the stability which is necessary to a functioning nation. They are the apotheosis of the anarchist wing of the Republican party that developed in the '90s - the crazy people whose only goal in life is to destroy government, to "shrink it down to the size where you can drown it in the bathtub".

These are people who cannot tolerate competence and seek to root it out wherever it rears its head.

It's no wonder they got the single biggest loser in American history to serve as their front man.

>7 Carnophile: I’ve never encountered a person who so consistently asserts such brazen falsehoods.

Have you tried looking in the mirror?

This last 4th of July we had Trump's 'enemies within' speech so for those concerned about Pelosi riffing off that very same idea of consigning a large % of the electorate to hell it's kind of like Donald breathed life into this idea first. Personally I think both of them can go to hell but Donald should lead.

Under the Democrats of our times, the Constitution's terms, "for High Crimes & Misdemeanors" were expressly reduced to "whatever" one party may find sufficiently outrageous about the opposition-party President of the United States.

Thus did Democrats presume upon some of the Constitution's most important clauses to drum up a phony case for impeachment which, in the end, even on those absurd terms, didn't rise to the level of a chargeable offense under any section of the U.S. criminal code.

By the time inauguration day rolls around we could have 8/9/10 million cases of coronavirus and 300,000 + dead and still no real plan from this dipshit who thinks that the virus is going to magically disappear all on its own one day and has given us about 100 quack remedies including his own personal remedy of swallowing fish bowl cleaner. They're still putting out public service announcements in northern parts of Texas to stop people from drinking bleach. Only in fucking America--land of the free and the exceptionalists. Anyone who thinks this turd has a clue about anything is completely out to lunch. The economy has been tanking for months and all he can do is lie about that too.

Gee, epidemics! I blame the president!

LOL!

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-hist...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

When Democrats are reduced to having to blame a viral epidemic on a sitting president of the United States, they show themselves be and to richly deserve be well and truly fucked.

LOL!

There's no woman Vice-president in the very near future of the United States--unless, that is, V.P. Pence resigns and Trump appoints a woman to succeed him.

>14 proximity1:

You know that's nonsense but you still post it. While there is obviously disagreement about the "high crimes and misdemeanours" for which the president was impeached, that is not the same as saying that "'High Crimes & Misdemeanors' were expressly reduced to 'whatever' one party may find sufficiently outrageous about the opposition-party President of the United States". What it actually means is that there were credible allegations believed by a large number of lawmakers (and others), that these were investigated and tried under constitutional due process, and a result was obtained, even if it was not the result that many people wished for. That's what due process is all about.

#16--the do nothing but lie president.

>16 proximity1: Gee, epidemics! I blame the president!

Obviously, you'd be an idiot to suggest that anyone blames the President for the existence of a virus, and you'd be equally an idiot not to hold him responsible for his reaction to that virus. Trump did not create the pandemic, obviously, but, also obviously, his reaction to the pandemic has been mind-bogglingly inept, as you can see in the data.

There is simply no reason for this many people to have died from this disease, and Trump's failures, mistakes, and what we can only call rake-stepping idiocy. In the latter category, I would include recommending drugs known to not work and speculating about taking bleach internally. Encouraging armed anti-mask riots against various states is in a category of its own. I think the Constitution has something in there about levying war against the states, but I forget what exactly it is. Maybe someone can review it and remind me...
The failures and mistakes, of course, are a very long list, too long to include here, but of course anyone who has been paying attention to the news for the last few months will be familiar with most of them. So, for the TMCJ, I guess y'all have some reading to do.

Enemy of the Deep State, to be sure. Though that's probably not what Lucille Bluth meant by that.

>7 Carnophile:, >8 Carnophile:

Of course I did not say that Pelosi has no power. Clearly she has influence, she has constitutional powers, and she can lead an impeachment, which is a constitutionally approved due process over which she does not control the outcome, as events proved. The process worked.

She is not the commander in chief of the armed forces, she cannot order federal officers to break up demonstrations, she cannot issue pardons to her supporters, she cannot issue executive orders, she does not hire and fire people in key positions, she does not have a cult following of armed militia, and so on - so in the context in which we are discussing the development of an autocrat using words like "dictator" she doesn't qualify, as you well know.

From the Guardian: link

>10 kiparsky: This post is a long list of alleged Trump sins that have caused chaos. My favorite is:

It's Trump and his handlers that have sent armed military forces into American cities to further destabilize them.

Stopping rioters from burning down courthouses, assaulting people, etc., is destabilizing.

Wow, I’m learning a lot in this thread!

>21 John5918: Of course I did not say that Pelosi has no power.

Your exact quote, which I now quote again, was: "Pelosi is not in power."

Clearly she has influence, she has constitutional powers, and she can lead an impeachment

Quite.

which is a constitutionally approved due process over which she does not control the outcome, as events proved.

That is, she has the power to shepard an impeachment of the President through the House. That the Senate also has power (thank goodness) doesn’t change the fact that Pelosi does. I note, by the way, that Trump cannot impeach Pelosi.

You then proceed to assert that Trump has power - commander in chief of the armed forces... (etc.) - why, I don’t know, since I never denied Trump has power.

she (Pelosi) does not have a cult following of armed militia,

You haven’t been paying enough attention to news from the US lately. The rioters running amuck in the streets, beating people, etc., for the last three months have been close to 100% leftist.

>21 John5918: in the context in which we are discussing the development of an autocrat using words like "dictator" she doesn't qualify

We’re talking about who’s an enemy of the nation, not who is, in your screaming night terrors, a “dictator,” “autocrat,” etc.

But since you raise the subject: I never said Pelosi is an autocrat. She’s not. Neither is Trump.

The hyperventilating description of Trump - the legitimately elected leader of a democracy - as a “dictator” is one of the symptoms of the left’s slipping its mental leash since his election.

This is particularly striking when it’s applied to a President who not only is not an autocrat, but whose every move is hobbled, hampered, opposed, and sabotaged by the judiciary, the intelligence agencies, the legislature, an independent prosecutor, and various private groups who sue to overturn or delay essentially everything significant he does.

Trump a dictator! Meanwhile, back in reality - that is, outside the utterly delusional stark barking mad worldview of the left - he can’t even issue an executive order to the immigration authorities telling them to enforce the immigration laws as written, without the courts telling him “You can’t do that.”

>25 Carnophile:

The article to which you link in >2 Carnophile: introduces the word "dictator" into the conversation. I introduced the word "autocrat" because I do not accuse Trump of being a dictator (I've lived under real dictators and I don't think Trump has reached their level yet) and I see autocrat as being a more flexible word.

Edited to add: she has the power to shepard {sic} an impeachment of the President through the House. That the Senate also has power (thank goodness) doesn’t change the fact that Pelosi does

Indeed. And shepherding an impeachment through the House so that the Senate can then make a final decision, as it did, demonstrates the limits to her power, and how it would be difficult to describe her as a "dictator" as the article in >2 Carnophile: implies ("full-on dictator speak")."Shepherd" (your word) is not generally associated with dictatorial nor autocratic behaviour.

Just as a matter of English, there is a big difference between "has power" and "in power".

>27 jjwilson61: Yes, but that's a pretty subtle distinction for a native Russian speaker to grasp.

>29 cpg: Desperation is an ugly thing, and that's what we're seeing from Trump in that story.

However, I find CNN's analysis to be a little off-base here. The only people who would find those Trump tweets to be convincing reasoning are already among the True Believers, so I don't think this moves the needle for anyone. It's certainly not a "gift" to Trump, any more than his endorsement of Rittenhouse is going to hurt him.

At this stage, there's not much that Trump can do or say that will change his numbers either way.

>29 cpg:

C'mon, man! I go to the trouble to steal this bad pun and obscure cultural reference from some poor Twitter user, and I get no acknowledgement? I guess I'll go drown my hurt feelings in a bowl of ice cream. Marionberry, of course.

>31 cpg: I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.

If you need me, I'll be over in the Diogenes Club with a book...

In November 2007 Nancy Pelosi had nice things to say about former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert after his farewell speech to congress. Those were more civil times and of course that was a while before we all (or most of us anyway) found out what a creep Hastert had been his entire life and he only did 13 months in the federal pen. He should still be there and until his last breath. He ruined lives and that other asshole from Ohio Jim Jordan who knows but refuses to acknowledge is complicit in the wrecking of lives too.

But anyway when Nancy is telling people to do one thing and then does another she deserves to be called out. It's don't even think about primarying my incumbents and then she targets democratic incumbents she doesn't like. Sorry Nancy but it doesn't work that way. 'I was set up' is weak.

>27 jjwilson61:

Thank you. I had thought it was obvious, but it seems that it bears repeating.

One thing about Pelosi's hair appointment that I haven't seen in the news coverage is that on Monday California initiated new covid standards which allow salon's to operate indoors unless the locality has a more restrictive rule. I believe San Francisco is one of those localities but it's reasonable that Pelosi didn't know that since the new rules are so recent.

>27 jjwilson61: Just as a matter of English, there is a big difference between "has power" and "in power".

Mm hmm.

>26 John5918: The article to which you link in >2 Carnophile: Carnophile: introduces the word "dictator" into the conversation.

I mentioned it to mock it.

I do not accuse Trump of being a dictator (I've lived under real dictators and I don't think Trump has reached their level yet)

That "yet" is so precious.

And shepherding an impeachment through the House so that the Senate can then make a final decision, as it did, demonstrates the limits to her power...

Certainly. Trump's power is also limited, as I noted in #25.

...and how it would be difficult to describe her as a "dictator" as the article in (#2) implies

That quote is some fuckwit referring to Trump.