What's your definition of "far from it"? Your statement seems counter to the data that I've seen provided.
What do evangelicals believe these days
- Thread starter Marvin the Martian
- Start date
What's your definition of "far from it"? Your statement seems counter to the data that I've seen provided.
The fact that you think you're strong enough to resist Trump's repeated calls for violence, confrontation and harassment is not the standard for deciding whether Trump should be called to task for his instigation of others.
Here is a link to and an excerpt from the sentencing memorandum filed by defense counsel for Cesar Sayoc, who was convicted for mailing explosives to Trump opponents:
Mr. Sayoc began watching Fox News religiously and following Trump supporters on social media. He became a vocal political participant on Facebook, something he had not done previously. He was not discerning of the pro-Trump information he received, and by the time of his arrest, he was “connected” to hundreds of right-wing Facebook groups. Many of these groups promoted various conspiracy theories and, more generally, the idea that Trump’s critics were dangerous,
unpatriotic, and evil. See Ex. V (excerpting social media posts that Mr. Sayoc received from some of these groups.). They deployed provocative language to depict Democrats as murderous, terroristic and violent. See id. Fox News furthered these arguments. For example, just days before Mr. Sayoc mailed his packages, Sean Hannity said on his program that a large “number of Democratic leaders [were] encouraging mob violence against their political opponents.” Hannity Transcript, FOX NEWS (Oct. 11,
2018).5
Mr. Sayoc was also an avid follower of @RealDonaldTrump, Donald Trump’s Twitter page, where Trump posted prolifically about his political enemies, including all of the recipients of Mr. Sayoc’s mailings. See Ex. W (selection of President Trump’s tweets). In his tweets, Trump portrayed these individuals as dangerous, corrupt, and un-American. See id. For example, he suggested that anti-Trump protestors were paid agents of billionaire George Soros and that Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted for corruption and put in jail. Id.
Mr. Sayoc was particularly susceptible to believing these dubious stories of Democratic malfeasance. The combination of his cognitive deficiencies, steroid- induced delusional thinking, political naiveté, and his isolation resulted in Mr. Sayoc being unable to critically evaluate these claims. He lived alone in a claustrophobic van, did not have close relationships with his remaining family members, and did not have friends or loved ones to help puncture his alternative reality. He truly believed wild conspiracy theories he read on the internet, many of which vilified Democrats and spread rumors that Trump supporters were in danger because of them. He heard it from the President of the United States, a man with whom he felt he had a deep personal connection. He read it on almost every website he visited. He saw it on Fox News, which he watched at the start and end of his day. And it was reinforced to him on social media.
In this bubble, Mr. Sayoc personalized the misinformation to which he was exposed. He began to consider Democrats as not just dangerous in theory, but imminently and seriously dangerous to his personal safety. President Trump did nothing to dissuade this message. ......
It goes on and on and on like that for many pages. Keep in mind these are the words of Sayoc's own lawyers. Don't blame the liberals. Here's the link:unpatriotic, and evil. See Ex. V (excerpting social media posts that Mr. Sayoc received from some of these groups.). They deployed provocative language to depict Democrats as murderous, terroristic and violent. See id. Fox News furthered these arguments. For example, just days before Mr. Sayoc mailed his packages, Sean Hannity said on his program that a large “number of Democratic leaders [were] encouraging mob violence against their political opponents.” Hannity Transcript, FOX NEWS (Oct. 11,
2018).5
Mr. Sayoc was also an avid follower of @RealDonaldTrump, Donald Trump’s Twitter page, where Trump posted prolifically about his political enemies, including all of the recipients of Mr. Sayoc’s mailings. See Ex. W (selection of President Trump’s tweets). In his tweets, Trump portrayed these individuals as dangerous, corrupt, and un-American. See id. For example, he suggested that anti-Trump protestors were paid agents of billionaire George Soros and that Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted for corruption and put in jail. Id.
Mr. Sayoc was particularly susceptible to believing these dubious stories of Democratic malfeasance. The combination of his cognitive deficiencies, steroid- induced delusional thinking, political naiveté, and his isolation resulted in Mr. Sayoc being unable to critically evaluate these claims. He lived alone in a claustrophobic van, did not have close relationships with his remaining family members, and did not have friends or loved ones to help puncture his alternative reality. He truly believed wild conspiracy theories he read on the internet, many of which vilified Democrats and spread rumors that Trump supporters were in danger because of them. He heard it from the President of the United States, a man with whom he felt he had a deep personal connection. He read it on almost every website he visited. He saw it on Fox News, which he watched at the start and end of his day. And it was reinforced to him on social media.
In this bubble, Mr. Sayoc personalized the misinformation to which he was exposed. He began to consider Democrats as not just dangerous in theory, but imminently and seriously dangerous to his personal safety. President Trump did nothing to dissuade this message. ......
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Sayoc-Sentencing-Submission.pdf
People are influenced by Trump's instigation and calls for action by his supporters. I wish you wouldn't post so many things that appear to defend it.
They are qualitatively different things. They might both be absurd, but they cannot be the same.
I think both those scenarios are across the line, but I’m speculating. Obviously, we’re all speculating.
Trump says mean things that could lead his supporters to be violent....
“You think we’re rallying now? You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Waters said at the event, according to a HuffPost report. “Already you have members of your Cabinet that are being booed out of restaurants ... protesters taking up at their house saying ‘no peace, no sleep.’”
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,”
Cough, cough....“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,”
If the right does not get their way they could become violent and act out...
Cough, cough....
I mean someone could get shot.
What could Trump do that would be beyond the pale and would drop support for him?
Hypothetically I think some of you have gone full moron.
We don't need to speculate that Trump's transgressions have been the key to his election and continuing support. Trump has shown us that outrageous behavior excites the GOP base and stoogifies GOP politicians. He is a very perverse man who is incentivized to behave ever more perversely.
Am I the only one that reads through these threads and think some are saying, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"? It often seems we do not have any shared experiences or even a shared language.
I obviously agree with you. But, I notice you don't speculate on what GOP Congresspeople would do in those cases. The good news is that we don't need to speculate on how they would react to something like the latter. We already know. Needless to say, the moral compass had some trouble finding true north.
God forbid people are rude in a restaurant, I mean that’s actually exactly the same as the Trump nuts sending powder to his hit list or having an arsenal of weapons to go, as was previously reported on this thread. Cough cough. Exactly the same. And exactly the same as all the people on the right talking about Civil War if Trump gets ousted. Sure. Just the same. Just the same as people using Trump’s manifesto when they shoot up a place. Yup , just the same. But please don’t make a co conspirator in this abomination feel uncomfortable. Cause that would be rude, you know.
Come on now. It's obviously not the same to encourage people to "get in the faces" of conservatives/Republicans, but it clearly adds to the incivility that we're all living with now. I think we should all make a conscious effort to be civil and respectful towards others. You don't?
I'm not.
This thread is absolutely nutty. Trump is not going to do away with our Republic and institute a dictatorship. These people's conservative and WASP neighbors are not planning a wave of violence. On one hand you have people worried that right wingers are willing to accept all sorts of crazy things and then the next they are talking about IU football and meeting up for the game. You don't do that with people you really think are psychos.
Some of our liberal friends need to turn off the news and get outside of this fear bubble about Orange Man Bad and all his deplorable voters. We don't like the Democrat's political philosophy and we disagree on some major cultural topics but we are not plotting some kind of authoritarian takeover.
You tried to talk some sense into some of the folks here and they doubled down on the insanity on you. So not directed at you but some of the people pointing fingers here have their own house to clean up and they need to stop demonizing their neighbors.
It has been more than being rude in a restaurant...you know that, but you are the Democrat equivalent of what you hate on the right so you cannot bring yourself to admit that because it would burst that partisan bubble you live in.
Civility would be great. The problem is that about 90% of your Republican brethren seem to either strongly disagree with you or simply not give three shits. We can argue all day about which hypotheticals that will never happen would actually cross whatever line. We can argue all day about which liberal is less civil than which conservative, and which act of violence was actually inspired by which politician. But ultimately, the basic truth of what att was trying to say holds: During the age of Trump, the vast majority of Republicans have been willing to abandon these principles of humanity and civility and decency in order to back and defend Trump, and so far, Trump has yet to find an outrage that is, well, outrageous enough for the GOP to waver.
Below is what former MLB player Aubrey Huff said. Now just imagine this was said by someone like Colin Kaepernick about Trump in 2016 and what your reaction would have been?
“Getting my boys trained up on how to use a gun in the unlikely event @BernieSanders beats @realDonaldTrump in 2020. In which case knowing how to effectively use a gun under socialism will be a must. By the way most the head shots were theirs."
Imagine a criminal and a crime victim trying to talk to one another. The victim is hurt and angry as they describe the criminal's offense. They are appalled at the crime and demand that the criminal admit the crime. How does the criminal respond? The criminal denies the crime, minimizes it, says the victim had it coming, says that the real criminal is the victim, threatens the victim, claims the only law is the law of the jungle, tells the victim to go eff themselves or actually attacks the victim. It is as if the criminal and victim not only did not share the experience they clearly shared but they use entirely different language to describe it. Trump is a criminal. The dialogue between Trump and his supporters and the rest of us goes pretty much like the above. It isn't going to be a civil dialogue.
At the moment I am not even thinking civil, I am just thinking dialogue. I will pick on Crazy as he's been here a while. I have no doubt he is intelligent, hard-working, etc. And pre-Trump we disagreed on almost everything but I could see why he held the views he held. I might disagree, but I got where he was coming from. But now, I have no frame of reference. His posts defending Trump have no meaning to me, and I am sure my posts are likewise empty to him. I can get Aloha and Twenty, two people who desperately want a conservative but at the same time can't stand Trump. And I get Aloha's point that sometimes the Trump attacks land outside the foul line, he is right.
I don't think most Trump supporters are a criminal in your analogy (some clearly are, the white nationalists). There is something in the way Crazy sees the world that causes Trump to make sense. I'm not entirely sure what that is, what differs in our life experience. To continue my tortured Star Trek reference, "Shaka, when the walls fell".
No, I don’t. I don’t feel any need to feel civil and respectful to people who are ignoring every norm we have ever set in society and are doing everything possible to protect an inept criminal and a crook. If I saw Nunes, Gym Jordan, Lindsey Graham, and a few others of those guys in public, no I would not in the least be civil. I would do everything I could to make their life uncomfortable. They should feel shame every step they take, as long as they are providing cover for this shameless man. GOP expect Dems to sit back and let them run roughshod over the system, yet we need to be polite. Nope, not having that. I doubt that I’d ever have the opportunity, but you’d better believe I’d be the one questioning Lindsey Graham and he is cowardly running to his office.
Lol. Let me know when I’m covering and supporting a criminal in office. Let me know when I have a hit list of opponents to take out. Then We can talk.
Your Star Trek analogy fails because the situation you describe on TV is symmetric. Two captains who do not share either a common language or experience nevertheless face a common threat from outside. The captains must learn to trust and understand one another in order to combat the external threat that faces both of them.
That is simply not the situation we are currently in. In our current situation Trump supporters have elected an abusive criminal. They knew he was an abusive criminal when they elected him and, frankly, it seems they very much like that about him. He and they agree that folks like you and I are suitable victims and so they are now partnering with some of the most vile dictators on the planet to perpetrate crimes and abuses against us and our traditional allies around the world. It may be that when this is all done we can reconcile. But real reconciliation and positive relationship is not possible without a proper accounting of what has taken place. There is a lot of pain and incivility that is likely to come in the meantime.
You’ll make a conscious effort to be uncivil. That helps . . .
Would you be a hypocrite if you destroy God's wonderful creation? An estimated 20,000 species are going extinct every year right now with a huge increase in extinction rates forecast for the future. Trump is doing everything he can to make that happen.
Violating the 9th Commandment is a favorite pastime for right-wing evangelicals.
There is some irony here. Evangelicals have latched onto Trump as a last gasp to hold onto minority rule. However, by doing so they have put a spotlight on their rank hypocrisy. Younger Americans are seeing the hypocrisy and are turning away from organized religion. The evangelicals have a numbers problem and no one can fix that.
Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/
Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/
You could divide my age by two and I still wouldn't be a millennial. But the evangelicals in general (VPN in particular) have convinced me that religion is a scam nothing more, nothing less.
If the likes of VPB have convinced you, I think it was a foregone conclusion on your part. He is not a true evangelical...he is a charlatan.
You are very correct about the foregone conclusion. The older I get the more ridiculous religion sounds. With that said the basic tenets of Christianity are a guide everyone should try live by. Unfortunately they seem to only be words on the page with no bearing on behaviour. Well maybe the rule on killing is the exception. VPN is everything I find fake and offensive about the religious.
It's a shame that an agent (even unwitting) of evil can turn you against the good (religiously speaking...not saying you are not good).
Modern religious institution don't always intersect with the love of God and Jesus Christ.
As best I remember, VPM has never posted an unkind word about any poster on the Cooler. Contrast that with the vitriol directed towards him every time he appears. And now these two posts hurling gratuitous insults when he hadn’t even posted. Nobody says one must agree with VPM. But this place would be much better if we all posted our disagreements without all the personal attacks. This place would be better if we all posted like VPM.
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