If this doesn't disturb you, then you're beyond hope.

Aryeh Jay said:

One groups misinformation is the others gospel truth.

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Unequivocally.

ViaCrucis said:

Trump likes "winning", i.e., he likes profiting, either financially or in terms of mere vanity. Which is why he is a big fan of authoritarianism and their heads of state (e.g. Xi Jinping), because people who project power, wealth, and prestige are important--and he wants to be one. However, he also views China as competition, because again "winning".

It's all about the projection of power, of prestige, and "winning".

Understanding that it's always about vanity with Donald Trump makes things like this pretty obvious to grasp.

China is good insofar as Trump is winning.
China is bad insofar as Trump isn't winning.

That the Chinese government is an authoritarian regime, a major economic and political rival to the United States, those things are hardly concerns here. What matters is "winning", or at least the appearance of "winning". Because it's all vanity, pure vanity and nothing more.

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Your analysis result is vague and low level. "Vanity" doesn't properly explain his actions, and if that was truly his motive, he would have done many things differently. For example, he wouldn't have started a war and caused various crises; he would have done parades, celebrations, erected statues, or controlled the media, and he's done none of that (except the 250th year celebration).

His goal isn't vanity.

ViaCrucis said:

Also, you don't need to debase yourself by using AI slop for information, you can use your own thinky-bits to do your thinking for yourself.

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I used it to gather information. Not to think. If you think what it gathered was incorrect or incomplete, which I think isn't the case, then I would like to know.

Reposting my reply because it was deleted for using a curse word (even though I edited it out):

Bradskii said:

In general, Trump and his family leans heavily in to China. You should investigate.

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Examples according to Google Gemini:

• Ivanka Trump's Fast-Tracked Chinese Trademarks
• Jared Kushner's Courtship of Wealthy Chinese Investors
• Granddaughter Arabella’s Virally Popular "Mandarin Diplomacy"
• Donald Trump's Chinese Corporate and Rental Footprint

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These are all events from his first term and before. When asked about the second, it answers all irrelevant nonsense.

If Trump sided with China before, he doesn't now, as evidenced by the various trade disputes, the failed diplomatic visit to China, and less visible signs, all in his second term.

CIA Agent #1029 said:

Your analysis result is vague and low level. "Vanity" doesn't properly explain his actions, and if that was truly his motive, he would have done many things differently. For example, he wouldn't have started a war and caused various crises; he would have done parades, celebrations, erected statues, or controlled the media, and he's done none of that (except the 250th year celebration).

His goal isn't vanity.


I used it to gather information. Not to think. If you think what it gathered was incorrect or incomplete, which I think isn't the case, then I would like to know.

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The war with Iran was very much a vanity project.

he would have done parades, celebrations, erected statues, or controlled the media

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You mean like the military parades, co-opting America's 250th anniversary celebrations, attaching his name to the Kennedy Memorial Center, and his war against the free press that he's all done?

Also, you don't get to say "he's done none of that" and then mention a very obvious and clear example in how Trump co-opted the 250th anniversary of the US to make it about himself.

No, I very much think my assessment of "vanity" is on point.

ViaCrucis said:

The war with Iran was very much a vanity project.



You mean like the military parades, co-opting America's 250th anniversary celebrations, attaching his name to the Kennedy Memorial Center, and his war against the free press that he's all done?

Also, you don't get to say "he's done none of that" and then mention a very obvious and clear example in how Trump co-opted the 250th anniversary of the US to make it about himself.

No, I very much think my assessment of "vanity" is on point.

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If you don't see it, there's no point in arguing. Then, have a nice day.

CIA Agent #1029 said:

Your analysis result is vague and low level.

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Meh, it is quite detailed for this forum.

CIA Agent #1029 said:

"Vanity" doesn't properly explain his actions, and if that was truly his motive, he would have done many things differently. For example, he wouldn't have started a war and caused various crises; he would have done parades, celebrations, erected statues, or controlled the media, and he's done none of that (except the 250th year celebration).

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Real question, are you serious? I can't tell, but if you are:

Vanity certainly does seem to play an outsized part in his motivations. Why would vanity prevent him from starting a war he was sure he would win within a few days or weeks? Venezuela went so smoothly for him he imagined Iran would as well, from what we can tell.

He did do a military parade last year on his birthday that got so badly panned (soldiers marched out of step, tanks squeaked and the No Kings protesters far outnumbered parade attendees) that he didn't risk it this year.

He held a giant UFC match to celebrate his birthday this year. He also made his birthday an fee-free day at national parks while reinstating a fee for Juneteenth and MLK Day. He slapped his photo on banners on federal buildings, on some US passports, on the park passes (which are supposed to feature award winning photos of parks), commemorative coins,

His Arc de Trump isn't a statue, like the "Don Colossus" at his golf club (which, to be fair, was at least as much to do with greed), but it is a monument to himself. As @ViaCrucis mentioned, he tried to co-opt the Kennedy Memorial for himself as well.

You're aware that he has sued the media many, many, many times as well as having his FCC Commissioner Carr threaten them as well? He brags about getting comedians fired. He doesn't control the media, but he tries his darndest.

CIA Agent #1029 said:

His goal isn't vanity.

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Is vanity ever a "goal" or just motivation? How/why would one want to achieve "vanity"?

Valletta said:

Quoting from above: "capitalists prefer to police and incarcerate workers they consider expendable to protect their wealth." Is that what all of you American capitalists really prefer?

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I’d wager that there are only a very few real, actual, “capitalists” in these forums, so I do not know exactly to who you are addressing with this query.

Valletta said:

Why do you think people from virtually all countries in the world have tried to get into the United States this last decade? Why have not people been fleeing our country?

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Certainly not for the healthcare.

Valletta said:

Do you truly think that January 6 was a failed "coup?"

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Getting far afield here.

Valletta said:

The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade and let the states decide was to all appearances based on the law, remember even Judge Ginsburg thought the original decision was bad law.

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Roe was cantilevered from Griswold; never codified by Congress. It was “bad law“ because all that was needed to overturn it, was a SCOTUS majority bent on doing so.

Valletta said:

DSA doesn't care for such Supreme Court decisions, they want to tear up our Constitution and write a new one.

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We are totally allowed to do this, explain why it’s “bad”?

Valletta said:

Their kind of government has not been successful anywhere else in the world, why not choose a country that people are fleeing FROM and establish their government there?

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What “kind of government” do you think they want?

CIA Agent #1029 said:

These are all events from his first term and before. When asked about the second, it answers all irrelevant nonsense.

If Trump sided with China before, he doesn't now, as evidenced by the various trade disputes, the failed diplomatic visit to China, and less visible signs, all in his second term.

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But you'll be able to find out his current interests by examining his tax returns. So all we have to do is...oh. Hold on. My bad. He's still sorting out the paperwork. Shouldn't be long though!

CIA Agent #1029 said:

If you don't see it, there's no point in arguing. Then, have a nice day.

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Well it's good to know that, unlike me, you won't be vague.

DaisyDay said:

Is vanity ever a "goal" or just motivation? How/why would one want to achieve "vanity"?

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I don't know. I've met a lot of people in my life who seem to treat vanity as the goal.

When I read the Gospels and see Jesus' rebukes of the religious hypocrites, one of the sharpest criticisms is that they wanted the appearance of righteousness, of being holy, and to be praised as such by others. That's vanity as a goal, to be adored, celebrated, praised.

Isn't that also, in simplest terms, what celebrity culture is? Whether we're talking Hollywood or the modern influencer economy, it's fame for fame's sake. It's looking good to look good.

I don't think, at the end of the day, Trump is able to look past his own ego. He's not a planner, he is impulsive, seeking short term glory for himself through whatever means he think he can attain it. Those in his political orbit, I'd argue, absolutely do have long term goals--Trump and Trump's vanity projects are a means to an end for them.

What makes Donald Trump so dangerous isn't that he is an evil genius with long term planning skills; it's that he is a conman with always short term goals so he can always look like he's "winning"; and he is a useful idiot for others in the positions of power.

Donald Trump doesn't actually care about Christian Nationalist interests--but he likes power and glory and being praised so Christian Nationalism serves Trump's short term interests of personal vainglory. But the actual Christian Nationalists who would be more than happy to actually destruct our consitutitional republic and democracy in order to attain long-term power, including the power to punish and hurt the undesirables they dislike--Trump is an absolute gift. Trump has done for the extreme rightwing what basically nobody has been able to do in the history of modern American politics: create a profound populist movement entirely bereft of moral conscience centered upon a cult of personality. And the conditions are such that over half a century of political progress is slowly being dismantled piece by piece. The Constitutional protections for minorities being stripped away, individual liberties and freedoms being ignored and abolished. Those who have the desire to see a return to the era of Jim Crow, to the era of Segregation, to the era of Nativism, to before women had the right to vote--all of that--these are the conditions where that is now made possible because Trump is such a useful idiot to their cause, because whatever he says and does will be celebrated by the masses who blindly believe whatever he says.

Trump's goal is just Trump.

But the long-term goal for those who have willingly kissed his ring in order to attain what they want? That's the death of the Republic.

Now that the new platform is out, it looks like the factual claims of the OP's article are largely accurate. The OP's interpretation of them, however, are still laughable.

iluvatar5150 said:

Now that the new platform is out, it looks like the factual claims of the OP's article are largely accurate. The OP's interpretation of them, however, are still laughable.

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When a political system begins to fail, people will start shopping around for other ways of getting things done for the middle-class, (or risk being the last “middle-class” there’ll be for a while).

People doing alright under the preset system won‘t see the need for change, (after all, ‘the system’ is kinda still working for themselves’).

And yet, some people are surprised that this ebb & flow happens.

iluvatar5150 said:

Now that the new platform is out, it looks like the factual claims of the OP's article are largely accurate. The OP's interpretation of them, however, are still laughable.

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I think the DSA needs someone to help them put their message across.

I've been poking around the interweb for a while looking for some details on the seemingly idiotic policy of abolishing jails. From what I can gather, the idea is not to simply release everyone but start a gradual process to abolish purely retributive forms of punishment and aim for a more rehabilitive form.

I couldn't agree more with that. But headlining that policy as 'Abolish prisons' is simply idiotic.

Pommer said:

When a political system begins to fail, people will start shopping around for other ways of getting things done for the middl-class, (or risk being the last “middle-class” there’ll be for a while).

People doing alright under the preset system won‘t see the need for change, (after all, ‘the system’ is kinds still working for themselves’).

And yet, some people are surprised that this ebb & flow happens.

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Seems obvious that the system doesn't work.
Seems obvious that we need a new system.
I like history.
History is full of "we need a new system, so we make a new system"
Nothing exists in perpetual cryso-sleep.

The question will not be "should we?" But "How do we?"

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

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*punk rock playlist follows*

Bradskii said:

I couldn't agree more with that. But headlining that policy as 'Abolish prisons' is simply idiotic.

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I don’t have a 16 foot taxidermied alligator, but if I did, then I would assume that it would be a conversation-starter; this is the political equivalent.