Summations Only

It remains to be seen what effects the new president and presidency will have on History. One thing I have noticed is how effectively Trump uses Twitter. His tweets themselves become news, and i wonder if he will use this media as much when inaugurated.

his big test will come during his first major crises...how he reacts to it...his demeanor

By the time we heard about it there would be nothing left.Whats really odd is that the Christian Right TV crowd believe that a prophecy from 2007 indicates DJT was predicted to win back then and will serve two terms. Prophecy

I think they weigh the benefits of doing business with the same regulations that competitors enjoy. They probably hired some expert to tell them that the streams damage was minimal and that the benefit of freeing up business and minimizing government regulations was worth it.

I don't trust him yet. I think he is playing give and take.

Donald Trump recently tweeted the following:
Unbelievable!

As many of you may know, some of us Christians expect a charismatic yet dangerous global leader to arise---known as the anti-christ who will reign for 7 years. The first 3.5 years are prosperous and pro-Israel, while the latter 3.5 years are chaotic and destructive. Nevermind the rationality of this common belief. For the record, I hoped that it would never happen. Reading this article in The Atlantic, however, has caused me to re-evaluate. The Mind Of Donald TrumpI strongly suggest that everyone read this article. It is sobering and fascinating---for in my mind it portends the actuality of a possible catastrophic world leader. So lets answer some questions.1) Why would the Christian Right embrace such an authoritarian, disagreeable personality? The article explains why.

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An American strand of authoritarianism may help explain why the thrice-married, foul-mouthed Donald Trump should prove to be so attractive to white Christian evangelicals. As Jerry Falwell Jr. told The New York Times in February, All the social issuestraditional family values, abortionare moot if isis blows up some of our cities or if the borders are not fortified. Rank-and-file evangelicals are trying to save the country, Falwell said. Being saved has a special resonance among evangelicalssaved from sin and damnation, of course, but also saved from the threats and impurities of a corrupt and dangerous world.(...)When my research associates and I once asked politically conservative Christians scoring high on authoritarianism to imagine what their life (and their world) might have been like had they never found religious faith, many described utter chaosfamilies torn apart, rampant infidelity and hate, cities on fire, the inner rings of hell. By contrast, equally devout politically liberal Christians who scored low on authoritarianism described a barren world depleted of all resources, joyless and bleak, like the arid surface of the moon. For authoritarian Christians, a strong faithlike a strong leadersaves them from chaos and tamps down fears and conflicts. Donald Trump is a savior, even if he preens and swears, and waffles on the issue of abortion.

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Couple this observation with the observation of the far right Christians as well and you will understand why a believer such as myself is somewhat scared for the future of our country. What Do Americans Believe About God, Salvation, and the Bible?.Assume for a moment that an antichrist was a possibility. Pundits have traditionally ascribed the unholy trinity as me, myself & I and a narcissist such as Trump would hypothetically fit the bill. Couple that with the fact that this man carries the nuclear football around and you may even see atheists praying some day!Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

One theme that I noticed was that Trump claimed that the "classified" or "confidential" discussions that he had with foreign leaders were "illegally" making their way into the press.How would this happen?

How authoritarian is Donald Trump?How far will he go before his own party attempts to check him?Is he a dangerous leader for America at this time in history?When will the angry people who elected him get a clue that it is them and not others who are the problem?

Donald Trump blew it again. Trump Says, 'Look What's Happening In Sweden.' Sweden Asks, 'Wait, What?' Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Having an authoritarian president surrounded by retired generals sounds a bit dangerous--at least potentially.

Here is one published report from McMaster:
CRACK IN THE FOUNDATION:
Defense Transformation
and the
Underlying Assumption of Dominant
Knowledge in Future War

This general is known for speaking his mind and not backing down to politicians. Still, I worry about our longstanding military industrial complex and the fact that generals always tend to see the world as a place to be won.

Live now...February 24, 2017 9:29 AM EST President Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference.It's unbelievable. Trump is again talking about himself, fake news, and is again attacking the press. He claims that the press should use names when using "sources"... There should be a transcript later.

The people who read Mein Kampf understood where Hitler was going. Lets examine Donald Trumps book: Expert on Nazism explains the shocking similarities between Trump and Hitler’s propaganda tacticsNicholas O’Shaughnessy is Professor of Communication at Queen Mary, University of London and currently Visiting Professor at King’s College London. His book Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand has just been published by Hurst in the UK and distributed by Oxford University Press in the USA.

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The first thing to say is that this is not all about Donald Trump. He represents merely the apex of a cultural trend and before he appeared there were movements and events that presaged his arrival. If Trump did not exist someone would have invented him. Secondly he is not a fascist even though there are some significant comparisons with the language of fascismfor example his notorious ‘snake’ anecdote (Muslims) parallels the Nazi -era der Sturmer children’s story of the snake (Jews).

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However there definitely are similarities in communications method between the US today and the fascist era in Europe, and all draw from the same polemical- evangelical script.

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This does not make the American right fascist, or Trump a Nazi. It does however point to the recrudescence of persuasion techniques associated with these things and long thought extinct. Now, today, it is the Obama campaign of 2008 with its idealism, its focus on the future, its co-opted hordes of youth and digital and social media projection that lies in the past. The old has become new for those who don’t remember, with malign consequences.

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This candidate and the hold he has on millions of Americans did not emerge from nowhere. Trumpery is not self-created but the consequence of the polemicization of our political discourse arising out of the polarization of our political culture. And the paladins of this cultureFox News, Sarah Palin, Anne Coulter, the Tea Partyinspire a great army of followers who decant their frustrations into cyberspace. The blogosphere shakes with their rage. In this it does indeed parallel Weimar Gemany. The Third Reich was also a culture war. It was not that a majority of Germans wanted Nazism, but they didn’t want democracy and there was no real political center left in Germany, just communist, socialist and fascist. Trumpery flourished in part because of Obama’s failure to sell a counter narrative and his drily intellectual approach to leadershipand similarly with Hitler’s Weimar predecessor Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, who rejected exhortations to use the media and give Germans a powerful story.

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And in terms of evangelical methods, there is an obvious parallel between Hitler’s use of the living theater of politicsthe rhetorical assault before a live audienceand Trump’s dramaturgy. For Trump has revived the mass rally, eschewing until late in the day established methods of political marketing such as advertising, direct mail and so forth. He knows that the media will relay his polemical performances, heavy in denunciation, into every home. As did Hitler, who ensured that Germans were able to by a very cheap state produced radio (Volksempfaenger VE 301) that could only be tuned into the regime programs. For both men, the theatre of politics was just as important as the instrumentality. In the view of one respected academic, a Hitler rally in the early 30s was ‘well worth it’ for the entertainment value. Crowds thrill to Trump’s bullying bellicose manner; his playing to the gallery and demonization of opponents, his egocentric fictions; his huge lies which go so far beyond anything seen before in American politicswhat he says is largely imaginary. Missing however in the conventional analysis of Trump is the element of self-parody, he is a pantomime villain exhaling bluster, a wizard of Oz. That is part of the show, part of the entertainment.

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