bearister said:
BearlySane88 said:
I was born and raised in the Bay Area, arguably the most liberal place in the country. I learned early on to listen to all sides, whether I wanted to or not. It allows me to think critically about a situation instead of following the beehive mentality. I think it would be very interesting for some of the left on here to go live in a community where everyone, at least the vocal majority, thinks differently than you do. I encourage that for everyone, not just the left. Open your mind to the possibility that you don't know everything. It's very enlightening
I would be very open to going to a town hall meeting held at a community that thinks very differently than me, a political moderate, and ask them to have a discussion with regard to the two discussion points at the end of this post:
* Here are 15 big ways Trump is shattering precedents, synthesized and narrated by Axios' Zachary Basu:
1. Executive power: Trump has declared nine national emergencies in his first eight months in office, stretching the definition of "emergency" in creative and aggressive ways.
2. Free-press crackdown: Trump has waged the most aggressive government campaignagainst mainstream media in modern U.S. history stripping funding from public outlets, pushing the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses over negative coverage, and personally suing CBS/Paramount, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times while in office.
3. Seizing congressional purse strings: Trump has tried to freeze or redirect billions in congressionally appropriated funds, from public health to foreign aid to university research.
4. Tariffs: Trump has effectively seized the authority over tariffs that the Constitution gives to Congress, wielding tariffs to reshape global trade and punish countries for political or economic disputes.
5. Overriding the Constitution: Trump issued an executive order seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship a right guaranteed in the 14th Amendment for the children of unauthorized immigrants.
6. Purging watchdogs and civil servants: Trump has fired inspectors general en masse, dismantled independent agencies, and ordered loyalty-driven purges across the federal workforce.
7. Eroding DOJ independence: Trump has declared himself the country's "chief law enforcement officer" a title typically reserved for the attorney general claiming the right to personally dictate prosecutions and order investigations of his political opponents.
8. Eroding Fed independence: Trump tried to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook as part of an extraordinary campaign to pressure the central bank to cut interest rates.
9. Wartime powers in peacetime: Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members without hearings, ordered maritime strikes on alleged drug traffickers without congressional authorization, and deployed the National Guard to D.C.and Los Angeles without the consent of local authorities.
10. Pay-me capitalism: The Trump administration has secured a "golden share" in U.S. Steel, taken a cut of chipmakers' foreign sales and a stake in Intel, and scored companieson their loyalty to Trump's agenda.
11. Targeting Big Law: Trump punished firms that represented political adversaries by stripping contracts and security clearances, extracting multimillion-dollar pro bono deals.
12. Punishing universities: Trump withheld billions in federal funding from schools such as Harvard and Columbia citing their handling of pro-Palestinian protests, campus antisemitism, and DEI policies and used the leverage to force changes in curricula and leadership.
13. Rewriting health and vaccine policy: Trump fired career health officials, slashed funding for public health research, and gave political allies broad control over FDA and CDC decisions.
14. Profiteering: The Trump family is believed to already have made billions of dollars during his second term, including through massive foreign crypto deals, real estate ventures and brazen access plays.
15. Jan. 6 pardons: Trump issued blanket clemency to more than 1,500 people charged in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including violent offenders and far-right extremists.
Please discuss which of the preceding 15 points are based on a false premise or contain untrue statements and provide supporting evidence for your contention; and
For any of the 15 points that you believe are factually accurate, please explain why you are in agreement with Trump's conduct as described.
With limited exception, the false premise is that these actions violate precedent and prior norms. The only difference is that you don't like the policies/actions Trump is taking. You are/were quite happy to ignore the same types of abuses when Dems commit them.
1. Every recent president has taken extreme positions on the use of executive power. In terms of emergency powers, look no further than Obama killing/droning US citizens, Obama/Biden's refusal to enforce the border laws and executive orders re DACA, etc., or the myriad abusive "emergency" executive covid orders issued by Biden (OSHA, student loan forgiveness, and vax mandates). All of this was "creative and aggressive"some of which was adjudicated as unconstitutional/illegal.
2. Obama and Biden literally arrested reporters and unlawfully harassed/influenced media companies. "Obama's justice department tapped reporters' phones, dragged reporters into court, and prosecuted three times as many cases targeting leakers than all previous administrations combined " "In his
column in The Baltimore Sun, David Zurawik wrote: "In fairness to Trump, his administration has not escalated the conflict with the press to a new level. It has not yet come close to doing what President Obama's administration did in making the act of reporting itself criminal behavior."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-for-may-5-2019-1.5121509/barack-obama-was-a-greater-enemy-of-the-free-press-than-trump-michael-s-essay-1.5121514https://www.cato.org/commentary/barack-obamas-war-free-press3. All presidents redirect the use of funds and establish spending priorities, sometimes illegally. As you may recall, Congress never appropriated Obamacare subsidies. Nevertheless, Obama unlawfully directed his treasury department to spend the $$. He lost the court case.
https://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/court-strikes-down-obamacare-payments#:~:text=Last%20week's%20court%20ruling%20in,Obamacare%20payments%20to%20insurance%20companies.4. I think Trump has more aggressively pursued/imposed tariffs. Congress has made very broad delegations of that . . . TBD as to whether Trump exceeded his authority. This is a unprecedented in recent history, largely because no prior president was pro-tariff.
5. Are you really suggesting that Trump is the first president to advance a potentially unconstitutional argument/position in court?
6. I'm old enough to remember when Bill Clinton fired virtually all of the attorney generals. A president is entitled to a bureaucracy that will implement his policies. Trump is correct in thinking he needs to purge people who actively oppose him. Unelected bureaucrats don't get to overrule the president.
7. The president is - literally - the chief executive who heads the DOJ. Sorry you don't like that. I'm old enough to remember when Eric Holder called himself Obama's wing man and refused pursue cases against Lois Lerner and/or dems who were held in contempt of congress (contrast with contempt prosecutions against Trump's crew). And you can't seriously contend that the Biden DOJ/FBI did not engage in lawfare against Trump, while turning a blind eye to Biden's legal problems (like letting the statute of limitations run on the most serious charges against Hunter). Trump is doing exactly what was done to him. Two wrongs may not make a right, but this is far from Trump doing something that was unprecedented.
8. This is another area where Trump has pushed the envelope in pressuring the fed. That being said, there does appear to be a basis for removing Lisa Cook and challenging the Supreme Court precedent which seems to be bad law (i.e., that the president has no oversite of the Fed).
9. This is just silly. Trump is enforcing immigration laws and there is a long history of US presidents taking unilateral military action. Again, you disagree with the policy choice (which is fine), but this is not unprecedented or unusual.
10. Didn't Obama purchase an interest in GM and Chrysler to bail out his union buddies (who ironically now support Trump)? I also seem to recall the US taking direct or indirect interests in a variety of companies in that same time period. For the record, I don't like the recent deals. But they are not unprecedented.
11. Pretty much all presidents reward the business interests that support them and punish/target those that don't. This often is through awarding contracts to friendly companies (or taking them away from those that are not).
12. Withholding federal funds is pretty typical for all modern presidents. And the DOJ has sued to implement presidential policy for 60+ years. Obama/Biden entered into many consent decrees forcing police departments, states, and other defendants to obey. Trump targeting higher education is unprecedented. But the tactic is far from unprecedented.
13. Again - this is just a policy disagreement. Trump literally ran on this policy and he's implementing it. And are you really going to claim that Biden didn't re-write health regs during covid? Please.
14. I have no idea if this is true. If it is, its gross. Is this unprecedented? Hunter Biden says hello. It has, unfortunately, been typical for politicians to sell access.
15. Joe Biden gave blanket clemency to death row inmates (without discussion or advance notice) and blanket pardons to most of his political friends, not to mention his son. Clinton issued some awful pardons/clemencies on his way out, including to/for political donors. Personally, I think Trump's 1/6 pardons went too far. But again, he ran on the platform of doing that.
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This is all TDS. TDS demands claiming things are unprecedented when they are not.
Liberals don't like it that Trump is doing exactly what the Dems have been doing for years - ruthlessly wielding the power of government to advance policy, reward the base, and punish the opposition.
Your opposition is not based on any unbiased higher principle. You just don't like the policy results. Elections have consequences.
