I have no party line, I have no party.
I recall you mentioning you have some sort of position in the Democrat structures in your county. Is that not true?
... Trump to continue his Fascist agenda. Trump's slogan: "America First." Came from the 1930s when it was the slogan of Nazi sympathizers in the US who wanted the US to not interfere with Germany taking over Europe.
<German American Bund rally>
what are you on? "america first" fascism is and has been extremely popular
trump being an incompetent buffoon of a fascist doesn't mean he isn't still fascist.
The Bund was a small organization (in the grand American scheme) consisting exclusively of German-Americans, typically 0th generation dual citizens.
Fascism isn't putting your country first. Any politician of any ideological flavor puts his country first, unless he is corrupt or a traitor. It is almost a tautology. The difference is what in their mind constitutes the country's interest. That's why the slogan has been popular. It is a completely blank canvass that anyone can project anything they want onto.
Fascism isn't mere flag-waving and power-stancing on the Venetian Palace's balcony either. Fascism is the conviction that nation is the fundamental unit of the human kind, that the interest of the nation always overrides the interests of both the individual and other forms of collective identity, such as class or gender, and that the state is the ideal political expression of the nation and hence the Mussolini/Gentile maxim - all within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
This mentality was never popular in America. There has always been a massive libertarian, frontier, don't-tread-on-me, give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death sentiment on the American right, which is incompatible with, or even antithetical to fascism.
I don't recall calling you a whataboutist, but if I did it certainly didn't have anything to do with you being a Slav!
I know you didn't
It was a self-deprecating joke and a little bit of a reference to, I think, Jacob calling me that.
I do not believe that I am engaging in whataboutism myself.That implies that I want to defend my side by pointing out that the other side is as bad or worse. I most certainly do not hold a high opinion of Clinton, nor do I think that what he did is defensible. Mine is more of a reflection of how things have changed, and I find it amusing that that was a big scandal at the time. I am also most certainly not a fan of the Democrat party, and I find the American obsession of dividing everything in Democract/liberal vs Republican/conservative a bit absurd. I do not take sides based on partisan lines myself.
Ok, cool.
Trump did lie to Mueller.
Why didn't they charge him with perjury too, then?
Trump's presidency was a complete disaster, and I have no idea how you can think otherwise. He destroyed American foreign relations, magnified the existing wealth inequality problems by cutting taxes to large corporations and also changing tax brackets in a way that damages people with lower income, fomented division between Americans and encouraged the worst instincts in our society, directly stole tax payers money by channeling it into his businesses, squandered money on his ridiculous wall, got the US out of the Paris climate agreement, was going to have the US leave the WHO (although that will probably be reversed by Biden), and this is just what I can think of off the top of my head. And I haven't even mentioned how he handled covid, which by itself would be enough to define his presidency a complete disaster. I honestly can not think of a single good thing that he did, except maybe improve foreign relations with North Korea and Russia? Although I don't know that I would call improving foreign relations with dictators an accomplishment.
I have no problem whatsoever with improving relations with Russia or NK. Maybe you personally are consistently hawkish, but the general criticism of Trump's foreign policy was "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" He seeks detente with Russia and NK? Holy ****, he's fraternizing with dictators! Reverses detente with Iran? Omg, jingoist Republican neocon!
The rest are either natural ebb and flow of politics and/or largely symbolic and easily reversible gestures.
That doesn't mean I like them or defend them, but they were not a disaster. His hiring his own companies to host or cater government functions was disgusting, I agree, but still not a disaster. The country can and will easily recover from that.
Taking away his personality and communication style, his presidency was unremarkable and a hundred years from now he will be remembered the same way, say, Rutherford Hayes is remembered, i.e. not remembered. Ironically and symetrically, the anger and anxiety he triggers in people are just as hollow and superficial as he himself is.