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Trump Is the Most Unpatriotic Presidential Candidate in American History

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  john-russell  •  5 years ago  •  14 comments

Trump Is the Most Unpatriotic Presidential Candidate in American History
“When he criticizes the president for using the term ‘American exceptionalism,’ if you’re in Russia, you don’t want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you’re in many other countries, whether it’s Germany or other places, you don’t want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you’re exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world,”

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T


Until reading some commentary over the past couple days, I had forgotten how unpatriotic Trump has been. Have AOC or Tlaib or the others praised dictators? 

.....First, none of Trump’s targets have praised the Soviet, Chinese, or Venezuelan political or economic models. Equating harsh criticism of government policy with hatred of the country, let alone preference for some other system of government, is a crude smear.

Second, Trump’s equation of harsh criticism with a lack of patriotism runs into the uncomfortable fact that Trump himself was making such criticism literally until the moment he took office. “Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps,” he complained in his nominating speech. 2019 Donald Trump would be telling 2016 Donald Trump that if he thinks America is a Third World country, he should move there. (Or at least he would be saying that if 2016 Donald Trump’s skin were brown rather than orange.)

Finally, and most absurdly of all, Trump does not even satisfy the common standard of patriotism that virtually any politician in either party would meet. While Republicans spent years falsely accusing President Obama of dismissing “American exceptionalism,” Trump  actually did  the thing they smeared Obama for. When Vladimir Putin attacked the notion of American exceptionalism in 2013, Trump publicly sided with Putin.

“When he criticizes the president for using the term ‘American exceptionalism,’ if you’re in Russia, you don’t want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you’re in many other countries, whether it’s Germany or other places, you don’t want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you’re exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world,” Trump  told Piers Morgan , “Other nations and other countries don’t want hear about American exceptionalism. They’re insulted by it. And that’s what Putin was saying.”

It would be fine if Trump was merely expressing sensitivity to the perception of people in foreign countries, but sensitivity is hardly his motivation. No Democrat in Congress has praised the economic performance of communist countries.  Trump  has:


North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, will become a great Economic Powerhouse. He may surprise some but he won’t surprise me, because I have gotten to know him & fully understand how capable he is. North Korea will become a different kind of Rocket - an Economic one!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)  February 9, 2019

(Imagine if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the exact same thing about a starving gulag state!)

No Democrat has praised foreign dictators for having more “strength” than an American president. That would be Trump, who frequently said things like: “I think Putin’s been a very strong leader for Russia, he’s been a lot stronger than our leader, that I can tell you.”

And Trump, unlike any Democrat in Congress, has not only justified communist repression but argued that communist dictators are not brutal enough. “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Trump said in 1990, “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”

At minimum, Trump  attempted  to cooperate with the criminal intervention of a hostile foreign power in an American election (by, among other things, instructing Michael Flynn to obtain emails he believed Russia had stolen and going on camera to ask Russia to release them). While this was going on, he was secretly negotiating for a payoff worth several hundred million dollars from this same hostile power during the election. The term “treason” is overused — it is a crime reserved for times of war — but cooperating with an adversary in pursuit of financial and political gain is definitely not the act of a patriot.

That a man who has expressed contempt for American governing ideals and has cooperated with its enemies while chasing secret payoffs from them can win the presidency is outrageous. That such a man can then run for reelection by accusing his opponents of lacking patriotism positively boggles the mind. Trump has to be the most unpatriotic major-party presidential candidate in American history.


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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago
In seeking to build a friendship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, I believe that President Trump is undermining the exceptionalism of America.  Let me explain.  In a recent interview with Bill O’Reilly, Trump suggested a moral equivalency between the United States and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  O’Reilly condemned Putin “as a killer,” to which Trump replied “We’ve got a lot of killers.  What do you think?  Our country’s so innocent?”

  Many objective, intellectually honest Americans would have every right to call Trump’s equivalency moral treason!  Trump seems to be leveling a moral indictment of the nation he leads! 

As  Wall Street Journal  columnist Bret Stephens correctly argues, “In this reading, Mr. Putin’s behavior isn’t so different from ours.  It’s largely the same, except more honest and effective.”  This is the same charge the radical left was making in the 1960s and 1970s during the heights of the Viet Nam war (see comments by Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, etc.).  David Satter of the Hudson Institute appropriately observes that “Never before has an American president implied that political murder is acceptable or that the US is guilty of similar crimes.” 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

It is AMAZING to see the psychological and moral pretzels that MAGA folks have to turn themselves into in order to support Trump, yet we see it every day.  It's not only outrageous for the nation, it is sad. 

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
2.1  Sparty On  replied to  JohnRussell @2    5 years ago

Speaking of Pretzels, would you like some mustard with that pretzel logic?

I'm getting deja vu all over again.   If the left keeps following that line of reasoning, 2020 will follow 2016 and once again you will be a very unhappy camper John.

Still haven't learned that lesson i see .....

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2.1.1  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Sparty On @2.1    5 years ago

Content is not your strong point. 

Is the article hurting your feelings? 

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
2.1.2  Sparty On  replied to  JohnRussell @2.1.1    5 years ago

Ah the inevitable insult when one has the temerity counter some folks here on NT.

Classic and unfortunately very predictable.

I'm fine John but thx for the concern.   The internet can't hurt my feelings.   How about yours?

 
 
 
luther28
Sophomore Silent
3  luther28    5 years ago

As with many to most of his varying personas, Mr. Trump is a patriot of convenience, nothing more.

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
4  Bob Nelson    5 years ago

Trump cares for one thing, and one thing only: Trump.

This fact explains all the rest.

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
4.1  Sparty On  replied to  Bob Nelson @4    5 years ago

It would if it were a real fact.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
5  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

[Removed

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
6  Nerm_L    5 years ago

Democrats should stay with the racist meme.  Patriotism, it seems, is beyond Democrat's understanding.  Democrats pointing fingers and claiming people are unpatriotic isn't going to convince anyone.

Democrats should stick with what they know.

 
 
 
freepress
Freshman Silent
7  freepress    5 years ago

Amen to that. He has never served America, no military service, never held an elected office voted in by the people, he has never been in this game to serve anyone but himself.

He is an old white guy trying to recreate what existed in the 1950's, racism and all. Just like all the other out of date white old career politicians in the Senate who want the same thing. All their policies reflect this, all of those policies are what they are on record doing and it isn't to help the majority of Americans.

Gutting ACA, eliminating any protection for pre-existing conditions, tax cuts for the wealthy, attacks on anyone or anything or any policy that helps the middle class, poor, disabled and elderly, none of his policies are for Americans or American ideals.

He is using old school 1950's style propaganda and incitement of fear to stoke racial tensions because he sees he is losing on all fronts. Coal jobs and steel jobs are still closing and declining, companies are still outsourcing and moving to other countries, his incompetent foreign policies have hurt us and put the world at risk, his policies domestically are costing us billions into a Mega Trillion dollar deficit, and socially he is becoming reviled. Republicans have been slow on the uptake but the tide is turning and he knows it.

He has lost more lawsuits than he has won and the lawsuits just keep coming about his sexual assaults and corruption.

He is not patriotic, he is the golden idol from a golden penthouse apartment in NYC that fake Christians have chosen to worship and this travesty of a man is not what America should embrace.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
8  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

I got three comments from the right and none of them addressed the material in the seed. 

I guess I win, lol. 

-

The country loses though. 

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
8.1  Texan1211  replied to  JohnRussell @8    5 years ago
I guess I win, lol.

Okay, okay, you "win".

Here's your prize--Trump in the WH until at least January 20, 2021,

If you "win" the bonus round, you'll be seeing Trump for another four years afterwards, too!

Good luck!

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
8.1.1  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Texan1211 @8.1    5 years ago
“Other nations and other countries don’t want hear about American exceptionalism."

Donald J Trump

If AOC said the exact same sentence the right would want to tar and feather her. 

 
 

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