There could be no better place to celebrate America’s independence than beneath this magnificent, incredible, majestic mountain and monument to the greatest Americans who have ever lived.Somebody went heavy on the alliteration, but "incredible" sneaked in there. He's on the side of the monuments, not the destroyers of monuments.
The superlative — "the greatest Americans who have ever lived" — is a provocation. Not only is he defending these 4 men against the recent attacks, he's saying they are greater than every other American in history — greater than Frederick Douglass, greater than Harriet Tubman, greater than all of them. He didn't have to say the greatest. He could have said "among the greatest."
It would mean something just to call them "great" at all and not to qualify it with something like, though they did not escape the moral failings characteristic of their time. But he went big. He put the 4 above everyone else, which is the message of the mountain.
Today we pay tribute to the exceptional lives and extraordinary legacies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.He's got the great men on his side, not like those people who want to tear down statues of all of them.
I am here as your president to proclaim before the country and before the world, this monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defamed, their legacy will never ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.That's big! Very grand. Very much a stand against the protesters and rioters... without mentioning them. This is hyperbole, because Trump cannot protect the monument forever, and indeed, an understanding of geology would tell you that it's impossible for the monument to stand forever as an eternal tribute.
But he's not promising. He's proclaiming. I think of the proclamation on the plinth of Ozymandias. You can proclaim it is eternal, but that doesn't make it eternal. I'm going to live forever! I'm going to learn how to fly! Sing it joyously, but you're still going to die some day.
It's rhetoric. I'm not saying it's bad. It's in the style of Churchill — "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in" — and it's understood emotionally, not literally.
We gather tonight to herald the most important day in the history of nations, July 4th, 1776. At those words, every American heart should swell with pride, every American family should cheer with delight, and every American patriot should be filled with joy because each of you lives in the most magnificent country in the history of the world and it will soon be greater than ever before.He's telling us how we should feel: good, very, very good. Obviously, there are a lot of people who feel very bad about America. But they should feel good. He's not acknowledging all their arguments and complaints. It's as if those people are just not understanding what is true: America is great.
Our founders launched not only a revolution in government, but a revolution in the pursuit of justice, equality, liberty, and prosperity. No nation has done more to advance the human condition than the United States of America and no people have done more to promote human progress than the citizens of our great nation.The argument for greatness is not that we are perfect, but look how far we've come.
It was all made possible by the courage of 56 patriots who gathered in Philadelphia 244 years ago and signed the Declaration of Independence. They enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever when they said, “All men are created equal.” These immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom. Our founders boldly declared that we are all endowed with the same divine rights, given us by our Creator in Heaven, and that which God has given us, we will allow no one ever to take away — ever.There's "ever" again — and in connection with God and "divine truth." This is a very lofty paragraph. And, again, the idea isn't that we're complacent about existing greatness. It's a process: America "will soon be greater than ever before," there's been so much "progress," it's a march forward that was "set in motion" and is "unstoppable."
1776 represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.To some, the term "Western civilization" is a provocation. To some, the "triumph of... wisdom, philosophy, and reason" sounds like patriarchy and racism.
And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure. Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.He's combining the protesters and the critics of American values with the worst of the rioters. They're one big ugly glob, and they don't simply want to assist in this process of perfecting America, going on the "unstoppable march of freedom." They only want to destroy — to "wipe out" and "erase."
It's easy to lump these people together. I remember when some Americans who wanted to defend monuments showed up in Charlottesville at the same time as some very conspicuous Nazis, and Trump called the non-Nazi subsection of the pro-monument protesters "very fine people." Anti-Trumpists typically lump them all together and insist on saying that Trump called Nazis "very fine people." Trump is returning the favor.
Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing.So Trump does discern a subsection of the mob. The ones who know what they are doing.
They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.This is a call to the silent majority. We are peaceful and hard to see, but we are vigilant, and we do care.
One of their political weapons is cancel culture, driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.This goes beyond the protest and riots, to a much larger phenomenon. He's saying it's important and must be fought off:
This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and to our values and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America.That sentence is huge — "totalitarianism."
This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty must be stopped and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children from this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life. In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance.There is a "dangerous movement" — "far-left fascism."
If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished.Something terrifying is rising up in America. Those on the far left think it is Trump and his fascists. But Trump is saying, no, you're the fascists. He is a counterpuncher. And he is using the evidence of the cancel culture.
It’s not going to happen to us. Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.We return to the Fourth of July theme. Trump's side embodies the values of the revolution. The other side is opposed to those values and threatening to take them away.
In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.He returns to the monuments. And he's right there, under the looming mountain of heads. I'm just reading text, so I don't know how it looked and sounded. I will watch, but I want to get through this live blog first. I'm giving you my impression of the text alone, and I will let you know whether the audio and video give a different effect.
Here's Mount Rushmore and he's talking about mobs that are tearing down monuments. And it's not just statues they want to tear down. They are determined to tear down our symbols and memories. Can you tear down memories? Oh, yes. Memories are easy to tear down. People are always forgetting, and when they are not forgetting, they are remembering in new ways, reshaping and reassembling what's in their head. And new generations flow into the population. Old generations die off. What's in the history books changes. America is a beautiful story or a horrible story. The beautiful story — that memory — can be torn down and replaced by the ugly story. There's an intense effort to tear down the "memory of our national heritage."
Trump is betting that the majority of Americans want to preserve the positive American history — the one that makes us "swell with pride" and be "filled with joy" on the Fourth of July.
The transcript indicates that another speaker says, "Not on my watch," and Trump responds:
True. That’s very true actually. That is why I am deploying federal law enforcement to protect our monuments, arrest the rioters, and prosecutors offenders to the fullest extent of the law.I'm guessing this refers only to Washington D.C. or Washington D.C. and the places where mayors or governors have requested help from the federal government. I don't think this is a major new policy announcement.
Someone in the crowd, perhaps more than one person says: "Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!" A campaign chant. But this isn't a campaign rally. Trump needs to keep the campaign aspect of this speech subtle. He continues:
I am pleased to report that yesterday, federal agents arrested the suspected ringleader of the attack on the statue of the great Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C., and in addition, hundreds more have been arrested. Under the executive order I signed last week pertaining to the Veterans Memorial Preservation Memorial and Recognition Act and other laws, people who damage or deface federal statues or monuments will get a minimum of 10 years in prison and obviously that includes our beautiful Mount Rushmore.So he's protecting Washington D.C. and other federal monuments — in South Dakota and elsewhere.
Our people have a great memory. They will never forget the destruction of statues and monuments to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionists and many others.If we will never forget, why was he worrying us about the left-wingers who want to tear down our memories of our great American heritage? Now he's saying what we'll never forget is the destruction being visited upon our statues.
The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions. Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that were villains.This is a painful accusation, but I'm afraid it is true.
The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition. This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore. They defiled the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.This is painfully true — if a bit exaggerated (every fact, every flaw... beyond all recognition).
Today we will set history and history’s record straight. Before these figures were immortalized in stone, they were American giants in full flesh and blood, gallant men, whose intrepid deeds unleashed the greatest leap of human advancement the world has ever known.That's pleasantly macho. Or unpleasantly... depending on your bent. Leaping, gallant, full flesh-and-blood men. He's trying to stir you up, make you swell with pride, picturing the 4 manly Presidents. I'm seeing them in my mind on horses and then wondering if Lincoln had a horse. Lincoln had Old Bob:
That's "Old Bob caparisoned in a mourning blanket at Abraham Lincoln's funeral” (with Rev. Henry Brown).
Trump proceeds to tell the story of each of the 4 men:
Tonight I will tell you and most importantly the youth of our nation the true stories of these great, great men.Listen, my children....
From head to toe George Washington represented the strength, grace, and dignity of the American people. From a small volunteer force of citizen farmers, he created the Continental Army out of nothing and rallied them to stand against the most powerful military on earth. Through eight long years, through the brutal winter at Valley Forge, through setback after setback on the field of battle, he led those patriots to ultimate triumph. When the army had dwindled to a few thousand men at Christmas of 1776, when defeat seemed absolutely certain, he took what remained of his forces on a daring nighttime crossing of the Delaware River. They marched through nine miles of frigid darkness, many without boots on their feet, leaving a trail of blood in the snow. In the morning, they seized victory at Trenton after forcing the surrender of the most powerful empire on the planet at Yorktown, General Washington did not claim power but simply returned to Mount Vernon as a private citizen. When called upon again, he presided over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and was unanimously elected our first president. When he stepped down after two terms, his former adversary, King George called him the greatest man of the age. He remains first in our hearts to this day, for as long as Americans love this land, we will honor and cherish the father of our country, George Washington. He will never be removed, abolished, and most of all, he will never be forgotten.We anticipate a similar vivid history story for the next President:
Thomas Jefferson, the great Thomas Jefferson, was 33 years old when he traveled north to Pennsylvania and brilliantly authored one of the greatest treasures of human history, the Declaration of Independence. He also drafted Virginia’s constitution and conceived and wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a model for our cherished First Amendment. After serving as the first Secretary of State, and then Vice President, he was elected to the presidency. He ordered American warriors to crush Barbary pirates. He doubled the size of our nation with the Louisiana Purchase and he sent the famous explorers Lewis and Clark into the west on a daring expedition to the Pacific Ocean. He was an architect, an inventor, a diplomat, a scholar, the founder of one of the world’s great universities and an ardent defender of liberty. Americans will forever admire the author of American freedom, Thomas Jefferson, and he too will never, ever be abandoned by us.Never ever.
Abraham Lincoln, the savior of our union, was a self-taught country lawyer who grew up in a log cabin on the American frontier. The first Republican president, he rose to high office from obscurity based on a force and clarity of his anti-slavery convictions. Very, very strong convictions. He signed the law that built the Trans-Continental Railroad. He signed the Homestead Act given to some incredible scholars [sic] as simply defined ordinary citizens free land to settle anywhere in the American West, and he led the country through the darkest hours of American history, giving every ounce of strength that he had to ensure that government of the people, by the people and for the people did not perish from this earth. He served as commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces during our bloodiest war, the struggle that saved our union and extinguished the evil of slavery. Over 600,000 died in that war, more than 20, 000 were killed or wounded in a single day in Antietam. At Gettysburg 157 years ago, the Union bravely withstood an assault of nearly 15,000 men and threw back Pickett’s Charge. Lincoln won the Civil War. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He led the passage of the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery for all-time and ultimately his determination to preserve our nation and our union cost him his life. For as long as we live, Americans will uphold and revere the immortal memory of President Abraham Lincoln.Lofty. Eternal.
Theodore Roosevelt exemplified the unbridled confidence of our national culture and identity. He saw the towering grandeur of America’s mission in the world and he pursued it with overwhelming energy and zeal. As a Lieutenant Colonel during the Spanish-American War, he led the famous Rough Riders to defeat the enemy at San Juan Hill. He cleaned up corruption as police commissioner of New York City, then served as the Governor of New York, Vice President, and at 42 years old, became the youngest ever President of the United States. He sent our great new naval fleet around the globe to announce America’s arrival as a world power. He gave us many of our national parks, including the Grand Canyon. He oversaw the construction of the awe-inspiring Panama Canal and he is the only person ever awarded both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was American freedom personified in full. The American people will never relinquish the bold, beautiful and untamed spirit of Theodore Roosevelt.Bold, beautiful and untamed...
Storytime is now over. That was the beautiful story of the past. Now, Trump attacks the antagonists of the present:
No movement that seeks to dismantle these treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its heart. Can’t happen. No person who remains quiet at the destruction of this resplendent heritage can possibly lead us to a better future.The majority may be silent but the leader — AKA Trump — cannot be silent.
The radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice, but in truth, it would demolish both justice and society.He reclaims "justice" and "social" for the right wing.
It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of a repression, domination, and exclusion. They want to silence us, but we will not be silenced. We will state the truth in full without apology.Next comes a recitation of the right-wing creed:
We declare that the United States of America is the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on earth. We are proud of the fact that our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we understand that these values have dramatically advanced the cause of peace and justice throughout the world. We know that the American family is the bedrock of American life. We recognize the solemn right and moral duty of every nation to secure its borders and we are building the wall. We remember that governments exist to protect the safety and happiness of their own people. A nation must care for its own citizens first. We must take care of America first. It’s time. We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion and creed. Every child of every color, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of God. We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture. We embrace tolerance, not prejudice. We support the courageous men and women of law enforcement. We will never abolish our police or our great Second Amendment which gives us the right to keep and bear arms. We believe that our children should be taught to love their country, honor their history, and respect our great American flag. We stand tall, we stand proud, and we only kneel to Almighty God. This is who we are. This is what we believe and these are the values that will guide us as we strive to build an even better and greater future.On the other side are "Those who seek to erase our heritage":
Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America’s destiny. In toppling the heroes of 1776, they seek to dissolve the bonds of love and loyalty that we feel for our country and that we feel for each other. Their goal is not a better America, their goal is to end America.A dramatic accusation. It must be answered. I will look to see the response to this speech. The left must insist that they love America and are loyal to it and that they seek a better America. Can they do that believably? Will some of them say, yes, we do seeks to end America — it's rotten to the core, unlovable, undeserving of loyalty, and the only way to make it better is to kill it off and start over. We are talking about a revolution. It's the Fourth of July.
In its place, they want power for themselves, but just as patriots did in centuries past, the American people will stand in their way and we will win and win quickly and with great dignity. We will never let them rip America’s heroes from our monuments or from our hearts. By tearing down Washington and Jefferson, these radicals would tear down the very heritage for which men gave their lives to win the Civil War, they would erase the memory that inspired those soldiers to go to their deaths, singing these words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, while God is marching on.” They would tear down the principles that propelled the abolition of slavery and ultimately around the world ending an evil institution that had plagued humanity for thousands and thousands of years. Our opponents would tear apart the very documents that Martin Luther King used to express his dream and the ideas that were the foundation of the righteous movement for Civil Rights. They would tear down the beliefs, culture and identity, that have made America the most vibrant and tolerant society in the history of the earth. My fellow Americans, it is time to speak up loudly and strongly and powerfully and defend the integrity of our country.The crowd chants "USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!"
Trump continues:
It is time for our politicians to summon the bravery and determination of our American ancestors. It is time. It is time to plant our flag and to protect the greatest of this nation for citizens of every race in every city in every part of this glorious land. For the sake of our honor, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our union, we must protect and preserve our history, our heritage, and our great heroes. Here tonight before the eyes of our forefathers, Americans declare again, as we did 244 years ago, that we will not be tyrannized, we will not be demeaned, and we will not be intimidated by bad, evil people. It will not happen.The crowd chants: "USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!"
Trump continues:
We will proclaim the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and we will never surrender the spirit and the courage and the cause of July 4, 1776. Upon this ground, we will stand firm and unwavering. In the face of lies meant to divide us, demoralize us and diminish us, we will show that the story of America unites us and we will show that the story of America unites us, inspires us, includes us all, and makes everyone free. We must demand that our children are taught once again to see America as did Reverend Martin Luther King when he said that the founders had signed a promissory note to every future generation. Dr. King saw that the mission of justice required us to fully embrace our founding ideals. Those ideals are so important to us, the founding ideals. He called on his fellow citizens not to rip down their heritage, but to live up to their heritage. Above all, our children from every community must be taught that to be American is to inherit the spirit of the most adventurous and confident people ever to walk the face of the Earth. Americans are the people who pursued our Manifest Destiny across the ocean, into the uncharted wilderness, over the tallest mountains, and then into the skies, and even into the stars.I said at the beginning of this live blog that his use of the phrase "the greatest Americans who have ever lived" to refer to the 4 Mount Rushmore Presidents was a provocation, because he's putting them above "every other American in history — greater than Frederick Douglass, greater than Harriet Tubman." But now he lists some great Americans and I see the 2 names I came up with are on his list:
We are the country of Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Frederick Douglass. We are the land of Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. We are the nation that gave rise to the Wright brothers, the Tuskegee airmen, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton, General George Patton, the great Louis Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, and Muhammad Ali, and only America could have produced them all. No other place.He focuses on his area of expertise, building:
We are the culture that put up the Hoover Dam, laid down the highways, and sculpted the skyline of Manhattan. We are the people who dreamed the spectacular dream, it was called Las Vegas in the Nevada desert, who built up Miami from the Florida marsh, and who carved our heroes into the face of Mount Rushmore.He speaks of technology and territorial reach:
Americans harnessed electricity, split the atom, and gave the world the telephone and the internet. We settled the Wild West, won two World Wars, landed American astronauts on the moon. And one day very soon, we will plant our flag on Mars.He speaks of art:
We gave the world the poetry of Walt Whitman, the stories of Mark Twain, the songs of Irving Berlin, the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, the style of Frank Sinatra, the comedy of Bob Hope...And in the middle of what I thought was the art sentence, he returns to technology:
... the power of the Saturn V rocket, the toughness of the Ford F150, and the awesome might of the American aircraft carriers.And with that aircraft carrier positioned, he's coming in for a landing:
Americans must never lose sight of this miraculous story. We should never lose sight of it. Nobody has ever done it like we have done it.Oh! It's a big proposal...
So today, under the authority vested in me as President of the United States, I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Guard of American heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.Oh... we'll have to fight over that. Do you want "a vast outdoor park" of statues of great Americans? I suspect he's proposing it to force other politicians to take a position on it and to look bad when they say that's not what we need. The elite are not going to want to spend tax money on a bunch of old-fashioned statues. Or are we going to re-home the rejected statues of America — something like Grūtas Park in Lithuania?
From this night, and from this magnificent place, let us go forward united in our purpose and rededicated in our resolve. We will raise the next generation of American patriots. We will write the next thrilling chapter of the American adventure. And we will teach our children to know that they live in a land of legends, that nothing can stop them, and that no one can hold them down. They will know that, in America, you can do anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.Yes, it is awful that so many American children today are being taught that an unseen hostile force is forever holding them back. It's not that the beautiful, optimistic story is completely true, but it is more helpful to believe... unless you think that's the con, that's how the systemic racism operates, by telling the kids that fairytale. I wouldn't go all in for either story. I think American freedom entails debate and a critical mind, but if I had to teach little children one or the other — and you do have to start simple — I would choose the beauty and the optimism.
Trump ends with the most exalted optimism:
Uplifted by the titans of Mount Rushmore, we will find unity that no one expected. We will make strides that no one thought possible. This country will be everything that our citizens have hoped for for so many years, and that our enemies fear, because we will never forget that the American freedom exists for American greatness. And that’s what we have, American greatness. Centuries from now, our legacy will be the cities we built, the champions we forged, the good that we did, and the monuments we created to inspire us all. My fellow citizens, America’s destiny is in our sights. America’s heroes are embedded in our hearts. America’s future is in our hands. And ladies and gentlemen, the best is yet to come. This has been a great honor for the First Lady and myself to be with you. I love your state. I love this country. I’d like to wish everybody a very happy Fourth of July to all. God bless you. God bless your families. God bless our great military, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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225 comments:
1 – 200 of 225 Newer› Newest»It's over. Trump is a failed president. He failed to protect the citizens from a foreign threat in the form of the Coronavirus despite more than adequate warning. He had one job.
Trump is an idiot, it is undeniable. He has failed the nation.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, Top Fund-Raising Official for Trump Campaign, Tests Positive for Coronavirus
Mount Rushmore - a monument "to some people who did something"
This is hyperbole, because Trump cannot protect the monument forever, and indeed, an understanding of geology would tell you that it's impossible for the monument to stand forever as an eternal tribute.
The headlines on that will write themselves when that happens 5,000 or 10,000 years or how many thousands of years from now. Something to the effect that "Trump Failed to Protect Mount Rushmore Forever".
It was Trump's love poem to America
If you want to carefully parse the statement in the least provocative way, you could argue that he does mot say the four faces on the monument are the greatest Americans, he says it is a monument to the greatest Americans—it's meaning can (and, IMO, does) extend beyond those four faces.
Happy Independence Day, America!
Original George Washington Challenger commercial HD
To some, the term "Western civilization" is a provocation. To some, the "triumph of... wisdom, philosophy, and reason" sounds like patriarchy and racism.
Some are our enemies. We're at war, even if we don't acknowledge it.
He's combining the protesters and the critics of American values with the worst of the rioters.
Why not? They have the same goal, and the Venn diagram almost perfectly overlaps.
They're one big ugly glob, and they don't simply want to assist in this process of perfecting America, going on the "unstoppable march of freedom." They only want to destroy — to "wipe out" and "erase."
Or to use their terms: "Fundamentally change America"
Best Third of July presidential speech evah!
THEOLDMAN
Watched over an hour of that blockade of protesters getting the heave-ho from the NG and police. Glad to see it did not escalate, but they should have cleared the road of the vermin earlier as people with tickets could not get in
It's easy to lump these people together.
Of course it’s easy to lump them together. They are together, most of them. How many “peaceful protestors” have condemned the riots? Peaceful protestors are like moderate Muslims—they exist, lots of them. But they’re more concerned about the nearly nonexistent Islamophobia then they are about the violence being done in their name. The comparison to Charlottesville is facile. The peaceful Charlottesville protestors had no problem condemning the violent racists.
At Charlottesville Trump had a very simple task. All he had to say was, 'There are no fine people marching with Nazis'. Every president since FDR could have passed that test. Trump failed.
greater than Harriet Tubman
Our black foremothers! The book what the corporate librarian lady wouldn't order because it was just too much, in 1980.
Wow: "In the face of lies meant to divide us, demoralize us and diminish us, we will show that the story of America unites us, inspires us, includes us all, and makes everyone free."
But (in the written transcript, at least) he really hit his stride with the listing of American heroes and accomplishments. It's what was missing from the 2016 campaign -- what did he mean by Great Again, what was the Greatness he was calling back to. This, finally, is his answer.
"We will write the next thrilling chapter of the American adventure. And we will teach our children to know that they live in a land of legends, that nothing can stop them, and that no one can hold them down. They will know that, in America, you can do anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything."
I stayed up to watch the speech live and it occurred to me how much more powerful it could be as a listening experience if there was a "pinch" orator. Frankly, reading off the teleprompter is not Trump's strong suit. Imagine if someone with the voice control and sense of timing like Kelsey Grammar were saying those words. Kelsey should have a youtube channel where he does Trump's speeches. It would be quite a treat to hear the words and sentiments I mostly agree with roar and soar.
I disagree that Churchill was not meant to be taken literally.
To me, it sounds like cruel neutrality. I think it does, anyway.
though they did not escape the moral failings characteristic of their time
Historical imagination is putting yourself in the old context without thinking that the modern context is better. In particular they're not moral failings characteristic of the time.
The mob mentality looks like a moral failing to me, otherwise known as cheap grace. It costs the believer nothing.
Trump is joining the culture wars with vigor. Wonder if this will be a continuing thing.
I say Trump won the night because he had With him the best looking First Lady for ever and ever, and he had the Air Force musicians who played the best Battle Hymn for ever and ever , that explains that America’s God Marches on and on. The godless Democrat neo-fascists can’t touch that.
He's got the great men on his side, not like those people who want to tear down statues of all of them.
He's teaching a lesson in historical imagination to modern dolts. No, modern moral moron, your crowd morality isn't better.
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama. That was Teddy Roosevelt, one of the great palindromists. Trump probably didn't mention it.
I listened to the speech and it was good, but the seeing parts of it in writing makes it seem even more powerful. For example:
"They enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever when they said, “All men are created equal.” These immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom."
I really like the "unstoppable march of freedom!"
Mount Rushmore is racist. Trump is racist. You're racist. Racist!
Magnificent speech at a magnificent monument. Long live the American spirit.
Sounds good to me. I watched part of it.
Hoping people did not watch it ,The MSM have decided to brand last night’s Presidential speech as “fiery”. Actually it was a solemn and Presidential master piece in the Gettysburg Address class.
I am here as your president to proclaim before the country and before the world, this monument will never be desecrated, these heroes will never be defamed, their legacy will never ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.
The bolded forever etc is called temporizing the essence. It's a literary device, the essence of a thing is its origin or its ending. He's saying they're essentially great.
It's a neat contrast to the fickleness of the mob.
That's big! Very grand. Very much a stand against the protesters and rioters... without mentioning them. This is hyperbole, because Trump cannot protect the monument forever, and indeed, an understanding of geology would tell you that it's impossible for the monument to stand forever as an eternal tribute.
Arithmetic! Algebra! Geometry! Grand trinity! Luminous triangle! He who has not known you is a dolt! He deserves the test of the greatest tortures, for in his ignorant thoughtlessness there is blind contempt. But he who knows and appreciates you wants naught else of the world's chattels; is content with your magical ecstasies; and, borne on your sombre wings, desires nothing more than to rise in gentle flight, describing an ascendant helix, toward the spherical vault of the heavens. Earth shows him only illusions and moral phantasmagorias, but you, O concise mathematics, by the rigorous series of your tenacious propositions and the constancy of your iron laws, dazzle the eyes, shining forth a powerful reflection of that supreme truth whose imprint is discernible in the order of the universe.
- Lautreamont
“Obviously, there are a lot of people who feel very bad about America.” As compared to what?
Look at #FvckTheFourth. These people hate America.
I thought it was a great speech! The Left hated it. We agree on nothing.
If all you got to snipe about, is the real date of Independence....
"He's combining the protesters and the critics of American values with the worst of the rioters."
The protesters have no function except to provide cover for the mob and the bullying corporations. The officer was charged five weeks ago.
Trump defends the national myth, the old American civic religion, that stuff that Titus Livius used to educate the Romans, that which was in my old American Catholic school readers.
That stuff which your educational system and cultural feed have been trying to suppress for decades.
ARM gets more hysterical every week. He needs an intervention. Lithium for sure.
Blogger is on a roll today. Lots of double comments, I'm sure.
He's combining the protesters and the critics of American values with the worst of the rioters. They're one big ugly glob, and they don't simply want to assist in this process of perfecting America, going on the "unstoppable march of freedom." They only want to destroy — to "wipe out" and "erase."
Feelings vs structure. Trump does structure. Any feeling that goes with structure is only satisfaction. Women's feelings are mostly negative, self-regarding and self-justifying. That's also why the don't pick STEM, unless it's to join the Women's Workplace Issues committee.
Richard Epstein has a better structure for a civil rights law that would restore freedom of association. It's quite satisfying to figure one out. No women's but but but over this or that feeling.
Jeez, ARM. You've abandoned your brain today. Barely even worth mentioning. But I thought I would.
Anyway...I did not watch the speech, though I may go back to watch it. What's important is that he showed up, at that place, in this time. There are millions upon millions of Americans who are steaming mad about the indoctrination and utter stupidity of our younger people, led by Marxists. And they are steaming mad about our media/entertainment/academic class which propagates the stupidity.
There will be changes coming. Americans have grown weary of this bullshit.
"It's over. Trump is a failed president. He failed to protect the citizens from a foreign threat in the form of the Coronavirus despite more than adequate warning. He had one job."
-- Please. No one said this when Obama screwed up with ebola and swine flu. If anything, Trump tried to contain the outbreak early, but was stymied by the likes of Pelosi saying he was just a racist, and for everyone to go out to China town anyway. Then we have governors in New York and other places who *actively turned away federal help* and sent people with coronavirus back to nursing homes.
Has Trump done the best job? No. He could have done better, but Democrats pretty much chose to do the stupidest things possible, such as blatantly discriminating against religious meetings and letting outright riots go unchallenged under the guise of protecting the peaceful protesters, after calling previous peaceful protesters the sorts of people who would kill their grandmas.
Trump could have done better; the other side actively sabotaged recovery efforts, combined with the now acknowledged facts that CDC and WHO officials outright lied to the public at various points to try and manipulate the public's behavior, and yeah. The entire government response has been a failure. To hang it all on Trump is partisan nonsense.
ARM once again celebrates someone contracting CV-19.
Wonder if he would do so if it was someone on his short list of friends.
Dem party had one job this election. Win. So they trot out Joe Biden.
Thats their plan. Yeah, theyre so damn smart. So are all their seals.
ARM
Many of the protesters at Charlottesville were fine people not keen on acting like the Taliban and ripping down the statue of Lee. And note, please, the top death rates and virus cases happen to be in states led by Democrat governors.
@A Reasonable Man - Are your posts the catechisms of woke religion? I’ve encountered parrots with broader diction, greater presence, and more humor. For goodness’ sake, man, try to find a new phrase.
Shorter Trump speech: Keep America Great.
"the greatest Americans who have ever lived"
TR is debatable. But if the greatest Americans are those who did the most significant things to create America as a country, then the other three are the greatest -- no?
Trump could have done better; the other side actively sabotaged recovery efforts,
Matt, ARM is crazy. Debating him is debating a bot.
from the very beginning, one of the things I liked about our President is that he so obviously loves this country.
Matt Sablan said...
No one said this when Obama screwed up with ebola
How many US citizens died from Ebola?
This morning, Charlie Martin of PJ Media writes of 'the New McCarthyism'. "So, now in the Land of Woke, we have a new question: 'Have you ever, recently or in the past, committed the sin of disapproved opinions?'"
"...all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified..."
Gee, just like they treat Trump.
The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition. This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore. They defiled the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
Some quotes from the editors' introduction to the ``Sociology of Literature'' issue of _Critical Inquiry_ v.14 n.3 (Spring 1988) p.428-429:
A metaphor that cannot be avoided deserves closer attention. If we examine the mirror more closely, we may find that the metaphor actually serves the sociology of literature in unexpected ways. The marvelously revealing mirror in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" offers a case in point. In this tale a demon invents a unique mirror: it does not reflect, it systematically misreflects. Andersen's mirror shrinks and distorts every good and beautiful thing, and it magnifies everything evil or ugly. In this glass pleasant landscapes look like boiled spinach, normal people appear hideous, and kind thoughts become wicked grins.
The demon creator appears mildly amused by his invention, but his students, simple reflectionists, take it very seriously:
"All the pupils in the demon's school - for he kept a school - reported that a miracle had taken place : now for the first time, they said, it was possible to see what the world and mankind were really like. They ran about everywhere with the mirror, till at last there was not a country or a person which had not been seen in this distorting mirror."
Eventually the mirror breaks. Shards of glass fly through the world and lodge in people's eyes and hearts. These shards retain the peculiarities of the mirror, so that everyone sees the world through bent, distorted, and misshapen images.
"It was Trump's love poem to America."
It was Trump's calculated pandering to his base.
At Charlottesville Trump had a very simple task. All he had to say was, 'There are no fine people marching with Nazis'. Every president since FDR could have passed that test. Trump failed.
'There or no fine people marching with thugs rioters, and street scum'
Howard just set the rules of the game...he's not going to like these rules.
Howard has determined BLM are EQUAL to rioting thugs.
That's not me, that's Howard.
Someone near the president got the sniffles — IMPEACH!
I hope Mount Rushmore has round the clock security because I suspect the Antifa crowd will take this as a challenge and be determined to blow it up.
The denial here is great and will continue until Trump loses the election. Then the recriminations will begin and a rational discussion of Trump's many failings will become possible. I am both a reasonable and patient man.
The MSM absolutely hated the speech, calling it “dark and divisive.” He’s taking flak; he must be over the target!
Arm nails it... The lamentation of their women.
Sorry I wrote Howard, I see its ARM, they're both parrots, repeating their masters words.
This is a call to the silent majority. We are peaceful and hard to see, but we are vigilant, and we do care.
Damned right! Someone yesterday called this “the rage election.” That’s right.
Trump is daring the whack-job hate filled left to destroy more.
Matt Sablan is right. One wonders how much more rapidly we would have gotten through coronavirus if this country’s experts had given advice based on what was best for the people of the United States instead of what could most make Trump look bad.
from the very beginning, one of the things I liked about our President is that he so obviously loves this country.
Exactly, Tank! And I think those of us who love our country love Trump for that reason.
Tank said, "from the very beginning, one of the things I liked about our President is that he so obviously loves this country."
That is clearly the demarcation line for me. Trump has a number of, let's say, odd habits. But one thing that has always been crystal clear is that he loves America.
By the same token, it has never been more clear that Democrats and the Left in general, hate America. They are feverishly working for it's destruction.
Why would I vote for my own destruction? Do I look like a Seattle resident? I will vote for Trump because, beyond anything else, I know he loves the country I love. The country my ancestors fled from the Soviets to get to. The country for which my father fought in North Africa. The country that has given me so much.
Taking on the woke education of our kids may be the rallying cry of 2020 like Immigration was in 2016.
It resonates. And the longer the mobs march and burn and tear down statues the more it will resonate.
Talking apes can tear down statues, even the men on the mountain, but let them surpass one of their works.
In my list of ARM comment tics on a previous thread, I'm pretty sure I left out the one in his second comment here - "it is undeniable." Thanks for the prompt, ARM! Still high school debate stuff, but let's do have a complete list.
Gahrie, commenter herein, was a debate interlocutor of mine long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Fun times. He won a debate against me and my partner by demanding, "But what about nuclear-tipped bullets?" It was so ridiculous that I was completely flummoxed for long enough for the judges to be like, "So, fast-talker, no answer to that one, hmm?"
Patient until January 20, 2025?
We will all believe it when we don't see you.
Matt Sablan said...
No one said this when Obama screwed up with ebola
How many US citizens died from Ebola?
Ann - I tried posting this but got the annoying “whoops that’s an error” message from Blogger ... feel free to delete this one if earlier one worked ...
For me, the fact that he gave such a speech at all is all that really matters.
Can you imagine Biden, Warren, Harris etc giving a speech that celebrates America and its history? The very idea is laughable. Hillary or Obama? Right. Any speech that any of them gave would be filled with apologies about how terrible we were and we still have so much work to do.
Yesterday I was talking with my youngest son how messed up it is that anyone who says anything patriotic is assumed to be a conservative. I mean, WTF?! Liberals ceded that ground decades ago and it’s a deal-breaker for me and millions of others.
Criticize all you want — and there is always work to do because we are all fallen human beings — but anyone who cannot honestly and forthrightly recognize the miracle of liberty and the blessings it has bestowed upon us is just not living in the real world. Ask any immigrant, they appreciate who and what we are better than the ingrates born here into luxury with no appreciation of what came before them.
ritmo and howard and readering, it's like mcavoys split personalities, legion as it were, are vomiting up their contempt, well that's a sign they are over the target
Re: TR. He may not be admired by many (most?) as one of the "greatest" (however defined) of the US Presidents; he is not well known (although noted historians and authors, Edmund Morris and David McCullough, both wrote popular biographies of him).
However, consider his foresight in leading the nascent national conservation movement, and creating the core of today's National Park System of public lands, including the parks, monuments, sanctuaries, preserves, and the like.
Those remarkable public lands, and the agaency(ies) that maintain and nourish them, stand today as monument to his presidency.
https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm#:~:text=After%20becoming%20president%20in%201901,by%20enabling%20the%201906%20American
No president since FDR has had any problem denouncing Nazis - until Trump.
There are no fine people marching with Nazis. The Nazis killed an innocent woman and still Trump could not bring himself to denounce the Nazis. A complete failure as a president.
"How many US citizens died from Ebola?"
-- If that's a metric we care about suddenly, Trump is one of the most successful presidents, turning what was going to be a multi-million fatality event into what it is now.
So, yeah. I don't think that's a metric you really care about.
Independence Day on July 4th was the day that the Congress of patriots met to back up in writing what the Patriot militia had de facto declared as Independence from the British Empire15 months earlier When on April 19, 1775 they opened fire at Lexington Green and the Concord bridge. Our second Amendment is our monument to them.
You haven't reached my favorite part yet. Something about a park? And a list of great Americans -- from all the people to pick, it's a pretty good list -- who will have their statues in the park? Is he riffing or serious? Because if he's serious, I love it. Heads will explode.
"It was Trump's love poem to America." / "It was Trump's calculated pandering to his base."
Well. Say that second bit is true, for a minute. What would it mean, then?
It would mean that Trump's base loves its country, values its history, and deplores the movement to desecrate both. By implication, it means, further, that the other side doesn't share any of these opinions. Say - for the sake of argument - that Trump didn't mean a word of it; it still means he understands what's important to the people who elected him. And it's pretty hard to argue that he hasn't spent the past three-plus years trying to govern in line with what those people believe is important.
So if our choice is a panderer who panders to those who love the United States and a panderer who panders to those who believe the United States is evil and regenerate, I'll take the former.
Trump: "And we will teach our children to know that they live in a land of legends, that nothing can stop them, and that no one can hold them down. They will know that, in America, you can do anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything."
Biden: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”
geology
LOL. Ya think?
It looks like a great speech, I'll have to find a transcript without the annoying interruptions.
The vast majority of people who directly interact with Trump have come to hate him. His only reliable supporters are people who know essentially nothing about him - like the commenters here.
The bounty price against US troops in Afghanistan reached as high as $100,000, report says
Ask any immigrant, they appreciate who and what we are better than the ingrates born here into luxury with no appreciation of what came before them.
I have talked to African immigrants and boy are they happy to be here. One kid from Uganda who was joining the US Army told me "America is a banquet." He had the rest of his life planned, four years in the Army, college on GI Bill, then medical school. I'll bet he does it.
"How many US citizens died from Ebola?"
Yeah, youre all over the virus this morning.
Odd that you leave Fredos brother and Debozo out of this, huh? Well, not really, thats how you roll. Ah, so keeping subway systems open for 2 months during a virus was a good thing. Lotto tickets..............essential. Want to talk about Chicago? Virus, lets get out the vote, go to Chinatown, go to the lakefront. Want to hear what Pelosi was saying early March?
But, I'll give you a break. Youve had a restless last couple of weeks. Which statue did you bring down? Did all your seal friends clap and say "Orange man bad"
Its a holiday, time to fill up my mug with liberal tears. Never runs out.
Robert Cook said...
"It was Trump's love poem to America."
It was Trump's calculated pandering to his base.
No, as I said above, our president truly loves America. It is his most outstanding good quality.
@Buwaya...Our national myth was not what defeated the Japs to release the wonderful Philippines people from slavery to them.. It was our actual honorable military history of heroes that did that dirty work.
Ron Reagan, in his farewell letter:
"In closing let me thank you, the American people for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your President. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."
Joe Biden: "Play the radio, make sure the television, the — ‘scuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the-the-the-the phone, make sure the kids hear words."
Who wrote the speech? Miller?
"But what about nuclear-tipped bullets?" It was so ridiculous that I was completely flummoxed for long enough for the judges to be like, "So, fast-talker, no answer to that one, hmm?"
To be fair, at the time we were standing several hundred years away from an A-10 Warthog. The Gatling gun on those is armed with rounds tipped with depleted uranium.
Little did you Althousers know that you were graced by a member of the 1983 Dodds-Atlantic championship debate team, and a member of the 1983 Dodds-Atlantic runner up team, and of the 1984 Dodds-Atlantic championship team!
Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH.
Only the whites who know America's races have been sentenced differently for centuries - but still claim the country isn't racist - are possibly mentally ill.
The rest are actual racists.
Jeff Brokaw: I made that very comment earlier. Biden could never give such a speech. His speechwriters don't believe the same thing that Trump's speech writers believe. Biden doesn't believe what Trump believes.
On Twitter, the Left is going nuts about Trump's speech. Asserting that Trump and Stephen Miller are white nationalists and Nazis.
'It’s a constant barrage of hate': how Trump sparks heated clashes in Florida's retirement resort
Independence Day on July 4th was the day that the Congress of patriots met to back up in writing what the Patriot militia had de facto declared as Independence from the British Empire15 months earlier When on April 19, 1775 they opened fire at Lexington Green and the Concord bridge. Our second Amendment is our monument to them.
Especially when you consider that one of the primary goals of the British Army that day was to confiscate arms and ammunition.
I watched “North by Northwest” instead.
I understand that Trump again was unable to read “Ulyssses” [S. Grant] off the TelePromTer.
It was a simple question, how many US citizens died from Ebola, a vastly more deadly virus than COVID-19?
"Shorter Trump speech: Keep America Great."
Constant bragging about one's "greatness" is juvenile and narcissistic, and reveals the boaster's deep fear that it is not true. It's also obnoxious, like the braying of a self-absorbed, privileged person who talks about how great he is and how inferior everyone else is by comparison. (Hey...that sounds familiar!) Moreover, no matter how well things may be going at any given time, there are always areas that need improvement. The focus of a mature person (or nation) should always be on what needs to be improved, not on self-congratulatory preening.
As it happens, America is in shit shape, with, among other problems, polluted drinking water, crumbling infrastructure everywhere, extensive economic insecurity, even among those who are working, a government run by and for the rich--all while we pour trillions into pointless, baseless, failed, criminal wars--and bragging about our "greatness" by our elected representatives (who are, most of them, paid by and vassals to the 1% of the 1%)is just a scam (or a narcotic) to obscure/deny the grim reality, allowing them to avoid doing anything to mitigate the spreading rot.
Trump just turned this election from a referendum on Trump to a referendum on America.
traditionalguy said...
@Buwaya...Our national myth was not what defeated the Japs to release the wonderful Philippines people from slavery to them.. It was our actual honorable military history of heroes that did that dirty work.
Exactly. Competent brave men and women - the antithesis of Trump.
Trump's speeches are not my cup of tea.
The decision is Trump or the corrupt left. The same left who openly make excuses for Antifa fascism and the destruction of states like Hans Christian Heg. The same left who ignore Hillary and Biden's family international government/ tax payer enrichment schemes.
After venting my disgust with Year Zero early this morning, I listened to Trump's speech and felt better. He pointed out dichotomies - Free Speech or Cancel culture, Society or Anarchy, America's values or The Left. By cancelling people for things said and by tearing down statues, the Left has made it plain that it does not support American values and the Left itself is quite insistent that Trump does. And he does. The Left will never build a better society with the materials it is using, it will only build bigger CHOPs with more people in them. America has a ways to go to live up to its values but they are worth living up to and the effort is worth making. And we can point to achievements on our way - we were the first democracy since Athens, we did set our slaves free even when it required the death of 300,000 soldiers, we made technology a part of life and that made life easier. The left has ugliness, graffiti and squalor which they call a 'Summer of Love" to offer us today; if their dreams are realized, they offer us slave labor camps as our future. "Follow the Rapper to Rainbow's End." I thought it was good solid speech which met tough times solidly - with plenty of color to keep my wandering attention on the themes.
Blogger Tank said...
Robert Cook said...
"It was Trump's love poem to America."
It was Trump's calculated pandering to his base.
No, as I said above, our president truly loves America. It is his most outstanding good quality.
Tank, being completely oblivious, perfectly proves Robert's point.
Mission Accomplished!
.,.,.,,The democrats are the ones who started the pandemic to overthrow Trump so they can get their money and power back. Leaked documents reveal the main players in this
They want to do this to patriots .,.Look at this video ASAP!!!'
Lincoln had an epiphany during his first term in which he saw the freeing of slaves the dominant issue over preserving the Union. Trump may be having an epiphany at this moment in which he sees the preservation of out nation’s national myth, with all its scars, as the dominant issue of our times. Our myth is not a hagiography of past heroes whose flaws we hide but one of always rising up, looking forward to better days, better angels in our nature.
Great speech.
"The bounty price against US troops in Afghanistan reached as high as $100,000, report says."
Is there any confirmed evidence, any real proof, that any of this tale of Russia paying bounties for the killing of US soldiers in Afghanistan is even remotely true? It seems to me that a people who have been invaded by a foreign military would have their own reasons to fight back, and would not need to be induced into it by a third party. (And, what benefit would Russia gain?)
"I hope Mount Rushmore has round the clock security because I suspect the Antifa crowd will take this as a challenge and be determined to blow it up."
Oh, for Pete's sake! Who gives a shit about Mount Rushmore? It's just another non-issue that Trump massages into a cause celebre, by which ruse he masquerades as a great protector of...something.
Thank your for this post, Professor Althouse. Thank you for an astute summary, thank you from saving me from having to read the MSM version.
The best Fourth of July gift ever, thanks to you and President Trump.
The Declaration of Independence is okay. It was edited by a committee, and they made it worse. Jefferson's original draft is way better.
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable...
I love it!
Did you know Jefferson's original draft was hostile to slavery? He blamed the king for the slave trade.
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Benjamin Franklin wanted him to take out "sacred and undeniable" so that the Declaration would be more secular. So they watered it down with "self-evident." Ugh. And the slave-owners wanted him to take out all the criticisms of the slave trade. So that was removed, too.
I believe Jefferson was animated by the holy spirit when he wrote the Declaration. In that moment he was writing, he was so passionate, so honest.
Of course Jefferson was a sinner and a hypocrite (as we all are). And, ironically, Jefferson believed that God does not interfere in human events. I think he was completely wrong on that one!
"I say Trump won the night because he had With him the best looking First Lady for ever and ever....
1. That's definitely a matter of opinion.
2. Who cares about the looks of any First Lady, (or, eventually, any First Husband)?
Robert Cook said...
"It was Trump's love poem to America."
It was Trump's calculated pandering to his base.
No, as I said above, our president truly loves America. It is his most outstanding good quality.
And a contrast with the Cooks of the world whop would be happier someplace else. Actually, I doubt Cook would be happy anywhere.
Blogger traditionalguy said...
@Buwaya...Our national myth was not what defeated the Japs to release the wonderful Philippines people from slavery to them.. It was our actual honorable military history of heroes that did that dirty work.
Buwaya has a very solid argument, TG - the people who did the dirty work were men who were grounded with a positive vision of our nation, our ideals, and our history. How do you think the Portland Antifa would have performed at Leyte Gulf, Mindoro, or Luzon?
A very fine piece of analysis by Ann and I very much appreciate her doing it. Last night, I was hoping she would do it.
"The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition."
This more or less defines conspiracy theory, and its political cousin disinformation. The thing is, it's equally applicable to all progressive theory.
That monument and all the downed statues are SYMBOLS. The kindest interpretation of antagonism toward symbols is a comparison with Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
A less kind comparison would be with the out-of-control toddler who has missed his nap.
What is the message of the people who are tearing down monuments that have zero agency? Do we hear proposals for ways to make our country better? No. We are seeing emotional people -- captive to their own frustration and anger after months on lockdown -- who seem to want to set fire to the country because they are frustrated and angry.
Personally, I don't want to set fire to the country. My guess is that most African Americans and immigrants don't want that either.
We have freedom of speech and a bunch of elected officials (many of them annoying) so we can solve our problems using reason, not explosives and gunpowder.
Happy Fourth of July.
Republicans are running on 1776, and Democrats are running on 1619.
The same comments over and over. Only the names change.
It was an important speech. The current cultural war is an existential threat to the Republic. I am so glad he mentioned Western Civiliization.
We need another Reagan or Thatcher to lead thus fight. A person who can lead us based on a shared idea. The entire moment has to be about defending the idea and convincing as many people as possible about the importance of the idea.
I am not sure Trump is the right person for this job:
1. We are hours away from a tweet that will change the narrative. I do not know what it will be but it will happen. Trump’s impulsiveness always gets the better of him. Just a few weeks ago Biden had the “You can’t be black and not support me moment”. A great way to go into a weekend. What does Trump do? He stomps all over the Biden story with a tweet storm about Joe Scarborough and the dead intern.
2. There are too many people who are so repulsed by him that they automatically take the opposite position to his no matter the merits of his case. This is what 3.5 years of servicing your fan base at the expense of expanding your base gets you.
3. He must make everything about him. He can no longer do this. Everything has to be about the threat.
It was an important speech. The current cultural war is an existential threat to the Republic. I am so glad he mentioned Western Civiliization.
We need another Reagan or Thatcher to lead thus fight. A person who can lead us based on a shared idea. The entire moment has to be about defending the idea and convincing as many people as possible about the importance of the idea.
I am not sure Trump is the right person for this job:
1. We are hours away from a tweet that will change the narrative. I do not know what it will be but it will happen. Trump’s impulsiveness always gets the better of him. Just a few weeks ago Biden had the “You can’t be black and not support me moment”. A great way to go into a weekend. What does Trump do? He stomps all over the Biden story with a tweet storm about Joe Scarborough and the dead intern.
2. There are too many people who are so repulsed by him that they automatically take the opposite position to his no matter the merits of his case. This is what 3.5 years of servicing your fan base at the expense of expanding your base gets you.
3. He must make everything about him. He can no longer do this. Everything has to be about the threat.
The "right wing" view of America has been the American view of America for a long while.
People from everywhere have done better in America than their peers who stayed home.
That is demonstrably true.
You wouldn't think that the 4th of July would bring out the haters of this country, but here we are with the usual suspects. Who knew?
@rhhardin,
Sounds like Lautreamont really needed to get laid.
Any commentators here who regularly comment in good faith on web sites with a liberal slant. How are you treated? Diversity in comments would make the blog more interesting and informative . But God forbid one opposing viewpoint ventures into your safe space circle jerk. Mommy help.
If you want to carefully parse the statement in the least provocative way, you could argue that he does mot say the four faces on the monument are the greatest Americans, he says it is a monument to the greatest Americans—it's meaning can (and, IMO, does) extend beyond those four faces.
It's so weird to me that Teddy Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore.
It's sort of like Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Joe Dimaggio, and Bucky Dent.
"This monument to three of the greatest Americans, plus one other guy."
The Taliban were so reluctant to kill Americans that Russians had to pay them. Not that Schiff gave a shit.
>>Ann Althouse said
Not only is he defending these 4 men against the recent attacks, He's saying they are greater than every other American in history — greater than Frederick Douglass, greater than Harriet Tubman,<<
Erm, that's because those four men *are* greater than Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Is anyone really going to debate that?
Anyway, as you note, he made up for it later in the speech by including those very two in a list of great Americans -- a list that was pointedly disproportionately heavy on Negroes. For obvious political reasons, of course.
It was a good speech.
You can tell by how upset it made ARM.
"No movement that seeks to dismantle these treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its heart."
Virtually all of the left wing is internationalist at its core.
And we already have a Hall of Fame for Great Americans:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_of_Fame_for_Great_Americans
Sure, Trump denounced Nazis, but he didn’t denounce them until he denounced them, or between the times he denounced them, or since the last time he denounced them, so Trump is a Nazi.
One of those mooks on the mountain had something to say about critics-
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
_Theodore Roosevelt
Dedicated to ARM, who has become tedious.
Didn’t listen while the wife did. I can’t listen to Trump speechify, I just don’t like his cadence and tonality. I’d rather watch him in a press conference. That plays to his strength, the back and forth.
As for the content. Good but divisive. But that’s Trumps mission. He is the symbol of the push back. And if Biden wins in November they’ll be a push back in the opposition direction.
I’m hoping for a time when what happens in Washington is far less important than what happens locally, what the weather will be , who had a new baby, who’s business is going well, etc.
2. Who cares about the looks of any First Lady, (or, eventually, any First Husband)?
Pretty much every single woman in the country, and plenty of the men.
Oh, for Pete's sake! Who gives a shit about Mount Rushmore?
The Democratic National Committee and the NYT to start with.
>>Robert Cook said...
Oh, for Pete's sake! Who gives a shit about Mount Rushmore?<<
Well, that comment from Lefty Cook nicely and succinctly summarizes the comments above, doesn't it.
I just hope to god ARM isn't a history teacher. Or any other kind of teacher for that matter.
Constant bragging about one's "greatness" is juvenile and narcissistic, and reveals the boaster's deep fear that it is not true. It's also obnoxious, like the braying of a self-absorbed, privileged person who talks about how great he is and how inferior everyone else is by comparison. (Hey...that sounds familiar!)
Why are you attacking Muhamad Ali?
Moreover, no matter how well things may be going at any given time, there are always areas that need improvement. The focus of a mature person (or nation) should always be on what needs to be improved, not on self-congratulatory preening.
What an awful perspective on life.
You Lefties really are at base just desperately unhappy people trying desperately to spread the unhappiness.
ARM: "How many US citizens died from Ebola?" Because only American lives count. Double if they're white American lives, eh?
steve uhr,
Any non-Leftist Collectivist contributions at Leftists blogs means an immediate ban.
What else have you, idiot?
Kevin: "It was a good speech.
You can tell by how upset it made ARM."
Indeed, that is always the best indication.
ARM's comments thus far in this thread are reminiscent of the complete mental breakdowns he has exhibited several times over the years.
To ARM's "credit", I will note that he has reduced significantly his 24/7 pro-ChiCom propaganda pushing since so many other western and African nations have turned on the ChiComs and the WHO morons have finally admitted that the ChiComs never did inform anyone about the virus.
Duh. The commies lied. Didnt see that one coming.
Bottom line: fantastic speech which clearly lays out the battle lines for the fall campaign.
Biden's team already knows they are in even deeper trouble which is why Biden's team put out the statement Biden (Puddin' Head) is opposed to tearing down some statues.
What an admission!
BCARM says there are no fine people marching with Nazis. I say there are no fine people marching with Marxists. I guess the difference here is that in one case, peaceful protesters planned the march and the Nazis followed along to cause trouble and in the other the Marxists planned the marches to cause trouble and the peaceful marches joined in.
steve uhr: "Any commentators here who regularly comment in good faith on web sites with a liberal slant. How are you treated? Diversity in comments would make the blog more interesting and informative . But God forbid one opposing viewpoint ventures into your safe space circle jerk. Mommy help."
Yes.
Li'l Stevie Uhr wrote that.
Just now....in the middle of the lefty "safe space" "cancel culture" lefty tech/media censoring pandemic which comes on the heels of decades where every lefty blog site explicitly restricts commentary to leftist opinion.
Uhr is one of those guys who would prance into a Soviet gulag and criticize the refusnik prisoners for not having their minds open to opinions from the "other side".
Saint Croix said...
"....It's so weird to me that Teddy Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore.
It's sort of like Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Joe Dimaggio, and Bucky Dent.
"This monument to three of the greatest Americans, plus one other guy.""
As I seem to recall, Teddy was included for very practical reasons. That is, to secure funding. He was also the greatest President of the young century up to that point and it's hard to find a previous President that would qualify 4th over TR.
Wilson was in a bod odor, and Coolidge would not accept himself for that honor (neither would anyone else, putting a sitting - or even still living - President on there is unseemly).
Phil 314 laments: I’m hoping for a time when what happens in Washington is far less important than what happens locally, what the weather will be , who had a new baby, who’s business is going well, etc.
As a matter of fact, what happens in Washington is far less important. It's only mass media that has us convinced otherwise.
Wow, the Leftoids here are particularly nutty this morning. I think that says something very good about Trump's speech last night.
"This is painfully true — if a bit exaggerated (every fact, every flaw... beyond all recognition)."
Ann, it's not exaggerated if the NYT, ABC, and CNN describe George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (!!!) *solely* as slaveowners.
steve uhr said...
Any commentators here who regularly comment in good faith on web sites with a liberal slant. How are you treated? Diversity in comments would make the blog more interesting and informative . But God forbid one opposing viewpoint ventures into your safe space circle jerk. Mommy help.
Tried it a few times years ago. Got blocked. The comment section here is many things, but it's definitely not a circle jerk. There is diversity in comments here. ARM comments all the time; no one stops him, but most find him tiresome.
steve uhr said...
Any commentators here who regularly comment in good faith on web sites with a liberal slant. How are you treated?
I used to read and comment on Washington Monthly, Huffpo and Mother Jones. I kind of followed Kevin Drum who I had read since he had his own blog, Calpundit. I got lots of obscene abuse at Wash Monthly after I disagreed that single payer was best. People went to my personal blog and made abusive comments, sort of like Ritmo here. I emailed Kevin about it but he responded that the moderators were out of his control. Soon after I was banned at Wash Monthly and my comments were deleted, leaving up the obscene replies. That was during the 2004 election. Huffpo was deleting comments so I quit there, too.
It was interesting because I do know something about health policy and have written about it here.
Single payer was the big issue for the left in 2004 and it is amusing how they screwed it up with Obama care. I think the French system would be a good model for us but it includes a market mechanism and that is a no go for Democrats.
"No person who remains quiet at the destruction of this resplendent heritage can possibly lead us to a better future."
The majority may be silent but the leader — AKA Trump — cannot be silent.
Biden. It was a challenge to Biden. If he doesn't stand-up to the mob, then he can't lead us to a better future. He'll lead us farther down the road of fascism.
Who wrote all that? Love it or hate it, it was an incredibly powerful speech and very well written. The NYT etc. are calling it dark and divisive because they are scared to death of how it will resonate with the American people.
"We Americans enter the July 4 weekend of 2020 humiliated as almost never before. We had one collective project this year and that was to crush Covid-19, and we failed.
On Wednesday, we had about 50,000 new positive tests, a record. Other nations are beating the disease while our infection lines shoot upward as sharply as they did in March."
Immediately Clint and BCARM illustrate why we get it and they don’t.
clint said...
Wow: "In the face of lies meant to divide us, demoralize us and diminish us, we will show that the story of America unites us, inspires us, includes us all, and makes everyone free."
This is the heart and highlight of Trump’s speech. It is the optimism of the real America he represents. The phrase Clint selected is the one BCARM fears the most, why he had to rush in and be first to denounce Trump. The truth scares the left so much it is hilarious to watch them toil and spin. Sure, they can barely disguise their glee at Guilfoyle and Herman Cain getting COVID. Death and division. Quick rush in and label this speech DARK before the applause has died out. You have nothing left you ghouls.
“BCARM says there are no fine people marching with Nazis. I say there are no fine people marching with Marxists. I guess the difference here is that in one case, peaceful protesters planned the march and the Nazis followed along to cause trouble and in the other the Marxists planned the marches to cause trouble and the peaceful marches joined in.”
I was going to make a similar point, and now don’t need to. Think about how Speaker Palsi, Minority Leader Scheamer, and their legislative leadership took a knee, wearing African neck scarves, to honor the openly Marxist BLM. Think about it for a minute - the Dems’ Congressional leadership actively endorsed and condoned the group probably most responsible for burning and looting inner cities around this country, in order to build their Marxist utopia. (Actually, they probably did it because a large chunk of the money raised by BLM is going to ActBlue, which in turn is using it to fund Dem candidates, and apparently has given both Palsi and Scheamer large war chests to use as they see fit, for electing Dems to Congress).
I missed the speech but judging from the hysterical reaction from our local leftists, it seems to have hit its mark.
Its a great speech. Its a sad comment on the USA in 2020, that giving a patriotic speech is considered "Right wing". Everything in this speech would've been supported by every D president and Presidential Candidate up through Bill Clinton. But Biden and his gang think its "Racist". They aren't patriots, they don't love their country. They're Demcorats.
The slogan used to be: "America. Love it - or Leave it". Now its: "America. Love it - or join the Democrats".
I used to comment at, among others, Crooked Timber, Matt Yglesias old blog, and Salon.
I was tossed out of two of them.
BTW, there is now clear desperation on the part of the dems/left/LLR-left/marxists to "reset" with their original claims that the statue and monument destruction is ONLY about the Confederacy.
LOL
As noted by many others, yeah, that dog ain't gonna hunt.
Unless Gandhi was a corporal alongside Major Junipero Serra in the Stonewall Jackson Brigade!
Thank you, Ms Althouse.
This was the longest blog I've read in a long time, and was rewarding all the way through. You interpret Trump better than anyone else.
There are no sincere liberal/left commentators at Althouse. If there were, they wouldn't use the old troll line "This blog is an echo chamber". Only liberal/leftists use this phrase because when center-right people post on a liberal/left blog they are banned, canceled, or driven out with hatred and profanity. The liberal/left actually LOVES echo chambers. They only want "Freedom of speech" on center-right blogs - so they can subvert and destroy them. As s liberal democrat once said: "They don't need freedom of speech in the USSR - they have socialism".
The core of culture is what you teach your young.
Thats how you make a generation of youth identify with a larger unity, beyond their cartoons and video games. Thats how you make tribes, and not atomized nothings.
US education and culture is oriented to atomizing messaging, if it isnt attempting to create explicit counter-tribes, that is, active anti-Americans, by pervasive propaganda intended to create antagonism even where there isn't any. Its all "beware! the white people are out to get you!" , and I'm not exaggerating.
Even when the children and their parents themselves (immigrants for instance) want to be Americans, there is intense opposition within the educational system to their desire to join the American tribe. Sometimes this can be vicious.
We have seen the antics of the San Francisco school district and school board for many years, I have attended lots of school board meetings. Often these have descended into purest hate, with rich liberals sneering at poor FOB(fresh off the boat) Chinese parents, who want the American flag, July 4th, Junior ROTC, schools named for Washington and Lincoln, against the wishes of their betters.
What Trump said is exactly what I have seen for myself, many times over two decades.
“Biden. It was a challenge to Biden. If he doesn't stand-up to the mob, then he can't lead us to a better future. He'll lead us farther down the road of fascism”
I think that he, or probably more likely, his handlers, are figuring this out.
“Trump just turned this election from a referendum on Trump to a referendum on America”
Shrewdest comment in the whole thread. Give Trump a massive gift and, yeah, he’s going to open it.
I did not watch. I can tell based on the number of posts the ARM bot felt it had to post it must have been effective for Trump...
The cliche is we're always voting for the lesser of two evils. It seems this cycle those evils are the burn down America bureaucracy or the guy who tweets mean things.
The Democrats have foolishly and freely gifted Trump with a MAGA Redux campaign. What a massive blunder.
The Rushmore speech can be summarized as "I'll see you and raise you."
We have seen the antics of the San Francisco school district and school board for many years, I have attended lots of school board meetings.
buwaya, I think your perceptions might be influenced a bit by living in the Bay Area. That is a poisonous culture which replaced the original Bay Area blue collar culture you see in movies like "Bullet" and "Dirty Harry." "The Maltese Falcon" was SF in the 20s and 30s. Like Seattle, which was a lovely place, technology and the silo effect has ruined those cities.
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...
“Trump just turned this election from a referendum on Trump to a referendum on America”
America is currently failing to deal adequately virus that almost every other decent country in the world has defeated.
"There are no sincere liberal/left commentators at Althouse."
I disagree – I think most are sincere enough, they just aren't very articulate, or perhaps not that bright.
That is/was one of the most outstanding things about Scott Alexander's Slate Star Codex blog – the comments there were generally high quality. It was the place I always went if I wanted to see left-of-center opinion defended intelligently.
It makes it a lot easier to pick out the logical flaws when you don't have to wade through ad hominems, grade school level logical fallacies, and endless "squirrel!" sightings.
He's speaking in memoriam of the past, precedents for the present, and striving of the People and our Posterity. #HateLovesAbortion
Anyone notice that ARM never mentions any family, life history or actual geography where it votes?
Every time people get hurt during a Republican administration (look at his posts during the Bush administration), he cheers for the deaths.
Either he works at the basement of Media Matters or is East European bot. You decide.
But regards the speech, when have you ever heard a Democrat praising this History and peoples (without checking for identity) of the United States since 2000?
though they did not escape the moral failings characteristic of their time
Redistributive change, retributive change, cancellation, confusion, diversity, political congruence, and [elective] abortion and clinical cannibalism, too.
WhoKnew said...
BCARM says there are no fine people marching with Nazis. I say there are no fine people marching with Marxists. I guess the difference here is that in one case, peaceful protesters planned the march and the Nazis followed along to cause trouble and in the other the Marxists planned the marches to cause trouble and the peaceful marches joined in.
Excellent. Whataboutism just got their clock cleaned!
The assault on America, Americans, and toppling of statues is reviving memories of authoritarian lands, distant protestors, and Twin Towers.
Kristi Noem for president, 2024.
he has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions of existence:
Different nations, different tribes, different outcomes, with indigenous people changing over time through war, slavery, immigration, migration, and genocide.
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, & murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Jefferson speaks facts to truth. Americans in principle and actions, prudent and bold, not bigots and dodos.
traditionalguy said...
Hoping people did not watch it ,The MSM have decided to brand last night’s Presidential speech as “fiery”. Actually it was a solemn and Presidential master piece in the Gettysburg Address class.
7/4/20, 7:23 AM
That's because the BIG LIE is the main tactic of the lugenpresse, and they'll keep using it even when paying any honest attention to the story fucking explodes the lie!
I was working on the home of a woman who came to the United States during the Hungarian Revolution. She told me, as a relative stranger, how she was raped by the Russian soldiers, when she was trapped in a hospital during the Russian take over (She was a nurse). Her and her husband paid a man to bring them across the border into Austria (I think). The guide was so drunk, and the fog so thick that the could hardly see the person in front of them. She told of a Russian guard in the woods, drunk and fast asleep. The moment they crossed the border the fog had lifted. After going to the American consulate, they were flown into an Air Force base in Germany. She expressed their amazement of the American bounty (her words), as they drank large cups of coffee. Her love for America, and her appreciation for its blessing overflowed her words. They were sponsored by and church in North Carolina, and settled there. She tells of the experiments, on dogs, of her husbands, and a former communist doctor, on the first heart lung machine. Her love for American and the opportunity it offered her and her husband, was humbling and infectious.
Re: TR
There is depth to TR that escapes many, who are perhaps aware only of his time as NYC Police Commssioner, that he was a US President, that he was fond of saying, "Bully," and something about the Rough Riders and San Juan Hill.
However, this written description of his canoe journey up a feeder river of the Amazon River reveals a surprisingly interesting and complex personality. The man had grit.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78508.The_River_of_Doubt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJQCIYs0eiI
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent: "The Democrats have foolishly and freely gifted Trump with a MAGA Redux campaign. What a massive blunder."
In their defense, as seen in the posts by LLR's and ARM and Inga and Freder and Howard et al, they can't help it.
It's in their marxist DNA.
They can't not be who they really are.
”’2. Who cares about the looks of any First Lady, (or, eventually, any First Husband)?’
“Pretty much every single woman in the country, and plenty of the men.”
They’re concerning themselves with trivialities.
ARM said..."There are no fine people marching with Nazis."
Like everything you think or say, you have it assbackwards. A few neo-Nazis infiltrated the peaceful protesters in Charlottesville. The vast majority were not nazis or even aware of them.
So what!?!?
Michael K said... “ I have talked to African immigrants and boy are they happy to be here. One kid from Uganda who was joining the US Army told me "America is a banquet." He had the rest of his life planned, four years in the Army, college on GI Bill, then medical school. I'll bet he does it.”
I agree with you 100% Dr. Kennedy. During the last few years of my career I got to work with and know three young women who came here from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. What wonderful people. Good students, smart, hard-working, and joyous in everything they did. Perfect role models for the kind of immigrants we need. They all became citizens, loved America, and felt their future here was unlimited. I wish more of our native-born citizens felt the same way. I haven’t talked to any of them lately but they must be dismayed by what the left is doing to our country today, particularly the young woman from Zimbabwe, as I believe she and her family had suffered greatly due to Mugabe.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
"We Americans enter the July 4 weekend of 2020 humiliated as almost never before. We had one collective project this year and that was to crush Covid-19, and we failed.
On Wednesday, we had about 50,000 new positive tests, a record. Other nations are beating the disease while our infection lines shoot upward as sharply as they did in March."
**************
MORON. How many times will you ignore the FACT that DEATH RATES have **not** been going up?
"This is hyperbole, because Trump cannot protect the monument forever, ..." is a silly statement unless Althouse has proof confirming everyone alive today to hear it won't be dead and unable therefore to dispute it at some point, like Jesus has been everywhere since eternity, and of course as Creator Jesus always will remain so, meaning "forever" as applied to everyone listening or anyone who believes in Christ as our everlasting Lord and Savior is the only accurate locution.
Maybe too much focus on cruel, not enough on neutrality.
President Donald J Trump has an unabashed, unashamed, over riding love of this country. That is the ONLY reason he would subject himself to the unending hate speech smears by the democrat propaganda media.
--- "I'll see you and raise you."---
Trump is the opposite of a slow-better. He doesn't care about their tells: He knows they hold a shit hand and they always will.
As Reagan made clear, freedom is always only one generation away from extinction. Sometimes 7-2 beats AA and then declares the game, the players, the venue, the city, the county, the state, the country racist. If they were to complain the world is racist that wouldn't be helpful so the Crack away the rest of the world, so that America peculiarly needs to amend until Progs take forever power.
Blacks will suffer worst, but by now I feel they may not be incapable of succumbing to this form of Satanism, as would I or any other human given the constant drumbeat of hate prog Americans have saturated this community with.
Justice Thomas shows me men are capable of much more than I am, even after having served time at Yale.
”Single payer was the big issue for the left in 2004 and it is amusing how they screwed it up with Obama care. I think the French system would be a good model for us but it includes a market mechanism and that is a no go for Democrats.“
Of course, Obamacare isn’t single-payer in any way, but simply has mechanisms that allow some who could not privately provided health insurance previously-due do to cost or “pre-existing conditions” to obtain it. The fraud Obama wouldn’t even discuss single-payer during his national town hall meetings. The ACA was a gift to the private insurance companies. Obama was nothing if not a traitor to all those who invested their “Hope” for “Change” in Obama, a loyal tool of the corporatocracy.
Kevin said...
Trump just turned this election from a referendum on Trump to a referendum on America.
https://youtu.be/KLHFdduVDVg
The 2020 election festival has officially opened.
I saw Mt. Rushmore in 1960 (I was 17). I would have had a hard time in 1960 finding many Americans who didn't love this country and didn't think it was basically headed in the right direction. Civil rights for "colored people" (that was the polite usage then) were on the way: The military was integrated; schools were required to be integrated, and we all knew that the hold-outs, like Virginia, would be overcome. The country was prosperous and free. The McCarthyite threat to free speech and thought was largely defeated. We were on an upward road in the sunshine.
What happened next? We passed civil rights laws so that "Negroes" (as we had learned to say) could vote and use public accommodations and receive fair treatment in the workplace and job market. We passed welfare legislation to help the poorest of the poor. We legislated a "great society" that would end "poverty as we know it". We have committed billions of dollars of tax payers' money to improve the lot of mostly black and brown fellow citizens. And what have we got for it?
Apparently, what we have done is to create a racist society that shound be condemned and torn down, a society that should be ashamed of its founders and erstwhile heroes. Is that "dark"? Yeah, I guess it is.
It's over. Even the right wing wack jobs here know its over. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Trump is so patriotic. The guy is a fucking con artist who didn't leave town soon enough.
They’re concerning themselves with trivialities.
Have you ever picked up a copy of People or Us?
Of course, Obamacare isn’t single-payer in any way, but simply has mechanisms that allow some who could not privately provided health insurance previously-due do to cost or “pre-existing conditions” to obtain it.
Obamacare is Medicaid with expanded eligibility. The people really hurt are the folks who don't have employer based plans. Obamacare was written by insurance industry lobbyists and 25 year old Democrat lawyers on Pelosi's staff. They figured out the excluding the insurance companies from Hillarycare killed it. That's why they let them write it and promised that everybody would be forced into the new system.
Then they fucked up the implementation so bad that nobody could register. After that, Democrats realized that if they tried to force employer and union plans into Obamacare it would be political suicide. You lefties could not design a wet dream. You have no idea of incentives, economics, or how to run anything bigger than your mouth.
There is no such thing as insurance for "pre-existing conditions." That was handled by pool funds and could have solved that small problem without destroying health care for the 85% that were happy with what they had.
France provides a model that works and is highly rated by those whom have used it,. The NHS is loved by those who have NEVER used it. One problem the French have is British expatriates who refuse to go back to Britain and the NHS for care. They sign up and have never contributed.
particularly the young woman from Zimbabwe, as I believe she and her family had suffered greatly due to Mugabe.
There is some irony with Mugabe. He knew how unprepared he was and wanted Soames to stay. Soames could not and left. Mugabe's followers then raped the country and drove out the productive whites and the blacks who worked for them. There is an interesting book that is sympathetic to Mugabe. It's called, "Dinner with Mugabe."
When Soames died in 1987, Mugabe and his wife attended the funeral even though he had been banned from Britain. He is more a sad figure than a monster. Something like these BLM people who are wrecking the future of the blacks in this country.
As Reagan made clear, freedom is always only one generation away from extinction.
Thanks for the timely reminder, Guild! And once our freedoms are taken away, the chances of getting them back is maybe one in a million. The time to act is now.
We legislated a "great society" that would end "poverty as we know it". We have committed billions of dollars of tax payers' money to improve the lot of mostly black and brown fellow citizens. And what have we got for it?
We are on the road to Zimbabwe unless we get control.
Even if you want to give Trump a pass on the initial response to the virus, the resurgence of the virus is entirely on him. All the economic damage, all the deaths, all the pathetic Texans wearing masks, that will all be on him. No one else will have any responsibility.
Excellent analysis, thank you. The entire event was spectacular and so very American.
Remember when Donald Trump saluted a member of an enemy totalitarian regime?
The New York Times had for years published the Declaration of Independence on a full page on the Fourth; did they this year?
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan has left a new comment on the post "Trump's Mount Rushmore speech came on too late for...":
At Charlottesville Trump had a very simple task. All he had to say was, 'There are no fine people marching with Nazis'. Every president since FDR could have passed that test. Trump failed.
Is that all you got? Still harping on that lie and including the racist FDR in your statement? Pathetic.
THEOLDMAN
Have a great Independence Day!
A presidency that began with bans on foreign travellers now sees Europe off limits to Americans
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