Sure, criticize away, and you absolutely should. It's just important to not get so carried away that you wind up contributing to an outcome that you openly know to be objectively worse at the ballot box.
Because we have a first-past-the-post voting system that all but guarantees only two parties are ever real contenders. We must to move toward ranked-choice voting if we ever want to have more options.
to make it clear to the whole world he openly endorses genocide
If that's your takeaway, you'll have to forgive me for thinking that you're not exactly engaging in any meaningful amount of good faith and moving on.
It is amusing, however, that you say the only difference between them is in narrow specific topics after you've just cherrypicked a few select specific topics. As a member of that rainbow flag myself though, that's a difference I rather appreciate.
trump moved the embassy to jerusalem, legitimizing israel’s violation of international law
Not that I really want to be defending Trump here, but remember that the US does not recognize international law.
biden goes over and gives netanyahu a big hug on TV in order to make it clear to the whole world he openly endorses genocide
Because of the way Israel handled the situation, there was really no way Biden was going to be able to take one side or the other without pissing somebody off. Both were in the wrong. Hamas clearly should not have attacked unprovoked and taken hundreds of hostages, but Israel should not have gone full "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out" mode either. The hospital bombing didn't do anyone any favors either, as you could have video evidence proving who was responsible and people still wouldn't believe it.
trump started the border wall
Actually, no. George HW Bush stared the wall and every single president since him has expanded it ever since. Trump was just the first to make it a focal point of his campaign and policy.
biden expanded construction on it
So did every president before him.
trump unilaterally broke the iranian nuclear deal
biden makes no real effort to reinstate it
Iran was pissed that Trump unilaterally broke it in the first place, and feel that attempting to re-negotiate would be pointless if the next administration can just unilaterally drop it on a whim. Plus, with Iran seemingly readying to go up against Israel, any attempt to reinstate it is probably dead on arrival at this point.
trump puts tariffs on chinese steel and other imports from china
biden continues the same tariffs
Why should Biden lift tariffs from a country that is becoming increasingly hostile to us and have far more draconian measures in place in their own country?
trump used “temporary” covid measures in order to refuse people at the border seeking asylum and separate families
biden uses the same exact policies, again in violation of both international and internal laws
Again, international law does not apply in the US, and many countries had strict immigration policies in place regarding COVID.
the difference between them is narrow and focused on specific topics. for example biden is nice to the rainbow flag.
Biden isn't really expanding border wall construction. There hasn't been a policy shift to build a giant wall to solve immigration issues. Just a single case of wall being built. Every one of your points are skin deep and ignores a lot of nuance. Not to mention the condescending comment on being nice to the rainbow flag.
I know people have said "money," but if there's anything akin to "a Religion," it's American Fundamentalism, the weird amalgamation of white supremacy, conspiracy theories, Christian fundamentalism, apocalypticism, colonialism, constitutional originalism, and American nationalism.
It's festered beneath the surface for decades, and Trump was the first to seize upon the true believers and become their defacto demigod. He even has actual pastors revering him not just for his rhetoric but as an actual messiah figure.
While I agree with the sentiment, we should take a step back.
"Our" religion!? And what would that be? Pretty sure the founding fathers made it damn clear that there was no official religion and we were to separate church and state.
I'm so sick of these Christian fascists that see the handmaid's tale as something to aspire to and the grifting assholes that will drive that into existence for their own personal gain...
I say if we deport anyone it's the people who start forcing their religion on the rest of us.
In theory, yes. There should be a separation of church and state.
In practice though, there are a lot of Republicans who would welcome a fascist theocracy and they're working toward that end. They get away with it because there are so few moderate Christians who are willing to go to war with these assholes.
Trump wouldn’t recognize Jesus Christ if he smacked him in the face.
Just for the record... if Jesus came back, he'd do a lot more than smack Trump in the face - I don't want to get into details, but I'd imagine the involvement of a holy flamethrower is a distinct possibility.
As someone who grew up in a religious household but is now agnostic….I sometimes have second thoughts with the fact that trump is basically frame for frame the “antichrist.”…and we were taught that the Antichrist would be “injured” for a short time but they will eventually win and that’s when the NWO, join or die and the mark of the beast shit will happen. Sometimes that gives me pause for the future.
I always thought the antichrist would have to be pretty smart. Either Trump has been playing the long con for the past 60 years or he's the moron so many people who have interacted with him say he is.
Dude doesn't even know how to orient a Bible for a photo op, and couldn't name his favorite part - or any part - of the Bible in an interview.
The closest he gets to studying Christianity is sitting next to a book of Hitler's speeches for inspiration via osmosis from a Catholic.
That he can be so successful with the religious right says quite a lot about their critical reasoning abilities.
I guess maybe raising children not to question anything and to commit themselves to obeying authority might not have been the best idea in retrospect...
There is a worse example than that! At a panel in 2015, he was asked if he has ever prayed for forgiveness, and he said no. It's the core part of protestant conversion, and he denied doing it and seemed confused by the concept.
I mean, why would he? You have to feel as though you’ve done something wrong in order to ask for forgiveness. I genuinely don’t think Trump has ever done anything that he recognizes as wrong. I think you could get him to recognize that he’s done things that have hurt people, intellectually, but at best he’d say it was someone else’s fault and/or they deserved it.
Well yeah, but he as often as possible gets his little wine and his little cracker...
I get the feeling if you asked him what those represented and why, he'd flub the answer and have to redirect to talking about "The Power of Positive Thinking" again.
That he can be so successful with the religious right says quite a lot about their critical reasoning abilities.
It's a cult. They aren't consistent with the values of Christianity, because it's just an aesthetic. The cult itself is always first. In-group vs out-group. Ally vs enemy.
Tankies are the same. Communism is just an aesthetic, the cult is always first.
I remember that article. I'm not Christian - and so don't believe in an anti-Christ. However, if you told me that the anti-Christ was real and was alive today (and I had some iron-clad reason to believe you were telling the truth), Trump would be my first guess.
My mother is convinced he’s chosen by god even though he’s a terrible person. She’s just hand waving all of his obviously ‘sinful’ behavior as irrelevant to god doing god things. She keeps saying ‘he’s a man for such a time as this’ and it’s fucking wild how hard she’s gone in on this fascism since I broke contact with her and stopped fact checking her.
It says he's a man of no principles who will take any audience or following he can get, as long as it gets his foot in the door. Even if the following is antithetical to the few things Trump keeps near and dear to the cancerous black mulch he has where the rest of us keep our hearts.
For evangelicals, it says they're batshit crazy, but that's not new information.
Actually one of his staff who was of the MANY arrested testified that behind closed doors after getting back from a rally... Trump commented on his religious followers by saying something to the effect of "Can you believe people really go for that kind of stuff"
In reference to the existence of God.
If he doesn't believe in God he is by definition an atheist
What you imply is a common misconception. Puritans did not flee to America in the early modern period because they were religiously persecuted. They fled to America because they were not allowed to religiously persecute others anymore. They were scolded because of their religious intolerance not because of their religion per se.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus speaking on the Statue of Liberty
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Jesus speaking in Matthew 25:35
Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.
Jesus speaking in Matthew 25:40
vowing to “immediately restore and expand the Trump travel ban” and “halt all of the refugee settlements to the United States” on “day one” of his presidency.
These comments just seem like he's drowning and he's desperated to drum up any kind of reaction to take away from the fact that he's probably gonna lose most of his trials
Something has definitely started happening with him in the past few weeks. He's been stumbling in speeches, confusing WWII, forgetting who he beat in 2016. The dude is not well. And he's the one that says Biden has dementia. My how the tables have turned.
he's never getting anywhere near the White House again, so who cares what he says?
Man, I wish I shared your optimism. The next election is going to come down to a few thousand votes in a handful of states, thanks to our backward electoral system.
Gerrymandering, disinformation, election fraud, voter intimidation by big guys with their big tough guns at the polling stations. Oh, and the arbitrary under-staffing/removal of said polling stations. Lack of ranked-choice, etc.
Sorry, going off the cuff, but I guess your choice of words covers all that. Man I'm proud embarrassed to be an American
Will the Supreme Court not be stuck between a rock and a hard place once those charges fall? The latest was a felony plea, meaning the charges aren't getting lesser. A felony for trying to steal the election would have to have the Supreme Court saying he cannot hold office again or they are illegitimate as they no longer are abiding by the constitution.
The Supreme Court will save their own necks and leave the republican party with Desantis stuck as their front runner. Either they start applying a lot of makup to his previous actions or I assume this election has to go to the Democrats on a land slide. "Moderate Republicans" may dislike democrats but they would have to vote for someone agaisnt minoroties, advocating for violence against our neighboring countries and trying to fuck over large businesses. That last one they can't live with.
Fun fact, because he campaigned on a "Muslim travel ban", courts slapped down the ban when his administration tried to argue it wasn't religious based. It eventually went to the supreme court and I think was partially enacted by dropping some countries.
Soooo if you ever wanted proof that he doesn't learn from his mistakes...