I don’t think the majority of voting Americans have problems with any of those acts though. Think Joe you pass in Walmart cares about what happens to the White House ballroom?
They were fed "waste fraud and abuse" in the beginning of the year. and suddenly it happens in broad daylight and people shrug?
At this point it's just brainwashing. Some people's principals are clearly less about their own conviction and treating all this like a sports team. Whoever team "wins", even if the stadium burns down around them.
Another (more charitable?) explanation is they just never make the connection:
> It’s easy to find authoritarians endorsing inconsistent ideas. Just present slogans
and appeals to homey values, and then present slogans and bromides that invoke
opposite values. The yea-saying authoritarian follower is likely to agree with all of
them. Thus I asked both students and their parents to respond to, “When it comes to
love, men and women with opposite points of view are attracted to each other.” Soon
afterwards, in the same booklet, I pitched “Birds of a feather flock together when it
comes to love.” High [Right-Wing Authoritarian scorers] typically agreed with both statements, even though they responded to the two items within a minute of each other.
The ironic part is, we became the wall. Many immigrants stayed in Mexico because they couldn't cross to USA. Trump invited our wimpy president to a secret meeting, afterwards Mexico silently made the change of attitude from country of passage to destination.
Yeah: If someone donates money to the government for any purpose, that becomes government funds, and the Constitution says Congress and only Congress has the authority to decide where those go. Not the President.
So either Trump is doing this officially as a President, but with funding that is illegal/unconstitutional...
... Or the funding is legal, but Trump is doing it as a private citizen, which is a federal crime. [0]
The Supreme Court will jiggle the constitution and some forgotten legal precedent from the magna carta will fall out and 5-4 this is actually not a problem at all if you think about it.
Doesn't matter if a trillion dollars was shat by God himself out of a plane into the Treasury. They failed to get historic district planning permission, they failed to save historic materials and objects, and lied about the plan. The now revealed plan is an gaudy, boorish, tasteless, and tacky abomination because that is the essence Trump.
> Think Joe you pass in Walmart cares about what happens to the White House ballroom?
Joe in Walmart thinks what Facebook memes and Fox News tell him to think. The same subversive forces that support the administration's lawlessness control the media diet of a plurality of Americans.
If you want Americans to care about wants going on, you have to inform them about it first.
The ballroom is scheduled be ready in January 2029 assuming no delays. But by that time Trump will be at the end of his term. So is he doing this for future presidents (would be very much unlike him) or is he planning to stick around after Jan 2029?
It is one thing for Bannon to say it. It is another thing for a prominent sitting senator to say it [1]. (That would be senator Lindsey Graham.) I wish John McCain was still around... he would have had the courage to stand up and talk sense into these people.
> I wish John McCain was still around... he would have had the courage to stand up and talk sense into these people.
At one point I would have agreed, but then in 2017, McCain made his "We will regret what we are about to do" speech before the R's removed the filibuster requirement for the Gorsuch confirmation. And as an Arizona voter, I switched my registration from Independent to Democrat.
> “I fear that someday we will regret what we are about to do. In fact, I am confident we will,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “It is imperative we have a functioning Senate where the rights of the minority are protected regardless of which party is in power at the time.”
>
> Nonetheless, McCain voted with McConnell on the rules change, saying he felt he had no choice.
technically, he is currently scheduled to be president for the entirety of 2028 because the election is in November 2028 and the presidential term ends on January 20, 2029.
The bro grifters are going to bro grift because it gets them views and merch sales. Trump won't live that long: age, appearance, bad health habits, and obesity... and talk about not getting into heaven and display of extra NGAF by pardoning real pieces of work in a fury like he's already on his way out of office. By July 2026, Dear Orange Leader will most likely be pushing up daisies. Poor health and impaired decision-making skills are what are signaled.
I'd say Joe Biden showed us a nice illustration of how there's limits to what doctors can do, even if you're the world's most powerful man and there's billions at stake keeping you alive and functional.
The fact they have to host large dignitary parties on tents on the lawn is a huge security issue in these days of fiber optic drones.
People are complaining because Trump is doing it. Nobody would care - hell, the media would probably excitedly talking about the plans - if it were anyone else.
> Nobody would care - hell, the media would probably excitedly talking about the plans - if it were anyone else.
Bull! People would complain for any President who:
1. Lied to everyone promising it "wouldn't interfere with the current building." [0]
2. Broke federal laws which have always governed changes to these public properties and landmarks.
3. Unconstitutionally spent funds Congress did not approve-of, which applies regardless of whether those funds came in as taxes or as donations.
Feel free to detail what other President did the same actions and nobody cared. Trump's bad reputation comes from his bad actions like these, not the other way around.
Let's give the benefit of the doubt to the person who blatantly lies, and repeatedly has shown contempt for the law. We gotta be fair even if he and their cohorts aren't, right?
> You think they're too dumb to understand the difference between "tearing down" and "renovating"?
Are you? You think the East Wing is being "renovated"?
Renovation is renewal, repair, restoring function and safety.
What's happening instead? Knocking the safe and functional East Wing flat (walls, roof, both floors, 30+ internal rooms) and replacing it with a completely new structure with new foundations and a different purpose... and with a new footprint larger than the entire White House of 2024!
Nowhere even remotely close to the same thing. Might as well brag that you "repaired" your sedan by selling it and buying a new truck.
You keep using that word, but it doesn't mean what you want it to.
Renovation is as your interlocutor says, a restoration. Remodeling is what is happening there, tearing apart something and putting something new in its place. It's a more drastic and expensive work.
Fine, remodeling. The specific word is not finally the point. Incessant semantic pedantry doesn't change the fact that Trump is not destroying the White House.
Most people understand that any sort of "remodeling" or "renovation" often requires some demolition first.
And I get your point, but that is a crucial distinction when you're talking about historical buildings. If said ballroom was simply an extension, no one would complain about the placement.
> Incessant semantic pedantry doesn't change the fact that Trump is not destroying the White House.
Incessant semantic pedantry? You mean like stridently defending that Trump is not destroying the White House, in response to a comment that didn’t claim that Trump was destroying the White House?
I think that's the wrong way to view the problem. Think about it this way: before Nixon resigned his approval rating was still 23%.
You can get a quarter of the country to say yes or not care for any given question no matter how obviously dangerous or stupid. But having a 25% approval rating would be very, very bad.
