It will go down in history as the “Bah! Humbug!” address.

But this was not an address by a self-confident man dishing out Christmas presents to the nation. It smacked of desperation from one who can feel the December windchill of opinion polls – a Reuters/ Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed just 33% of US adults approve of how Trump has handled the economy – dissent in his own Republican ranks and the Jeffrey Epstein files looming on Friday.

The speech also revealed Trump’s need for a reliable foil. Over the years Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been useful nemeses for a man and movement defined less by what they are for than what they are against.

  • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    It’s hard to give people you hate credit for good ideas, but learning from everyone is part of politics.

    George Patton was the general the Germans feared the most; he was also the one who studied their tactics the most.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I give her credit for sticking to the Epstein files and I give her credit for being vocally angry about the delays. I will not give her credit for being “smart”

      And again, not at all the first rat off the ship. She bailed when Trump snubbed her.

      • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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        20 hours ago

        Nothing you cited disproves my point.

        In fact, you getting upset proves my point.

        You’d rather get angry about a man who has been dead for almost a century than consider the idea of learning from the enemy.

        America was a pretty racist country in 1945.

        Patton was no exception.

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          Yeah yeah, I’m sure all those super smart fascists have all sorts of great things to teach us (/s), but as long as you’re so hopped up on learning shit how about you read something for once in this misbegotten thread and recognize the fact that Patton got removed from his post for being so antisemitic, so, no, he wasn’t just a man of his times or whatever the excuse is

          Fascists are not smart, period. If they were smart they wouldn’t be fascists. If they occasionally luck into effective behaviors and strategies, fine learn from those, but calling fascists themselves smart or strong or good or any crap like that is a harmful and misinformed thing to do because it builds their bullshit mystique and makes them more influential, and it is just not true under any circumstances. Their regimes always implode eventually and leave whatever society that was unlucky enough to have them in a worse place than before fascists came on the scene.

          I am probably more pissed off by this exchange than you deserve, but like, damn, there’s a dril tweet for this

          • DagwoodIII@piefed.social
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            20 hours ago

            . If they occasionally luck into effective behaviors and strategies, fine learn from those,

            Which is literally my point.

            And watching you get all upset and then agreeing with me is some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen all day.