[RD] Donald Trump accuses Barack Obama of illegal wiretap; calls for investigation

Think it fits here well:
 
Lemme guess - "Nobody complained when Obama did it!"

Plenty of left-wing activists complained about Obama constantly. They aren't hypocrites. The only hypocrites are people like Sean Hannity, unless we're just reframing it as if his complaints about Obama's executive overreach were premised on them not going far enough.
 
Yes, the lunatic fringe (I'm sure the Intercept did plenty of it).
 
I'm also wondering if Trump has any idea that there are perfectly legal and legitimate channels through which he could have been surveilled. He seems to believe that the simple fact that he or members of his team were captured by surveillance is an outrage and illegal. I mean, the FBI is investigating your campaign, you typically don't want to call attention to the fact that you were under government surveillance. You try to minimize anything that casts suspicion on you. Trump has taken the opposite tack, and I simply can't figure out the reasoning behind it, unless there really was deep collusion throughout all levels of the campaign and he wants to make it look like fruit of the poisonous tree - or he's just ignorant and doesn't understand how bad this looks.


I think to understand what we're seeing here you have to think back to how some conservatives try to lay claim to the label of 'classical liberal'. They're not. And Trump is the archetype of being not a classical liberal. What he actually is is a classical pre-Enlightenment conservative. What I mean by that is that Trump demonstrates the personality differences between someone who believes in a nation of laws to those who believe in a nation of men. Trump sees himself as a great man, and great men aren't subject to laws. His is a conservatism which at its foundation rejects the precepts of classical liberalism.

You can see it in his actions with the Russians, and about the Russian scandal. But you can also see it in his tweets, where he is constantly attempting to create his own reality. And you can see it in that terrible Time interview, where he lied constantly, and then claimed that it was the truth because he was the president, and he said it, and that makes it the truth! This is a man who thinks that he should be above the law, and above standards of conduct, decency, morality, that apply to 'lesser' men.
 
Last night, Donald Trump's administration has by proxy called for the Speaker of the House to step down

Now now, many can say "well that's just a fox personality, the President and his administration have nothing to say about this". But for many of us that can ask very basic questions, like "why did donald trump specifically tweet to watch this show at 9:00 pm?" and question to the host saying out of the blue "I have certainly not spoken with the president about any of this" with a "Yea, I expect a fox personality to have a direct ear to the President on a nightly basis" , it is pretty clear that this is an embarrassingly bad attempt to pretend like impartiality is here.

I don't take it lightly when the President of the United States tweets out to watch a random show at a random time that opens calling for the Speaker of the House to step down from his position. Regardless of what you agree with, can anyone name a time when the President called for the resignation of his parties' Speaker about 2 months into the Presidency?
 
The circumstances are abnormal. But everything about Trump is abnormal. That said, Speaker's have stepped down over massive failures of leadership before. Gingrich, most recently.
 
I think to understand what we're seeing here you have to think back to how some conservatives try to lay claim to the label of 'classical liberal'. They're not. And Trump is the archetype of being not a classical liberal. What he actually is is a classical pre-Enlightenment conservative. What I mean by that is that Trump demonstrates the personality differences between someone who believes in a nation of laws to those who believe in a nation of men. Trump sees himself as a great man, and great men aren't subject to laws. His is a conservatism which at its foundation rejects the precepts of classical liberalism.

You can see it in his actions with the Russians, and about the Russian scandal. But you can also see it in his tweets, where he is constantly attempting to create his own reality. And you can see it in that terrible Time interview, where he lied constantly, and then claimed that it was the truth because he was the president, and he said it, and that makes it the truth! This is a man who thinks that he should be above the law, and above standards of conduct, decency, morality, that apply to 'lesser' men.

That gives him way too much credit. He believes what he says is above reproach because he is an ultra-privileged simpleton who has spent his 70 years on this planet being rewarded for doing and saying whatever he wants, surrounding himself with lackeys and sycophants that will reinforce that what he says is correct and wise because his favor and therefore their livelihoods depend on them saying so.

In short, he believes that what he says is always right because for almost all of his time on this Earth, there hasn't been anyone around to tell him otherwise. When you live a life so privileged that you never have to face negative consequences for your actions, you naturally conclude you are an unusually gifted person for having been constantly right.

He's nothing more than a trust fund baby who never grew up.
 
Just watched Trump along Merkel in TV. He looked like a petulant child in his gesture and attitude. And Merkel apparently was trying to sweet-talk him like you would do to a petulant child. Never saw a world leader behaving like that.
 
Just watched Trump along Merkel in TV. He looked like a petulant child in his gesture and attitude. And Merkel apparently was trying to sweet-talk him like you would do to a petulant child. Never saw a world leader behaving like that.

Still haven't. Trump is no 'world leader.'
 
But he has the finger on the button! :bump:
 
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Yeah but when people say "leader of the free world" they mean US leadership amongst allies like NATO. Trump's offended more allies than influenced. We're stuck with him as an American President until 2020/2024 but he's really not a world leader.

Maybe if more rightwing populists come into power he'll have his bloc of wannabe dictators that look up to him but I look at most of his meetings with foreign leaders as them just paying lip service until the next election.
 
Agreed. I think of him as having the mentality of a 14-year-old boy, and his actions then make perfect sense.

When my boys were fourteen they were much better socialized than Dingbat Don.
 
Six sounds more like it. By fourteen kids who don't have a silver spoon in every orifice and a family retainer assigned to hold it there for them have encountered some kind of setback beyond their parents' control and at least started growing up.
 
Trump was better socialized back in the 70s and 80s but then a series of setbacks led to him delving into pure self delusion, and it doesn't help that he is already displaying symptoms of Alzheimers's.
 
Trump was better socialized back in the 70s and 80s but then a series of setbacks led to him delving into pure self delusion, and it doesn't help that he is already displaying symptoms of Alzheimers's.

How would you separate any such symptoms from his usual delusions?
 
How would you separate any such symptoms from his usual delusions?
I'm picturing a YUGE, Game-Show style wheel ala Wheel of Fortune or Price is Right, with the beeping/clicking sounds... that has stuff on it like "Delusional", "Dementia", "Lies", "Ignorance" etc, instead of dollar amounts...
 
Someone should photoshop a picture of obama tapping his finger on trump tower, then we could use it as proof that obama tapped trump tower.
 
That gives him way too much credit. He believes what he says is above reproach because he is an ultra-privileged simpleton who has spent his 70 years on this planet being rewarded for doing and saying whatever he wants, surrounding himself with lackeys and sycophants that will reinforce that what he says is correct and wise because his favor and therefore their livelihoods depend on them saying so.

In short, he believes that what he says is always right because for almost all of his time on this Earth, there hasn't been anyone around to tell him otherwise. When you live a life so privileged that you never have to face negative consequences for your actions, you naturally conclude you are an unusually gifted person for having been constantly right.

He's nothing more than a trust fund baby who never grew up.

This is true, but what Cutlass said was true too. In fact, the danger that Trump poses can pretty well be summed up by saying that he is a fourteen-year-old (or six year old, but I've got my reasons for favoring fourteen) who has brought a "great man" philosophy into the White House,* and whose "great man" philosophies have to be reckoned with because

But he has the finger on the button! :bump:

We've made him the greatest of all great men, a potential destroyer of worlds.

We can't treat him as

nothing more than a trust fund baby who never grew up.

Even shy of nuclear annihilation, this great-man sensibility is going to do damage to our republic that will have to be undone once he's gone. Just look at today's outrage: appointing Jared Kushner as his "reformulate government in the mode of a great business czar." Kushner is already in charge of negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and he's the de facto Sec of State (plus he's a key Trump whisperer). Why does he have all these roles. One, because Trump is paranoid and can only entrust things to people he has grounds to regard as absolute loyalists (his family, less Melania). But two, because great men can only afford to have a limited number of other great men around.

For me, the moment when Trump's great-men view of historical process was most nakedly (if indirectly) on display was early in the campaign, when he was trying to establish that he was a bona fide Republican. So, his earlier pro-choice comments were quoted and he was questioned, "can we really trust that you are pro-life?" He told this story about how a couple he knew had been considering an abortion, but they decided against it; they had the kid, "and he turned out to be a really great person, a real superstar." I screamed for the interviewer to ask, "what if the kid had been a dud? then would abortion have been the better approach?"

*and there's an even great-mannier great man behind this great man.
 
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