Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Fareed Zakaria points out Biden and Reagan's winning political formula" video.

  1. In May of 2018, When China's President Xi Jinping, who is the leader of the COMMUNIST PARTY of China, changed the country’s constitution to allow him to stay in power indefinitely, Trump praised him for it. Just let that sink in for a moment. In remarks at Mar-a-Lago, Trump praised the Chinese president’s power grab and said he wouldn’t mind trying it himself. Trump: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” June 15 2018 Trump praises Kim Jung Un, the dictator who continues to threaten America with nuclear war, for his authoritarian control over his people. Trump: "He's the head of the country," Trump said of Kim during a Fox interview. "And I mean he's the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different." "He speaks and his people sit up at attention,"  Trump added. "I want my people to do the same." Sept 30 2018: At a rally, Trump confesses to the love he has for Kim Jung Un, the most brutal dictator in modern history. Trump: "I like him, he likes me. I guess that’s okay. Am I allowed to say that?” Trump said. “And then we fell in love, okay. No really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” These are the inexplicable and indefensible words of a sitting US President. And no amount of lies, spin, or deflections will ever justify them, or erase them.
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  2. Why has the Republican Party become so thoroughly corrupt? The Republican Party is now led by a kleptocratic crime boss who rules over the most scandal-ridden administration in history. Many of his closest advisers and associates have either been imprisoned or are facing prison time. Trump himself is trying to cheat in this election in order to stay in office and avoid prosecution. Nixon’s administration may have been  riddled with criminality—but in 1973, the Republican Party was still a somewhat normal party,  that still played by the rules, so Nixon was forced to resign. But not anymore. Those days are long gone. The corruption we see in the Republican party today can be defined as institutional depravity. It isn’t an occasional failure to uphold norms, but a consistent repudiation of them. It isn’t about dirty money so much as the pursuit and abuse of power—power as an end in itself, justifying almost any means. Today’s Republican Party has cornered itself in with a base of ever older, more male, more rural, more radical conservative voters. They could have tried to expand; instead, they’ve hardened and walled themselves off. This is why the Republican Party lies about the risks of voter fraud, so that it can pass laws to suppress voter turnout. Taking away democratic rights—extreme gerrymandering; blocking an elected president from nominating a Supreme Court justice; selectively paring voting rolls and polling places; creating spurious anti-fraud commissions; misusing the census to undercount the opposition; calling lame-duck legislative sessions to pass laws against the will of the voters—is the Republican Party’s main political strategy. Republicans have chosen suppression and authoritarianism, because unlike the Dems, their party isn’t a coalition of interests in search of a majority. The Republican party isn't interested in what the majority of Americans want. Trump is now the grotesque face of the rot within the party itself. And it wreaks of corruption, paranoia, fascism, wild conspiracy theories, racism and other types of hostility toward entire groups. Trump is no different than his authoritarian counterparts abroad: immoral, demagogic, hostile to institutional checks, demanding and receiving demagogic obedience and protection from the party, and knee-deep in the financial corruption that is integral to the political corruption of authoritarian regimes..
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