Trump’s Leverage:
Insensitivity to Human Suffering

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/trumps-leverage-government-shutdown-border-wall-pelosi-meeting-nihilism.html

2019-01-03
Trump’s Leverage in the Shutdown Fight: His Own Nihilism
By Eric Levitz

[…] Trump has repeatedly indicated that he sees his own insensitivity to human suffering as a vital source of leverage over Democrats. He explicitly framed his administration’s sabotage of the Affordable Care Act as a strategy for forcing Democrats to cooperate with the law’s repeal and replacement. He has repeatedly suggested that he doesn’t want to make a deal on Dreamers while a court order protecting them from the threat of deportation remains in effect — because he believes he’ll be able to secure larger concessions once that population is thrown into peril. […]

In a nutshell: The man is evil. And seemingly the present US society is providing him with an environment in which being evil helps him.

How the Tories Failed

Sorry Edwina, it's the Tories that lost. You lost your majority. You lost your reputation as the party of business and fiscal prudence. You lost control of the country. As this plays out, you will lose control of the Union. You will lose any chance of ever being in power again.

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

Why? Because your flawed economic ideology led to the worst income disparity in Europe. You've persuaded a large number of UK employers that their future is better secured by moving to a different country. pic.twitter.com/rbvrSn9GoZ

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

You presided over a failure to invest in the education of our people and in automation, leaving the UK unable to maintain its position in the world. pic.twitter.com/HjVvjlbWeA

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

You have mortgaged our future to pay for our present lifestyle, knowing that this was unsustainable. You have ignored the fact that the UK is now a services economy inextricably linked to the EU, where 80% of employment is in services. pic.twitter.com/oiEROlagap

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

You did this to enrich the few, which impoverishes the rest of our people. Your leaders are mendacious, self-serving and have no understanding of the issues that the majority of the UK faces. You truly deserve the epithet "The Nasty Party". pic.twitter.com/aR4jqLkEiT

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

Now, to avoid facing the truth of your own inadequacies, you have decided to blame our friends in Europe for your failings. Your party leaders have deliberately lied to the UK and divided the country with a Brexit that will only bring more poverty, job losses and failure.

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

You presided over a referendum whose result was bought with foreign influence and money, and have failed to acknowledge this or hold the perpetrators to account for it.

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

You deliberately failed to consult Europeans that have called the UK home for decades and British living abroad who may now be forced to give up their lives in the EU. You pandered to your increasingly geriatric membership and enabled the UK's ignorant bigots.

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

I voted Tory from 1979 until Cameron. I will never vote Tory again. You have betrayed the faith that millions of businesspeople had in the Tories and lost your reason to exist.

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

You are ignoring the growing number that now understand that Brexit is an irreversible mistake. Once the truth about Brexit is revealed to the credulous that still believe it is good for the UK, the Tory party will never hold power again.

— QuantumChoices #FBPE #ABTV (@tfoale) January 22, 2019

The WALL, a Mnemonic Device

Polarize. Divide and rule. The cartoonist @MarianKamensky1 explains how Trump did it: pic.twitter.com/sYItrq5ia9

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) January 25, 2019

Don’t forget, we are building and renovating big sections of Wall right now. Moving quickly, and will cost far less than previous politicians thought possible. Building, after all, is what I do best, even when money is not readily available!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2019

 


 more
 

In other words—the “wall” was originally cooked up as a trick to use the candidate’s narcissism (“I am the greatest builder!”)to get him to talk about immigration policy.

Virtually *everything* about this man and his “presidency” can be understood through his narcissism.

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) January 6, 2019

 

Once built, the wall would become boring. In 2014, Trump's spin doctors set the wall on the agenda so that Trump can focus on a simple issue for simple minds. As intended, the Dems proudly got caught in that trap.

More: https://t.co/Q9hwGH3AMA

cc: @jahimes

— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) January 21, 2019

Alice-themed Brexit Caricatures

Lewis Carroll's Alice again being evoked to make sense of #Brexit by @fotoole, interpreting the Sun title page after the #MeaningfulVote "a lot of frantically anarchic running overseen by a defunct creature, the Brextinct dodo." – Not the first May Dodo! https://t.co/wHVVvrgRO6 pic.twitter.com/NibbRndPtP

— Franziska Kohlt (@frankendodo) January 18, 2019

On the occasion of the renewed #brexitchaos let me remind you of the frabjous Brexit-Jabberwocky by the fantastic @JohnMinnion https://t.co/l67KR1sM4n #AliceInWonderland #Brexitland @madeleinakay @luciendyoung pic.twitter.com/WIeH2HMVGH

— Franziska Kohlt (@frankendodo) November 15, 2018

There have in fact been a few great Alice-inspired Brexit caricatures and parodies, here's 'Alice in Sunderland', on Brexit and Nissan's super-plant plan, by Martin Rowsonhttps://t.co/VeHM2nyTNe pic.twitter.com/N9MVntqyK6

— Franziska Kohlt (@frankendodo) November 16, 2018

"Down the Brexit-Hole" was also a common theme, here by Ingram Pinn for @FT https://t.co/Vcne2eVLti pic.twitter.com/mIbu4Ig6EO

— Franziska Kohlt (@frankendodo) November 16, 2018

Putin & Trump, Helsinki, 2018-07-16

The changes in the transcript.

== VOX ==
PUTIN: […] We have solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers, guided these transactions. So we have an interest of questioning them. That could be a first step. We can extend also it. Options abound. They all can be found in an appropriate legal framework.
REPORTER (Jeff Mason from Reuters): President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?
PUTIN: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.
(Source: VOX, by @jennieneufeld)

== White House (as of 2018-07-09, “Issued on: July 16, 2018 […] 5:56 P.M. EEST”) ==
PRESIDENT PUTIN: (As interpreted) […] We have solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers, guided these transactions. So we have an interest of questioning them. That could be a first step. We can extend also it. Options abound. They all can be found in an appropriate legal framework.
Q[uestion:] And did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?
PRESIDENT PUTIN: (As interpreted.) Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.
(Source: White House)

== White House (as of 2018-08-09, but still “Issued on: July 16, 2018 […] 5:56 P.M. EEST”) ==
PRESIDENT PUTIN: (As interpreted) […] So we have a solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have an interest of questioning them. That could be a first step, and we can also extend it. Options abound, and they all can be found in an appropriate legal framework.
Q[uestion:] President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election? And did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?
PRESIDENT PUTIN: (As interpreted.) Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.
(Source: White House)

 
The White House had to correct the official transcript. The error seems to have been caused by technical problems. But as for the issue date, the White House keeps providing wrong information: The final transcript was not issued on July 16th, 2018. The corrected version was issued on August 9th.

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