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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   25584 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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Despite the "lock her up" rhetoric, Trump didn't actually try to lock Hilary up. That's just off the top of my head. In fact, I don't remember any anti-Democrat lawfare from his administration, although I'm sure we can dig something up.

Why does your worldview rely so strongly on Trump being vindictive?

He's awful in many ways, but vindictiveness doesn't seem to be one of them. His nature is impulsive, not cold-blooded.

Despite the "lock her up" rhetoric, Trump didn't actually try to lock Hilary up.

That's not magnanimity. At best it's baseline, expected behaviour. If you find that to be impressive coming from Trump, that seems like a meaner thing to say about him than even most of his leftie foes tend to use, at least the ones that are at all grounded in reality. (And I say that as one of those foes, though increasingly I'm only "leftie" by the standards of this place.)

Sorry, but this is annoying.

I said Trump is not vindictive. Then someone replied with "give an example of magnanimity". Of course, magnanimity is not the same as not vindictive. Ignoring this contradiction, I replied with an example of how he is not vindictive.

Now you are trying to force me to defend a claim I never made, that Trump is magnanimous? I never said that.

Option 1) Play the bigger man. Pardon himself, obviously, and a few limited other people. Beyond that do nothing. This will prevent a wider conflagration in the culture war. Downside: without a tit-for-tat, the left will be emboldened for much greater tats in the future.

Are you saying you didn't write this?

Also, the piece I replied to was your direct response to the question, referring directly to what I've quoted above, "Is there any time you can point to where he's behaved with such magnanimity?". Like, it's literally what you gave as an example of that, or so anyone would think from reading that part of the thread. I think the "misunderstanding", if it is that and not just revisionist history, is pretty damn understandable.

It mostly didn't work, but settling with Defense Distributed (and giving a not-trivial amount of cash in the settlement offer) is the sort of lawfare I'd expect from a coldblooded conservative, if small-scale by the standards of that sort of cy pres-like lawfare. And then there's the obvious guesswho stuff that didn't work entirely.

I agree that a Count of Monte Cristo-style planned revenge isn't really Trump's strong point, though.

EDIT: that said, I do think it's the sort of thing Paxton would a) have the temperament and skills for, and b) absolutely do it for both political ends and to make an impulsive boss happy.

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