[AMV] Amerikaanse politiek #724 Stone got a friendships pardon?

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 22:13 schreef theunderdog het volgende:

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Ik lees er nu ook over. Het is mij alleen niet erg duidelijk wat dat met de crisis te maken heeft. En dat verband legt Warren hier wel.

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 22:19 schreef kipknots het volgende:

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Nee, Bloomberg legde dat verband in het verleden, Warren gaat er tegenin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2(...)mberg-redlining.html

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 22:15 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Wanneer knapt er een bloedvaatje?
https://twitter.com/theplumlinegs/status/1228289494467665920

Intro: “ You have to read this startling account of Trump raging uncontrollably over the failure of the Justice Department to prosecute numerous of his political enemies.

This is the raging of an utterly unhinged, would-be despot.”

twitter:

rgoodlaw twitterde op vrijdag 14-02-2020 om 13:33:27 "The president has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case."- Bill Barr in ABC interview. Washington Post report details criminal cases Trump's been raging about internally, including "Trump has become more insistent Durham finish his work soon." Insistent with whom? https://t.co/cazYUVam16 reageer retweet

twitter:

JoyceWhiteVance twitterde op vrijdag 14-02-2020 om 20:11:47 So, did Bill Barr just wake up one morning & decide to open an investigation into the statement agents took from General Flynn, or did someone *suggest* that he do so? reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 20:54 schreef Sjemmert het volgende:

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Mwah dit heeft te maken met McCabe zijn autorisatie aan 2 FBI officials om informatie te lekken aan de media omtrent de zaak van Clinton. Waar hij onder ede over heeft gelogen maar nu dus om onduidelijke redenen toch mee weg komt.

Het Durham onderzoek staat hier geheel los van.

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 23:19 schreef speknek het volgende:
Trump is een narcist en zoals de waard is vertrouwt hij zijn gasten. Alles wat hij zegt over zichzelf is hoe hij echt over zichzelf denkt, en alles wat hij zegt over anderen is hoe hij zichzelf projecteert op anderen. Dat is de limiet van zijn cognitieve vermogens.

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 23:23 schreef theunderdog het volgende:

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Jij gaat de komende aantal jaren niet meer naar de VS, he?

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Poll: Majority says Biden son’s Ukraine job was inappropriate

A majority of voters believe it was inappropriate for Joe Biden’s son to work for a Ukrainian gas company while his father led U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the country, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

The Biden-Ukraine affair ultimately led to President Donald Trump’s impeachment for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. Voters were split 47-47 percent on whether it was appropriate for the Senate last week to acquit Trump, the poll shows.

In contrast, 52 percent of voters believe it was inappropriate for Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to take the job with the firm Burisma, while 18 percent said it was appropriate. Fifty-seven percent said it was a scandal while 19 percent said it wasn’t.

Still, a plurality of 40 percent said the Biden-Ukraine affair wouldn’t make any difference in their vote, while 31 percent said it made them less likely to support him and 8 percent said more likely.

....

The poll shows 54 percent of voters see some type of conflict of interest, and only 16 percent said there wasn’t one. But voters were divided about how serious it was, with 35 percent saying it’s a conflict of interest that should have been investigated and 19 percent saying it’s a conflict of interest that’s not serious enough to warrant an investigation.

Much of the support for an investigation comes from Republicans, 63 percent of whom say a probe is warranted, compared with 11 percent of Democrats and 32 percent of independents. Thirty-one percent of Democrats say there was no conflict of interest compared with 11 percent of independents and 4 percent of Republicans.

Independent voters, whose support can be crucial in a general election, were far more likely than Democrats to view Hunter Biden’s business dealings as inappropriate, 54 percent to12 percent. And by 57 percent to 15 percent, independents said it was a scandal, with 28 percent calling it a “major” scandal and 27 percent a “minor” scandal.

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“Where’s Hunter?” is a favorite refrain of the president, whose campaign sells T-shirts printed with the slogan.

Biden suggested Thursday that he wanted to beat up Trump.

“I would like to be able to be back in high school and just have he and I in a room,” Biden said.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 00:12 schreef Sjemmert het volgende:
Impeachment backfired voor Biden
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https://www.politico.com/(...)-poll-ukraine-115096

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 23:22 schreef Refragmental het volgende:

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Liegen onder ede is blijkbaar toch niet strafbaar. Andere reden kan ik niet bedenken.

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Mr. McCabe’s lawyers have vigorously denied that he intentionally lied to Mr. Horowitz’s investigators. In a bid to convince law enforcement officials that they had no case, Mr. McCabe’s lawyers met in August with the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, and the former United States attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie K. Liu, whose prosecutors handled the case.

In September, the grand jury was recalled after going months without meeting but left the courthouse without revealing any signs of an impending indictment. The next day, Justice Department officials told Mr. McCabe’s lawyers that they had rejected the last-ditch appeal to not charge him.

Hints of the case’s weakness had emerged. One prosecutor assigned to the case recently left, an unusual step so close to a potential indictment. Another departed for a private law firm and has expressed reservations about how the case was handled.

A key witness testified that Mr. McCabe had no motive to lie because he was authorized as the F.B.I.’s deputy director to speak to the news media, so he would not have had to hide any discussions with reporters. Another important witness testified he could not immediately remember how the leak unfolded. Both would have been crucial to any prosecution.

Additionally, people who are charged with lying to the F.B.I. are typically accused of committing the offense in the course of a criminal investigation, not an administrative inquiry. For example, Mr. Horowitz determined last year that a senior Justice Department official committed wrongdoing by viewing pornography on his work computers and then providing false statements to investigators, but prosecutors declined to bring charges.

Mr. McCabe’s lawyers made the case to Mr. Rosen that other former officials were not prosecuted after they were caught lying to the inspector general’s investigators.

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The Justice Department's decision came the same day it was required by a judge to make details about the McCabe investigation public in a case stemming from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The court transcripts, released after the Justice Department's letter to McCabe's lawyers, show prosecutors struggling with how to proceed in his case, and the judge in the matter expressing concerns about political pressure.

In one of the newly released transcripts, from a hearing in July, Cooney, who heads the Washington U.S. Attorney's Office fraud unit, told the judge they expected to make a decision on whether to charge McCabe within 60 days.

When they returned to court in early September, Cooney told Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, that no decision had been made, but they expected to have one within days.

At the next hearing, on Sept. 30, Cooney said "That prediction was obviously incorrect."

The judge asked why it was taking so long.

"I don't know why it's so difficult for a decision to be made," Walton said. "Either you have a case or you don't."

Cooney told the judge "this is an exceedingly difficult matter and situation" and that he needed another three months.

"I don't get it," the judge said, telling Cooney he needed to make a decision in the CREW lawsuit and that "it seems to me from the standpoint of Mr. McCabe, he has a right to have the government make a decision and not hold his life in limbo pending a decision as to what's going to happen."

'It's a banana republic'

Walton added, "I understand there are political implications and other implications involved in reference to whether you go forward. And I fully appreciate the complexity of the assessment, especially -- unfortunately, to be candid -- in light of the way by the White House, which I don't think top executive officers should be doing. Because it does, I think, really complicate your ability to get a fair adjudication from the government's prospective.

"Because the public is listening to what's going on, and I don't think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted," Walton said. "I just think it's a banana republic when we go down that road, and we have those type of statements being made that are conceivably, even if not, influencing the ultimate decision. I think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive that there is undue inappropriate pressure being brought to bear."

"It's very disturbing that we're in the mess that we're in in that regard," Walton added later. "Because I think having been a part of the prosecution for a long time and respecting the role that prosecutors play in the system. I just think the integrity of the process is being unduly undermined by inappropriate comments and actions on the part of people at the top of our government. I think it's very unfortunate. And I think as a government and as a society, we're going to pay a price at some point for this."

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Bron

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 00:12 schreef Sjemmert het volgende:
Impeachment backfired voor Biden
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https://www.politico.com/(...)-poll-ukraine-115096

twitter:

kylegriffin1 twitterde op zaterdag 15-02-2020 om 00:35:01 Breaking via WaPo: As the impeachment trial drew to a close, federal prosecutors in New York contacted witnesses and sought to collect additional documents in an investigation related to Rudy Giuliani, according to people familiar with their activities. https://t.co/oWS63tFLLk reageer retweet

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As the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump drew to a close in Washington earlier this month, federal prosecutors in New York contacted witnesses and sought to collect additional documents in an investigation related to Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, according to people familiar with their activities.

The recent steps — including an interview with a witness last week — indicate that the probe involving Giuliani and two of his former associates is moving forward, even as the Justice Department has set up a process to evaluate claims Giuliani is making about alleged wrongdoing in Ukraine related to former vice president Joe Biden.

Attorney General William P. Barr said this week that the department had established an “intake process” to accept information about Biden gathered by the president’s personal attorney. Officials confirmed Giuliani’s tips are being routed to the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh.

At the same time, the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York — which Giuliani led in the 1980s — appears to be continuing its wide-ranging investigation of his activities and those of his former associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, including their efforts in Ukraine.

Prosecutors from that office recently sought information related to the former U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who the three men pushed Trump to oust, according to a person familiar with the request who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. They have also inquired about two companies with ties to Parnas, who along with Fruman was charged in October with campaign finance violations, according to people with knowledge of the queries.

The parallel developments mean that one part of the Justice Department is scrutinizing Giuliani while another is accepting information from him allegedly concerning a political rival of the president.

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 23:49 schreef speknek het volgende:

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Geen idee. Mijn paper voor de conferentie in Hawaii van April was helaas gereject, en er komt weer een baby aan, dus waarschijnlijk niet. Maar als het voor werk zo uitkomt komt het zo uit.

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 22:13 schreef theunderdog het volgende:

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Ik lees er nu ook over. Het is mij alleen niet erg duidelijk wat dat met de crisis te maken heeft. En dat verband legt Warren hier wel.

twitter:

kylegriffin1 twitterde op zaterdag 15-02-2020 om 03:15:56 Mike Pompeo met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The US side apparently wanted to keep it under wraps.The State Dept. made no announcement of the meeting. Pompeo's aides did not provide a readout. https://t.co/OvdbOvw6Iy reageer retweet

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday in an encounter the American side apparently wanted to keep under wraps.

The State Department made no announcement of the meeting, which took place in Lavrov's own dedicated meeting room at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where the major annual conference of politicians, policymakers and security experts is held. Pompeo's aides also did not provide any readout after the meeting ended.

Russian journalists traveling with Lavrov were aware of the meeting in advance, and wrote about it afterward.

Lavrov's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, confirmed the meeting in a Facebook post, which included a photo of Pompeo in a hallway of the hotel, and Lavrov standing in a doorway a few steps behind him.

In the post, Zakharova wrote that Pompeo had said "good luck" to those gathered in the hallway, and cheekily added that those who heard it "gasped."

"There are few to whom Americans now wish something good," she wrote.

Asked about the meeting by POLITICO, a State Department official confirmed that there had been a "pull aside" with Lavrov but gave no further details. The official denied that the State Department asked Russia not to publicize the meeting and said it did not normally issue readouts of "pull asides."

There was no mention of the meeting in a briefing by a senior administration official about U.S. efforts at the security conference. The official said Pompeo met with Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and that U.S. officials met with Israeli counterparts as well as with a senior EU foreign affairs official, Helga Schmid.

It was not immediately clear why the State Department did not disclose the meeting between Pompeo and his Russian counterpart in advance.

The secretary of state has had some tense interactions with journalists recently, including an outburst at a National Public Radio reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, after Pompeo became angry at being asked questions about Ukraine in an interview. After that outburst, the State Department barred another NPR reporter from traveling on Pompeo's plane.

A Russian journalist traveling with Lavrov said the U.S. side had requested that there be no press conference or joint statements and that photographers not even be invited to take a picture of the two top diplomats shaking hands.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 14-02-2020 om 14:33:56 “The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.” A.G. Barr This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to! reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 14 februari 2020 23:49 schreef speknek het volgende:

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Geen idee. Mijn paper voor de conferentie in Hawaii van April was helaas gereject, en er komt weer een baby aan, dus waarschijnlijk niet. Maar als het voor werk zo uitkomt komt het zo uit.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 01:56 schreef Tweek het volgende:

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Het verband zijn de uitspraken van Bloomberg dat de zwarten amerikanen schuldig waren aand ie crisis, omdat zij eindelijk huizen konden kopen die ze eigenlijk niet konden betalen, doordat banken meer geld leenden dan ze redelijk terug konden verwachten.

Warren gaat daar tegen in, omdat het argument dat het door de afro amerikanen komt een non argument is. Het is de schuld van de banken die ongereguleerd geld konden lenen.

Terwijl de Afro Amerikaanse bevolking minder kansen had om een huis te kopen door de eeuwen heen, waardoor er meerdere wetten zijn gemaakt omdat tegen te gaan. Zoals de Fair Housing act in 1968, die er doelbewust kwam omdat racisme op de woningmarkt een ding was.

De makelijkste manier om rijkdom te vergaren is vastgoed, want op een gegeven moment geef je dat door aan je kinderen. De afro amerikaanse bevolking is die zelfde kans voor honderede jaren onthouden, het moment dat de banken dus besloten om hen geld te lenen tegen slechte regelingen, is niet de afro amerikanen aan te rekenen maar de banken.

Bloomberg heeft die banking crisis neer gegooid op de afro amerikanen en niet de banken, daar gaat warren tegen in.

Dat is allemaal algemene kennis. Of je bent een dome lul die zich niet verdiept in het onderwerp en hebt er een mening over. Het is allemaal niet zo lang geleden. De VS was diep racistisch tot kort geleden, en is het nog steeds. Minder dan 1 a 2 generaties geleden, wat ook maar 30 jaar ofzo is.

Dit alles met 5 minuten google en algemene kennis.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 08:37 schreef theunderdog het volgende:

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Over een paar jaar weten ze exact wat je op het internet allemaal zegt

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 08:42 schreef mcmlxiv het volgende:

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En dat vindt jij en je mede trumpanzees een uitstekend idee toch?

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 08:43 schreef theunderdog het volgende:

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Ik ben geen trumpzanzee..

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 08:44 schreef mcmlxiv het volgende:

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Grappig waar je wel en waar je niet op reageert.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 08:45 schreef theunderdog het volgende:

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Grappig dat je geen basis vertrouwen hebt in de mens. Dat ik een big brother wereld niet fijn zou vinden, spreekt voor zich lijkt mij.

Maar blijf lekker verder provoceren, hoor. Triest.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 08:53 schreef mcmlxiv het volgende:

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Op dit forum spreekt niets vanzelf. Vol met verwarde mensen die denken dat trump een psychisch gezond mens is, geen narcistisch psychopaat is en een goede intelligente president is die een of ander moeras gaat leegzuigen. Iemand die het beste met de VS en haar bevolking voor heeft en zo. Het zou kunnen zijn dat jij die verwarring ook deelt toch?

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After Attending a Trump Rally, I Realized Democrats Are Not Ready For 2020
I’ve been a Democrat for 20 years. But this experience made me realize how out-of-touch my party is with the country at large.


I think those of us on the left need to take a long look in the mirror and have an honest conversation about what’s going on.
If you had told me three years ago that I would ever attend a Donald Trump rally, I would have laughed and assured you that was never going to happen. Heck, if you had told me I would do it three months ago, I probably would have done the same thing. So, how did I find myself among 11,000-plus Trump supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire? Believe it or not, it all started with knitting.
You might not think of the knitting world as a particularly political community, but you’d be wrong. Many knitters are active in social justice communities and love to discuss the revolutionary role knitters have played in our culture. I started noticing this about a year ago, particularly on Instagram. I knit as a way to relax and escape the drama of real life, not to further engage with it. But it was impossible to ignore after roving gangs of online social justice warriors started going after anyone in the knitting community who was not lockstep in their ideology. Knitting stars on Instagram were bullied and mobbed by hundreds of people for seemingly innocuous offenses. One man got mobbed so badly that he had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the hospital on suicide watch. Many things were not right about the hatred, and witnessing the vitriol coming from those I had aligned myself with politically was a massive wake-up call.


You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.
But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything. I started making a proactive effort to break my echo chamber by listening to voices I thought I would disagree with. I wanted to understand their perspective, believing it would confirm that they were filled with hate for anyone who wasn’t like them.
That turned out not to be the case. The more voices outside the left that I listened to, the more I realized that these were not bad people. They were not racists, nazis, or white supremacists. We had differences of opinions on social and economic issues, but a difference of opinion does not make your opponent inherently evil. And they could justify their opinions using arguments, rather than the shouting and ranting I saw coming from my side of the aisle.


I started to discover (or perhaps rediscover) the #WalkAway movement. I had heard about #WalkAway when MSNBC told me it was fake and a bunch of Russian bots. But then I started to meet real people who had been Democrats and made the decision to leave because they could not stand the way the left was behaving. I watched town halls they held with different minority communities (all available in their entirety on YouTube), and I saw sane, rational discussion from people of all different races, backgrounds, orientations, and experiences. I joined the Facebook group for the community and saw stories popping up daily of people sharing why they are leaving the Democratic Party. This wasn’t fake. These people are not Russian bots. Moreover, it felt like a breath of fresh air. There was not universal agreement in this group — some were Trump supporters, some weren’t — but they talked and shared their perspective without shouting or rage or trying to cancel each other.
I started to question everything. How many stories had I been sold that weren’t true? What if my perception of the other side is wrong? How is it possible that half the country is overtly racist? Is it possible that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing, and had I been suffering from it for the past three years?
And the biggest question of all was this: Did I hate Trump so much that I wanted to see my country fail just to spite him and everyone who voted for him?
Fast-forward to the New Hampshire primary, and we have all the politicians running around the state making their case. I’ve seen almost every Democratic candidate in person and noticed that their messages were almost universally one of doom and gloom, not only focusing on the obvious disagreements with Donald Trump, but also making sure to emphasize that the country is a horribly racist place.
Now, I do believe there are very real issues when it comes to race that we as a society have yet to reckon with. I believe that everyone from every background of every gender should have equal access to opportunities, and that no one is inherently more or less valuable or worthy than anyone else. And while the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to a tragedy precipitated by real racists and real nazis and real white supremacists, I started to see that those labels simply don’t apply to most people who support Trump.
But with all of this, I was still reticent to even consider attending a Trump event. I do not believe that Trump’s attitude is worthy of the highest office in the land. I abhor his Twitter. I am vehemently opposed to so many of his policies. But still, I wanted to see for myself.
I’m not going to lie, I was nervous, so I thought I would start my day in familiar territory: at an MSNBC live show that was taking place a few blocks away from the rally. I decided to wear my red hat that looks like a Trump hat but with one small difference — it says “Make Speech Free Again”—as my small protest against cancel culture. I even got a photo with MSNBC host Ari Melber while I was wearing it, just for kicks.
The funny thing about that hat is that it’s completely open to interpretation. When I wear it around left-leaning people, they think I’m talking about the right. When I wear it around right-leaning folks, they think I’m talking about the left. It’s a stark reminder of how much our own perspectives and biases play into how we view the world.
In chatting with the folks at the taping, I casually said that I was thinking about going over to the Trump rally. The first reaction they had was a genuine fear for my safety. I had never seen people I didn’t know so passionately urge me to avoid all those people. One woman told me that those people were the lowest of the low. Another man told me that he had gone to one of Trump’s rallies in the past and had been the target of harassment by large muscle-bound men. Another woman offered me her pepper spray. I assured them all that I thought I would be fine and that I would get the heck out of dodge if I got nervous.
What they didn’t know is that they weren’t the only ones I had heard from who were afraid. Some of my more right-leaning friends online expressed genuine fear at my going, but not because they were afraid of the attendees. They were afraid of people on the left violently attacking attendees. This was one day after a man had run his car through a Republican voter registration tent in Florida, and there was a genuine fear that there would be a repeat, or that antifa would bus people up from Boston for it. Just as I had assured those on the left, I told them I thought I would be fine, because we don’t really have antifa in New Hampshire.
But I’m not going to say it didn’t get to me a bit. When everyone around you is nervous for your safety, it’s hard not to question if they have a point. But it also made me more determined to see it through, because it was a stark reminder that both sides view each other exactly the same way. They are both afraid of the other side and what they are capable of. I couldn’t help but think that if they could just see the world through the lens of the other for a moment or two, it would be a stark revelation that they don’t know as much as they think they do.


So, I headed over an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open—which was four hours before Trump was set to take the stage—and the line already stretched a mile away from the entrance to the arena. As I waited, I chatted with the folks around me. And contrary to all the fears expressed, they were so nice. I was not harassed or intimidated, and I was never in fear of my safety even for a moment. These were average, everyday people. They were veterans, schoolteachers, and small business owners who had come from all over the place for the thrill of attending this rally. They were upbeat and excited. In chatting, I even let it slip that I was a Democrat. The reaction: “Good for you! Welcome!”
Once we got inside, the atmosphere was jubilant. It was more like attending a rock concert than a political rally. People were genuinely enjoying themselves. Some were even dancing to music being played over the loudspeakers. It was so different than any other political event I had ever attended. Even the energy around Barack Obama in 2008 didn’t feel like this.
I had attended an event with all the Democratic contenders just two days prior in exactly the same arena, and the contrast was stark. First, Trump completely filled the arena all the way up to the top. Even with every major Democratic candidate in attendance the other night, and the campaigns giving away free tickets, the Democrats did not do that. With Trump, every single person was unified around a singular goal. With the Democrats, the audience booed over candidates they didn’t like and got into literal shouting matches with each other. With Trump, there was a genuinely optimistic view of the future. With the Democrats, it was doom and gloom. With Trump, there was a genuine feeling of pride of being an American. With the Democrats, they emphasized that the country was a racist place from top to bottom.


Now, Trump is always going to present the best case he can. And yes, he lies. This is provable. But the strength of this rally wasn’t about the facts and figures. It was a group of people who felt like they had someone in their corner, who would fight for them. Some people say, “Well, obviously they’re having a great time. They’re in a cult.” I don’t think that’s true. The reality is that many people I spoke to do disagree with Trump on things. They don’t always like his attitude. They wish he wouldn’t tweet so much. People who are in cults don’t question their leaders. The people I spoke with did, but the pros in their eyes far outweighed the cons. They don’t love him because they think he’s perfect. They love him despite his flaws, because they believe he has their back.
As I left the rally—walking past thousands of people who were watching it on a giant monitor outside the arena because they couldn’t get in—I knew there was no way Trump would lose in November. Absolutely no way. I truly believe that it doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate: Trump is going to trounce them. If you don’t believe me, attend one of his rallies and see for yourself. Don’t worry, they really won’t hurt you.
Today, I voted in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary for Pete Buttigieg. I genuinely feel that Pete would be great for this country, and maybe he’ll have his opportunity in the future. But tomorrow, I’ll be changing my voter registration from Democrat to Independent and walking away from the party I’ve spent the past 20 years in to sit in the middle for a while. There are extremes in both parties that I am uncomfortable with, but I also fundamentally believe that most people on both sides are good, decent human beings who want the best for the country and have dramatic disagreements on how to get there. But until we start seeing each other as human beings, there will be no bridging the divide. I refuse to be a part of the divisiveness any longer. I refuse to hate people I don’t know simply because they choose to vote for someone else. If we’re going to heal the country, we have to start taking steps toward one another rather than away.
I think the Democrats have an ass-kicking coming to them in November, and I think most of them will be utterly shocked when it happens, because they’re existing in an echo chamber that is not reflective of the broader reality. I hope it’s a wake-up call that causes them to take a long look in the mirror and really ask themselves how they got here. Maybe then they’ll start listening. I tend to doubt it, but I can hope.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 12:30 schreef Chivaz het volgende:

Een opmerkelijk verhaal over wat de constante stroom aan negatieve media aandacht doet bij mensen.
Toen ze uiteindelijk zelf is gaan kijken zag ze toch iets heel anders dan wat de media haar heeft voorgeschoteld.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:03 schreef viagraap het volgende:
Treffend wel dat de mensen bij die rally zeggen dat Trump ondanks zijn nare persoonlijkheid iemand is die hun rug heeft, vrij vertaald. Als je het beleid van Trump bekijkt is dat namelijk totaal niet het geval.

De Democraten zullen iemand naar voren moeten schuiven die zulke mensen kan overtuigen dat hij/zij juist degene is die hun rug heeft. Objectief gezien is dat Bernie, en ik denk ook dat hij ze kan overtuigen. Vrijwel alle centrist kandidaten kunnen die overtuiging niet realiseren, omdat ze dan moeten liegen. Dat is het spel van Trump. Dat win je niet van hem.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:23 schreef Knipoogje het volgende:

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Dat klopt. Fox en veel local talkradio stations voeren al een decennialange haatcampagne tegen de democraten, ver voor Trump in beeld was. Al die negativiteit heeft er voor gezorgd dat veel van de 'gewone' Amerikanen -diegenen voor wie Fox hun wereldbeeld is- in de armen zijn gedreven van iemand die het slechtste met hen voor heeft: Trump.
Dus je ziet waar al die negatieve media-aandacht toe leidt: Een totaal verstoord beeld van de werkelijkheid.

En verder zijn MAGA rally's natuurlijk precies wat de media ons voorschotelt: Duizenden low-information mensen die zo'n rally als een uitje zien dat ze een heerlijk dopamine gevoel geven. Althans, dat is wat ik meekrijg als ik de media lees die er over berichten.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:42 schreef Chivaz het volgende:

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Je pretendeert weer beter te weten wat de prioriteiten zijn van deze mensen.
Waar komt dat toch vandaan?

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 12:42 schreef speknek het volgende:
Walkaway is een hashtag bedacht door Republikeinen en Russische bots waar ze zich voordoen als Democraten om verdeeldheid in het Democratische kamp te zaaien, maar ik ben oprecht als ik zeg dat ik Democraat was en jou oproep om te Walkaway.

Okay.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:46 schreef viagraap het volgende:

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De prioriteit van de middenklasse en daaronder in de VS lijkt mij een zekerder bestaan. Nu is het land een soort experiment om te kijken hoe ver je de massa uit kunt knijpen zonder dat ze tegenstribbelen.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:51 schreef Chivaz het volgende:

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Uitknijpen met belastingverlagingen?
Dat je het niet eens bent met het beleid betekent nog niet dat het doel is om de massa uit te knijpen ten gunste van........

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:48 schreef Chivaz het volgende:

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Het was een initiatief van een Democraat die vond dat zijn partij behoorlijk intolerant is geworden naar mensen die anders over zaken denken.
Dat Republikeinen er mee weglopen is niet meer dan logisch.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:57 schreef speknek het volgende:

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Het was een initiatief van een acteur waarvan niet duidelijk is of hij het ooit gemeend heeft maar al snel dacht dat hij een grifting campagne kon starten tot ook de Republikeinen letterlijk wegliepen.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 14:05 schreef Chivaz het volgende:

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Maar al die mensen die zich hebben aangesloten, ook betaalde acteurs of mensen die vinden dat de democratische partij te ver naar links is opgeschoven?

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:51 schreef Chivaz het volgende:

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Uitknijpen met belastingverlagingen?
Dat je het niet eens bent met het beleid betekent nog niet dat het doel is om de massa uit te knijpen ten gunste van........

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President Donald Trump’s long-promised “Tax Cuts 2.0” plan will be released in September, with a 10 percent cut for middle-income taxpayers under discussion, a top White House official said today.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 14:37 schreef Sjemmert het volgende:
Allemaal bots !!1!1! Niet naar luisteren wij bij de MSDNC weten wat goed voor je is !1!1!


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https://www.politico.com/(...)class-tax-cut-115262

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 15:10 schreef ITs_relative het volgende:

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Ik vind dit serieus lachwekkend beleid. Jij staat hier achter?

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:22 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Murkowski zegt dat er indicaties zijn dat Trump toch misschien niet heeft geleerd van zijn impeachment.

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Op zaterdag 15 februari 2020 13:22 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Murkowski zegt dat er indicaties zijn dat Trump toch misschien niet heeft geleerd van zijn impeachment.

MSDNC: President Trump Says He Learned NBC Is "CROOKED" During Impeachment