im a centrist who has almost zero faith in either party. always have been.

Trump had nothing to gain by insisting on a prosecution of Clinton, one that was unlikely to succeed in any event given how the FBI handled the investigation. It's a terrible way to spend political capital. Trump's rhetoric coming out of 2016 was moderate, and his first speech after the election was well received.

And it was the very first moment Trump impressed me, he betrayed his most fervent chuds in his victory speech on election night, didn't even wait until he was in office. That's when it became apparent Trump was actually a competent leader who was cynically exploiting his voters, and not the madman who would lead us over a cliff that the democrats kept painting him as. Which is all the more ironic after Joe Biden got painted as the voice of sanity and has spent his whole administration finding new cliffs to drive over

It's funny to hear that after Trump's US Attorney at SDNY just came out claiming that Trump pushed the prosecution of John Kerry and other officials(including Hilary). Not to mention the endless "lock her up" chants.

Trump didn't fail in acting like an authoritarian tyrant because of lack of interest, he failed because the people around him usually wouldn't allow it.

But the support structure for someone like Trump includes people like you, who try to equate the government pursuing justice as equivalent to a tyrant pursuing retribution.

This post was edited by IceMage on Sep 9 2022 09:32am

its funny that in one post you acknowledge he lied to voters using extreme rhetoric and outlandish policy promises, then in the same post blame democrats wholesale for being worried he'd do what he said. you know, that thing people that voted for him and voted against him expected him to at least try.

Its funny but it makes sense. Trump rode a populist wave, Democrats tried to exaggerate it to the extreme, then he immediately reneged on the outlandish promises and went about a reasonable policy agenda. I wanted someone who would take an economic battle to China's doorstep, Trump promised he'd put Hillary Clinton in prison, and Hillary Clinton promised Trump would start a nuclear war. Politicians are all liars, but they're not all competent.

That's probably because they're on the same team.

exaggerating trump is a YUGE task. while there was a lot of hyperbole most of the time all you had to do was post his quotes as a headline.

I don't know enough about that, but Kerry did spend years actively subverting US foreign policy re: Iran, and at the absolute least we should agree that his behavior was inexcusable and he should be exiled from public life.

To be a tyrant you need to actually have power and be able to use it. Trump couldn't prevent his own intelligence services from lying to FISA courts while trying to nail him on one crime after another. He isn't a tyrant by definition.