Joe Biden called Trump supporters Garbage.

I am not supporting Trump, I am highlighting that this is not a one sided problem.

This post was edited by ferdia on Sep 19 2025 04:55am

There was a big debate at the time as to whether Biden was referring to all trump supporters or just those who demonize immigrants. Either way I think it’s fair game to criticize politicians when they inflame our political divisions.

What I said is still absolutely true though. No president in modern history has sought to mine our political division and polarization for their own gain like Donald trump. No one. It’s not a one off comment here or there. He does this at every opportunity. And frequently manufactures those opportunities himself.

Again, i am not defending Trump, i am highlighting that the narrative on both sides is way too divisive. Trump was not born in a vacuum, and it was a Republican, Mitch McConnell, who industrialized this divide over the last 2 decades. In tandem with this the whole freedom of (all) speech thing has brought America to a cliff. If you look at some of the recent threads you will notice its always attack attack attack. What the United States needs right now is unity and that does not mean bashing on trump from the left or bashing on the left from the right. I dont have an answer but I know the current culture is leading the US off a cliff. Its in the Name. United States.

I look at these threads and I am torn between getting popcorn and trying to say something.

This post was edited by ferdia on Sep 19 2025 05:41am

We need leaders who seek to unify us. But we should still be able to criticize leaders who seek to divide us for their own personal and political gain. If trump is out there demonizing his opponents everyday he doesn’t deserve unfair praise because of unity. That’s not reasonable or fair, it cuts both ways. We should demand better of our politicians. And so far trump has done nothing but inflame our divisions and deserves to be called out for that.

No, we need leaders willing to cut the wheat from chaff. Or another phrasing.. unify the middle. Republicans used to be the wacky fringe extreme right. Now the Democrats have the extreme political ideology undermining their party.

completely on board with the notion of unify the middle, but these are lone voices in a storm of conflicting views.

There's a big difference between claiming Trump seeks power for power's sake and Trump exploits politician divisions to gain power.
He has certainly used the polarizing issues and roiled up conspiracy theorists and fanned the flames to boost his political ambitions, that much is true, but he rather pointedly did not do it at every opportunity and in fact has been the force who tempered his own supporters. And that's precisely the contrast I made earlier on in this thread when talking about the centralization of power and cult of personality.

Democrats have unleashed their blueanon radicals and fanned their populist extremism at every opportunity without moderating their position when things escalated to violence.
When Trump was shot and nearly assassinated, he went on to give a speech at his convention which was almost 100% positive themed, did not blame democrats and in fact mentioned kamala almost zero times.
When Trump's supporters rioted at the capitol, it was Trump who appealed to them to go home and be peaceful.
When Trump's base wanted Hillary locked up after the election, he's the one who said he would not persecute her and would focus on rebuilding our country.
When Trump's qanon supporters got too crazy, he disavowed them.
When liberals rioted after George Floyd, democrats kept egging them on no matter how violent and destructive they got.
When liberals viciously maligned Kavanaugh, democrats piled on
When liberals tried to get Trump locked up on phony charges, democrats brought the rope to hang him
When liberals cheered for Charlie Kirk's assassination, democrats made themselves the victims of the story or just openly cheered for Charlie Kirk's assassination

Trump has had numerous opportunities to make things far worse for our country by taking the low road. And yet when things started going too far, or his base's extremism started to become a liability, Donald Trump used his cult of personality to restore civility. We should be thankful for that, and wary that we've got 3 more years where Trump could backslide and start echoing the same outrages that were perpetrated against him and take that eye for an eye. I keep posting about how cognizant we should be of that threat. But you cry wolf every time and we'll be myopically inured to the danger if it does manifest.

And also as I said before, having centralized party leadership can be used both for dictatorial violence and benevolent civility
Democrats do not have a leader to rein their radicals. If Trump tells his base to knock it off, they do. Who among Democrats today actually has the star power to write off a radical fringe? I don't think even Obama or Sanders could

This is the frankenstein's monster the democrats unleashed by pandering to the worst elements. Obama puts out a statement saying we should be civil, nobody gives a fuck. Millions of democrats are openly cheering political violence, and even celebrities feel emboldened to risk their careers just to take a piss on Charlie Kirk's grave

No he hasn’t. You know he hasn’t, you know that’s not true and yet are just trying to gaslight people again/still.

Notice how I make an argument by first stating my premise and then giving evidence that supports that premise, and you make an argument by saying "NO U"

Before they had even gotten up to speak I had decided to listen to Kamala and Trump's convention speeches while tallying how many times they negatively referred to the other candidate, to get an idea for how much positive vs negative campaigning they were doing. As a matter of fact, I've got both transcripts right here still;
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech-transcript.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/us/politics/kamala-harris-speech-transcript.html

Trump never referred to Kamala by name a single time, only grouping her with Biden in some tame criticism of his opponents performance, and only mentioned Biden by name once while criticizing his administration a few times, but overwhelmingly he gave a positive speech. Kamala by contrast spent every minute that wasn't about her origin story talking about Trump and how much she hates him. 19x 'trump', 30x ' he ', etc etc, search it yourself.

Now contrast these central themes of their speeches:



vs



Do you understand the difference between someone who is purposefully fanning the flames of hatred and someone who has consciously appealed to our better angels?