The Official "Damned Trump" Thread: Phase II

[Pat Mustard]

Ladbrokes is offering 10:1 on Trump not making New Year...
Ladbrokes

My first thought was "good" but then I wondered if his replacement might be worse!

Given his replacement is a lizard person doing their best impression of a marshmallow and has no constituency within the party, I reckon not.

The thing about TACO is that he acts like he's going to live forever, therefore no real succession plan.

[Pat Mustard]

The Administration Wants Military Women to Know Their Place

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth seem to be on a mission to erase women from the top ranks of the U.S. armed forces. Last week, they took another step along this path by removing the first female head of the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland.

Now the first woman to serve as the “supe” has been reassigned and replaced by a man, and for the first time in the academy’s history, the role went to a Marine. Last week, the Navy removed Vice Admiral Yvette Davids from her post and replaced her with Lieutenant General Michael Borgschulte. (Maybe Hegseth thinks Marines are more lethal, to use his favorite Pentagon worship word.) Davids has been sent to the Pentagon, where she will be a deputy chief of naval operations, a senior—but relatively invisible—position.

No reason was given for reassigning Davids. Superintendents typically serve for three to five years, but Davids was pulled from the job after 18 months.

Trump and Hegseth have been on a firing spree throughout the military, especially when it comes to removing women from senior positions. This past winter, the administration fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first female chief of naval operations; Admiral Linda Fagan, the first female Coast Guard commandant; and Lieutenant General Jennifer Short, who was serving as the senior military assistant to the secretary of defense, all within weeks of one another. I taught for many years at the U.S. Naval War College, where I worked under its first female president, Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield. In 2023, she became the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee—and then she was fired in April, apparently in part because of a presentation she gave on Women’s Equality Day 10 years ago.

At this point, women have been cleared out of all of the military’s top jobs. They are not likely to be replaced by other women: Of the three dozen four-star officers on active duty in the U.S. armed forces, none is female, and none of the administration’s pending appointments for senior jobs even at the three-star level is a woman.

Hegseth’s antipathy toward women in the armed forces was well documented back in 2024 by none other than Hegseth himself. In his book The War on Warriors, Hegseth decried what he believed was “social engineering” by the American left: “While the American people had always rejected the radical-feminist so-called ‘Equal Rights Amendment,’ Team Obama could fast-track their social engineering through the military’s top-down chain of command.” (This is probably why Hegseth also fired the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C. Q. Brown, who is a Black man; Brown was let go for ostensibly being too interested in promoting diversity in the armed forces.)

Hegseth seems to be implying that many women in today’s military might have had their fitness reports massaged “in a counterproductive way” to meet some sort of “woke” quota. And that, you see, is why the U.S. military’s most-senior female officers had to be removed: They were clearly part of some affirmative-action scheme.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...ip/683631/

Stolen valour Pete has great hatred for anybody with real courage or aptitude for the job.

[Nanny]

What would you replace it with? Remember what Churchill said about democracy.

Boru

How about a model of democracy where people get voting power equivalent to their IQs? Higher IQs equal more sway to what they choose. I realize this will never happen because stupid people control everything but it's nice to think about. 

PS
Yes, I've seen the Simpsons episode where Mensa takes over Springfield.

But seriously, getting rid of the electoral college is a good start.

Who gets to be the arbiter of the suffrage quotient? Who decides the metrics? Sounds Brave New Worldish
Not everyone gets a Ph.D.

[Rizen]

How about a model of democracy where people get voting power equivalent to their IQs? Higher IQs equal more sway to what they choose. I realize this will never happen because stupid people control everything but it's nice to think about. 

PS
Yes, I've seen the Simpsons episode where Mensa takes over Springfield.

But seriously, getting rid of the electoral college is a good start.

Who gets to be the arbiter of the suffrage quotient? Who decides the metrics?  Sounds Brave New Worldish
Not everyone gets a Ph.D.

Why should stupid people who have no understanding of how the economy or the environment works be the ones to decide what happens? Tell you what: you let a farmer with no formal education operate on your brain then you come back and tell me educated people don't know best.

[arewethereyet]

Who gets to be the arbiter of the suffrage quotient? Who decides the metrics?  Sounds Brave New Worldish
Not everyone gets a Ph.D.

Why should stupid people who have no understanding of how the economy or the environment works be the ones to decide what happens? Tell you what: you let a farmer with no formal education operate on your brain then you come back and tell me educated people don't know best.

Being educated and IQ are two different things.

Pick your battle.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Americans have proven democracy doesn't work. There are three groups: 1 the people who work with science and facts who genuinely want a better country for all groups of people, 2 the science denying Christian nationalists who want rich white, strait, Christian men to control everything, and 3 the appallingly stupid undecided voters who are just pissed about everything without any understanding of how things work and inevitably vote for the other side to take back power after each administration.

I think this analysis is oversimplified. It ignores the drastic economic inequities in our society, and the power that the rich wield to sway the opinions of the poor and/or ignorant.

I think that we've been an oligarchy dressed in democratic clothing for some time now.

[Rizen]

Why should stupid people who have no understanding of how the economy or the environment works be the ones to decide what happens? Tell you what: you let a farmer with no formal education operate on your brain then you come back and tell me educated people don't know best.

Being educated and IQ are two different things.

Pick your battle.

They go hand and hand and my point stands. We're in a society of anti-intellectualism run by a literal convicted rapist, felon, fraud and terrorist who Christians line up to worship. I'm sick of this cancer on society. People, and I mean everyone, should strive to be as educated and informed as possible. We had a president who was trying to pardon student dept but the worthless masses chose a fascist monster over that. They chose a rapist over a woman. They chose racism and bigotry over human decency. How are things going?

[arewethereyet]

Being educated and IQ are two different things.

Pick your battle.

They go hand and hand and my point stands. We're in a society of anti-intellectualism run by a literal convicted rapist, felon, fraud and terrorist who Christians line up to worship. I'm sick of this cancer on society. People, and I mean everyone, should strive to be as educated and informed as possible. We had a president who was trying to pardon student dept but the worthless masses chose a fascist monster over that. They chose a rapist over a woman. They chose racism and bigotry over human decency. How are things going?

Maybe after you brush off the chip on your shoulder a conversation can be had.

[Nanny]

Who gets to be the arbiter of the suffrage quotient? Who decides the metrics?  Sounds Brave New Worldish
Not everyone gets a Ph.D.

Why should stupid people who have no understanding of how the economy or the environment works be the ones to decide what happens? Tell you what: you let a farmer with no formal education operate on your brain then you come back and tell me educated people don't know best.

Politicians run countries. That ain't rocket surgery.

[Rizen]

They go hand and hand and my point stands. We're in a society of anti-intellectualism run by a literal convicted rapist, felon, fraud and terrorist who Christians line up to worship. I'm sick of this cancer on society. People, and I mean everyone, should strive to be as educated and informed as possible. We had a president who was trying to pardon student dept but the worthless masses chose a fascist monster over that. They chose a rapist over a woman. They chose racism and bigotry over human decency. How are things going?

Maybe after you brush off the chip on your shoulder a conversation can be had.

What you think this is a game? Everything I said is true. I was a core organizer for Moveon for years. I did everything I could for equality, the environment and progressive values but in the end, you can't fix stupid. The question shouldn't be "why do I have a chip on my shoulder" but rather, "why don't you?"