I don’t normally read the Daily Wire, but they baited me with that title in an email. It’s classic DW: reduce a complex issue to a single point, challenge a group of people with it, and claim victory when they don’t get a simple answer. It’s what they did with the “what is a woman” question, and it was the entirety of Charlie Kirk’s “debate” strategy. So yes, confront people who aren’t expecting a quiz while point cameras and microphones at them, and most will freeze and be more inarticulate. That doesn’t mean you’ve won something, it means you’ve exploited normal human social awkwardness.
I would answer that he’s flouted the constitution, has essentially declared war on states that don’t support his policies, is capricious and arbitrary in his decisions, and is trying to neutralize the checks and balances of the Republic. I’m sure you all could write whole paragraphs citing his self-serving actions.
But DW goes on to point out the horrors of the No Kings protests. Such violence!
Some protests took unsettling turns. A disturbing video from Chicago shows a middle-aged woman making a gun gesture with her hand and pointing to her neck. Towards the end of the D.C. protest, a chant broke out that “Turning Point has got to go.” Many signs featured rhetoric claiming “Trump was a Nazi” and “ICE = Gestapo.” A small fragment of the protest made the event a family affair with children holding signs such as “Stop Kidnapping People.”
Yes? I don’t get what the concern is about pointing finger guns at your own neck, and I agree that TPUSA is toxic and that there is a strong resonance between the Republican party and Nazis. And please, please, please do stop kidnapping people.
I think the right wing is floundering.
Notorious left-wing radical James Donald Bowman once compared Trump to Hitler
How much you wanna bet that at least some of the people they asked were, in fact, able to give a coherent answer (e.g., having effectively usurped the Congress’s Article Ⅰ enumerated power of the purse, just to name one), and they just elected not to print any such answer. Ray Comfort-level malicious vox pop tactics.
It’s the same street interview tactic that Kimmel uses. You only show the dumb ones. People answering correctly and coherently aren’t funny.
For the DW, people who make valid points don’t enrage their audience.
@Reginald, heh I should’ve noticed James Donald’s initials were J.D. before looking him up.
@4 ‘m sure we all agree that people should use the name they were assigned at birth, and not be allowed to change them willy-nilly. Also; three names, just like most serial killers.
The No Kings protests had almost zero arrests for anything.
Which is remarkable for marches with 7 million people.
You can’t say the same for the very few MAGAt counterprotesers though. More of them were arrested.
.1. Woman admits to waving gun at protesters at Myrtle Beach …
.2. City police arrested a man who flashed a gun to people protesting President Donald Trump’s administration at Saturday’s “No Kings” event at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania…
.3. Man Drives Truck Through No Kings Protest, Hits Woman, and Speeds Away in Jackson Township, Ohio.
.4. Man drives into crowd of protesters at ‘No Kings’ rally in Virginia
.5. Etc. Quite a few car attacks where someone drives into the crowd.
I’ve seen one tally that 22 MAGAt counterprotesters were arrested for violence or threats of violence. The number of protesters arrested was barely above zero.
One person was arrested for being in an inflatable penis costume. In Alabama. No surprise.
Of course photos and videos of the woman in the inflatable penis costume are now all over the internet.
Well, Alabama, no surprise.
You can’t even buy publicity this bad.
@ ^ Reginald Selkirk : hey George Santos used multiple names and alias and thatwa sjust fine by Trump – who, oh yeah, himself has used quite afew differnet aliasés (ali-ii?) over the years.. Hey if George Elliott and Samuel Clemens can do it..
To answer the question of :
What made Trump a King?
I’d say quite possibly some really dodgy election cheating & rigging by Musk, definitely voter suppression plus those who disastrously counter-productively either did not vote, voted for third party spoilers esp Stein and West, or were brain-washed Trump cultists who voted for him. Basically, anyone who did NOT vote for Kamala Harris and the Democratic party despite being warned and knowing what Trump was and what he’d do especially after 2016 and his first term and, oh yeah, Jan 6th 2020.
Now the rest of us in the rest of the world and those who did pass the most basic test of ethics and intelligence in the USA and thus voted for Kamala also have to pay the price of that apocalyptic error.
Kings? Inbred royalty are not very clever. And King Prince Charles refused to remove Andrew from the official list of royal deputies (in case of the king getting sick) when Angela Rainer brought up the issue 2022. This backfired with the Andrew scandal that arrived two weeks ago. I would say Charles is not as crass as DJT but not a genius either.
So a mediocre to stupid person surrounded with sycophants with no talents and an enormous sense of entitlement is the normal description of royalty.
(The Scandinavian royals have mostly avoided this trap. So have the Dutch royals. The rest? Not so much, in fact most have gone extinct because of blunders)
I expect the MAGA lord to stumble out of history without leaving a viable political successor.
And in regard to his affinity to excrement, it tracks that his colleague King Ubu shouted “merde!” over and over.
Someone asked me tyhe same question, as if it were an unanswerable “gotcha.” My imediate response was, “Well, there’s the multiple pictures he posts of himself wearing a crown, and his complete disregard for the other branches of government, the rule of law, and the Constitution. Is that enough or do you want more?”
@ 9. birgerjohansson : With you up to the last sentence where I really don’t get your reference sorry.
Tariffs
Pardoning criminals
Pedophilia
Rape
Shitting down the government
Eliminating social security and Medicare
Issuing unconstitutional executive orders
Epstein
Epstein
Epstein
The most incompetent cabinet ever assembled.
Taxation without representation.
They have learned well from Ray Comfort.
It’s a big protest, and it gets under their skin. That’s at least something.
@11
It’s probably a reference to the play Ubu Roi.
@ 11 — To amplify further, Ubu Roi is a play by French Dadaist/surrealist Alfred Jarry. When Pere Ubu enters the stage at the beginning of Act 1 he says, “Merde!” or “shit” in English. At the original production, the show was interrupted by several minutes of rioting. When they got the audience calmed down, Ubu said his second line: “Merde!” More rioting ensued. This was 1896 when such language was not used in public places out loud. It was the only showing at the time.
Rioting over a naughty word back in the day. Now, it feels like politicians can say anything without consequences.
@ 14: As every history buff knows, “Merde” may be freely translated as “The Old Guard dies but does not surrender”. Also, I’m reminded of the famous scene in The Wire in which the only dialogue is “fuck” repeated in with varying intonations by two detectives.
To answer the question: attempting to rule by decree, without regard to legislature, constitution, or anything other than royal whim.
My go-to reply would be his flurry of executive orders, many of which are illegal and/or blatantly unconstitutional. They read like royal edicts — this shall be done or heads will roll. And let’s not forget his using ICE, Border Patrol, National Guard and the Marines as his enforcers. I think those are good starters.
There’s two ways in which Trump isn’t king yet:
1. He hasn’t announced a kingdom.
2. He hasn’t announced a dynastic heir.
So for now he’s just a sparkling dictator.
I saw a production of Ubu Roi at an art playhouse in Richmond, Va of all places. The basic story line follows a deranged, corrupt king and his adventures. It’s a little difficult to follow in places because of the many literary and out-of-date social references. It’s still worth seeing if anyone gets the chance. Check out Wikipedia for more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubu_Roi
My quick take: He’s made a mockery of due process. If the government isn’t even pretending to be bound by its own laws, how’s that going to lead to anything but absolute power for someone willing to employ that power?
@15 Recursive Rabbit
I can remember the outrage when a certain former president wore a tan suit. Now, a president can release a video of himself dropping poo on numerous peacefully protesting Americans and apparently it’s no problem at all.
Trump’s nomination of Paul Ingrassia loses Republican support following racist text messages
Gay Virginia Republican plagued by Nazi porn scandal brags running mate is ‘100% against’ marriage equality
@19 John Watts,.#14 robro & #16. John Harshman : Ah. Thanks . Soemthing new learnt today. Cheers!
Don’t forget the other technique of the candid camera interview: edit out any participant who gives a coherent, clear and concise answer so that it seems like all of the participants don’t understand their own point.
I have to comment at this point that the abbreviation “DW” usually stands for “Deutsche Welle”, which is the official German channel aimed at foreign audiences.
I would hope that their reporting is nowhere near a US far-right outlet.
[drdrdrdrdralhazeneuler, good point]
I know precisely how to answer the question. He’s been convicted on rape grounds and led an insurrection, and he directed an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Yet there is no prosecution.
He does not submit to other social norms (such as truthfulness and human rights). He’s doing all the parades and lavish building projects. He’s trying to stay in office permanently, tries to persecute political opponents and surrounds himself with loyalists who lack the necessary qualification to lead. He tries to suppress his population using the military.
Then there is the kind of conservatism he represents, which could have been promoted by many a king of 19th century Europe. There is the enormous discrepancy between the talent that he himself claims to have (enormous) and the one that he actually has (he can’t seem to read lower-case letters).
@ 26/27 drdrdrdrdralhazeneuler/Morales
In this case it means “Daily Wire” as specified in the OP.
(Read for comprehension).
@ 8 StevoR
Stevo manages to go a single day without blaming people who didn’t vote for Trump for the election of Trump 2025 challenge!!
{Difficultly level: impossible.}
The last part confuses me. Why the seventh circle? That’s for the wrathful. Oh, wait, these are people who consider holding signs and calling for reform to be rioting.
Joe Rogan Falls for Fake Trump Tweet About the No Kings Protest
Ironically, even the legitimate powers of an American President are considerably greater than those of George III (“King George” to most Americans), let alone our current hapless monarch, Charles III. George III did not run the executive – that was his Prime Minister. If he’d tried to reinstitute “personal rule”, he’d have been packed off to Hanover (where he was something approaching an absolute ruler) before you could say “Glorious Revolution”. He could appoint any member of Parliament as PM (and if the man he wanted wasn’t a member, make him a lord, so he was), but his appointee had to be able to persuade Parliament to vote for taxes. Charles I was the last British monarch to try to rule without Parliament – and that didn’t end particularly well for him.
Back in February, Lord Peter Mandelson, the newly appointed UK ambasador, invited the recently re-inaugurated Trump to a traditional British tea. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, Trump said, “I really admire you English and your royalty. I think I would really like being a king here.”
The Ambassador said, “Mr. President, in order for you to be a king, the United States would have to be a kingdom. Your Constitution would not allow that.”
So Trumps then said, “Well maybe I could be an emperor. I like the sound of Emperor Trump.”
The Ambassador shook his head and said, “Sir, in order for you to be an emperor, the United States would have to be an empire, but it isn’t.”
Trump persisted, “Well, what about that place with all the gambling? Could I be a ruler like that guy?”
The Ambassador said, “Do you mean Monaco? That is a principality. The United States is not a principality, so you cannot be a prince. I am afraid that as long as you are in charge, the United States must remain a country.”