All I do when I read about Trump and his cohorts is hold my head in my hands and pleading say: Good God. When will it end and how much worse will it get.
Things are getting really bad when Trump can drive an atheist to look for help from the supernatural.
18
This story is really about validation of ignorant and racist beliefs.
And, where does the validation mostly come from? Fox News.
If it's on TV, it must be true.
12
So we can't debate four-star generals? Great! In 2014 16 retired three and four-star generals and admirals published a study titled "National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change" arguing that climate change is accelerating and it poses a serious threat to our national security. Among their findings:
“…climate change impacts are already accelerating instability in vulnerable regions," including the Arctic.
“Projected climate change impacts within the United States will place key elements of our National Power at risk and threaten our homeland security.”
“The projected impacts of climate change will threaten major sectors of the U.S. economy.”
Since its inappropriate to argue with generals then I'm sure the Trump Admin will return to the Paris Climate Agreement in short order and promptly fire Scott Pruitt and any other climate change deniers in that administration. I eagerly await these announcements from Trump's twitter account.
https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/MAB_5-8-14.pdf
14
Mr. Rosenthal,
War between the Nazis and the Soviet Unioin started in June, 1941. The German surrender was in May, 1945. *Four* years is a fair summary. The "six years" length you give for the long and bloody Russian (and others') fight against Hitler suggests you are starting your count in September, 1939. That's nonsense, and you or your editor should know it. In 1939, the Soviets invaded Poland from the East, 16 days after the Nazis invaded from the West. The Soviets and Nazis had signed a treaty and were cooperating.
France and Great Britain declared war against Germany in 1939. The Germans broke their treaty with the Soviets a bit less than 2 years later. Which allowed the Soviets to switch in an instant from totalitarian enemies to totalitarian friends. 6 months later the Japanese attack the USA and then the US Congress declares war. The Nazis thoughtfully declared war against us after the Japanese attack, although the US Navy was already fighting, killing, and dying, to get supply convoys through to Great Britain. But that wasn't war, technically. In those far-off days, the US going to war required an Act of Congress.
4
Most reporting lets people get away with claiming that statues erected in the 1900s by propaganda outfits like the Daughters of the Confederacy are "history", so I'm not surprised the lost cause propaganda memes continue to propagate.
4
Tillerson was right - including the adjective. 'Nuff said.
7
Do you recognize America’s right to exist in 1776?
No rogue's gallery of military hypocrites should omit four-star general David Petraeus, of the loose lips, sloppy laptop, and sophomoric "secret" emails. Shame he peaked too soon; he would have been perfect for the Trump administration.
3
Not Lincoln, nor Theo Roosevelt, nor Eisenhower, not even Nixon would recognize today's republican party.
Mussolini and Hitler would have no such problem.
If our democracy survives we must do some mending of our National voting procedures. I believe that the votes for president, congress, and the senate should be overseen by the Federal government not the states.
I believe, as well, that our citizens must once again be brought up to speed on their duties and responsibilities and that would include civics classes. The right to vote must include the ability to understand what that right entails. I would ask one question of all potential voters, "Did you vote for t rump?" If they did they do not get to vote again. They do not understand their duties and responsibilities.
6
In Lincoln's 1st Inaugural Address, he made a GREAT effort to compromise w/ southerners about slavery. While he believed a majority of Americans (rather than the courts) should decide the fate of slavery in the Western Territories, he was willing to add an amendment to the Constitution that would've guaranteed the right of STATES that already had slavery to keep their slaves forever--that's right, FOREVER. And this was AFTER 7 states had already seceded from the Union.
Southerners believed that they would be outnumbered by Northerners in deciding the future of slavery in the Western Territories, and therefore that slavery ultimately wouldn't survive. Compromises had been made over the years to have a parity of slave & free states, but eventually the Republican party emerged with a platform of outlawing slavery in Western territories.
SO, while its true that the *official Republican position* on the future of slavery in the West was uncompromising, Lincoln WAS willing to compromise with Southerners who feared he would try to take away their slaves. In the end, he DID take some of them away DURING THE WAR, as a way to weaken the South militarily, and the rest of them later, via the 13th Amendment.
And so the issue of slavery and the Civil War is complex. But it CANNOT be said that Lincoln was uncompromising about slavery. He was only uncompromising about SECESSION--believing it was absolutely illegal in all circumstances.
9
Thanks for concisely stating the accurate historical facts. Significant compromise was offered to the South and it was rejected because the South was adamant about allowing slavery to be propagated to the western territories.
Southern revisionist, apologist obfuscation aside, we'd have been better off either allowing the confederate traitor states to secede (after which they would have naturally failed and come to heel) or stepping on their throats much more harshly after their military defeat to prevent the current takeover of our government by the traitors descendents via subterfuges such as gerrymandering, freezing the number of congressional seats and the allocation of electoral votes per state, and the electoral college.
9
The U.S. declared war on Japan and Germany in December of 1941. The Germans surrendered in the spring of 1945, and the Japanese followed in August of that year. Total time that THE US was fighting WWII: just over 3.5 years. If you assume that Trump is referring to AMERICA when he says "we", then he is correct.
3
Where is the Democrat who can clearly and repeatedly debunk all the lies this president and his spokespeople keep putting out? They need to be much more forceful and relentless in their counterattacks.
6
Perhaps worth noting that while Great Britain was in WWII for 6 years from 1939 until 1945. The Soviet Union was dragged into the war on June 22,1941 not so long before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course the Soviet Union did invade Poland in 1939, but discussing such things can upset our Russian friends.
7
Trump's behavior and apparent pride in his demeaning, assaultive and predatory sexual manipulations inspired women. This straw broke the camel's back and across the globe we see women leveling charges and men in power shunned by industries and leaving government posts. Inspiring this backlash revolution hopefully ends the extorting and buying of women's silence which will fundamentally change our Western society as much as the Women's Movement of the 60's and 70's. This may be a tiny bit of silver lining, but it could become the Comstock.
4
Perhaps General Kelly flunked out of elementary school, as he is unaware of the compromises that were made that allowed slavery to continue in the larger interest of holding the nation together. I would refer him specifically to what is called the "Missouri Compromise". Not only do children learn about it in their study of American history, but it actually has the word "compromise" in its very name.
If General Kelly is actually so ignorant that he believes the words that came out of his own mouth, I suspect there are millions of real Americans who would be happy to get into a debate with that particular four-star Marine general.
6
what good can come of an adult who tweets?
4
"Who knew that health care was so complicated?"
4
It would not surprised me if trump were to sign another of his many executive orders making him president for life and doing away congress as so many dictators before him in other countries have done because after all only he can solve Americas problems.
2
Nothing is more annoying to people of British origin than hearing Americans say things like "We won World War II in three and a half years."
7
how about the Russians. Most deaths of any nation in WWII and without the sacrifice of the Russian people, the world would be a different place today. No, I am not a "Russian loving" Trump supporter, but these are the facts. The US public wanted nothing to do with another European war, until after Pearl Harbor. Coincidence?
2
Tonight on Democracy Now! it was reported that Alabama Senate Republican candidate "Judge" Roy Moore said that the judge who ruled against Trump's banning of transgender persons in the military "should be removed" from the bench, apparently ignorant of the basic fact that Federal judges are appointed for life.
4
"“literally no difference” between George Washington and Robert E. Lee." On this one I have to agree on at least one point of substance. viz, both were slave owners and defenders of slavery. Why do so many have a blind spot about Washington?
1
The sad thing is they say this stuff because they know some people will believe them and not question. Forget make America great again. I would settle for making America smart again.
There is a reason these folks hate public education.
14
In fairness to the Trump Cabinet, like many Americans, they are all just excellent candidates for the Jay Leno "Jay Walk All Stars" .
1
I’d like to ask Kelly & co. what war cannot be attributed to a “lack of ability to compromise”?
War is by definition what happens when one or both parties will no longer compromise.
As for Trump, whenever he says “what most people think...” you can be sure that’s what he always thought, until an aid corrected him a few days ago.
“Nobody knew how complicated healthcare could be”
8
Sheer ignorance throughout the administration. There is no one qualified for any job, much less the job they hold.
7
Sorry, Mr Rosenthal, but you got some of your history wrong. AsVladimir Putin no doubt would tell you himself, the Soviet Union fought Nazi Germany for just under four years. From the Soviet/Russian perspective, the Great Patriotic War started on June 22, 1941, when the German army launched its invasion of Russia, and ended on May 9, 1945, with Germany's surrender.
Instead of fighting Nazi Germany prior to June 1941, the Soviet Union had entered the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement with Germany in 1939, under which those countries divided up Poland, which they both invaded in September 1939. Soviet history tried to hide the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement and the Soviet Union's invasions of Poland and Finland (November 1939), and even now post-Soviet Russian history gives those events minimal discussion.
That being said, in those 3 years and 11 months of war, the Soviet Union did have a much larger role in defeating Germany than did the US (although the US, of course, was fighting the war in the Pacific at the same time).
4
Human trafficking is slavery. It involves taking individuals against their will, selling them, and using them as if they were slaves. Young girls are taken to become sex slaves. Human trafficking is about owning another human being.
5
Like the old saying: You can lead a horse to water but can't make it drink.
"You can lead a Trump to knowledge but you can't make them think."
9
Facts do not matter to "45" or those that work for him.
5
Jokes repeat themselves as history.
4
Rewriting history one lie at a time to further his dystopian vision for a deplorable future where more Americans will join the "have-nots" because Trump will remind us that is the fault of Hillary Clinton, of course. Sorry, Trump base--those gold toilets Trump is so fond of. are permanently out of reach to you but how about a Chinese made "Make America Great Again" baseball cap?
5
Nobody knew history could be so complicated!!
6
Few Americans, white or not, GOP stalwarts or Dems, want to recognise that the real Americans are the First Peoples of the Americas.
Moreover, it's not just the purveyors of faux news and the likes of Trump and his minions who want to blot Native Americans out of their collective consciousness.
Try finding any real coverage of current or historic Native American issues in the NYT, in WaPo, Slate, and Politico. Search the archives of the so-called US liberal media. There's next to nothing.
4
Is this hard-to-fathom entity called "The Trump Base" like some kind of a cancerous brain tumor on our nation, growing and spreading and taking us down to a point of no return - the only thing left will be a return to a civil war - a grotesque survival of the fittest slaughter of all that our nation has stood for? I feel like I'm watching a 1950's horror movie - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - when I hear people (not just uneducated people) - tell me that they "Love Trump". I get the impression that their minds have been fogged with some kind of nerve gas.
6
Another bizarre notuon: women are second class citizens. Have Trump and his team may have forgotten that there are several women claiming that Trump sexuality assaulted them? Could these accusers bring down his Presidency? Let’s call it the Harvey ticking time bomb.
3
Good piece, but let's not consider Alexander Haig as really considering himself in charge. The president had been shot, and all he did was (in essence) tell us that the govt was still in place. He may have been a jerk but let's not tag him with anything worse.
1
Trump and his minions are intellectually offensive on a daily basis. The civilized world gazes at America in disbelief and alarm. Damage control is the best America and the world can accomplish until the Trump travesty is vanquished.
6
It would be highly appropriate if, when sanders makes such an inane statement, the members of the press walked out.
5
I know it comes from a competing source but have a look at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/11/01/lots-of-am.... Apparently the notion that slavery was the primary reason for the Civil War is more odd than Mr. Rosenthal seems to think.
The British are the really responsible agents for winning the wart against Hitler, not the Soviet Russians who, it is true, because of the total incompetence of Stalin and his third rank of generals,(the best were executed for warning about Germany), spilled lots of blood by sacrificing their men. Soviet Soldiers were backed on the front lines by interior ministry soldiers with machine guns to kill any who left the fighting.. Russians had to fight the Germans or be killed by other Russians. "General Winter," as the Russian winter is called, did the real damage against unprepared German troops with little or no winter gear.
Just as in the Great War, Stalin would have made a deal with Germany if he felt it to his advantage-especially if he thought he could leave the war in US and British hands. The thought of plunder and rapine led the Soviets on, to take over East Europe and ship its modern factories and workers back to be slaves in the USSR. Almost no one, now, seems to read or recall how equally evil Germany and Russia were, for decades since they were competing empires in the 1800's.
4
Heard on TV this morning that "t" is having a melt down. Great, hope he'll turn into a big puddle. Seriously though, he can't seem to stop his childish, foolish rantings and ravings. He doesn't think before his outbursts. Everyone from "t" down lies; the word truth seems elude them all. We are in huge trouble and can only hope that this administration will come to an end very soon.
3
You're flirting with a few skewed ideas as well. Although it's quite true that without the Russians Hitler might never have been defeated, it was perfectly legitimate for Trump to say that we won the war in 3 1/2 years. We were in the war for almost exactly 3 1/2 years. Without us an Allied victory would have been impossible. There was no need for Trump to qualify his remark.
Partnering LeMay's awful words with the Sanders' remark about a four-star Marine general is also a stretch. She didn't say that everything the military says and does cannot be questioned; you're extrapolating from her remark.
Some other comments also reflect more on your desire to hit at Trump than anything else. I hate to appear to defend Trump and his crew, but this piece is, in places, basically a cheap shot.
What is really amusing is for a group of people who always tout "winning", they sure seem to identify with losers. For example, a big difference between Washington and Lee - Washington won; Lee lost. All the Confederate statues in the South are bizarre not only because they memorialize and glorify traitors to the Nation which endured, and they fought for a repugnant cause, but . . . they were losers. It's kind of like raising statues to honor the Washington Generals or the 2008 Detroit Lions. Must be the ethno-nationalist version of "everyone gets a trophy".
5
It's open racism just as much of the campaign was open sexism. There is an ugly brutal side of this administration and White House that exhibited this toxic perspective from the beginning and not just as a campaign strategy. The GOP Southern Strategy to appeal to pre-Civil Rights racism was supposed to be a sham to fool the neo confederates that they were a bigot friendly party.
Slavery statues were not erected as works of art. The original Confederate monuments were almost all in cemeteries, and they were monuments to the dead soldiers who lost their lives and their war. That is where they belong.
The Trump budget eliminates the NEA, the NEH, the IMLS, and other departments that preserve and encourage American art, history, museums, libraries, and cultural institutions which will suffer, and perhaps be forced to close.
The Civil War resulted in the emancipation of millions. WWII was not fought because compromise failed. How do you compromise with Nazis and death camps? Slavery was an atrocity that lasted far too long. No Nazi statues stand around public squares.
Lincoln said in a Republican convention, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free."
What has happened to the Republican Party?
8
Lee could not turn his back on his country, Virginia.
All this just proves how ignorant the President is; I am not sure that he took advantage of all the "private" education; he should have went to Public School!
5
I would like my school taxes paid for all these years returned to me because it was ill spent. And, of course, putting Betsy DeVos in charge of education will do wonders for it and lower it to the Sarah Palin grade.
5
Trump is by far the most ignorant president in modern history, if not, ever. Worse, he appears to have absolutely no intellectual curiosity that would inspire him to learn the first thing about the actual responsibilities and protocols associated with his position, or frankly any other subject that isn't directly connected to his ego or avarice.
That would be worrying enough, but worse is the contagion factor that appears to have touched almost everyone within his orbit or dependent on his good graces. To some degree we can assume he has gone out of his way to choose people who suffer from the same delusions and character flaws that he exhibits, but I do seem to remember a time when one could count on more than a sprinkling of rational Republicans. Now we are not only dealing with a completely craven and incompetent Emperor with no clothes, but an expanding court of fools enabling, often mirroring, the delusions of someone who at best could be labeled a borderline personality, at worst a dangerous sociopath.
7
The incompetence of Trump and his minions is astonishing in its scope.
Can they even be trusted with point objects?
4
"Seven Bizarre Notions Trump and His Team Have About America"
Far more than bizarre, their "notions" are in fact demented — if not an indication of stark mental illness.
7
These now classic Seven Bizarre Trump Notions can take their rightful place with the Seven Deadly Sins, Wonders of the World, Dwarves etc.
Maybe you're going to need a bigger number...a double digit one.
What is it about "seven" anyway?.
2
1. There is no such thing as third grade history. In a teach to the test world where no one tests third graders on their history knowledge, it's not on the radar. 2. Trump and Human Trafficking. Trump is notorious for the way he mistreats immigrants. David Cay Johnston's book, The Making of Donald Trump recounts how immigrant labors were hired at subsistence wages to do a demolition job on a NYC building and systematically mistreated and underpaid reveals his real thoughts on how to treat immigrant labor. What is Melania if she is not a victim of human trafficking? 3. Clearly the whole Trump White House and possibly the Republican party practices military worship. And he has stacked his cabinet with military people to give himself legitimacy and it is also convenient that they are so deferential to power.
3
The Civil War wouldn't have happened if there had been compromise. If good people like Frederick Douglas who is doing such good work and is getting recognized could have spoken sense to the folks from the north and south. And mind you, there were some good folks fighting on the side of Southern slavery. And not all slaves were unhappy. If they'd been unhappy they would have left and fought on the side of the north which they didn't. And the best military leaders were on the side of the south. Who are we to question Robert E. Lee who was a good person, a fantastic person who was fighting for Virginia which was in the south. He had slaves but he treated them well and was going to free them but the Civil War started. Slavery was going to end anyway and slaves were going to be given their civil rights so the War, which was about states rights that all of those states wanted, was unnecessary. And that would have ended human trafficking and we wouldn't have the problems we have today that nobody knows about and the media doesn't talk about because they want to allow immigrants who are not good people and some are rapists and bombers. And think of all that good cotton, that great cotton which was going to the North and to England and some other countries that was no longer going to them because of the war. Millions of dollars lost which would have gone to feed poor people and made the life of the slaves better although some of them lived very well, I can tell you that.
5
Yes but Trump is our one and only Article II top executive unless and until he dies, resigns or is removed from office. In our divided limited power republic he is the temporary elected hired help whose prime directive is to faithfully execute the duties of his office and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States so help him God. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu are not God.
1
Attempting to apply todays' politically correct principles to the Civil War, Antebellum, and Revolutionary periods is ludicrous.
Somehow the Liberals want to believe you can change history.
General Kelly and Donald Trump are not keen on black people. They also think women should be seen but not heard and that Muslims need to be kept in check.
We need to boycott all Trump's products and services. Degrade any person who worked with Trump making their lives so horrible that they will disappear.
Yes my views harsh and maybe belligerent but it need to be done now!
3
Sounds like this crew is an enemy of the people.
3
'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise'. Try correcting these mis-understandings and you'll hear: 'Shut up, you don't know what the truth is, you're afraid of the real truth, and you can't handle that'. And so the current Administration re-writes US history in all its forms.
2
Least of our problems at this point.
In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant.
--Stephen Colbert
4
Your final point; Britain and her Commonwealth together with the European people in exile waged a six year war against Hitler; Russia was an "ally" from 1939 until Hitler's armies invaded in 1941 - so they only endured 4 years.
The Trump Truth:
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
― George Orwell, 1984
2
Indeed. The Russians /Soviets only joined the war against the Germans after Hitler invaded them in 1941. It was a 6-year war for Great Britain and its dominions such as Canada Australia and New Zealand. However the Soviets should not be underestimated. They did the largest share of the fighting and after stopping the Germans outside of Moscow steadily rolled the Axis powers back largely on their own, if you exclude the British victories in Africa. America first attacked the Axis in North Africa in November 1942 and through Sicily in 1943. The only American attack on the Germans comparable to the Soviet effort on the Eastern Front was in June 1944 when the Allies invaded Normandy. Prior to to these invasions America's role was protecting the Atlantic coveys and bombing Germany. America's main involvment in the land war was thus approximately one year, two if you include the Italian campaign or maybe a half year more of you include North Africa.
//
1
Orwell’s 1984 or “V for Vendetta”, take your pick.
1
To borrow from the gifted headline subs at the Daily News:
USA to TRUMP: QUIT!
1
They remind me of early 20th-century gangsters: ignorant but not stupid; brilliant, if only in their ability to get what they want; cunning, sly, dangerous; and in their minds, everyone else a “sucker” begging to be taken advantage of. Guess in this scenario Mueller is our Elliot Ness. We'll see.
3
trump's victory is not a funny thing. it is a shame on american democracy. and the absurdities that he and his chief of staff (four stars, mind you) mouth every day only prove one thing: their horrendously racial beliefs. they belong to 200 yeas ago. today they are a perversion.
1
Some of those beribboned and bemedaled individuals "with four stars on their uniform's shoulders" may be "unassailably honest and decent."
To me, they are all buffoons to be laughed at, period.
Each of the seven are examples of making up facts to support the unsupportable. Look at any of the comments supporting Trump’s version of reality; their “Stranger Things” upside down world takes those marching with nazis and makes them fine people, feels the Civil War was a misunderstanding, punishes entire religions for the actions of an individual and ignores Russian attacks on our election because it helped their guy. Is there any fact or argument that could see how bizarre all of this is.
1
I admit this is off-topic, but could we please have the NY Times stop repeating the tweets of people? Anyone who expresses his or her opinion in 140 characters (usually less) on important events in the political life of our country is NOT the equivalent of an intellectual adult. This is madness!
1
Donald J Chaos & Co. are the party of Wrong. They are wrong to work toward unneeded tax cuts. They are wrong for adding money into our already mighty armed forces budget. They are wrong for demonizing all immigrants. They are wrong for insulting our allies. They are wrong to antagonize a nuclear-armed murderous dictator in North Korea. They are wrong to consistently attack our free press. They are wrong to consistently use the alternative facts of the Alt-right press. They are wrong to equivocate left-wing counter demonstrators with racist Nazis, KKK and their sympathizers. They are wrong to fight against reasonable gun control laws. They are wrong to have tried to enlist Russia in a global war against terrorism in exchange for their help during their campaign. I am hoping Mueller and his team will be "schooling" this administration in the finer points of our Judicial system.
1
Worse, Trump and his supporters do not understand how massively ignorant they are nor do they want to know. Frightening.
The more obvious it becomes that Donald Trump is a menace to society in virtually every aspect and needs to be removed, the more I worry that there is a large enough armed population of his supporters out there who are just waiting for the signal to make their move to protect Trump's presidency. The reactionary right wing racist radio host Michael Savage keeps alluding to this on his show. Savage is part of the right wing media that keeps enabling Trump. And for some reason Savage thinks if a fascist revolution does occur he will be spared the mob's animosity against all Jews since he tries daily to hide his being a Jew from his rabid listeners.
Welcome to "Fake History"! Of course, it all makes sense when you're you're really a 19th century, neo-Confederate, white racist, Robber Baron intent on overthrowing the the Union (aka blue state America) and replacing it the United Red States of America. It's coming soon to a revised history book available in your local library. In the meantime, as they say, "Save your Confederate money; the South will rise again!" and they already have the statues to prove it.
Trump, and his historically illiterate minions, don’t have a better understanding of America, they have a different narrative of America.
2
Please, do we really need a rehash?
And also Seven Bizarre Notions Trump Gave America-
1)Pruitt
2)DeVos
3)Carson
4)Mnuchin
5)Pence
6)Sessions
7)Perry
et. al.
7)
1
I don't understand how Mr. Rosenthal so cavalierly dismisses "human trafficking" over "slavery" They are both equally abhorrent. It's like having a soldiers head having cut off on T.V. by Isis or having them shot. Which one is better?
2
Dear California, when you secede in order to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America please take my town with you. Sincerely, Stateline Nv.
I wasn't Putin and "many Russians" whose country did the dirtiest work against Hitler. It was the Soviet Union and it was in large parts Ukrainians who had to fight that war. At the same time, their leader Stalin chose to terrorize Ukrainians by starving them and suffocating their culture. Stalin also didn't really think Hitler was such a bad guy after all, ask the people in Poland about that. If you want to put Trump's missing historical knowledge and his administration's inaccuracies on display, great, I'll support that. Only please don't do it by making inaccurate statements yourself.
Ok. Trump and his gang members like the despicable Sarah Huckabee are ignorant of facts. When will someone from the NY Times finally have the courage to admit that Trump's base of supporters are just as ignorant.
This scratches the surface. The Times ought to be the first to publish the Encyclopedia of Trump lies, myths, distortions and vicious personal attacks. Ironically Trump, who blames others everyday for his failings, has never attacked his father, the greedy, bigoted multi millionaire who raised two sons, one who was an alcoholic who killed himself, and Trump a misbehaving bully of a child who was sent to military school and grew to an adult with arrested development, stuck as a self absorbed, angry middle-schooler. He probably thinks Congress should change the name of the White House to the Trump House and authorize funding for a huge LED sign beaming his name to the satellites orbiting the earth.
Remember that the Third Reich was built on the bizarre construct that an Aryan nation could produce a master race to rule all of mankind, and that cleansing the world of lesser peoples would make it a better place. Trump's limited and strange thinking is funny and shows great stupidity, but some 40% of voters bought into it, and 80% of Republicans still think he's doing a great job. We need to debunk, debunk, debunk and stop laughing. We can laugh later, once this devil is gone.
1
General John Kelly has proved himself a sub-Marine.
1
"..a 4-star Marine general ...highly inappropriate."
Gen. Grant took fierce criticism in 1864 and early 1865 for both military and personal reasons, esp. alcohol use. We have left up his statues.
The selective, 'special' patriotism of the 'Love it or leave it' bunch has been around since the cold war, at least. The key is that they want patriotism, the flag, the pledge, etc. to be their thing property, not everybody else's. Such a feeling among war vets might be understandable. They paid a special price for their country, bless 'em.
But among the current crowd of Palins and other "historically illiterate" pseudo-patriots and military wanna-be's, whose ideas of combat come from video games, such posing begins as false, becomes disgusting, and is unpatriotic when applied in efforts to repress dissent, shame opponents, and intimidate those with differing political views.
The ones who should loose their jobs here are are elected and appointed officials, not NFL players or groped women who criticize the behavior of Trump and Co. and his neo-Nazi fan-boys.
PS: The Wehrmacht was indeed gutted on the plains of Russia by the Red Army. The troops we fought so bitterly from Normandy through '45 were reserves and reconstituted units that had been mauled on the Eastern Front.
2
Trump and his gestapo soldiers don't have bizarre ideas. They have made a deliberate and egregious attempt to turn our democracy into a kleptocracy. They are out to seize power and destroy the foundations of our democracy. Trump has the stupidity and egocentric mindset of a dictator. He has managed to manipulate his supporters with the cancerous help of Fox News, right wing media, feckless Republicans and the power elite. He won't win because we as a nation can only endure so much and are cognizant of his blatant power grab. We the people will prevail. Honorable, patriots like Mueller will put an end to Trump's reign of terror.
1
Regarding the length of WWII, for the US it was in fact just over three and a half years, and if Putin were consulted he'd probably say just under four (Hitler attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941 and the Soviets observe 9 May 1945 as VE Day).
1
More scary than Trump's lack of historical knowledge is that of his voters. They buy what ever he says lock, stock and barrel. And the fake newscaster, Sean Hannity is as ignorant as the rest of Fox News.
It does not appear that we ever learn from history, but just keep repeating the same mistakes. Even Germany faced up to what Hitler did and took steps forward to never have that happen again. We are over 100 years from the end of the Civil War and we are still allowing racism in this country. And Trump is Racist #1.
2
This idiotic argument over the cause of civil war makes both sides look deranged.
1
"Our historian in chief might want to run that one by his buddy Vladimir Putin, who thinks, as many Russians do, that the long and bloody fight his country waged against Hitler was what made it possible to end the war after six years."
For them not quite 4 years. You want to get to 6 years try the Brits or other parts of Europe that also spent some time in occupation.
If you are going to trash Trump on the US and 3 and a 1/2 years to win WWII, at least get your supporting facts right.
...those who do not know history are destined to invent it. Those who must invent it will draw only on their own reality to stitch together shards of fact with the warp and woof of self projection. The result is pseudo history. Ironically it is the winners who must invent these pseudo histories to justify their claims to know things the rest of us don't know. But pseudo histories speak mainly to those who know no better and want to believe no better. Real history will relegate pseudo history to a period footnote. Pseudo histories are harmful when they convey prejudice, are divisive and used as a platform for wrong doing. They are useful mainly to ideologues, those who want to know no better and are a boon to editorialists and comedians who are the official chroniclers of pseudo history. We are in a golden area of pseudo history and political comedy.
34
Exactly why the reaction to Kelly is so disturbing. Kelly spoke in a contemporary context — Trump, Charlottesville, the attack on a U.S. congresswoman and gold star African-American family. For all of these statements, Kelly should be rightly condemned. It’s also not surprising that his comments about the Civil War should be read in the context of Trump’s white supremicisim. Yet what he said was historically accurate. The Civil War was caused by slavery, but precipitated and fought over secession. Freezing enslaved Africans did not become a goal until late in the war; Lincoln was not an abolitionist, and the North was not inclined to fight over slavery. On the contrary, it offered the South deal after deal, including the Corwin amendment, up until the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter. Efforts to compromise failed because the South was intransigent; did not want to make a deal that might someday (as new states entered the union as “free”) end slavery in the South. Had the South agreed to Corwin, an amendment offered by the NORTH (all caps) that would have perpetuated slavery until repealed, the war would not have occurred, because the North would not have fought. In other words, not only did the North not fight, initially, to free the slaves, but it offered yet another Constitutional protection for that evil institution: ergo, there would have been no War w/o secession, at least not at that times, had the South not looked down the road and said “no.”
Yes, the South’s narrative is that the war was for Southern independence - but we don’t condone slavery by acknowledging that, at least on the North’s part, it was. The truth is that the North fought to reunite the union, at least at the outset, while the South fought to preserve slavery, from the get go. Why is that so offensive? Even if offensive — it’s the truth.
1
The talk of "compromise" is rather bizarre when the subject is slavery. People often get offended when someone speaks about them as if they are not in the room. Confederate apologists talking about "states' rights" and "compromise," should try to imagine standing in a room while people discussed whether he/she should be treated as a human being or as a unit of livestock. The very notion is absurd. If someone wanted to sell Trump's or Kelly's children at auction, I wonder what kind of compromise they would be willing to make.
On the subject of gun rights, there can be no compromise because "that's a slippery slope," but on the subject of slavery... maybe both sides can cut a deal? Both sides get a little something?
2
Look no further than the so called freedom caucus in the house. They are eepresentative of Trump's base. By and large they are educated millionaires who feel if it weren't for the government they would be billionaires. Therefore they create their oen reality (facts) so their means justify their ends. Basically like Betsy DeVos they want to shut down government and turn every thing to private for porfit institutions. They want their tax cuts then close down government. These elected representatives are all Bannonites.
So we already know that the incompetent-in-chief and those he chooses to work for him are intellectually dishonest and too ignorant to understand why. The same has to be said regarding those who support Trump — regardless of what he says and does — because they want to "win" and they hate the other "side." They are going to be losers in the long run because ignorance and dishonesty simply cannot lead to success in terms of governance for the greater good...or voting for those who can actually govern and know what the greater good is. Both sides live in the same country, but one side isn't smart enough to remember this, and care about it.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
11
The most bizarre notions Trump and his team have are that they are working for all Americans by putting America first. The truth is that working solely for oneself without giving any thought to the people around one and doing so all the time is extremely short sighted, selfish, and self defeating. In voting in Trump Americans did the country a large disservice the consequences of which will linger for a long time after Trump is out of office. We ought to be ashamed of our ignorance and our willingness to accept Trump's and the GOPs bizarre notions about America, the world, and how things work.
69
Come back to me in the fall of 2020, when economic growth has been steadily improving for 4 years, incomes are up, and the U.S. has seen it's position and reputation on the world stage restored.
I don't think they think that at all, I think they know perfectly well they're out for themselves only. Also, he's mentally ill, so incompetent and incapable of coherently articulating what he's working for at all, other then putting his name in big gold letters in the history books. But what IS bizarre is how many of his rabid followers actually think that the Combover Caligula and team's America First propaganda will help them. That's the truly awful and sad part, and no matter how blatantly this admin and Congress demonstrate that they not only don't care, but actually despise, the average American -- his followers just don't care and will not change their views.
2
The more this Know Nothing team becomes a Do Nothing administration the better off our country will be. Let's hope they keep dividing the republicans in Congress to forestall as much "progress" as possible.
12
The problem is that. although he may be doing nothing legislatively, the combination of executive orders and the remaking of many federal departments from within by inimical Secretaries is wreaking incalculable damage on the country. Just as his travel bans have tied up the courts, similar cases on the legality of reversing or reducing national monuments and weakening pollution standards will waste stretched court resources (and that's not to even mention all the judges that haven't been appointed due to his executive incompetence
1
"What possible compromise could there have been over slavery?" Compensated emancipation was a possible compromise. Although, fire-breathing confederates were the main obstacle to such a "compromise."
10
If "compromise" would not have unduly sustained slavery, Mr Trump, why not at least compromise on sustaining our "better angels" for whom "belonging to the ages" clearly marked President Obama's best forte MOVING FORWARD?
2
Slavery could have been ended short of war. Indeed there were many compromises, but no one managed to generate one that would have ended it in a gradual manner that compensated the otherwise poor Southern farm owners.
The NYTimes apparently does not employ writers who remember their grandparents describing the horror of Reconstuction, which destroyed the livelihood of of so many farmers. My grandparents were from southeastern Alabama, or SW Georgia, then a prosperous area. The uncle of one of my great grandparents married President Madison's sister. I visited their homes the day after the recent eclipse ... amazing decay and poverty still.
In my youth I remember them telling stories about the horrors that followed the war, even though none were killed and the actual fighting never reached their area. They all eventually had to move to Texas and start over on land that is not as productive as that where they came from. And they were still extremely bitter, even though they eventually prospered.
Other posters have mentioned other methods besides war that ended slavery in the British Empire. These could have been employed here.
2
The South lost the war! As a result, their agrarian slave based economy collapsed. Reconstruction was not a horror. It was the beginning of the integration of the South into the industrialized economy of the North. Despite General Kelly's historically incorrect statement, all compromises short of war had expired when southern cannons opened fire on Fort Sumter. The South started the Civil War, the North ended it!
I beg to differ. The southern farmers were destroyed by southern plantation owners, who prospered because they had free labor. Reconstruction may have gone better if there weren't so many sore losers to ending slavery. This is the time of the founding of the KKK and great brutality against black people.
I have an interesting idea - let's make white house press conferences under oath. Seriously, the American people deserve the truth and since it doesn't seem to be provided spontaneously let's make it mandatory. Then Sarah Huckleberry Sanders would either have to stop lying continuously or would end up in jail (and then pardoned and then back in jail and then pardoned again...) in no time flat. Meanwhile, looking forward to seeing Sean Spicer on more award shows mocking his own statements to the American people -- way to go Stephen Colbert..
6
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana).
8
The problem is it has to be remember with all the facts. Cherry picking the facts you want won't do.
Actually Russia didn't enter into the fight against Germany until June of 1941 when they were invaded by German forces. So Andrew's statement is misleading. I think he is confusing Russia with Poland, the UK, France, Canada and other countries that entered into the war in 1939. Not surprising given the narrow history taught in the US. Next you will say you Won the war of 1812.
10
Try winning the war without Russia and a completely different set of events arises. We probably would still have been fighting today.
1
"In 1993 a study by the Russian Academy of Sciences estimated total Soviet population losses due to the war at 26.6 million, including military dead of 8.7 million calculated by the Russian Ministry of Defense. These figures have been accepted by most historians outside of Russia", far higher than the allies. The war lasted 6 years as the article states, though Russia was involved for only 3 1/2. So, "long and bloody" does apply. The USSR did capture Berlin and probably could have kept rolling across western Europe but for the presence of the allies. I think the US primary accomplishment in Europe was deterring Russia, something the US has maintained ever since.
2
I read that paragraph again and believe that Andrew is correct.
Could have been written better though.
The war did go on for close to 6 years.
Russia was in it for 4.
Clearly his supporters are not fact checking mavins. When we have a large part of our country that votes based shared mythology, then seeks inspiration from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, it makes sense their chosen one spews inaccuracies that go unquestioned by his base. In the end the entire group will be viewed accurately by history, and they will have to hopefully explain to their children and grand children why they casted a vote for the most immoral and unqualified president in our history.
10
Could someone in the press please ask Gen. Kelly or Ms. Huckabee Sanders to explain what exactly was to be compromised? What sort of compromise regarding slavery would not still result in slavery?
65
Gen. Kelly has tried to second-guess history, which never works. However, by the 19th Century, slavery in the civilized countries of the world was ending, by law. Only in America, did it take our nation's deadliest war to achieve this. Some, like Gen. Kelly, apparently feel the war happened because government failed to find the legal remedies to prevent disastrous results.
I'm certain that this isn't what they were thinking, but I have read that the economic damage of the civil war cost more than the cost of purchasing the slaves at fair market value and releasing them. Also, in several northern states, slavery was phased out over time. Would that have been better than fighting the civil war and forcefully repudiating slavery? I'm not sure, but there were alternatives to Civil War.
But, that's not how it works...you just make the statement, then not answer a follow up...just let it sit there as an alternative fact.
Then, be arrogant of anything else said, claim it to be fake news, and inappropriate to question a decorated general. All very fascist behavior.
This is why, at least in the blue states, a public education includes dystopian literature like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Newspeak, doublethink and doublespeak. Seems applicable, no?
18
The American Civil War was not scripted. And by definition any civil war results from a lack of compromise. We can see in hindsight how it could have played out differently. Instead of 600,000 Americans dying between 1861 and 1865 in a war that preserved the Union and ended slavery what if 800,000 died between 1851 and 1855? Would that have been better, if it succeeded? Ending slavery 10 years sooner but with a greater loss of life. Or how about a civil war from 1871 to 1875 with 400,000 dead? Less dead American soldiers, but 10 more years of slavery. Was that better? These are moral issues. How about if Lincoln had more time in 1861 and struck a grand bargain. Maybe something like slaves became indentured servants, became five-fifths of a person, could not be sold but only exchanged with their families included unless they agreed otherwise, and were immediately enrolled in literacy schooling. In exchange the south got 15 years (until 1876) to make the necessary economic, cultural and social adjustments because by 1876 all indentured servants would be free and independent. This included the deaths of no American soldiers. And if Abraham Lincoln had 8 years to oversee the grand bargain maybe the indentured servants would have made a better transition to the new integrated American society. If the Federal government had the capacity to destroy the south in the actual civil war then they should be able to enforce a grand bargain.
8
Waking up in the morning and engaging in wild speculation?
Lincoln was on the record as saying that if he could preserve the Union without freeing the slaves, he would have done so. The South went to war because they knew history had turned against them. Russia freed slaves in 1810. New York state outlawed slavery in 1817. England had ended its official participation in the slave trade.
The biggest tide of history, however, was the expansion of American states in the west which would have allowed slavery to be abolished by a mere vote in Congress. The merchant and estate owning classes in the south could not allow this to happen because much of their wealth was tied up in property, slaves. If slaves were to be freed, that property value would go to zero.
Maybe anything else could have happened. Maybe birds would have started flying backward and dogs purring like cats. Who knows?
I only jest. Trying to figure out what could have happened otherwise in the great American tragedy of the Civil War is a job for the "What if..." History Society.
The South wanted war. They thought it would be over quickly, that the North would not dare wage a continuing war. By the time they found out otherwise, it was too late. Many in the South have spent the last 150 years trying to justify what could not be justified, war against their fellow Americans for the purpose of preserving an odious institution that mars American history and our grand national story.
17
You can't compromise when someone is attacking you. It was the south that REFUSED to compromise, and attacked instead, all it took was the election of Lincoln. The discussion was the election, and Lincoln won, but the south refused to accept this, and instead went to war. So this compromise idea, is moot.
1
You think the South would have gone for that compromise? Ha-Ha!!
The Civil War followed a long series of compromises. The Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were efforts to keep the balance of power between North and South. Three honored senators -- Webster, Clay, and Calhoun -- engaged in prolonged debate to avoid a fatal rift. Today, it is obvious that the Civil War was worth it to abolish slavery. But compromise with slaveowners was the rule for centuries. Moreover, many wealthy Northern families owed their fortunes to the slave trade as did two Ivy League universities. Northern slaveowners -- including John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts -- were honored as great Americans. And states that fought with the Union had hundreds of thousands of slaves.0 B
Bottom line, many, many Northerners didn't believe that freeing the slaves was worth going to war. The North had compromised with Southern slavery for so long that many wanted continued compromise rather than to go to war. But, by the 1860's, slavery was doing the North no good. It was the disadvantages of slavery -- as much as its inhumanity -- that finally convinced most to stop compromising and force the South to give in.
18
thank you, well written and informative....send a copy to Kelly !
I sincerely believe that the GOP's degradation of this country by manipulating Trump to the presidency is the worst tragedy to hit this country since the Civil War. We are now battling a "cold" Civil War led by a divider, not a unifier.
I can't see how 40% of this country can back such evil; Is there's a unifier on the horizon? Can we even find anyone anymore that is willing to swim in our polluted, shark-infested political waters?
Unless something gives in 2018 and 2020 and we break the chokehold the GOP has us in, we are doomed; it's ultimately the people's decision now as to where they want our country to go. I am not sure that Trump's supporters (and GOP victims?) are aware of the horrors we may potentially face if they continue the sleep of denial, the stupor of historical ignorance.
We are in a grave crisis, especially if our Constitution is desecrated and can no longer protect us.
51
Trump is an imperialist. As one commentator put it, "he lives in house that looks like a museum where you cannot learn anything".
He has yet to give a town hall meeting and if he did, I'd pay money to see him explain what he thought The Gettysburg Address was all about.
19
When one is abroad, one sees the unfortunate effects of the insidious Media onslaught on a President duly elected by us --the American Electorate. Small talks, motivated lies and unceasing campaign at alternate reality that an Election was not lost etc. etc. have done harm, but where does one end these nonsense? No body knows. Luckily, the Caravan passes while the stray dogs keep barking!
3
This is not English.
2
huh ? i bet you think that made sense....
1
From abroad, the blunders of the current regime in the White House are more apparent, backed by a world stage. This pResident is just a loser but history (if we survive to read it) will show that big time.
Trump has shown us just who the enemy is - it is of course ourselves. He puts into words the thoughts that many share and thus proves how utterly ignorant we have become as a nation.
30
It's interesting to note that the Russians were unsuccessful in swaying the French and German voters. Is it possible that they are more intelligent than us?
The level of ignorance and misunderstanding about America's history and laws is appalling. How many Americans even know what the Marshall Plan after WW II really was? The prevailing value system of my fellow Americans is based on greed rather than humanity, an admiral quality in Trump as seen by many.
Unless and until our American system of public education is permanently improved, we are doomed to future generations of cultural mediocrity. May the blessing of improved enlightenment save us from our own self imposed downfall!
31
Is it also, beyond a public education system that has been underfunded for years, a result of the Ivy league elite business schools who have trained a generation or two to not include ethics, values and moral thought and consequences to their courses.? When one asks who are these guys lobbying, running corporations, and making amoral decisions...it's from those who think the nation is built just for them as was most likely how they got into the business schools in the first place.
5
don't get too excited about that since all text books for schools comes out of Texas.....
Whenever you meet an American you will hear time and again that the US is the greatest nation on earth, that its schools and universities are the best in the world. Given the apparent lack of education regarding history and an inability to judge rational scientific argument on topics such as climate change by the most powerful in the US one really has to wonder about that notion of superiority. Americans need to realise that around the world their country is being judged by the standards your president sets. That may not be fair or appropriate but it is the reality and your reputation is quickly falling apart with the likes of China only too happy to move into both the political and intellectual vacuum.
39
Thank you so much for pointing this out. Trump’s base is not seeing this. Really hope the ones my age (64) are not using the old ‘I had to drop out in sixth grade to support my family.’ Sorry excuse for ignorance & intolerance. Thank you for seeing it from outside America.
8
Much of what you say is true, but be careful China is just another dictatorship with all the social controls and prisons needed. It is a far cry from the freedom you enjoy.
The revisionists are hard at work, telling us that "states rights" or other abstract Constitutional principles, were the cause of the Civil War. Anything but slavery, a mere incident of conflict between the north and the south. The revisionism is becoming standard among conservatives.
26
No, Jesse, It was not about slavery. It was due to the Northern states using their power in in the federal government to prevent southern states from prospering. Such as requiring southern goods such as cotton to be sold through a Yankee middle man instead of directly exported.
Slavery was already on the way out with the development of mechanized farming implements such as the cotton gin.
Much like today, worthless middle men in the north make money off of production they have little to do with.
State's rights became a euphemism for slavery.
I see things this way: The Trump administration is proof that the Republicans have forfeited their right for a seat at the adult's table. They should not be taken seriously anymore.
Also, I haven't seen the unconditional apology from General Kelly to Rep. Wilson for the lie he told to characterize her as an "empty barrel". General Kelly is a man of integrity who, according to Sarah Sanders, should not even be questioned. Apparently General Kelly has adjusted to the views of his current boss: Never apologize. Never admit error.
84
How did Kelly manage to achieve 4stars? That’s the real question.
1
Kelly is not a man of integrity, as has become all too obvious.
1
The whole Civil War compromise nonsense should remind us that compromise is not always the answer. The middle is not always the more rational or ethical choice situated between two extremes.
53
"There was, she said, 'pretty strong consensus' among people from 'the left, the right, the North and the South' that a failure to compromise caused the war."
SHS may not be entirely wrong. After several compromises failed to solve the unsolvable problem of the South's desire to keep slaves and the North's desire to end slavery (essentially a binary issue), the South decided to vote with its feet. The rest is history.
1
As the British defense minister said during the Falklands war- "you can't be neutral between the fire and the fire brigade"
The American Civil War was precipitated by southern secession in response to Lincoln's election to defend a perceived threat against slavery, a significant southern property interest by the rules of the day. Abolition sentiment in the north was not widespread and the war began as the suppression of an armed insurrection that had seized federal property. Lincoln himself said that if he could preserve the Union without freeing a single slave, he would. It soon became obvious, and he was among the first to recognize, that he could not.
The thought of compromise with a Confederacy wedded to slavery, that advocated invasion of Mexico and Cuba to extend it, not only cheapens the Union but gives a pass to one of the most unconscionable sins of man against man. Had Lincoln lost election for his second term and McClellan, who favored compromise, been elected, what would have prevented an apartheid state from bordering the United States?
There are principles that should not be compromised. The object of making life more comfortable for the rich on the backs of the struggling and poor is not one of them. Fostering the idea that this country should be perpetually white isn't either. It seems we are being led by a council of dunces.
30
The US did indeed help to hasten the end of the WWII with many lives lost and Britain has been eternally grateful. However, the idea that "We won...." is grossly disrespectful to all nations that fought, many with far greater sacrifice than the US. And what on earth has this got to do with modernising the US air traffic control system?
24
Try winning the war if Britain had not stood alone, tor a year, until Hitler gave up on them and attacked the Russians. Try winning the war if the Russians had given up too, in the early stages of that assault. All of that happened before the US was attacked at Pearl Harbour and the US entered that horrible war. Eventually it was the ALLIES together who won that war.
1
Speaking of history, I am guessing that Sarah Huckabee Sanders has to be the poorest excuse for a press secretary in the history of United States. It is as though there is no preparation for her press conferences and she just lies. I look forward to a presidency that staffs the important jobs with an eye on competency.
27
I wonder why SHS wears so much makeup, more fitting for a stage performer at the Met..she seems uncomfortable in her "glamour girl" look which is rather inappropriate and not professional looking. The did not GQ the other male press secretaries? Must just apply to Trump admin women who are required to look "glamorous".
You've forgotten Kellyanne and Sean.
You underestimate how difficult it is to lie effectively, remember those lies, and incorporate the agreed upon prevarication in future statements. Once you get a stack of lies as your governing thesis, it is really, really difficult to keep them all straight. Ask any teenager. Oh, right, there's one in the White House.
Quite simply this entire administration can claim to be not just the most corrupt and inept but the all-time,hands down most lacking in intelligence.They continue to appeal to the rabble that probably relied on the Cliff Notes or Movie versions of Historical events to pass middle school history.
16
If there is one talent President Trump has in terms of debate it is to elicit outrage from the media. Why is this a talent? Wouldn't it be better to win points by having better arguments? Well, he doesn't have better arguments. Ever. His best argument is to induce the media to react in a way that makes him appear sympathetic to those who already agree with his bad arguments. After more than a year of watching "commentary-anchors" on cable react to his routinely absurd remarks, it occurs to me that you don't really need to have the volume on to know what is being said. You can read the outrage in their eyes and physical movements. Lies, half truths and exaggerations speak for themselves and although it is perfectly fine to point out that his words are routinely not credible, it's better to do so without the eye-roll or the palms up shrug. Outrage feeds the trolls. Were Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw the last reporters who knew this?
8
It is common enough for historians to speak of a lack of compromise leading to the American civil war. What is meant is that we would have been better off if we'd ended slavery in the U.S. the way the British ended it in the 1830s in the British empire. They compensated the slave owners and they did not have a civil war. We would have been better off had we been able to similarly end slavery without a civil war. Compensating slave owners for the loss of their slaves was not an option for the abolitionists. I don't know if the south would have gone for it. I wish it had been tried. A great history of the ending of slavery in the British empire is Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, by Adam Hochschild.
8
Another great book is Edward Baptist's magisterial, heartbreaking "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism." Too many people made too much money from slavery. The brutality, the horror, the cruelty--all rationalized because enslaved labor made tons of money for plantation owners and their buyers. I don't think any possible "compromise" would have been agreed to by the South.
1
The most bizarre notion is this: about half the voters in this country thought Trump was superior to Hillary Clinton as a presidential candidate. And hearing Kelly sing the praises of racist Robert E Lee, my hope that Kelly would have a positive influence on his boss turns out that his boss has a deleterious influence on him. Kelly, the voice of reason? No, Kelly the echo of Trump.
13
Trump did not "influence" Kelly. Trump picked Kelly because of who he was and what he believed in. We are just now getting our first impressions of Kelly because he hasn't had much to say before now. He picked all his cabinet heads and white house staff on the same criteria.
To imply that Trump influenced these people, tainted them, is to label them as victims. No one working for this administration is a victim by any standard.
You need to read a bit of history on Robert E Lee. He was a great man. And he actually freed the slaves his wife had inherited before Lincoln did.
It was only a matter of time before serving in the Trump Administration would sully General Kelly's reputation beyond redemption. Lack of compromise the cause of the civil war? That's like looking out the window and identifying the cause of the lack of dryness being the fact that it is raining. True, but quite beside the point. There was never a viable compromise that would have avoided the civil war. The south could never agree to allow slavery to be confined to the states where it existed in the 1850's, for eventually the free states would be of sufficient number to force the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments down their throats resulting in secession and a war to restore the union only with better weapons produced by a further industrialized north, midwest, southwest, and west. The more interesting question is whether Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders having allowed herself to be pimped out by Trump will ever be able to get another real job after he casts her aside for a newer model as his closest aids are being led out in handcuffs.
10
Get ready, and I wish it not true, because there is a New Civil War upon us, and Trump's downfall or survival will soon yield the same tragic result -- our divided Nation's blood in the streets.
6
It's republicans that want us to believe we are on the cusp of another civil war. It's just their way of saying that they intend to fight to the death to get what they want. They've already shown their stripes with repeal & replace. That's not over yet. And now a tax cut (they aren't even calling it tax reform anymore) for the wealthy and big business. If you get the sense that they don't care what their constituents think or want, you would be correct! It's all about them and their wealthy backers.
How odd that the same Southern states that fought a war to try to defend and preserve slavery now complain of immigrant labor taking 'our' jobs. No one complained of slaves taking jobs. Shows that people can always justify their own convenience and self-interest, and still try to make it appear honorable and morally superior.
18
this of course explains why -- in their eyes -- betsy de vos was such an excellent choice for secretary of education.
10
She is since all you progressives want to change history to justify your socialist views.
The math is simple. Trump's approval is at 33% or thereabouts. This is the hard core base of the Republican party and thus as low as it's likely to go. It's where Bush was when he left office. So Trump is supported by a third of the electorate who are either oblivious to or in denial about his incompetence and degradation of the office. Unfortunately, for the US this one third of all voters represents two thirds of Republican voters and so the Republican party has to either support this version of history or look the other way. It's a shocking derogation of their duty but this is reality.
23
It feels like treason though...clearly this president is completely incompetent, delusional, has a huge problem with speaking the truth, etc...for the Republican party to continue along as if nothing is wrong....is not right.
Dishonestly revising history is a time-honored tool of autocrats. Demanding that the historical narrative make the fatherland exceptional is part of undermining democracy and the rule of law.
We talked about this a lot back in the days of the Cold War. It was pretty easy to see that the USSR was creating a faux history in order to buttress the Communist rule. "We" didn't do that, or so we told ourselves and our children.
Revisionist history of the Civil War was popular as the chains of Jim Crow were being forged. It reemerged with force after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's hard not to see a connection.
When Gen Kelly bemoaned that so many things had been lost, he was articulating what a lot of people feel. That view of history is determined to ignore what has been gained by minorities and women. It denies the values that make the USA a great nation. Liberty and Justice for All ought to be more than a slogan.
It's possible that other generals have a better understanding of the complexities of history. At this point, however, it's clear that we can't depend on them to save us.
26
During the presidential campaign, one woman I know was posting outrageously and veritably false information. I simply responded by saying that in a time when there is so much on the internet from anonymous sources we all need to fact check. A reply to me sort of sums up where we are: "You must be a liberal." Thus, belief in facts = horrible "liberal," while blind faith in disinformation that supports your "tribe" and prejudices is ok. How is there hope for a country when this is the state of affairs?
74
The inability to compromise was on the Southern side. If the South had been willing to see slavery limited to the areas where it was well established, the war would not have happened. If the South had accepted the view of slavery of most of the founders -- that it was at most something undesirable and at conflict with justice and reason, but that they were stuck with because it was the foundation of the Southern economy -- South and North could have looked for a way to phase it out without crashing the economy.
The larger problem was a failure of imagination. Most whites could not conceive of a situation where black and white communities lived together or next to each other, although such situations could be found in the North or in Canada, and, in a different form, in New Orleans. As long as such situations were inconceivable, the end of slavery could not be seen as practical in either South or North; if liberated, the blacks would have to go back to Africa.
17
Some whites appear to still have difficulty with whites and blacks living together in equality.
There's much commentary here about the big compromises in our history and whether the Civil War was about secession or slavery. But, whatever the timeline or sequence of events, the underlying theme of it all was still slavery. The impetus to Northern dissent was slavery. The impetus to the treaties was slavery. The impetus to secession was slavery. While the immediate impetus to war may have been secession, the war at its core was about slavery. The South knew that a successful long-term compromise was futile and they chose to secede instead.
It's hard to countenance the compromises on slavery that Lincoln and others were willing to make to preserve the Union. But I imagine that no one on either side could trust the endurance of any such compromises.
That's why John Kelly's statement that the "lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War" sounds hollow and incomplete. It was the institution of slavery that fundamentally led to the Civil War because in the end there was no possible compromise that could have withstood the test of time.
81
What we were taught and what still rings true is that the north fought the war against slavery in order to avoid being economically dominated by the south.
There were of course many committed and principled abolitionists who opposed slavery for ethical reasons but I do not believe that typifies the motivations of the politicians, industrialist and generals of the era or the bulk of the young men who fought.
4
As we grow up, most of us eschew the myths of our childhood. That one should have been buried with Shelby Foote.
Mannpeter,
You could not be more wrong in your first statement. The North was a more industrial economy, the South an agrarian. The North was also a much stronger economy than the South. The North had a larger population than the South. There were compromises before the Civil War. The South wanted to re-establish the importation of slaves into the US. The South also wanted to spread the institution of slavery into new states in our young western territories. Sorry but anyone telling you different then or now is mistaken or lying.
7
Mr. Rosenthal, it doesn't matter what you, or other elites think about what Trump says, because he is speaking to his base, and only his base. When he says "most people don't even know", the people he is referring to are his supporters. When he says "there is a problem that nobody talks about" what he means is that nobody has talked about it in the way he is talking about it, the way his base is thinking about it. He tells them what they want to hear, and they love him for it.
He's just giving them what they want. He's the salesman-in-chief.
92
Yes - in part, the reason we have Trump as President is that he is a better story-teller than Hillary. He is actually a pretty good story-teller. Unfortunately, none of his stories are true.
1
It does matter because the people who allowed Trump to sneak into the White House need to hear again and again about their stupidity.
The non-voters, the nihilistic third party fools, "independents," and even Bernie's babies need to WAKE UP
And by the way, stop caring about Trump's deplorable base. Most are beyond redemption.
When Trump says "most people don't know", he actually means "I didn't know ..." Everything you say is absolutely true, but the White House is currently occupied by an ignoramus with no understanding of pretty much anything. His supporters may love it, but the one genuine thing about this man is his staggering ignorance.
Trump is not a political discussion, it's a discussion about psychology. Reporters were taken off guard because they were ready to write about the policies of a new president. Instead they found themselves writing articles that would do well in Psychology Today.
Trump drones on and on with massive repetition. Anyone intelligent would walk away, because there is no content. But his followers stay. Then Trump drops the clincher, an outrageously simpleminded statement to see if people accept it, such as, "'most people don’t even know' that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican." If you stay for that phrase, then you've suspended disbelief for acceptance of Trump's nonsense. He's got you.
Thus, Trump has split this nation between the intelligent and the unintelligent. Generally, the nation would be intelligently run, but the game changer today is Right Wing media that spins fantasies to poor thinkers in order to garner a lucrative market. That market becomes votes for Republicans.
So we'll have a side that reasons well and a side that is the Republican party that has been taken over by irrational Trump people who cannot think, but are obnoxious. There seems to be no way to remediate this problem.
The burden to correct this destructive state of affairs falls firmly onto the G.O.P. They need to curtail the Fox News and other Right Wing media mendacity in order to take up the mantle of reasoned, ethical behavior again. If this doesn't happen, we'll remain a broken nation.
188
The GOP is not the problem; they are being exploited and used as tools to destroy our democracy. A cadre of the very wealthy have spent big money to manipulate public opinion. The Koch brothers are part of it, but there are many others.
As wealth is increasingly concentrated individuals and international corporations become more powerful than governments. That is the reality we are unwilling to face.
For some reason "the other side" has not been successful in this war for control of the minds of Americans. Perhaps they are not willing to use their wealth in such an enterprise. I cannot explain it, but it's apparent that we can't depend on others to save us.
6
If the opposing party gets air time to express their views after the dominant party leader's speech (State of the Union), for every 30 min. of Faux News, there should be 30 min. of fact-checked news to point out the lies. And I sincerely hope that whoever gives the Democrats' response to Trump's State of the Union calls out his lies in no uncertain terms. I suggest Elizabeth Warren do the honors.
6
The problem with that scenario is that Republicans cannot win with truth since they depend on selling a lie. The truth is that they represent billionaire donors who want to rid themselves of taxes, regulation, and any function of government that constrains their quest for every greater wealth. That wouldn't sell to most Americans. Thus they have to focus supporters on racial resentments, religious differences, the War on Coal, the War on Christmas, and other totally nonsensical distractions.
7
" "Bismarck commiserated with Grant upon the countless fatalities of the Civil War. "But it had to be done," Grant replied. "Yes" said Bismarck, "you had to save the Union just as we had to save Germany." "Not only to save the Union, but destroy slavery," Grant added. I suppose, however, the union was the real sentiment, the dominant sentiment," Bismarck inquired. "In the beginning, yes," agreed Grant, "but as soon as slavery fired upon the flag...we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle." Grant's comments reflect the militance he had felt as president about protecting black civil rights. He now interpreted the four-year war as providential, since a shorter war might have ended up preserving slavery. They had been "fighting an enemy with whom we could not make a peace. We had to destroy him. No convention no treaty was possible-only destruction" " Grant pg 874-875 Ron Chernow 2017
82
I also suggest to all to read the very moving interactions between Lincoln and the Italian (hero in my mind) Giuseppe Garibaldi the brave and good soul that helped lead the people of Italy out of their oppression.
This is a segue to a broader relationship:
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/giuseppe-garibaldi-presid...
How did "conservatism" mutate into stubborn ignorance?
Learn from history, don't try to re-write it.
"Motley crew" is a more than apt description of Trump's gang. At some point, hopefully before seriously dire stuff happens, we won't have to learn the joke was on us for taking Trump seriously as a President.
20
I found myself a lot less confused when I stopped taking Trump seriously as President. His role is to be a smokescreen, diverting the attention of the media from what his cabinet secretaries are doing to their departments.
3
I see few people address Trump's fascination with torture.
If torture works so well why doesn't the GOP allow the release of the entire 6,000 page "Senate Committee Report on the C.I.A.’s Use of Torture?" The report should have the details that would make America great.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture-report-...
Secretary of Defense Mattis is correct that torture doesn't work. But he can also refer to General George Washington who said the same thing.
To be sure, sadistic torture may break people's will, but it doesn't generate actionable, reliable intelligence. Our experience with the torture of US prisoners in North Korea proves my point.
Even our soldiers with no SERE training deceived their captors by fabricating names and false memories during their many years of captivity.
Some who claim that Muslim captives have incredible religious powers to oppose interrogation overlook that Japanese soldiers and civilians believed the Emperor was literally a deity on earth. They were to kill themselves rather than surrender.
US military interrogators were trained in rapport-building and had tremendous success obtaining vital information from Japanese captives.
Those rapport-building methods were used by professional US interrogators right up until Cheney demanded a change to sadistic methods. Ali Soufan, who successfully interrogated Saddam Hussein and many others, revealed the failures of torture as an interrogation tool.
50
Sure, torture is ineffective if you want actionable intelligence, but if your goal is to get around the Constitution and its guarantees of due process of law in the determination of guilt or innocence and then punishment that is not cruel and unusual, torture is the just the ticket.
Edit - meant to write North Vietnam, not North Korea, although both are accurate.
The Israelis also learned that torturing prisoners only makes them say what the torturer wants to hear, and therefore banned it.
1
You're wrong on the last one. Russians consider the war a 4 year one, from 1941-1945, as signs and monuments across the former Soviet Union conveniently ignore the Soviet aggressions against Poland, the Baltics, Finland, etc. When correcting the record, we've got to be correct.
30
It doesn't matter what Russians think about the dates of WWII. Chamberlain declared war on Germany in 1939. The evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk took place in late Spring 1940. Facts are facts.
1
I agree. When I read that I was immediately shocked. He might have better said Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway or Poland, all who in whole or part kept fighting Hitler (and sometimes in the case of Poland) the USSR too during the whole six years.
Russians do definitely believe that they won the whole war. At least the sample of a half dozen of them that I worked with in 2004 and 2005.
Its only strange viewed from a rational patriotic sense of values. Its perfectly logical viewed as subversive and targeted to undermine our values, and the country we love.
14
I have to think twice lately before I open myself, once more, to further evidence that the man occupying the White House doesn't know anything about democracy, separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, etc. I find it extremely stressful because more proof only means we are in more danger. I am bothered by folks who find Trump funny, as I am bothered by Republicans in the House and the Senate who persist in ignoring how desperately deranged our national government has become. Some of them must read history, and thus they must know that horrific things happen more often than not because people aren't paying close attention. Are we going to be the last American generation?
96
You should not be so fearful, there are 435 people in the House of representatives with the power to impeach Trump. It would only take 218 votes to impeach Trump. Surely there are 218 people of conscience in the House of Representatives. Then it would only take 67 votes to remove him from office. Surely there are 67 people of conscience in the Senate.
Sorry, there may be a few good people, but they are mostly party first Republicans. I guess you should be that fearful.
1
The sentiments and attitudes expressed by Trump and Kelly are strange only in the sense that they're twisted and grotesque.
Uncommon they're not.
Trump and Kelly are just making it plain that US is a land of widespread and deeply-rooted white-supremacist bigotry.
We should all acknowledge this: Trump and Kelly are fairly (if obscenely) representative of sentiments and attitudes held by most of our country's white folk.
59
I don't know if it is "most" of the white folk. How many Trump supporters are "deplorables?" Can we substitute "most of Trump's supporters?" I don't think a majority of white people agree with Trump and Kelly. A lot of loud mouthed ones do, I just don't think they represent the majority.
David - one correction -- white male supremacist bigotry.
And, while Kelly was talking about a time when women were held sacred, he overlooked that women were as much targets of assault and rape before they could vote as after the passage of the 19th Amendment.
(Of course, it is very difficult to do much while standing on a pedestal - except, of course, cooking, cleaning, conceiving and bearing and tending children, etc.
It was the Southern states who wouldn't compromise on slavery. Not willing to allow it to be restricted to states where it was already legal, and where it would presumably have died out as it lost economic relevance, they did everything possible to make the admission of newer states contingent on their legalization of slavery or on maintaining a "balance" between free states and slave states.
Moreover, they were all for "states rights" when it meant keeping slavery legal in in the South, but wanted the federal government to enforce the right of slave owners to recover runaway slaves regardless of the laws in free, Northern states. "States rights" my patootie.
75
Things haven't changed much. States rights is still the battle cry for those on the wrong side of history and the culture wars. But they're quick to put their hand out when they need help from the federal government.
15
Antonin Scalia was a "states rights" proponent. Right up to the point he directed the State of Florida to stop their ballot count.
States rights is a nice catch phrase for "my way."
2
I can think of one compromise that might have saved the country the Civil War. There were people who wanted to solve the problem of slavery by freeing slaves and compensating the owners. One reason why it didn't happen was the potential immense cost. Another was that many people rejected the idea of paying for slaves who should not have been enslaved in the first place
5
This idea was called compensated emancipation, and was used by Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands to free slaves in their colonies. Lincoln attempted it in the border states that remained in the Union (Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland), but it was rejected. It was only enacted in D.C. Confederate states rejected compensated emancipation.
tRump et al live in another century, maybe the 17th or 18th centuries. Could be an earlier one. But all of them, even some of the women in the administration seem willing to lie and put themselves in subservient positions for the likes of tRump. I believe them all mentally unbalanced, would seem the only explanation. They also have no concept of history, I guess they ascribe to alt-history?
18
Another Bizarre Notion Trump and His Team Have About America:
The President's only responsibility is to serve the narrow interests of the people who voted for him.
53
He appears to think his responsibility is to a much smaller segment than those who voted for him -- namely, the top 1% economically.
1
Actually, he believes that his only responsibility is to serve the narrow interests of himself.
2
He serves only himself.
Kelly's statement is obviously insinuating that the North was responsible for the Civil War because they would not sufficiently compromise. That is why he can still claim that Lee was an honorable man. The worldwide movement against slavery had been ongoing for hundreds of years, of course. The questions are how on earth the United States of America, that most noble experiment, could have gone so wrong for almost a hundred years, and even then could only manage to rid itself of slavery through a catastrophic civil war. And how a supposedly honorable man such as Robert E. Lee could have debased himself and wasted the men he led for the sake of that evil business.
36
Slavery was lawful in England. African slaves could survive in the malarial swamps of the South. Europeans died by the scores. Many Southern farms and communities died out from malaria. When the farmers bought slaves to do the field work they could make a profit. Then slaves become capital.
Northern politicians wanted to stop slavery migrating West, the Southern slave holders needed to move West because their crop was being eaten by the boll weevil.
So why would they fight about slavery?
I think it would be much easier to list the things that Trump actually go right. If any.
16
Painful as it is to agree with the President, he was more or less correct as to the time it took to conclude WWII after Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941 and the US declaring war to VJ day (Sept 2 or Aug 15, 1945). Of course, Trump forgot about a few other countries like Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France the various other Commonwealth countries, South Africa, China, Poland and others. Russia was involved for six years only if you count the two years it was a German ally. Remember, in September 1939, Russia and Germany jointly invaded Poland dividing it along the pre WWI boundaries.
19
Many if not most of these inaccuracies stem from Trump's tendency to talk only in superlatives. When you describe just about everything as either "the greatest" or the "a total disaster," you are bound to get yourself into trouble. It's hard to understand what compels this other than the
his massive ego's need to over dramatize everything he says.
15
While I certainly agree with the overall point of this piece, as well as most the particulars, unfortunately you made a major historical blunder yourself. It's true that WWII in Europe lasted something under six years, beginning with British and French declarations of war against Germany after it invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, However, Russia did not join the was until it was invaded by Germany in June, 1941. So the Russians fought for just under four years, only a bit longer than the US, though the war on the Eastern Front was almost certainly bloodier. Sorry, this old European history major couldn't let that one go.
13
If memory serves correctly, didn't the Russians invade Poland as well in 1939? Or, wasn't there some action taken against Finland by the Soviets prior to 1941?
Maybe the old European history major can save us illiterates some "Google" time by telling us "real history"???
Thank you,Marlowe.
It really upsets the nations you mentioned when America claims the winning of WW II for itself.
It comes across as arrogant.
Boasting like Trump !
and in the Pacific China fought Japan for 7 1/2 years during World War 2.
Politics like war makes truth its first casualty.
First of all, the author of this essay characterizes those who opposed the removal of Robert E Lee's statue as "racists."
Nobody has argued that the Civil War was a just war. But neither was the War in Vietnam. The recent documentary by Burns and Novick illustrated the defects in reasoning that led to a war with 58,000 American casualties. The Civil War had ten times that number of casualties. Why exactly do Southern whites not have a right to mourn their dead? And if they have no right to monuments, why do we have a Vietnam War Monument in Washington?
Robert E Lee was highly flawed. So were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both owned slaves. But why exactly are we tearing them down?
They set up an experiment in democracy. That meant that people argued in the Congress over slavery and finally fought a war.
In contrast, Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs with the stroke of a pen. Yes, autocracy is far more efficient. (Like Lincoln, Alexander II was assassinated.)
Yes, democracy is more messy. But at the end of the Civil War, Robert E Lee helped the South recover. He deserves our respect for that.
Flawed people are sometimes wrong. Allowing people to express views which turn out to be wrong in the end is what makes a democracy work.
The fact that liberals don't understand that is the primary reason democracy is under threat in the US.
6
Jake, it should go without saying but apparently you need to hear it: Washington and Jefferson were slave owners who did NOT take up arms against the Union. Vietnam was an ill-advised and unjust war, but it was not an act of treason. The discussion is not about whether reasonable people can disagree or whether people have the right to express their opinions. It's about whether we should honor traitors to the United States.
3
I think we can agree that the marchers in Charlottesville were racists. They were pretty clear about their beliefs. Rosenthal doesn't argue that everyone who opposes removal of statues is racist.
I think we can also agree that it's nonsense to equate George Washington with Robert E. Lee. The former was a founding father, while the latter tried to end the union.
Where did you see the author proposing that Kelly not be allowed to express his views?
3
I don't get your argument. Robert E. Lee was flawed, since GW, Thos. Jeff, and all humans are flawed? Lee therefore deserves loud public honor -- for what, exactly? For being a good general in an unjust war? For his horrific treatment of his slaves, even by the standards of his day? For his presidency at Washington and Lee? (Maybe that I would give him.) What, exactly? The very best I have heard for him (if accurate) was his post-war low-ballling: don't make a big deal of us with monuments....
As a "liberal" I think I do understand that opposing voices need not only be heard but listened to. This "liberal" happens to be descended from numerous Union soldiers and to be related to J.E.B. Stuart, among other Confederates. The opposing voices ring loud in my family's history. They were wrong, the Unionists were right, and I can love them all as family. But. The Confederates were wrong. And most Unionists were far away from issues of race where any decent percent is today, but that's another story.
2
The problem is not only that the Trump administration lies and/or is so collectively ignorant that no one can recognize a lie.
The real problem is that a large segment of the electorate is so ignorant and so anti-intellectual that they cannot recognize a lie nor do they consider truth to be important.
This is what happens when our locally controlled school districts overvalue test scores, undervalue critical thinking and knowledge, think of job training as the only purpose of schooling, and consider history, geography, economics, and political science classes to be mere time fillers that are useful mostly for keeping the athletic coaches busy before 3PM.
43
In the context of Trump’s comments on Charlottesville and Kelly’s lies about a black congresswoman, Kelly’s statements about the Civil War are suspect; Trump is in bed with white supremicists and Kelly appears to be siding with Trump.
What Kelly said, however, is historically accurate. There were numerous attempts to negotiate -compromise- on slavery, all of which failed due to the South’s fears of eventual abolition. Lincoln (yes, Lincoln) offered to not oppose an amendment to perpetuate slavery, while refusing to back polices that might have prevented the admission of new “free” states. The new Southwest and Northwest Territories were likely to produce additional free states and provide a supermajority for abolition, a risk the South was unwilling to take. To say that political compromise was impossible is just wrong; compromise was impossible, because one party would not yield on the core issue. That slavery was a moral atrocity did not preclude a political solution.
Lee’s paternalistic views on race - he wrote that slavery was evil, but did not accept black equality -were shared by most white Americans, including Lincoln. If Lee wanted to eject blacks from Virginia, Lincoln suggested sending freed slaves back to Africa. Moreover, Lee vehemently opposed secession as unconstitutional, writing that he would not take up arms against the US except to defend his home state. Presumably, even abolition would not have changed his views. Faced with a choice, Lee chose Virginia.
6
Re: history misconceptions- Civil War causes.
In an effort to escape to a different political history, I'm on my third biography of Lincoln. (Tarbell, etc)
Lincoln refused for many years, including while in Congress, to vote in favor of granting any new State's ability to permit slavery. He strongly stated that this would eventually result in the spread and takeover of that 'peculiar institution' into all United States. His reasoning on this is lucid and brilliant. Why not have someone do your hard manual labor for you, and you not pay them?
Lincoln was not however, pro abolition per my readings. He realized that no compromise existed. Between the abolitionists contingents of the northeast , and the pro- slave southern states, Lincoln WAS the compromise during the presidential election. The best compromise was what he offered; to leave the southern states alone, letting them keep their slavery, but simply have none of it spread to the new territories or states. This was unacceptable to Douglas. The rest is history. AL positions are very clear and brilliantly articulated in his speeches,including one at Union in NYC. There simply was no compromise available - southerners wished to geographically expand slavery; Lincoln said no, but no abolition .
As far as my reasoning goes, that is not an abandonment of a compromise.
By the way, it gives hope to read of Lincoln on these days.
9
Civil War
Numerous compromises on slavery were struck between our founding and our civil war. In the end, we foundered on the South’s unwillingness to accept the proffered compromise that would have kept slavery confined to the Deep South – but the compromise was offered. The argument that one couldn’t compromise with slavery comports with our values today and those of abolitionists and decent people then, but it flies in the face of what actually happened. The invective that Kelly suffers from the left is ideologically motivated, part of the no-holds-barred frontal assaults to which BOTH sides have descended.
Questioning the Military
Most accord respect to senior military officers, many of whom could have built far more impressive economic success in the private sector but who chose to serve their country instead; yet they can be as flawed as any others. However, characterizing Kelly’s interpretation of what he heard Rep. Wilson say in that speech as a “lie” goes well beyond what I’d be willing to accept. In any event, it’s not in any way comparable to Mr. Rosenthal’s other examples of extremist views offered by military officers.
Torture
Most Americans, when they think of “torture”, think of electrodes applied to parts of the body and fingernails being pulled. They don’t think of waterboarding. Certainly, they didn’t before the argument was made that it WAS torture. Leaving aside the highly charged issue of whether it is or is not, Trump’s statement was accurate.
2
Who’s Alive, Who’s Dead and Who’s a Republican
I reacted volcanically in this forum to the stupidity apparent in Trump’s statement about Frederick Douglass. However, but for a careless use of tense by a guy whose speech doesn’t parse most of the time, it might have been a perfectly innocuous if materially content-free statement.
And if many high school students when asked date our civil war as having occurred a few years before WWII, then I can believe that many also don’t know that Lincoln was our first Republican president and a founder of the party.
Human Trafficking
The method by which many “Coyotes” ferry human beings across borders for money – not just here but globally -- might very well be considered “human trafficking”.
Civil Rights
Yep. Trump’s statement was pretty dumb. While it’s true that we haven’t been so racially destabilized since the end of the Jim Crow era – which certainly isn’t Trump’s fault – it remains that African Americans have known FAR harder times in our history.
World War II
The USSR fought Hitler starting with Hitler’s invasion in June, 1941. That makes THEIR war about four years in duration, not six, which involved other nations, notably France and Great Britain. Mr. Rosenthal might want to crack a history text himself.
***
It’s unfortunate that we can’t look beyond ideological interests to insist on balance, regardless of our individual worldviews.
5
Rare to agree with the comments of Mt Luettgen but I am in concord with this analysis. No one benefits when reactions and responses are motivated by politically rather than socially beneficial remarks.
5
Sorry, but Kelly lied It wasn't an interpretation of what Rep. Wilson said, it was an attack on her character. i.e. she was self-aggrandizing, opportunistic and meddlesome, He used his own "facts" to bolster what he said and those "facts" turned out to be completely false. Oh, maybe this is just fake news.
3
The funny thing that NYT readers fail to grasp is that Trump won the election. Many people out here in flyover country are tired of being lectured to by Eastern elites who clearly see us as a bunch of hayseeds. Of course they don't even know what a hayseed looks like. Criticize President Obama and you are a racist. Vote for Mr. trump and you are a racist. People out here are pretty tired of the same old stuff from the NYT. Here is a suggestion - get in your car and drive 100 miles from NYC into the wild. You will discover real Americans who laugh at the study you print.
18
Dear Bill (from Des Moines),
What you fail to grasp is that Trump won the race for President of the Electoral College of the United States.
He DID NOT win the popular vote...
He DID NOT WIN THE POPULAR VOTE.
Of course you can drive into "the wild" and discover folks who are so marginalized , they are , rightfully so, grasping at straws.
The truly sad thing is, they really believe Trump has their back.
Makes my heart ache.
It's patently clear, the last thing he cares about are the "marginalized folks".
40
Utter nonsense to now speak of the popular votes vs. the Electoral College votes. The Electoral College is a superb device to see that the country has a President with wider support of the nation. So, please do not utter this nonsense, many a great US Presidents in the past won the Election because they had the Electoral College victory as against a popular vote majority. The System applies to all!
1
Bill, I lived among you for a dozen years. I learned all about racism during those years. I saw it up close and personal, and the experience still haunts me, decades later. I am no longer shocked by racism, so I guess I have flyover country to thank for that.
3
In resigning his U.S. Army commission, Robert E. Lee wasn’t making a choice between slavery and abolition. Slavery was legal under federal law at the time, and the Supreme Court had recently ruled it was protected by the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln tried to prevent the Civil War by backing the Corwin Amendment, which was proposed in 1860 to persuade Southern states to remain in the Union. The amendment read as follows: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” In his first inaugural address Lincoln declared that he had “no objection” to the Corwin Amendment, nor that it be made forever unamendable. The Corwin Amendment won two-thirds support in both the House and the Senate in early 1861, but Southern states seceded before the amendment could be presented to the states for ratification. The Civil War was fought over the right of secession, not slavery. The North never would have fought a war over slavery. Ending slavery became a goal only at the end of the war. If the South had not seceded, there would have been no war, and slavery would have endured for another generation or two.
34
Thank you, William. It is shocking and upsetting that people - including, apparently, the editorial board of the New York Times – are rewriting the Civil War to - rightly - object to Trump’s white supremicism. Lincoln did not merely voice no objection to the Corwin amendment; he stated outright, in his inaugural address, that he would not oppose it, and also assured the South that he would not send troops into southern states or take any steps to end slavery. At that time, March 1861, several southern states had already seceded; others soon followed. The War was fought to restore those states to the union.
Yes, the underlying cause of the conflict was slavery. The South feared abolition -hence the proposed amendment - and Lincoln’s election and the prospect of additional free states led several southern states to secede before his inauguration. But secession, not slavery, was the issue that precipitated the war. As you write, the North would never have gone to war to abolish slavery - although I doubt that the South would have obtained the 3/4 majority of states needed to ratify the Corwin Amendment. The Southern states may have believed that, too; and fearing the admission of additional free states that could tip the balance toward abolition, the South rejected that final offer of a compromise and seceded.
4
And why did the South want to secede? To preserve slavery, of course, which it felt was threatened by Abolitionism and the growing power of the North. Ending slavery was not always the goal of the North, but preserving it was ALWAYS the essential goal of the Confederacy. Therefore, the Civil War was without a doubt a war about slavery, as has been noted by every reputable historian of that conflict, such as David Blight, Bruce Levine, and many, many others.
2
For pity's sake. The South would not give a fig for the right of secession if it weren't considered necessary to preserve their 'peculiar institution.' Any number of public statements by state officials made clear the argument over secession was rooted in defending slavery and the 'way of life.'
5
The problem is that these seven bizarre notions about America are their roadmap to "Make America Great Again."
They really do not understand our Constitution or appreciate its majestic beauty and brilliance.
Witness Trump's embarrassingly small-minded, short-sighted, self-interested attack today on our "laughingstock" judicial system.
42
It's at least partly our fault; we have argued about education policy for decades now instead of actually educating a couple of generations of kids. Those kids are now full-grown, uneducated adults who fill in the gaps of their educations with whatever Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh drill into them.
15
I had a good laugh reading this. Then I thought, OMG Trump is the US President. Then all this was not so funny.
49
Another Bizarre Notion is touting American Excellence as best in the world, Education, Computer Industry, Healthcare, Arts, including this Administration while this Administration is anything but. It is a sloppy, inaccurate, messy, quagmire of an organization with no reflection of excellence, superiority, brilliance, truth, or dignity.......
50
"I love the poorly educated ". Good, you've surrounded yourself with them. Your OWN kind. Make America Stupid, Bigly.
82
In asserting that an inability to compromise led to the Civil War, John Kelly probably was referring to the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The compromise admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, but excluded slavery for the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36°30′ parallel, with the exception of Missouri. The compromise split the nation along into two sections, one free and one unfree. However, the Missouri Compromise was weaken by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which permitted these two states to choose to allow slavery or to prohibit slavery though both were north of the Missouri Compromise line. And then the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Many historians cite the sectional anger and hostility created by the enactment and then the collapse of the Missouri Compromise as a major cause of the Civil War.
8
Why would the Missouri Compromise in 1820 0r the Dred Scott case in 1854 get such strong reaction from established Southern states? How did those decisions effect those states?
1
You miss the Point that Dred Scott made any further compromise impossible. The South seceded to preserve slavery. There was no longer the possibility of compromise any longer with that monstrous idea.
5
Well how about this: John Kelly is Chief of Staff, and his job was supposed to be to bring order and discipline to the Oval Office. Perhaps he should stay away from podiums and stop having press briefings.
Americans grieve with the people of Rosario.
6
John Kelly appears to be an excellent example of why Marines are referred to as "Jarheads" (hard on the outside; nothing on the inside).
30
That term actually refers to the standard Marine haircut. I have also heard them described as "sea-going bellhops", a reference to the dress uniforms.
1
I don't know about that, but he sure is losing credibility and sacrificing his reputation just about every time he opens his mouth lately.
12
As they say, "Once a Marine only a Marine." Or something to that effect.
Russia was at war with Germany from June 22, 1941 until May 8, 1945. That being said the USSR bore the brunt of defeating the Nazis.
18
How an intelligent person with an iota of self respect fall in behind such a buffoon.
It is mind boggling that people who consider themselves good, or even christian, (as if that matters at all) can fail to recognize this ignorant, moronic evil in our midst.
42
If you are fearful for America and its democratic values, protest and resist every day in every way!
27
And the best way to do that is to find people who voted for anyone but Hillary and get them to vote Dem in 2018 and 2020. We can't afford another split of the party. I hope the DNC gets its act together and finds suitable, electable candidates, but if the goal is to get rid of Trump and this greedy, self-interested GOP Congress, we have to stick together first.
3
Hillary was wrong when she said there were deplorables joining the republican party, the entire republican party is deplorable.
55
Probably why she lost and Democrats are the minority party. If it wasn't for monolithic African American support, Democrats would be an insignificant force. Hence the need to constantly accuse Republicans and Trump of racism while accepting Robert Byrd as a great leader.
2
Robert Byrd apologized many times for his racist past. And Trump and the 62,979,879 people who voted for him might not ALL be racists; some of them are homophobes, some are xenophobes, some are misogynists, some are just ignorant bullies. And we have all of them to thank for the human wrecking ball sitting in his bathrobe watching Fox again tonight.
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/02/at-least-robert...
3 million more people voted for Clinton. Trump had the minority.
Mr. Rosenthal, to complete your list of "bizarre notions about America & ANYTHING ELSE,'' you really need to speak with everyone who worked for, or with, Donald Trump at The Trump Organization. However, after you do so, be prepared to pen a book, rather than simply a column.
11
Isn't signing a non-disclosure agreement a requirement of working for the Trump Organization?
So not only have we been unable to see Trump's tax returns or any public accounting of his business, we have never been able to get the truth about Trump from his past and present employees.
18
But federal subpoenas can get those documents. I'm sure Mueller has already got them in fact.
2
Funny, his Idol Winston Churchill would refute Trump WWII narrative---Geez, Germany bombing of Britain, precursor to US Entry, wasn't War?
11
My cousin R E Lee’s contribution to the people, Arlington cemetery
14
Yeah, they're freaks, alright. Kelly's racialized comments about slavery, "history" and "compromise" are among their lowest lows. Talk about dog whistles. Apparently he's unfamiliar with the Missouri Compromise of 1820; the Compromise of 1850; 36,30; etc. And in all those cases, civilized people bent over backwards, *trying* to find a way forward with foul, venal, beady-eyed southern whites, most of whose constituents could be counted upon to vote and/or fight against their own interests, simply by the pressing of their hate buttons. Deja vu all over again. The real news really needs to drop the bit about this guy and his "credibility".
27
It must be acknowledged that now "Fox and Friends" is his kitchen cabinet. Every day they dole out sufficient praise to keep Mr. Trump interested and then hit him with his talking points for the morning tweet storm. Their power is huge.
22
Yuge. Bigly. Believe me.
Trump & Cronies advertise their staggering ignorance like a badge of honor, indeed, they wear it as a crown upon their heads. It is the source of bonding with their millions of fact-phobic followers.
But there is more: according to the Gallup poll, one in five (1/5) Americans hold the conviction that the sun revolves around the earth. It seems that Copernicus and Galileo got it all terribly wrong. But then, they weren't Republicans so what can you expect?
http://news.gallup.com/poll/3742/New-Poll-Gauges-Americans-General-Knowl...
Do the math: the population of USA is roughly 320,000,000, therefor one-fifth equals 64,000,000 citizens. Trump pulled in 62,985,134 votes, not that there is any relation in the numbers...absolutely none at all...honest.
In the meantime, it feels so comforting to know that we are center of the universe, or at lease Trump is.
30
Hmmm. I use the number 62,979,879, but I just googled 62,985,134. Good sources for both numbers. Not that it matters to make your point!
deduct those under 18 from the total population
and one gets an even more concentrated percentage of
earth centrists
4
Kelly's right. There was a lack of an ability to compromise that led to the Civil War. The long list of prior compromises proves that, finally, at the end of the day, there exactly was a lack of ability to compromise any further. On the question of slavery. So Kelly is literally and logically correct; his appreciation of what constitutes morally correct behavior is also on the money: for most people it is conditioned by the social & institutional structures that surround them. The majority of white Southerners did not own slaves but supported & were supported by a slave-based economy in which they firmly believed, prayed for in Church and were willing to die to preserve.
13
If there's any truth in what sbmd wrote about lack of compromise, it's the South alone that failed to compromise. Lincoln made it clear that he accepted (without pleasure) slavery in the South, but would try limit it in the territories. The South
seceded BEFORE Lincoln took office so you cannot in any event blame Lincoln.
As many writers have recently made clear, slavery was accommodated by numerous and major compromises from before we won our Independence to the 1860's.
12
Marvant Duhon Bloomington, Indiana: thanks. I agree with most of what you said. Most wars, if not all, are ultimately the result of a "lack of ability to compromise" - just consider The Great War which followed. Kelly's remark could be taken as an example of an "alternative fact" - a factoid - what he said was true, he just skipped the heart of the matter - perhaps a military mindset?
The fact that Lincoln could accept a union with slavery should disturb anyone who denies the mitigation of slavery as a cause of the war.
4
Nice try, but you can't ascribe good morals to a defender of the profoundly immoral institution of slavery just because his way of life and all that surrounded him depended on it. This type of willful ignorance keeps us from acknowledging the unjust inequality that has and still exist in our society.
2
This is not one of your better editorials, Andrew ...
Without entirely stepping up to defend our present "Mr. President," I do think that it is very fair to say that anything which any public official says should be understood, and presented, in the "greater context" in which it was originally spoken, not lifted out of that context. Especially if you then purpose to describe them as, "bizarre."
I frankly think that we should begin to embrace(!) the notion that we have, in this President, someone who is not "a professional politician." I fundamentally believe that he cares passionately about what he is doing. But he is conditioned to speak very plainly and is not afraid to do so. We should bear in mind that we have NEVER, in the entire history of this Republic, had a President who came to the Office from this background, and therefore with this point-of-view. (Every one of the others (with the possible exception of Dr. Woodrow Wilson) was either a professional politician or a retired military general.) We also should bear in mind that the American people chose this man specifically.
7
The American People chose Hillary Clinton specifically.
6
There is a difference, I think, between someone who is not a "professional politician" and someone, like Trump, who is woefully ignorant of American history and civics, lacks humility, grace and compassion, is a racist, serial liar and fabulist and, saddest of all, seems to be totally unfamiliar with the phrase "I'm sorry." Actually, these attributes make him like many professional politicians; he just never ran for office before. As for the minority of voters who, by grace of the Electoral College, put him in office, they either share or celebrate many of these qualities, or if not, his greed.
6
Hoover was a retired businessman. Regardless, you can't excuse the things Trump says by repeating that he's not a professional politician. I've been following Trump in the news for four decades, and he's always been the same influence peddler and media pro. He's also been weighing a run for the presidency for decades.
I also think we need to make clear that Trump doesn't speak plainly (which implies that he's straightforward and honest). While Trump uses simple words and sentences, he's the opposite of plain-spoken.
Finally, your claim that he was chosen by the American people is wrong. He was chosen by the Electoral College--and by 77,000 votes in three states. The voters chose Clinton by an overwhelming majority. He's always been unpopular with the American people, which is the inherent weakness of his position.
39
These are historical perspectives on which Donald T and the compliant Republican Party can be challenged by facts.
The fact Donald T is constantly encountering facts, historical or otherwise, which he believes most people "don't even know" reflects years of experience in bankruptcy proceeding, fighting law suits, and knowing real estate tax breaks; ask Donald T about these topics and he may be knowledgeable.
On governing, democracy, the American system of government, Donald T has proven re-remarkably obstinately unknowledgeable and uneducated - and the lack of attention to detail (laziness?) and lack of focus, with which Donald T seems to address every and all topics, except his own infallibility, would imply this will never change.
21
Any historian will tell you that Abe Lincoln tried to get African slaves to Liberia. Can you imagine someone like that willing to fight a civil war over slavery? Possible but not very probable. Most people in those times, although didn't own slaves, also didn't want competition from free slaves. It stands to reason that majority of the population were strongly pro-slavery or at least strongly pro-white-power America. This screed is not saying that those views are correct. Obviously, they are morally unjustifiable. Just like not supporting gay marriage - How many of us remember President Obama saying marriage is between a man and a woman in 2008? 10 years ago, that was the position taken by him - does that make it correct?
John Kelly is totally right in saying that history is always a perspective. Nyt possibly agrees with the statement but to cater to the rabid left, I guess they have no other option but to vilify anyone who supports Trump. They might even be trying to send a message to honorable men who might think about supporting the President. Like Jimmy Carter who said this week that no other President has been treated so badly.
3
A post that struggles mightily to defend slavery with little more than whataboutery. Incredible.
One thing is clear: the 2016 election yanked the cover off our rosy notion that we’ve made strides in our social consciousness.
1
Perhaps it’s rabid of me, but the lack of compromise had to do with preservation and spread of slavery. Is Kelly’s point that this isn’t worth considering? That because the South believed in something and couldn’t compromise, never mind what it was, that we should honor that? No.
1
He was coddled and pampered by the press all through the election. After all, he made great copy! Had they done their job properly, and scrutinize them as closely as they did his opponent, he would not have been elected. He got a free ride then; he deserves the treatment he's getting now.
6
The United States declared war on December 8th 1941, and VE Day was celebrated on May 8th 1945. Three and a half years. Japan surrendered 4 months later. For all intents and purposes, we did win WWII in three and a half years. The additional four months were a foregone conclusion and until the U.S. entered the war, Germany was winning. It is so dishonest to make the statement you made about Trump. And you're even wrong about Russia. They were first attacked by Germany June 22nd, 1941. So for them WWII lasted four years not six. The grim truth is that you don't know enough to tell us the grim truth.
6
Uhmmm... The Soviet Union was in bed with Nazi Germany when Poland was split in two. The year was 1939. Stalin tried to gobble up Finland and took away parts of Romania and erased the Baltic States. Only political expediency prevented France and Britain from including Moscow as an ally of Germany.
The Soviet Union was sending supplies of oil, food, ore, etc to Nazi Germany to fuel Hitler's war. That's why the Soviet Union was already involved since 1939. World War II, in a way, was a series of wars that aggregated together.
7
Both Trump & you are limiting US involvement to armed confrontation.
The US was far from neutral prior to December 1941. Indeed it was widely accepted by everyone by 1935 that another major war was inevitable. On a diplomatic level there was considerable shoring up of support.
All wars are economic & the US placed trade restrictions on Japan from 1939 in a belated response to the invasion of China in 1937.
The US supported Britain with supplies & Atlantic escorts.
Together with Commonwealth countries, accepted thousands of evacuee children. Elizabeth Taylor is the most famous example.
It made no attempt to stop US citizens going to Canada or Britain & either volunteering in their military, or providing other support, eg medical. They had to renounce US citizenship to do so. The US government could have, but did not, denounce them for it.
There's more to war than shooting & bombing.
The grim truth is, you need to do some reading on a conflict that left 45-85 million dead & 4 times that casualties.
While the U.S. declared war on Germany in December 1941, we concentrated our military efforts on the Pacific and Japan until the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. Most historians consider the Battle of Stalingrad (begun August 1942) the turning point of the war.
The Russians deserve the credit for winning the war. They bore the brunt of it, and they sacrificed millions of men to break the back of Hitler's army. We defeated Japan, and we helped defeat Germany.
The biggest crime of the Trump administration is their full out attack on the truth. As John Lennon once said, "All I want is the truth!"
25
Nothing here is odd. They are laying out a groundwork and playbook of white supremacy, brutality and autocratic rule. While we lecture people on facts and show everybody how smart we are, they are making clear a world view that wil be a nightmare if it carries the day. We just need to fight back and fight back and fight back like our survival depends on it.
31
The Questioning the military section could stand a hyperlink to an extensive list of known lies, omissions, made up alternative narrative, coverups of atrocities by military brass.
But then why would any general bother being honest or truthful when their commander in chief lies all the time?
The list of Trump's lies As of July 29, 2017:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
If ever there was a time to question authority...
17
Words are the problem. Trump asserts he has ‘the best words." I suspect this means when he uses words he owns them. His meaning rules!
Now take the word ‘compromise.’ For Trump this means ‘agree with trump.’ Civil War, World War II. When he uses those words, his meanings rule.
It all becomes clear when you understand these principles. They’re so simple even his followers get it: No need to think; just believe!
So, Just stop thinking. Fall under the spell. Let Trump and Kelly and Sanders be your guides.
It’s a language problem: Many of us, myself included, view ourselves as using English. But take a lesson from Kelly: Compromise! (See paragraph 2 above.)
When Trump speaks, it’s not English. It’s Bestlish! (See paragraph 1.)
See how easy it is?
Just give yourselves over.
That’s what they’ve accomplished. (And it’s terrifying)
22
The guiding force in all this is that Trump doesn’t have a shred of humanity in him.
29
Just when I thought it could not get worse, it gets worse, the drip, drip, drip of constant lies. The constant stress of this administration gives me a much better insight into how it must have been in Communist China and Hitler's Germany; I realize that I have never before been really able to imagine what it must have been like to the mind, body, and soul. Sadly I'm beginning to understand. I remember the speakers in the Chinese homes which could not be turned off. The daily grind must have been extremely disheartening and much like the current White House press conferences. At least for now I can choose not to listen. I am turning more than ever to music and art as a refuge.
30
We all have to do what we have to do to cope. But while you're doing music and art, please convince some people--any people--to vote Dem in 2018 and 2020. Bernie is a luxury option we can't afford now.
3
A nit-pick: Germany invaded Russia in 1941. Before that they were uneasy allies.
4
Umm. Human trafficking is a form of slavery. And slavery involves human trafficking.
9
I would dispute one fact with you. The Soviet Union only fought from Sept 1941 (previous to that had a non-agression pact with the Nazis), so only fought for 4 years. It was Great Britain and its allies (Canada, etc) that fought for 6 years.
8
America's "Greatest Generation" fought heroically to end the global threat of fascism in World War II. Now we have a President and his base voters who apparently want to bring it back.
21
"Our historian in chief might want to run that one by his buddy Vladimir Putin, who thinks, as many Russians do, that the long and bloody fight his country waged against Hitler was what made it possible to end the war after six years."
Trump was talking about the US, which entered the War in mid-1941, about 3 1/2 years before the end of the war. This guy is so intent on smearing Trump he doesn't even know what he's saying.
4
Rosenthal's point is that Russia and Putin would not agree with Trump that the U.S. single-handedly won the war. That statement seems true enough.
Rosenthal is saying that World War II ended after six years, not that Russia was fighting Hitler for six years.
Just a tiny complaint, the Russians did think they pretty much singlehandedly beat Hitler, but not after 6 years, after almost 4 years (June 22, 1941-May 8 1945). Because they were essentially allies when Nazis invaded Poland on Sep 1, 1939 and the Soviets invaded Poland from the East on Sep 17, 1939 (and also invaded the Baltics, and attempted to invade Finland). The Russians are justly proud of their enormous effort and sacrifice in the war against Hitler, but they have, almost successfully, buried their disgraceful history in the war alongside Hitler.
10
Don't bring data to an anecdote fight.
321
I'm from a large family with some cousins who are unashamedly ignorant. I was often told I was wasting my time and stupid to spend money getting my college degree. Get a job, many said. Money is their goal, sometimes in shady business ways, like Trump's. They identify with him, and his ignorance. Facts mean only what they think, as that's how a strong person acts, to be admired. Their book reading is limited to grade school level, at best, if at all. Comprehension is unnecessary, just opinion and money. Sound familiar?
43
What happened the last time we had a president who knew what he was talking about and was able to express himself coherently? He was regularly derided as being "professorial," including by a Pulitzer-prize winning columnist in this newspaper.
So instead of a professor in the White House we have a D student and his like-minded friends. "Real Americans," according to Sarah Palin. "Nitwits," according to anyone who knows anything about anything.
55
I'm coming to believe that the situation in which we find ourselves is/was not created by Trump or his minions or his supporters. The problem is the institutional structure that allows, perpetuates, and reproduces the status quo. The status quo is an exploitative economic system designed to takes surplus value from the labor of others.
4
I don't understand this sentiment about Kelly's statement about the Civil War.
The South started the Civil War. And it was a truly terrible choice--for all Americans.
Rosenthal makes it sound like that the South had no choice, no compromise available, except for secession and war.
Kelly didn't say that once the South started the war, that the North should have chosen to pacify.
This is all some remarkable revisionist history.
In any event, the country would have obviously been better off if slavery was outlawed via consensus rather than after nearly a million deaths. If that's what Kelly meant, he was clearly correct.
3
I suspect Rosenthal was referring to the Missouri Compromise, not to the North accommodating the South once Fort Sumter was attacked. I didn't see him say that the South had no choice but to attack. He said that compromise had been tried for many years, and it failed.
The country would never have outlawed slavery by consensus--it was too profitable, and it was becoming more profitable every year. Slave owners would never consent to give up their "property," the most valuable part of their holdings.
But the South rebelled, started a war, and would not compromise. It yielded when its army was about to be destroyed. Who are we blaming for failure to compromise?
4
Mmm
You make good points. BTW, why are you using a photo of Bill Gates as an avatar?
In a bizarre, twisted sense trump and the republicans view of America's past is not so wrong . America actually is a country built on genocide, slavery exploitation, lies, ignorance, bigotry, hate, and hypocrisy and that is the America trump and the republicans appeal to. That is the America trump and many of his followers thinks was great and want to bring us back to again. We see it not just in the slogans but every day through the loathsomeness of their words and deeds.
America's greatness lies not in what it was in the past, where there is much to be ashamed of, and certainly not what it is today, but what we can make it be in the future.
14
Presuming we live through this administration and the wrecking ball that is our GOP "unified" Congress.
1
Andrew, this is an inflammatory column that serves no purpose other than to create more hate and division. I despise Trump because I believe foundationally that America IS great (it was, it is, and it will be). No need to "MAGA."
But you column is really just a laundry list of grievances against our country and conservatives whose love of country just doesn't happen to fit your world view.
A lack of compromise most certainly lead to the Civil War. Compromise would not have immediately freed slaves; that wasn't Gen Kelly's point. Compromise would have avoided or postponed the WAR. That a new generation of historians reject what was a long-held view is fine, but to suggest it's not "mainstream" is dishonest. As is the belief that Lee was an honorable man. That was, too, consensus. If historically illiterate radical leftists want to paint him as a 19th Century SS commander, that's their right . . . but factually they're quite wrong.
As for admiration for the military, Sander's comment offended and angered me--especially since i'm a vet. But why bring up LeMay's comments from 50 years ago? What does that prove? What's your view of an earlier generation of Air Force bomber generals who ordered an air campaign against Germany that killed over a million? And the attack on Trump's air traffic control comments; give me a break. Politicians on both sides routinely cite our mass mobilization during WWII as grounds for why some program should be easy to implement.
6
Maybe it was an unwillingness to compromise on the part of the southern (slave) states. Who fired first?
Is Kelly criticizing the North for defending the (territorial) integrity of the country?
4
". . . conservatives whose love of country just doesn't happen to fit your world view." Well I must say, conservatives sure didn't respect MY love of country when I expressed heartfelt, righteous dissent over George Bush and the Republicans purposely mixing the Afghanistan War with the Iraq War as though they were the same thing and then deriding me--and anyone else who dissented--as unpatriotic. I think it's the small-ell liberal love of country that just doesn't happen to fit YOUR world view.
I agree that Trump's perceptions of history are at serious odds with the reality of each of the topics he has butchered. But so are our children's textbooks-- the whitewashing of much of the civil rights era so that Massive Resistance and the work off Martin Luther King get very little mention doesn't limit the misunderstandings that are routinely part of public education. It boils down to one of my favorite bumper stickers: "Those who don't understand history are doomed to vote Republican."
5
Although Lincoln and congressional Republicans despised slavery, they did in fact offer southern leaders a compromise even at the last moment, to assure them that they had no intention to attack the institution directly. Lincoln and other members of his party insisted repeatedly that the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to interfere with slavery where it already existed, a view endorsed by almost all mainstream politicians of both parties in 1860.
During the secession crisis, moreover, Congress (with Lincoln's approval) passed a proposed constitutional amendment stipulating that Congress would never have the authority to propose an amendment authorizing the legislative branch to abolish slavery. Lincoln acquiesced almost certainly because he believed that, if Congress blocked the further expansion of slavery into the remaining territories, eventually southern states would abolish the institution themselves because it would become unprofitable.
Whether the states would have ratified this amendment no one can know, but the leaders of secession rejected it out of hand. They demanded that the GOP drop its opposition to expansion of slavery into the territories, a concession Lincoln and his colleagues rejected because it would ensure the indefinite survival of the institution.
In the event, the 13th amendment abolished slavery directly, without relying on the authority of Congress.
7
Trump holds office because he pulls nonsense out of his nethers and calls it fact. He ran his business and estimated his fortune that way. The GOP loves that. His supporters love that. Their problem is that they think they can do it too. They can't.
5
The view that the Civil War began because of an inability on both sides to compromise is simply an expression of fact. How else do wars start?
1
I hope this is sarcasm. Would WWII have been averted by compromise? Seems Chamberlain gave it a good try. See also, nearly all other wars in history.
1
Presenting two sides as equal in merit when they are not is called "false equivalency." Fox News has this mastered.
I was very excited to hear that I may have a chance to hear Frederick Douglas speak. I thought that I had missed the opportunity by a few generations.
13
Good column with one exception. Human trafficking is synonymous with slavery. Human trafficking is the buying, selling, transport, and forced labor of people. In other words, slavery.
7
The Branch Donaldians don't want to have their bubble pierced by facts. They've got 'alternative facts' and that's enough for them. The President uses their proud ignorance to baby-duck them down various rabbit holes. It's simpler not to bother trying to correct the willfully stupid.
Unless and until the 40% who do not regularly vote stand up and get counted - the obstructed and the apathetic - the chances of our nation choosing a sensible direction and sticking to it are not good.
5
Trumpsters are already planning massive get out the vote drive aimed at their supporters who didn’t vote last time. Scary to think about that.
The first statement is flat wrong and Kelly is not crazy.
There is no doubt that preserving slavery prompted the gulf states to secede. Which for better or worse was not illegal. But the war started when Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to invade the south. The guys who went to war for the north did so to preserve the union not to end slavery. The guys for the south fought to resist invasion.
Lee was an honorable man and considered so by his opponents. Abolitionists complained that Lee was honorable because it made it harder to propagandize him.
Don't forget the south was scared. Abolitionists advocated slave insurrection and the killing of all southern whites. They even financed an attempt at Harpers ferry.
Don't forget South Carolina split the Democratic Party and allowed Lincoln in. This put fire to the kindling.
You can't read about the civil war and not feel the pain of this avoidable tragedy. But the current group think is "south evil north good". The truth is far more complicated and beyond 2,000 word opeds.
And I despair today because as democrats continue to attack the south and the men who fought against invasion they simply play into the hands of Trump and Bannon. You alienate potential voters. Dems win if they oppose white supremacy they lose when they vilify the south. Watch Northam lose next week over just this point.
3
I would simply refer you to Lincoln's Cooper Union address.
Where, pray tell, is the current group "south evil north good"? I'm as far left as anyone I know, and no one I know thinks that. Can't be groupthink if I don't know about it.
I think the Republican idea of compromise is pretty much "You give me what I want, and in return I get what I want." That's fair, isn't it?
12
More than 70 countries had slaves in 1800 and almost all of them had outlawed it by 1900. The US was alone in having a civil war, however, and a civil war to end slavery was by no means inevitable.
2
Trump is living in the '70s. He's not the only one.
3
More like the Ward-and-June-Cleaver 50s when you could spend your whole life working for the same firm, which provided health insurance and a pension so you could retire young enough to enjoy some of life before you die--AND you could live in your Ward-and-June white neighborhood and never even have to SEE a black person. They were great old days, weren't they? When you could just ignore racial, social, and economic inequality and not be held to account?
Trump's point about air traffic control is correct. GPS was available at Radio Shack a quarter century ago an we have controllers looking at radar screens to figure out where the planes are. This country has accomplished big things in a matter of years, why should air traffic control take decades?
2
Lack of federal funding? Infrastructure maintenance and upgrade does not seem to be a budget priority.
5
And you expect GPS to enable an automated traffic control system to replace controllers? There are problems which can be solved in years and problems whose solution seems likely but nobody can explain how, yet. There might be some way to find out in a few years but on the other hand, it might take a lot longer.
1
Why should modernizing air traffic control take decades? Because one side of the political divide in this country would rather cut taxes for rich people than get and spend the money to update air traffic control equipment.
4
It is certainly true that inability to compromise led to the Civil War. If the South had been willing to accept Lincoln as president, and give up pushing for slavery in the territories, they could almost certainly have made a deal. Lincoln,a non-abolitionist moderate in 1861, would have been quite satisfied to make gradual progress towards the eventual abolition of slavery, and would not have pressed the South any further. Slavery in the South could have lasted another 20 or 30 years under such an agreement.
But instead, the South foolishly revolted, and things changed radically in a couple of years.
9
"Slavery in the South could have lasted another 20 or 30 years under such an agreement."
This you see as an acceptable compromise?
4
Recommend the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me". I thought the same about Lincoln till I read all the facts. Very enlightening. He was a strategist in the best sense.
This is a subject that is best addressed in book length treatments or in college or graduate level history classes. Indeed, my first semester freshman college history teacher threw this bait out for us: Was the Civil War inevitable? A may pages based on careful research can not answer that question completely.
A little known fact is that the southern states, in the run-up to the war, offered to end slavery entirely...by 1900, forty years after the war began. In truth, this would never have happened because in the interim period, the southern merchant and farming powers would have found a way to maintain slavery without calling it that, as they did with Jim Crow and violence against blacks for 100 yrs. after the end of the Civil War.
The war did not come about because of an unwillingness to compromise. The economy of the southern states, and the wealth of slave holders, was tied up in the slaves. They were marketable property, better than cattle or pigs. To take away slavery meant abolishing the base of wealth of white men, just as now, 150 years later, ending the use of oil products in cars and to heat houses would mean the abolition of billions of dollars of wealth of those who hold petro reserves.
There could be no compromise. To one side, it was evil, an affront against god and man. To the other side, it was a rich, comfortable way of life that could not be surrendered or compromised away.
2
Do we know if they believe the earth is flat?
50
Trump and his entire administration have exactly the total brain size as the combined brain size of the hosts on Fox and Friends. Especially that old guy on Fox and Friends - he's just not all that bright.
A flea.
36
Before the election, Susan, a commenter from Paris, described Marco Rubio as having, "the intellectual heft of a fruit fly." I loved that description and believe that it is eminently suitable for the entire White House contingent today.
Trump is immoral, ill-read, ill-educated and willfully ignorant. But this was known before the election…
156
I agree, mostly, with what you say, but the conversation is about Trump. He's POTUS. No one else is. HRC is out of the game.
1
Nice deflection, and nice parsing of the election results. Trump would be proud.
Clinton won the popular vote by a margin of three million. Apparently over 35 million Americans disagree with your assessment.
As for your claim that Clinton "made her fortune selling special treatment," you're referring to "Clinton Cash," published by Steve Bannon and financed by Robert Mercer. What did you expect from that smear job?
I've never seen Clinton sell access, but the GOP seems to be responding from threats from their donors. Tune in to tomorrow's news.
Btw, the DNC doesn't select candidates. Nominating contests do.
1
Good luck making these rational arguments stick in the minds of Trump's base: they have drunk too deeply from the Kool-Aid, which was probably laced with lead anyway.
37
You make Aussie's point.
Trump echoes the idiocies, lunacies and hatreds of millions of Americans which have been allowed to run wild once again.
42
Let’s make America second rate again
27
Too late. There already.
4
Too late. The UK was there before that. It is a lovely place to be, and we are going to plummet yet further.
Actually, I think a lot of today's Republicans would not call their own party the Party of Lincoln. The reason being that they consider Lincoln to be an evil tyrant who dismantled their hallowed Confederacy.
48
People who know a little think that they know everything while those who know a lot think that they don't. To understand the history discussed in this column really takes a lot of reading of really deep and dense histories, something which the comments discussed indicate that those commenting have not.
John Kelly's comment about compromise indicates that he never read, "A Team of Rivals". The comments linking Lee and Washington indicate never having read anything much about the conduct of Southern forces under Lee as well as most Southern Commanders and the treatment of Negroes fighting with the North. The issue of confronting ridiculous talk by celebrated military commanders being above the right of anyone to criticize would come as a shock to Patton and to McArthur, as well as to their superiors. Waterboarding is torture according to those who have used it in the past and in the minds of those who have identified tortures according to international law. The assertion that torture must result in something equal to organ failure was made up by people in the Bush administration, all by themselves.
It's all talk by people who obviously are not at all interested in history but cite facts from history about which they know nothing.
45
The Geneva conventions and prohibitions against torture apply to armed conflicts between governments that have signed the treaties. They do not apply to terrorists nor to interactions with terrorists. You are an excellent representative of the class of people who think they know everything about a complex area of the law but in fact know little.
IMO, we should notify terrorists that they can be tortured and then not torture them. Except in exigent circumstances, information extracted by torture is too unreliable to be useful.
1
The notion that states must agree to not commit acts stipulated to be crimes of war to permit prosecutions for war crimes is crisply definitive but not exactly how these things have been managed.
The point in law is not the act but that the act must occur during a conflict between states, not between any state and individuals or non-state actors. Thus the Spanish Inquistion was wrong to write and speak about the tortures it used. Or do you mean that while the acts might amount to torture but international law only applies with respect to acts during conflicts between states?
Because the president and his supporters get their daily news and historical lessons from Fox News and Breitbart News, all other news is fake or distorted. The White House believes what is wants to believe. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, that Malificent look-alike, with her arched eyebrows, severe demeanor and forbidding glower from her lectern, is the president's first line of defense. She has created a forest of thorns around the Executive Mansion and, like the mythical dragon, breathes fire at the assembled press corp, mocking those reporters who dare to press her for truth and details at her briefings. Yes, this White House has been asleep since January 20.
The president's birther smear of his predecessor should have been the first clue of his complete ignorance of history, the Constitution and the rule of law. No impostor could ever fake credentials and pass them off as legitimate to the American people, much less investigative agencies who conduct exhaustive background checks on elected officials, and wind up being president of the United States. This is just plain common sense. Yet, the president managed to drive a wedge between common sense and nonsensical fantasy among his followers and his adopted party and give life to a lie that began his rise to the White House. History didn't elude this president, he simply ignored it and made up his own history as he went along. That's been his pattern since he was inaugurated. Even his generals are ready to back him up.
69
Are you feeling the great yet? Really, is America great again yet? Not that I can see. Trump's version of history is ridiculous.
Since his base believes anything that is repeated enough times I am currently printing bumper stickers that declare, "Trump is a one term President". Say it loud and say it often, "Trump is a one term President." (Or, a one year President if you are feeling optimistic.)
40
It stems from the learning curve. My parents taught me a lot about the world before I even gpt to school. If school did not agree with what my parents taught I did not Listen to school. Now I had great parents that did not fill my head with poor information. But what about the people that voted for Trump? Did they have parents that loved all peoples? Did they have parents that loved Learning new things and always sought to do the Christ Like actions first? Christ like, not preacher like, Do unto others all the things you'd like them to do to you. Kindness first, feed the poor, clothe the needy, take care of other's needs, everyone was welcome in our home. The kids , now parents are being taught a form of tribalism, that anyone not of their mindset is bad.
And we will reap a lot of this in the future.
17
Trump is a salesman - he doesn't care what he says as long as it moves him closer to money in his pocket.
29
why insult salespeople by comparing us to trump?
4
I remember when I was a kid in the late 50's and read Superman comics. There was a character known as
"Bizzaro" who was the exact opposite of Superman sort of like a wrong, turned around mirror image of Superman who always was opposite and did the wrong thing or did things backwards. That's what I think of Trump---the Bizzaro White House. Everything is wrong and turned upside down. "Me President of US. Me strong. Me always right. Everybody think I'm great." Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again. Welcome to the Bizzaro Presidency.
48
Besides believing Frederick Douglass to be alive and kicking, Trump believed that Andrew Jackson was still living at the beginning of the civil war.
I plan to ask the President to write my obituary. This might constitute a form of immortality.
33
I think what bothers me most about this administration is the ignorance. No, wait, I think it's probably the dishonesty. Um, well there's also all the cheating. Hmmm yeah, I don't really like any of it, equally.
45
Just wondering. How were women "denied birth control"? Was their husband or lover physically prevented from walking or driving to the local drug store to buy a condom? Please answer.
5
They were denied birth control because for a long time, pregnancy prophylaxis was actually illegal, including in the state next door, Connecticut. Just Google it. It's all there.
14
Yep, exactly. Condoms were illegal most everywhere.
10
Some states outlawed birth control. This may seem incredible if not impossible but it's true.
The Supreme Court decision which held these laws to be unconstitutional is known as Connecticut v. Griswold. Connecticut had a law which prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." This decision was handed down in 1965.
20
As hopeless as he is as President, he is a Master at knowing what buttons to push to not lose any of his base.
24
Doesn't take a genius to push the buttons of the deplorably ignorant.
28
Let's not talk about pushing buttons.
8
Regarding Trump's ignorance of American history, I heard Doris Kearns Goodwin speak and she said Obama had a few semi-regular dinners with her, Robert Caro, David McCullough, (and maybe one other, can't remember). He wanted to talk with them about the Presidency and the house they were in. Can you imagine Trump doing the same and having an intelligent conversation with them????
271
I can't imagine the trump having an intelligent conversation with anyone!!
32
I don't think Trump would even know who Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robert Caro or David McCullough are
44
Or an intelligent conversation with anyone?
5
What the administration thinks is strange to us because they learned it from the performance artists Limbaugh and/or Bannon who deliver their opinions as facts. We know lies when we see them.
Humankind made progress for thousands of years because we accurately described what we saw. Today we are flowing backwards and downwards...yeah yeah the market is up but these are short term gains at the expense of our children's future.
50
The market is volatile
1
Trump’s family has been in America about 5 minutes. Is it too much for them to actually Know Stuff About America?? That would be nice.
34
We must not lose sight of this:
The problem with Trump is not Trump, in spite of how unfit and disgusting he is.
The problem with Trump is the people who support him. They, in one form or another, have been holding America back for over 150 years.
How much longer will we continue to let them hold us back?
446
The Chinese understand this and they are very rapidly gaining on us technology.
4
Until voter suppression and gerrymandering are properly dealt with
1
We have a president who thought a tweet was the appropriate way to address the attack in New York City.
89
What is even more bizarre is that Trump's approval ratings are still close to 40%, which says more about Americans than it says about Trump.
288
Some Americans and definitely not the majority.
3
There are too many ignorant souls in this country. We may well get rid of Trump. But how do you truly educate the ignorant?
6
It has been obvious to me for a long time that a large part of the GOP "game plan" is the dumbing down of our citizenry, and they are doing a great job of it! Exhibit A: Betsy DeVos. Just keep the folks poorly educated and not aware of or interested in critical thinking skills, history, government structure, etc- and then the charletans can lead them like sheep to the slaughter. And if the charletans can make a huge profit from private schools and "universities"? That is just icing on the cake!
3
Strange ideas of Democrats who make $200,000/year:
1. they think they are middle class.
2. they are generous with government funds they want distributed to the poor and are highly critical of those who make $50,000/year and don't feel the same way.
3. they send their children to the best schools, live in gated communications and call for racial integration among everyone but themselves.
4. they belong to the 10% and believe that they are exempt from the evils of wealth which, they believe. start 9% higher.
5. they are outspoken champions of women's rights, particularly the right of women to stay home for five years to raise their 2.2 children, so the man in the family can make even more money, and the woman can insist on equal pay after the five years despite her long absence from the work force.
6. they are big supporters of inferior health care coverage for the poor and the working poor and are glad they have employer subsidized insurance with no deductibles, no co-pays. no restrictions on providers and annual costs of $1.50.
9
Michjas, I see your perspective and think there is some truth to it. I do want to point out, however, that when I lived in a very cheap, rural place on $55,000 per year, we had much more economic ease and disposal income as compared to living in the bay area and making $150,000 per year Especially since half our take home income goes to our housing. (Believe it or not we would have to make $300,000 to have after taxes and housing costs the discretionary income that we had on $50K previously.) So, you do have to consider the cost of living on the expensive right and left coasts. In the Bay Area, most of the couples we know--many just out of school--make $250K-$300K and they are indeed middle class. As far as your point #6, we are in that category, but I would be happy if we Medicare for All, and my family no longer had our employer paid cadillac health care, if and only if employers still had to pay into the Medicare system to cover their employees.
40
Wow, what world do you live in?
There is so much I could say. But lets stick to FACTS:
"they are big supporters of inferior health care coverage for the poor and the working poor and are glad they have employer subsidized insurance with no deductibles, no co-pays. no restrictions on providers and annual costs of $1.50."
Your statement is factually incorrect.
1. My very large company gives great insurance to everyone, not just democrats.
2. MY excellent insurance costs me $200 per month with a $500 deductible and a $3,000 per person per year out of pocket cost.
This is the problem with so many discussions today. You have opinions then make up facts to fit your world view. You are entitled to your opinions but not to make up facts.
108
Straw man argument. No basis in any fact.
25
Trump and his team are the most willfully ignorant people ever to attempt to run a country.
I just hope we have a country left when congress finally remembers they have a duty to support the Constitution.
183
They won’t remember...or will choose to ignore as long as Trump has his supporters.
Trump is president,he won't be for ever.Start thinking about all the filth he's said,done, proposed etc and how we're going to help those who support
The atrocities he has brought us and the world and how we can reboot the
White men in congress to be honest again.Maybe women of all colors can do that.Are you ready to try?It will take a long long long time.We're worth saving ,
But this country isn't what we thought it was before Trump ripped all the
Delusions we held to bits.My God he's sickening.
42
Unfortunately, the wee people have little impact in a plutocracy.
4
How about just booting the white GOP men out of Congress, rather than just re-booting?
7
Here are a few more:
1. Among the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were "some very fine people."
2. Jared Kushner is a skilled statesman who can really solve the Middle Eastern problem.
3. The federal government is the Trumps' personal financier.
4. Everyone who disagrees with Trump is a complete liar.
4. Trump is a great businessman who enriches everyone around him.
5. Trump will drain the swamp.
6. Trump will make America great again.
151
Trump merely echoes what his uninformed base believes. Over and over we hear that Trump’s supporters voted for him because “he tells it like it is”. So we can justifiably blame Trump for believing 7 idiotic things before breakfast, but understand that some 40% of Americans embrace that same idiocy.
79
50% of all people are below average
8
Trump said "We won WWII in three and a half years." This is correct. The United States engaged in WWII for 3.7 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_lengths_of_United_States_parti...
We couldn't have defeated Hitler without the USSR and the millions of Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives. But that's tangential to what he was saying.
If you're going to criticize (fine), then get it right.
9
That´s not quite right. It took six and a half years for the war to be won. The US fought actively for 3 1/2 years but participated in other ways earlier. The US presence in fighting was essential, but the US did not win the war alone.
49
Trump's comment about "we won World War II in three years" speaks volumes about how America sees itself and how it sees the rest of the world. By the time the U.S. got into the war (and only after the bombing of Pearl Harbour) thousands of men and women from Canada, Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Russia, etc. had been fighting for at least 2 years and many lost their lives. But, of course, it was the Americans who won the war. Narcissistic president, narcissistic view of history. Always take the glory - never share with others who sacrificed so much and did not demand the glory. No wonder the U.S. is so often loathed.
27
True but remember we fought on 2 fronts, not 1. We became the greatest navy on earth in order to do that and the most mechanized army in history. The Brits used our cash and materiel to give us time to get ready for D-Day, and they were incredibly assisted by the USSR after Hitler broke their pact and invaded them.
Victory was and should always be shared with so many peoples: the Brit colonies, the African troops, the Indian brigades, the Palestinian Brigade, The Jewish Brigade, the Pacific islander scouts, the Filipino patriots, the peoples of the Slovak states, the underground in Scandinavia. European partisans in USSR, Italy, Greece,Poland, etc -- and the much-suffering Soviet peoples and armies. The latter killed 9 times as many German troops as our forces, suffered 12 times the losses, and lost 107,000 aircraft. Their former partners had made the fatal step of invading the USSR, which bought time for the West
to prepare, regroup after Dunkirk, and, yes, finish the a-bomb. We owe them recognition - and they owe us, too.
5
You forgot : President Obama was born outside of America rendering his stay in the White House null and void. Sharia law is about to become the law of the land and posting the Ten Commandments in the town square is our best prevention. This Christmas it won't be illegal to greet a store clerk with "Merry Christmas " .
33
Even as an atheist for decades I've always said "Merry Christmas." I never received a negative answer back.
13
Mr. Rosenthal, when will you and other Times' writers focus on his malignant narcissism disorder, for which there is no cure, and what it all means to our Democracy? He is not normal, never was and never will be.
65
This should be a PICK. It's what we need to concentrate on.
10
Here's a little tid-bit on Malignant Narcissism; see if this shoe fits POTUS:
"According to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,(DSMMD),published by the American Psychiatric Association, individuals with narcissistic personality disorder (informally known as megalomania) have most or all of the following symptoms, typically without commensurate qualities or accomplishments:
1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from others
2. Fixation on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.; constant search for “more” power
3. Self-perception of being unique, superior and associated with high-status people and institutions
4. Need for constant admiration from others
5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others
6. Exploitation of others to achieve personal gain
7. Unwillingness to empathize with others' feelings, wishes, or needs; and disdain for others
8. Intense envy of others, and belief that others are equally envious of them
9. Pompous and arrogant demeanor
10. Fragile egos, inability to tolerate criticism, and tendency to belittle others in an attempt to validate own superiority."
27
An old expression describes this cohort: "That's what a stupid person thinks a smart person sounds like."
45
Just love this line and will work into my repertoire!
5
There are so many, many reason why I intensely dislike Trump, but what really disgust me is the shear level of dumb that man exhibits. I can truly believe that he has never read a book he wasn't forced to read.
87
There are numerous pictures of Mr. Trump's penthouse in Trump Tower floating around the internet. Unlimited money meets unlimited bad taste. But that is besides the point. What strikes me particularly about the place is that in the whole vastness of this nightmare in gold, there is not a single book anywhere to be seen (except for a coffee table book, which clearly is meant as decoration). Not a singe book!! How can anyone live like that?
24
AND an anachronistic copy of Renoir's La Loge from the Courtauld Institute, which is indeed an original painting if you have got someone to paint your copy.
1
C'mon. He doesn't even read a page he isn't forced to read. Or perhaps even a paragraph.
My personal fav is when he claimed that he coined the phrase “priming the pump” to the editor of The Economist.
84
My favorite is his belief that he came up with the word 'fake'.
12
Trump is a sober man in serious need of an alcoholic beverage . . . or two.
Now we have to put up with fake history as well as fake news.
456
Fake history has been around since Ben Franklin was President!
That’s because they consider OLD fake news.
Trump may think that the US alone won WW II, but less ignorant people know that there were Brits, Canadians, Aussies, NZers, Russians and representatives of just about every European country including those taken over by the Nazis and more who fought against the Axis powers. This and the other baffling statements epitomize the Trump administration. It is the living example of the Peter Principle: people rising to their level of incompetence. Of course when truth is fake news and lies are alternate facts, and you choose people for your cabinet who are singularly unsuited for the briefs of their departments, this is what you get. Trump's base will not accept or believe any criticism of him or his team. One day they will realize that they have been taken by a world class grifter.
80
I wish it were so but I honestly believe that these folks will grip tightly to their delusions until they are buried in the ground (which is a likely solution to this problem. ) Attrition will eventually get rid of most of these people. I believe this is why the GOP is on this hard drive to pass their evil agenda. They will not have another chance and they know it.
5
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, SAC Commander Curtis Lemay said: "Bomb 'em, bomb 'em, bomb 'em! We'll take 70 million casualties, but we'll win!" Chilling.
My sources for this quote are Michael Dobbs' "One Minute to Midnight" and Robert Dalek's "JFK: An Unfinished Life".
JD
25
Don't forget that the character of General Jack Ripper was a parody of Curtis Lemay in Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
7
SAC head Thomas Power said "two Americans and one Russian are left alive, we win." LeMay is on record saying Power was mentally unstable.
6
Trump represents the worst in us.
48
Kelly agrees with Trump and so did General Flynn in all their twisted history and crazy ideas of the world.
Your occupation, general, president, spokesperson does not make you smart or expert. Crazy is crazy. Brannon, Mercer, Koch, have nutty ideas that have nothing to do with a functioning world. They all are cut off from real people, real problems and reality.
Money by no means equals competence or sanity.
57
The theme song of Trump and his supporters should be the Weird Al song "Dare to be Stupid". You could argue Trump knows all this but is just pandering to his base, but Trump is just as stupid as they are (and further shows proof that Trump being a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania is strictly about his father being well off, not what he learned). This is what Trump nation believes, they believe the US "Won WWII" by ourselves (when Britain fought from 1939, they fought Germany alone for 6 years; for the author, the Russians were allied with the Nazis until Germany invaded in june, 1941, so the Russians only fought the Germans for 4 years, not 6 and Russia lost at least 30 million, Britain lost 450k, us 430k, but we were 3 times Britains size)), that the Civil war was fought over states rights and love of country, that Lee was fighting for 'principles' and that made him equal to washington (yes, Washington was a slaveholder, but he didn't fight the revolution to maintain slavery and he was fighting to create the US, not split it apart..and btw, Washington did not favor 'states rights', he was a federalist). As far as the GOP being the party of Lincoln, if people forget that it is because the GOP went from being the party of Lincoln to being the party that defends slavery and the "Southern Cause" and whom many prominent republicans back in the 1960's and today still argue the civil rights laws were 'bad law".
19
By 1940, Britain was within 2 months of bankruptcy. What saved them was a kind of "charity" or investment on our own safety -- FDR's rather underhanded defense of the Atlantic, destroyers-for-islands swaps, probably illegal lend-lease and other "free" shipments of bombers, fighters, jeeps, and tanks, plus ammunition, armed merchant ships, slightly newer artillery, and "advisers".
The Brits were alone but armed, warmed, fueled, even dressed by American contributions as the Old World fought and we... got ready to turn from the tiny, obsolete armed forces before Roosevelt to the world's largest nay of 1945, the most advanced overall air force by 1944, and the most mechanized land army in history by 1944... and the biggest federal indebtedness as a percentage of GDP in our history at war's end.
But Britain had somehow survived while we armed, trained, and arrived in Africa, Italy, France, the Pacific, Australia, and, yes, Britain. Quite a feat for FDR. Doris Kearns Goodwin and others including Michael Beschloss have books supporting this view of Britain's crucial needs in 1940 and FDR's wonderful skulduggery on behalf of freedom.
8
"We" didn't win WWII in 3 1/2 years. We helped to win it. It had been fought savagely for 2 years before we entered, by Britain, practically alone, against the Nazis. We helped turn the tide, but the writer of this piece is correct about Russia's role. (Or then, the Soviet Union's.) While I'm no fan of Russia these days, their contribution to the war's end is inestimable. We lost a half a million people in all of WWII, in all theaters. In the fight against the Nazis, the Russians lost 20 million.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "There is no history, only biography." Every day, in Trump, we are witness to the biography of an ignoramus.
279
The latest WWII death total, more reliable than those issued in Stalin's day but still impossible to ascertain with total confidence because USSR politics covered up so much so well, and so long, is somewhere around 30 to 40 million Soviet citizens. My data is from the 1993 Russian Academy of Science. The soviets losy 107,000 airplanes, a total beyond imagining, too. Millions died of starvation, bombing, and German atrocities in prisoner of war camps and in areas with Jews and other minorities. To be fair, we supplied millions of U.S.-made leather boots, thousands of Airocobras and other planes, 40,000 military trucks, medicines and ammunition beyond easy counting, and other materiel to the Russians. And after D-Day, Hitler foolishly withdrew 250,000 experienced troops, artillery weapons, and trucks to fight against us - most from the Eastern front. Soviet troops killed 9 times as many Germans as us and lost 10 times as many to German fire. We were pretty good allies, and had we not entered, after Hitler declared war on us, the USSR might have had to seek peace or fight alone while Germany perfected, jets, rockets, and a nuclear device. Our losses, materiel, and even our strategies and diversions helped the USSR.
8
The writer is only partially correct about the Soviet Union's participation in WW2. The Soviet Union fought the Germans from June 1941 until May 1945. Prior to that they were co-conspirators with the Germans in the division of Poland.
1
It is true that the correct term is helped. But Britain was not alone. Most of the Commonwealth was also there from the beginning. Canada ,Australia and NewZealand all lost per capita the same number of soldiers’ lives as the US
1
The ignorance is almost awe-inspiring. Almost.
9
Brilliant article, and it cause such sadness in me. The man, elected into the White House is an incompetent fool. Problem is he believes he is "great"!
15
I have known about Trump and his horrible ways of doing business for nearly 35 years. My ex-wife sold cleaning contracts to Donald Trump; she had difficulty getting paid, but eventually did (Trump Tower and other Trump properties had to remain clean, after all). She fared far better than most other Trump contractors. Donald J. Trump is nothing but a cheap, chiseling carny, and that’s being kind.
I used to have respect for John Kelly until he started lying to protect and defend his boss; “Once a Marine, always a Marine” has apparently been thrown by the wayside. Here is the oath of office Kelly took: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Kelly does not “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”, he supports and defends a domestic enemy of that Constitution—Donald J. Trump. Both men will go down in ignominy; I hope it is sooner rather than later.
99
@BluemountainMan, Back in the day I was in construction. It was widely known if you want to get paid don't contract @ a Trump development. How the dems didn't trot out a real unpaid/underpaid "Joe" the plumber is beyond me.
35
Beyond his fake news their is Trump fake history. Is nothing sacred to this man, the only thing he reveres is his own image. I am looking forward to the day of seeing him in ankle chains and an orange jump suit.
26
Elected civilian control of the military is a hallmark of American democracy. It's in the Constitution. The founders were very aware of why they made it so. Same for the separation of church and state, which needs to be included here, as well.
25
What we've got here is failure to ... compromise?
5
Everybody who is half-way intelligent and pays some attention to the news realizes how unknowledgeable Trump is and how ill-equipped he is for the position he now occupies.
The more pressing question is "how did this man ever get elected?" Whatever happened to the American electorate that they would elect a person who was so obviously unfit for the position? The Trump presidency is less a demonstration of the failure of American politics than it is a glaring demonstration of American gullibility and stupidity. Maybe it is time that people start reflecting on what can be done to improve the intellectual capacity of Americans. What has to happen to the American education system to ensure the average American is capable of thinking rationally?
35
It was Putin's plan and he's succeeded big time, but he's not through yet.
The under educated masses are proud that they ain't go no education.
7
The GOP has been wildly successful in the dumbing down of America by "fixing" the public education system. Exhibit A: NCLB. Exhibit B: Betsy DeVos, now Secretary of Education and appointed largely because of how successful she's been at trashing our public education here in Michigan. (Plus the gobs of money helping to fund the trump.)
3
The education system needs to be cleansed of religion.
3
No surprises here. Most of the positions cited in the article are extreme or exaggerated versions of things most GOPers have believed for years. Add to this list other fictions such as trickle down (aka 'Voodoo') economics, the rich are over taxed, whites are discriminated against by minorities, christianity is under siege, the Civil War wasn't about slavery, women don't get pregnant in cases of 'legitimate rape, 'etc.
18
I would feel sorry for Kelly's future place in history if he would not have been willing to lie to win a point. He is as corrupt as the rest of the administration and values have nothing to do with them. They have none.
29
Seven bizarre notions Trump and his team have? The fact is that nearly half this country holds the exact same bizarre notions -- more properly characterized as lies. And their belief in these lies and the many others Trump has told, is what is destroying this nation.
His supporters aren't naive voters who have been "duped". Rather, they are vicious people driven by racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homophobia. They have no true beliefs. They only have their hatred. And this is why they are so willing -- yes, willing -- to believe the lies that issue from this president daily.
We know that Trump supporters, some forty percent of our citizens, will never leave him. We now know the only truthful thing he's ever said is that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue with no consequence. Republican voters' hatred has driven them to install a tyrant who will be nearly impossible to peacefully remove. They have turned this nation into a fascist state without firing a shot.
And they will not stop with peaceful protests as evidence of Trump's guilt mounts. They will do literally anything to keep him in power.
The least of our problems are the seven "bizarre notions" Trump's team has. We will look back on editorials such as these and wonder at their naivete. And the rest of us -- some sixty percent, can no longer sit idly by and treat these lies like a parlor game. It falls to us to defend this nation against its enemies, the most dangerous of which we now know are Trump's voters.
32
I will go to bat for Sarah Sanders when she said, “If you want to go after General Kelly, that’s up to you, but I think if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that’s something highly inappropriate.”
I did not infer at the press conference that Ms Sanders alleged that higher military brass were beyond criticism. Rather, I interpreted Ms Sanders to say that General Kelly was sufficiently knowledgeable regarding procedure with informing spouses of fallen soldiers that one would not be prepared to debate with the General.
I am not apologizing for the Trump Administration (no way), just this is how it seemed to me, and it was widely misconstrued.
2
I see what you’re saying but believe that you can look for the message that’s consistently sent and it’s NOT one of consideration. I judge people based on their actions and I tend to use that as a guide for future interactions. Sanders is a liar. So is Kelly.
3
Do you are saying
ms Sanders suffered from a failure to communicate?
3
There needs to be a Civics test before you can be a Presidential candidate. It has to be a "pop" quiz with a panel of Academic experts. No multiple choice or True/False - a dissertation level grilling!
15
I don't understand why Trump and other Republican leaders continue to claim Lincoln as their own. If the civil war, the deadliest war in US history, resulted from a failure to compromise, isn't that the equivalent to saying Lincoln brought about the civil war because of his failure to compromise?
9
This man couldn't pass a fifth grade history exam.He apparently had his transcript "modified," probably by his daddy's dollars to graduate from Penn. It would appear he has surrounded himself with high ranking military stars who seemingly know even less about our heritage. Does West Point have a history requirement for graduation?
16
John Kelly’s recent behavior has me wondering if he isn’t now informing on the WH to the Mueller investigation.
I know nothing about his character but his recent remarks have been shocking to me, considering his response during Trump’s speech on Charlottesville. Naïvely, I expected better.
If this display is an anomaly, perhaps there’s a reason behind it. Equally naïve of me, no doubt.
4
Sarah Sanders is not just illiterate about history. She is poorly educated in many subjects vital to her job, as evidenced by the example in the article. She is like a high school math teacher who majored in education instead of math. She may know something about PR -- writing press releases or dealing with the press -- and would probably do OK selling consumer products, but she's just not qualified for government PR.
Trump, on the other hand, is completely unqualified as an executive in any field. His ignorance of most subjects, including finance, seems to have no bounds. (He actually thinks that rising stock prices reduce the national debt!) He's often unable to speak coherently and is said to be unable to read and comprehend more than a page of text. His deficits are so vast that we cannot ignore the grim possibility of cognitive impairment.
30
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is nothing more and nothing less than a shill for her boss, Our Beloved Leader.
2
The Trump administration will undoubtedly be recognized by future scholars as the worst in history.
With that being said, I think that rewriting significant portions American history at full speed by those who seek immediate social justice is just as dangerous. As Trump said, it’s a slippery slope.
Dwight Eisenhower, who was the president who sent federal troops into Little Rock Central High to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education considered Robert E. Lee to be a great American.
He had four pictures in the oval office - Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Lee.
Who knew?
2
Perhaps we just wanted to believe that all generals are stand up guys. Well, like the rest of us, the vary. The more General Kelly says the more worrying it is that he is in such a powerful position.
Incorporating slavery from the birth of our nation made a civil war to end it unavoidable.
Perhaps General Kelly and Trump sit by the fire and discuss how President Jackson could have avoided the Civil War, well I guess he did as it didn't happen while he was president.
All in all, it exposes the American education system's short comings
5
It's disappointing General Kelly is not the saving grace we thought he was. Very dismissive of women, as if yearning for the 1950's.
Has as much difficulty without a written script as Mr. Trump. Quite a bit of ego there, as we see with this president.
Adviser Stephen Miller? Also harsh in his views. We've seen him insult news reporters in weird language--"cosmopolitan thinking"-- a term used by Josef Stalin to literally cleanse the Soviet Union of opinions that differ.
It's quite disturbing. The politically driven attacks. Disowning of campaign staffers in trouble with Mueller, when obviously it takes active work to put on a national convention (Manafort/Gates) and photos emerge of a table of national security policy meetings (Papadopoulos).
11
I'm with this 96%, but to me human trafficking almost always involves slavery of some form or another plus, please, do we really gain much by comparing terrible evils? I doubt.
8
Marco Rubio once lied that President Obama was turning the US into a different country. That was during a primary debate, with Trump and other competitors standing right there. No one disagreed with the charge.
Every day, Trump shows how little he understands of America and how severely he would change our nation. Trump's America is unrecognizable as the United States of America.
Yet Rubio, Cruz and co. have nothing to say about Trump. They care more for party than for country.
17
"Many people" seems to be a collective for "me" in Trump speak. "Many people" don't even know Lincoln was a Republican is, simply, I didn't know. But I won't admit that, so I'll lie in this particular way. He does it all the time -- how often does he hedge his real whoppers with "many people tell me" or some minor variation of that when he has absolutely nothing real to back up his nonsense. I suppose in his fantasy world "many people" can be just the voices in his own head.
16
When you are taught to choose belief over fact through religious indoctrination then calling that apples of history bananas is really pretty simple. The thing is that the bottom line is that a significant percentage of the Republican party believes it has been chosen by the god of the blue-eyed Jesus to exert its dominion over the rest of us. And they are still clinging to their guns and bibles.
31
Our Disgrace-In-Chief is fond of saying that there are “some very fine people on both sides” of the white supremacy-Ayran Nation-KKK-racist debate.
On the one hand, there were the Native Americans who were here before anyone else showed up.... on the other hand there were the imperialist white invaders who wiped the Native Americans off the map.
On the one hand, there were African Americans brutally kidnapped, enslaved, tortured and killed.... on the other hand there were the lovely white psychopathic slave importers and slaveowners who committed those crimes as part of their proud 'way of life'.
On the one hand, American people of color are trying to live their lives with a semblance of human dignity in a country where people of color are routinely treated like criminals....on the other hand, Trump's Whites R Us caucus would like to keep their dumb white privilege.
On the one hand, the one-person-one-vote principle sounds very nice......on the other hand, there's no way Republicans could maintain tyrannical political power if they couldn't purge the voter files of Democratic voters, suppress voter registration, suppress voter turnout and gerrymander their way to right-wing tyranny of the white minority.
There really are “some very fine people on both sides” of the American political aisle.
406
Well said. As a Democrat in a red state I make a habit of making sure that I am still an 'active' voter. Gov Scott has a habit of purging voter roles. I have friends who are citizens and who are also immigrants. As an election approaches I remind them to check their status as well.
What a democracy!!!
2
For one man The Civil War as about restoring The Union, not about slavery.
To put a "sharp point to it" as he often said, he was full willing to compromise, though he also said it was his "personal wish that all men everywhere could be free".
See letter to Hon. Horace Greely
From: Executive Mansion, Aug. 22, 1862
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm
Signed: A Lincoln
i almost entirely agree with Mr. Rosenthal, but truth must stand.
You can have the opinion you want, but not the facts you want.
Lincoln was a man in a life and death struggle, not a saint, trying to do his duty as he saw it.
God rest his soul.
11
Read the Second Inaugural Address by Lincoln, in which he treats the war as punishment for the sin of slavery. For instance:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Read the whole great speech at
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp
46
"Reverend Slick", LIncoln in 1862 and Lincoln in 1864 were very different. His views changed rapidly as he saw more and more. He was an amazing person.
2
So, why was the Union in danger of dividing, Slick? Because of slavery?
Uh huh.
2
Before a anyone can have accurate notions of America, the following seven criteria is required.
1) You have to be able to read.
2) You have to understand what you read.
3) You have to read.
4) Your mind has to function so that is does not retranslate what you read into something else.
5) Words must have meaning. They can't mean anything.
6) Context must be assigned to what you read. All sentences are given meaning by the paragraphs they are in and the paragraphs are given meaning by other paragraphs.
7) Factual information must exist. Non verifiable facts have no meaning. Alternative facts do not exist.
Trump and his team violate all seven, most each day. But he gets great ratings on TV.
1185
Trump says he is very smart. Trump also says he attended an Ivy League school and was at the top of his class. I beg to differ. The majority of truly intelligent people rarely bring it up. They let their actions speak for themselves. And, graduates of Ivy League school rarely, if ever, mention their universities. Trump says he makes the best deals. He hasn't pushed a major piece of legislation through Congress and many of his grand proclamations, like arms sales in the Middle East haven't hit a committee room. Trump says a lot of things that are neither smart, the truth or indicative of a successful drug dealer, much less a contractor or president. I listen to the man and wonder how anyone can believe a word he says or follow his lead. My conclusion is that he is a 21st Century Pied Piper and his followers, and politicians without the backbone to force change, are taking us over a cliff into oblivion.
13
bruce r....I agree with everything you said, but I would add that reading foreign media would not hurt understanding. americans live in their own large bubble and, too often, aren't exposed to non American points of view.
for example, I watched recently as a senator said the usa was unique because people arrested were innocent until proven guilty.
and not be challenged by a single reporter.
just heard at this moment a democrat talking on cnn about the terrorist attack in nyc. he said the usa had the best legal system in the world.....based on what? an extreme right wing scotus? reasonable legal costs or legal aid for people not able to afford it?
not a single reporter challenged him.
and 'only in America is it possible.....' when most often that's not even close to true.
23
Also, "feelings" are not facts.
8
It’s hard to believe how ignorant these guys are. And I say “guys” willfully given the paucity of women in this perverse administration.
It’s a full-time job keeping track of the lies and historical inaccuracies of this administration. But it’s one thing to rewrite history—its the values and ideals of thus country they’re rewriting, as well as the rank hypocrisy of a president who calls it terrorism in NYC when its perpetrated by an immigrant (not from the Middle East) but just a “tragedy” when a white man blows away 59 Americans in Vegas.
If Trump is this bad with tacit adherence of the law, I’d hate to see what he’d say and do with dictatorial powers.
Which may not be sooner than we think if we’re not really careful.
571
In general I agree, but there is a difference between mass murder and terrorism. Terrorism has a purpose: to frighten people into doing what the terrorists want. I would say an individual like the NYC driver-killer who acts on his own (pending more information; maybe he didn't) isn't a terrorist just because he kills people and shouts about "Allah" and "ISIS". I'll agree this might be a borderline case, but I don't agree that it makes an important difference. Someone who kills a mass of people is horrible.
Now I'll think about the generals and Commanders-in-Chief who order drone bombings that kill and maim a mass of people attending a wedding, for instance.
6
Aren't terrorist acts usually committed in the name of some political or religious movement? From what I've read, the Vegas shooter didn't profess allegiance to any particular group, so his madness wouldn't qualify as terrorism, by that criteria.
2
'And I say “guys” willfully given the paucity of men(!) in this perverse administration.'
2
I wonder why the word "elite," when referring to intelligence, is considered a mortal sin by conservatives, but is a great thing when it refers to athletics. The conservatives seem to consider intelligence something to be ridiculed and avoided.
377
blaming ‘the elites’ is a convenient method to cast blame for almost any ill where the target group is actually a nameless unidentified minority group whose sole purpose is to receive blame.
the majority of people who are the target of the attempted persuasion by blame would never consider themselves elite so generally feel more incline to accept the unfounded argument that ‘those OTHER privileged’ people are blamed appropriately.
the basic technique is used Bigly and frequently.
7
Another kind of terrific elite are the elite of $$$$$$$, earned by super hard work, and "vision", or by being born on third base.
2
Yes, it’s part of the GOP’s modus operandi. And it has never been adequately countered or addressed. It’s high time we do so.
1
Trump and his loyal followers are proud of being ignorant. My fear is not about their obvious pride in being uninformed about virtually any topic, but about the likelihood that Mr. Trump will soon bring us to war as a means of distracting us from all this willful ignorance.
214
Decades-long campaigns to: 1) siphon wealth from the middle class, creating a sense of barely hanging on, instead of building on progress; 2) depress American intelligence, stifling independent and critical thinking, and 3) convince gullible white people that people of color are their enemy, and are "getting things" that they are not. The campaign to control American minds has been supported by the creation of propaganda arms such as Fox "News". People who've never travelled or don't read widely don't understand how much better life is in other countries. Misogyny has also played a large role - women are poorly represented in government and Fortune 500 companies. If 50% of Republican representatives and senators were women, Trump would never have been the nominee. But all of this didn't happen in a vacuum, and it appears that many people have willingly chosen ignorance; they've closed their own minds and they pay Fox et al to bombard them with propaganda.
Trump University, Day 1
Why let the truth get in the way when a lie works so much better?
85
Seven only? Was there a word limit? Or maybe readers might have fatigued reading the 700+ egregious errors and falsities?
Trump and his minions mouthing one untruth after another reflects on the fact that many Americans have but a superficial knowledge of history or civics or geography or anything. And so this crowd can get away without as much as a scratch to their finger.
It only reflects badly on us the citizens of America.
60
Does his insistence that he personally saw hundreds of Arabs in New Jersey celebrating on 9/11 count of false contemporary history? How about his certainty that the 44th president of the US wasn't born in the country? He's constantly falsely claiming that he's done something that's the biggest, greatest, and best ever.
91
Sarah Huck is paid to cover up for Trump. In the case of Kelly, I have no idea of what he is thinking. The only result of Kelly's defense of Trump is to wreck Kelly's reputation.
72
Do we have reason to think Kelly ever deserved a reputation as a good guy or an adult? As head of Homeland Security he was pretty Trumpian.
20
Sarah Huckabee also is a southerner, and I am sure in Arkansas they teach "history" where the Civil war was the "noble cause" fought over "states rights", slavery had little or nothing to do with it, and besides, slavery couldn't be too bad, since "thousands of blacks fought for the confederacy", (true, but without context means nothing; they were promised freedom if they fought, not exactly an endorsement of slavery, and the couple of thousand who fought for the confederacy pales against the 180,000 who fought for the union, most of them escaped or ex slaves).
15
I think the number one Bizarre notion Trump has is concerning the United States Constitution, which he has sworn to uphold. Not a day goes by that he doesn't indicate a profound lack of knowledge and understanding about the Constitution, checks and balances, the separation of powers, and ALL of the amendments, not just the 2nd. I still haven't heard his answer to Mr. Khizr Khan's question, "have you even read it?"
366
As short and easy to read as the Constitution is, Trump doesn't have the attention span to read all the way through it. Additionally, after the extremely wordy (six whole lines) preamble, he'd have to get all the way through Article I before he got to anything about himself. It's another ten whole pages, before Article II.
Besides, he just cant be bothered with such trivial detail.
12
Every time I see/hear Mr. Khizr Khan I cry. He's so right and says it so beautifully - what it really means to be an American. I still cannot believe Trump maligned him so.
2
It's said that a person who won't read is no better off than a person who can't read. Trump is woefully undereducated. He doesn't understand how government works, history, the economy, the press, equality, or much else. He can't even understand basic manners. Why? Because he won't read anything that isn't loaded down with pictures of himself.
He surrounded himself with other who don't read or study, so his entire team is as uneducated as he. Jared Kushner was quoted as saying, "We've read enough books," and a former employee of Kushner said he never even read the newspaper he owned.
We have an entire administration who believes education ends with a college degree. Those who have a grip on life, who can see the past and the future, are those who continue to educate themselves, and read, for their entire lives.
467
Hey, but he went to the U of P, as did his offspring...doesn't say a lot about the Ivy league, does it? It is hard to say this, but compared to Trump at least George W Bush learned something, he certainly wasn't Harry S Truman in terms of history, but he is an intellectual giant compared to Trump....as far as his followers go,it shouldn't be so surprising they are the losers in the modern economy or why, the lack of education, the attitude towards education being 'elitist' and so forth, tells a large tale why they have been left by the wayside, it isn't just third world labor and automation.
18
Don't forget his bedside reading, Hitler, and his childhood mentor, Roy Cohn (Joe McCarthy's amanuensis).
29
Trump did not attend the liberal arts part of Penn. He went to Fordham for 2 years and then switched to the business school (Wharton) at Penn which unlike other Ivy League schools (with the possible exception of the Dyson school at Cornell) offers a BS. I have taught at Penn, and I can tell you that the Wharton students are not nearly as intelligent as the students in Arts and Sciences.
12
Are you instead saying that the US entrance into WWII was not the deciding factor in the Allies emerging victorious? December 7, 1941 to September 2, 1945 seems close to 3 1/2 years to me.
Sorry, but Trump did NOT say the war lasted 3 1/2 years; he said "we", as in America, won the war in that amount of time. And, hold on for this, it turns out that we did.
13
The British, the Russians, the Canadians etc. didn't leave the battlefield in 1945 - your 'we' should, include all of the others, 'we', meaning just the U.S, is simply wrong. It seemed at the time that America was quite willing to see the Germans take over Europe without really getting involved- not too sure what would have happened if Japan had waited just a bit longer before attacking the U.S.
5
Nope, we didn't, we were part of the victory, but you like many of trump nation leave out pertinent facts:
1)In terms of the war in Japan, the US was the predominant factor.
2)In terms of the war in Europe, the US for much of it was not a player for many years, one of the things Trump and his supporters leave out (not surprisingly), is that thanks to the America First movement, the US was woefully i ll prepared for war when Japan hit us. When they had war games in 1939, around the time the war started in Europe, the US couldn't put together 1 full division, and many of the men were using pieces of wood for rifles and such. By December 1941 the US was still way undermanned, again thanks to the America first types, and we had a huge, huge mountain to climb. It took 2 years for America to ramp up its war production, and we didn't really have any significant troops fighting the Nazis until 1943 (most of our fighting before that was the Navy, the Pacific forces weren't really ready until 1943 due to lack of manpower). FDR pulled a fast one in supplying the British and Russians with material (conservatives were outraged by this, aka Trump nation) before the US was involved, but it took us a long time to really be a major factor. The Russians took on 150 divisions of Germany's best soldiers, and the British took more dead in WWII than the US did, but their population was a third of hours, and they held out for almost 2 years before the USSR and US got involved.
18
The Russian version is also valid..
4
One not-so-minor correction: human trafficking is the modern form of slavery. People are bought and sold (and rented), held in bondage, and denied even the most basic human rights.
It also is a global scourge, with upwards of 24 million people caught up in trafficking networks.
So, in this instance, Trump wasn’t wrong. Just uninformed. Human trafficking is receiving worldwide attention; even the U.S. Congress is addressing the issue.
11
Only problem is, Trump was talking about human trafficking in terms of his border wall, which among other things, would't do much to stop the trafficking, human trafficking, the kind we are talking about, isn't illegal immigrants coming into the US, these are people smuggled from all over the world into other countries, and the wall won't stop much if any of that.
10
Sorry, Andrew, it was possible to compromise with slavery, even in 1860. Lincoln and the Republicans proposed a compromise that the South rejected. See
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/11/01/the-no...
10
As long as you would accept some Slavery in the Compromise?
Perhaps you would accept that Compromise?
6
To the list of things that happened in the "mythical time when women in America were held 'sacred'", I'd like to add the following line item: Marital Rape. Which some men of a certain age (actually, to be honest, of any age) continue to argue ought not be treated as the crime it is. Our current President may even be one of those men.
Stay classy, Republicans.
165
Yes, Mrs. Trump number one stated under oath that he had raped her (although she later retracted the allegation, presumably as part of their ultimate settlement).
19
@thevilchipmunk: Does John Kelly think Trump was "holding women sacred" when he bragged on the Access Hollywood tape about grabbing women by the genitals? Fourteen women allege that Trump has done so, and his response has been to insult them as not attractive enough for him to attack.
Does Kelly not have any idea who he's working for?
37
@Carson Drew: I think we can safely assume at this juncture that rumors of General Kelly's "grown-up-ness" have been greatly exaggerated. From this point onward, I'm inclined to treat any proclamation of "sanctity" that issues from his lips with the same serious regard that I treat things I find at my feet in the midst of a pasture of grazing cattle.
6
And yet, Trump supporters still idolize this man. Why? Can someone please explain this to me? In words that even a 3 year old can understand.
226
Pachyderm Spongiform Encephalopathy.
52
Because:
- he promised to protect their guns.
- he promised to support their Christian beliefs about abortion and the rest.
- he wants to cut taxes & they think he means their taxes.
- he wants to increase the military and police (law & order).
25
gailweis, here's my understanding of Trump's supporters. They have completely identified with him and they cannot admit he is wrong, just as they cannot admit they are wrong. Just like some people can't admit their kids do wrong. It's all based on a very weak ego, which is behind Trump's narcissism.
27
We were told that General Kelly had an impeccable reputation before joining the administration. No evidence, but I submit that he fell on his sword after the Florida telephone caper, as he saw that as his duty as a soldier. Since that time he has been flailing, as he cannot right his wrong without betraying the president. After the talk that he is the one keeping Trump from pressing the red button, he does not see resignation to protect his honor as an option.
22
Silence?
Avoid interviews?
4
One thing that all of these have in common is that they are the result of very superficial learning. It's as if the Trump team has outlawed curiosity and research. It's as if they take something that they slightly remember from grade school and re-cite it as fact.
What is hard to miss is that each of these lazy recollections of myth as fact supports their positions.
159
The truly sad thing is that this list doesn't even scratch the crazy surface.
144
I hope the coming Civil War is more civil than the first one.
79
It will be quicker.
3
And the purulence from Trump and his lackeys seeps down into administrative posts poisoning the government that most "innocent civilians" must interact with. The end of this contemptible presidency and the party that put him in power can't happen soon enough.
70
Apparently, "Make America Great Again" consists of making America more, not less, ignorant and bigoted.
285
Donald Trump: "I love the poorly educated."
26
Which means that he loves himself more than anyone else.
1
The most bizarre notion is that America needs to be made great again. While this may be my subjective view and hard to claim as fact it is nonetheless a bizarre notion.
79
America WILL need to be made great again IF it survives the Trump Disaster.
48
America loves a meaningless slogan to fling around. It works because it says something while saying nothing at the same time.
14
Well, after nine months of DJT, it does need to be make great again.
"Only seven?" I thought when I saw the headline, and then I realized you meant "American history." Even then, there are too many to count.
I'm less concerned about whether Trump knows anything about Civil War history than I am about this administration's misconceptions of American politics and government, as a matter of history, law, and tradition.
Currently, I'm most irritated by this president's insistence that Democrats don't matter as citizens. It isn't just that my policy priorities aren't shared by the administration. I'm used to that. It's that I'm not even to be considered a "real American" entitled to a role or say in the political process. Democrats are viewed by Trump as public enemies, like the press, and as voters they're fair game for disenfranchisement. I've never seen anything like it. Other Republican presidents in my lifetime (I'm 60) have all assumed that they're my president too. They may not have been responsive to my policy preferences, but they understood that they were elected to serve as leader of the entire country. I felt that even Bush, for whom I felt considerable, accepted that responsibility.
Factional rule is not what this country is about. I'm tired of Trump supporters sneering in comments sections "get over it, accept the election" when Trump himself hasn't accepted that he's president of us all. For him the competition continues, the other side must be defeated. And that other side is me and at least 60% of people reading this comment.
698
I see that I've subconsciously censored my own comment. I meant to write "Bush, for whom I felt considerable contempt."
I sometimes think that the only person outside Trump's corrupt oligarchic circle who's benefited from this presidency is W, who no longer has to worry about going down in history as the worst POTUS ever--but I also feel fairly confident that even George W. Bush is enough of a patriot not to wish the scourge of Trump upon this country.
30
I don't think that Trump realizes he has a dual role: both Head of State and Head of Government. Think the Prime Minister of the UK as H of G and the Queen as H of S.
The Head of State represents the whole nation in his/her person, not any one party or, in this case, his coterie.
9
This may be at least partly because he has already filed to run again in 2020. He’s in perpetual candidate mode — he’s campaigning instead of governing.
3
Trump and company are no more interested in facts and history the Big Brother was. Make up your own alternate facts and sell them to your customers.
106
Either it was a myth that General Kelly was "the only adult in the room," or, he is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and is identifying with his White House captors.
485
The lie was that he was the adult in the room. He kept up the facade for a while but this business with the phone call to the soldiers’ widow cracked it wide open. According to comments made by those who have known Kelly for years, this kind of world view is not surprising to them. In other words, he’s always been a conservative right winger in terms of social and political viewpoints.
He’s right at home with the likes of Trump, Bannon and Miller. I’ve lost all respect for him with this revelation and we can certainly not rely on him to be a voice of reason or a balancing influence on Trump.
212
He isn't the adult in the room, Mattis is at DOD. Mattis knows more about history, military or civilian, than a lot of college professors, and he unlike Kelly seems to understand consequences of policy based on not understanding it. I wonder if Mattis (who was Kelly's CO at I believe 29 Palms) called him on saying something so stupid, Mattis is probably the one person in the Trump administration who knows just how stupid that statement was. Put it this way, i suspect Mattis is staying at DOD for only one reason, not because he likes Trump or respects him, but because he wants to try and protect the troops from the stupid way Trump and his advisors would be likely to use them, Trump and Co get their knowledge of the military from watching movies like Top Gun and WWII movies, Mattis gets it from seeing men blown apart, ripped in two, crippled and so forth, and also from seeing too many men killed for no reeason.
29
We know now what an abomination this man is. He just had to open his mouth and the lies and propaganda come spilling out.
Billionaires and Generals = Fascism
31