Who is Joel Arends and who are the Veterans for a Strong America? According to Rachel Maddow’s research, pretty much one guy who just got a lot richer because of Donald Trump’s fundraiser at the LA Museum battleship, the USS Iowa.
The Trump event was supposed to be a policy event. Somehow it got turned into a fund raiser events. Those attending paid either $100 or $1000 to get into the museum to hear Trump and Arends.
It smells fishy to me. Facts don’t seem to matter when speaking of Trump or his supporters. It’s all about “feel good” and hearing what you want to hear, regardless of reality.
Isn’t that how dictators come to power?
It smells fishy to me. Facts don’t seem to matter when speaking of Obama or his supporters. It’s all about “feel good” and hearing what you want to hear, regardless of reality.
– just sayin
No one is talking about Obama in this post, now are they? Deflection failed.
Not trying to deflect, I’m not a Trump supporter. Just pointing out the similarities between Trump and Obama and their supporters.
Any yes, that is how dictators come to power. – just sayin
I see no similarities between Trump and Obama.
How about a fund raiser for an organization of one? Do you not think this is strange?
JB: if you see a link between this and Obama, I imagine you see a link to Obama when you see anything amiss, including crabgrass in your yard. Whatever could be the possible link between the story on this guy Arends and Obama?
My grandfather was a small farmer (actually he was kind of a big man, but his farm was small). He hated President Roosevelt (FDR not TR). My father said that the old man would blame Roosevelt when his hens weren’t laying productively. I guess that same instinct still lives among us.
@Scout
I think you missed the point there Scout. Post #1 points to the similarities between Trump supporters and Obama supporters, when it comes to both “it’s all about feel good and hearing what you want to hear, regardless of reality”.
Agree or disagree that was my point… both have similar rhetoric (from different spectrums) and similar supporters who hear what they want to hear regardless of reality.
@Moon-howler
Yep, does seem strange Moon. Hardly a major news story but it is strange. Again, this is another similarity between Obama and Trump… strange fund raising.
Hell for 6 years or so a tax exempt group, OFA which use to stand for Organizing for Obama but conveniently changed to Organizing for America, ran President Obama’s twitter account. Is that strange for a ‘non-political’ tax exempt group to run social media accounts for the head of a political party? Nah, of course not…. right?
Why is there always a deflection? This conversation reminds me of “yes, Mom, but Jack did it first.”
I have no idea what Obama did with Organizing for Obama. Those things come in and I never look at them. Just not interested.
This event was supposed to be about policy and all of a sudden it was fund raising for what is probably a one man band.
The other day my granddaughter got in big trouble with me. I put her 9 year old butt in time out. She did her best to tell me what her brother had done bad in the past. Bright shiny objects and all. I kept having to redirect her.
I do. A WHOLE FREAKING BUNCH of similarities, the biggest one being we’re not supposed to look at their pasts, were just supposed to listen to what they are saying, and their entire campaigns are based on a cult of personality, lacking substance.
When I watched Obama’s campaign, and again watching Trump’s, I see a historical parallel: Nuremburg 1933. Disagree if you’d like, but you’d be doing so with the benefit of hindsight. I have watched the films too many times. Those people thought the speaker was the answer to all their problems, and were ready to believe.
This is what our society has devolved to.
I never saw Obama play to people’s fears, or have a scapegoat. I never saw him bully and I never saw him attempt to make people paranoid.
I am disagreeing.
Just out of curiosity, who ate “those people” that you mentioned?
I consider the original comment an attempt to hijack the thread. Next time I will just pull a you-know-who and take it down.
What happened in Nuremburg in 1933 that you see as a parallel, Steve?
@Scout
That was Hitler’s first rally after the Nazi ascended to power, and the first that was filmed (The Victory of Faith). You might be more familiar with the 1934 rally, where “Triumph of the Will” was filmed. 1933 he was just touching on all the ways he would restore Germany to its “rightful place”. Watch the film some time, or read the text. You will see the parallels.
@Moon-howler
“I never saw Obama play to people’s fears, or have a scapegoat. I never saw him bully and I never saw him attempt to make people paranoid.
I am disagreeing.”
First, you totally missed my point: We weren’t supposed to look at their pasts, political, social, educational, work history… Obama’s or Trump’s. Were just supposed to listen to their speeches not try to reconcile the facts in the record, with what they say their positions are.
Maybe you didn’t notice the scapegoating in the case of Obama, as you weren’t a member of the group(s) being scapegoated. I’m not going to risk being classified as a thread-jacker listing all the examples of this. Suffice it to say “those people” are the electorate…the ones who swooned at the very thought of Obama, and those who are currently suffering from Trump Fever.
I will ask the question, what groups were being scape-goated? I only remember one really direct shot. If it is the one I am thinking, you are right, not a member. Maybe I was one and didn’t notice. I wasn’t starry eyed over any of them in 2008.
@Moon-howler
Let’s see:
Devote Christians (Clingers)
Gun Owners (Clingers)
Constitutional Conservatives (Clingers)
Rich people (Greedy)
Institutional Investors (greedy)
Iraq War supporters (War Mongers)
White people, especially white men (Racists)
Cops, especially white cops (act stupidly)
America (the apology tour)
Here’s a list of some of his greatest hits:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2942427/posts
Is there a context for your list? I thought he was speaking of political coalitions rather than people who might have those attributes.
For example: Christian Coalition, NRA, Tea Party, <-----clinging to those things. I don't recall anything said about rich people or institutional investors or white people. Finally, a group I fit in to! I don't think he has singled out white cops. I didn't like what he said about the incident in MA with what's his name. I will agree with you on that one. He spoke before getting all the facts. He ended up regretting it and trying to recoup his losses. Funny on that Iraq War supporter thing....I did support it while I was digesting bad information, then I didn't. I never felt like a war monger. There were people who were war mongers, then there were people who supported our military. So many shades of support there. If you hate Obama, its easy to pick everything apart. Substitute if you hate George Bush, and you get the same thing. That's pretty much why I stopped paying close attention. There is only so much energy to go around and hating the president just gets tiresome.
“It’s all about “feel good” and hearing what you want to hear, regardless of reality.
Isn’t that how dictators come to power?”
Its how politicians come to power, especially populists.
Obama was elected because of this.
Trump and Sanders is specializing in this.
As for the “fund raiser,” if laws were broken…hammer them.
@ Steve: You make an interesting, and no doubt valuable point. I asked about Nuremburg because the displays there were so gargantuan and robotic, that they strike me as being as alien to American politics as some of the North Korean festivities that one sees from time to time. However, in saying that, I’m being superficial and concentrating on the visuals. You are quite right that, if one pays attention to the themes that Hitler pounds on in his orations, one can find some precursors for the much lower key American political discourse. I guess a lot of this goes back to the notion that one can much more readily capture people’s attention by scaring them, and exaggerating negatively the motives of one’s opponents, than by giving them a lengthy, well thought through explanation of a complex situation that requires governmental attention.
There is no question that there are legitimate problems confronting the US that rational people can be concerned about. (For that matter, the problems facing Germany in the 1920-1939 period were genuinely big problems). But it is instructive to listen to a demagogue like Hitler – listen closely to how he is manipulating the crowd – and be watchful of our current crop of politicians and their adulators when they address current American issues. It’s a diluted toxin, compared to the Nazis, and we have two centuries of constitutional culture to suppress breakouts into the realm of arbitrary rule, but traces of it are there as they are everywhere that humans aspire to political power.