“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The enemy—the indispensible devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Youseff wrote:Mussolini was barely literate, like Trump. Hemmingway wrote a short story about attending a press conference Mussolini held. He said Mussolini was reading a giant book, a tome. He was attempting to exude the presence of a very learned man to help impress himself upon the intellectual class. Hemmingway weaseled his way up to the stage and behind him, and got close to see what he was reading. It was just a giant dictionary.

A populace leader being very smart is not a prerequisite. Mein Kampf is wildly regarded as a poorly written, rambling screed. What's more important to a populace movement is some of the things Trump is good at, namely vilifying the other. It takes a certain amount of savy, and lack of morality to do that, but it's not a leading indicator of smarts by any means.

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The enemy—the indispensible devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

JFLNYC wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:

Brantt wrote:Trump fired Flynn because Flynn made Pence look horrible. He didn't fire him for anything he did other than lying to Pence.

Maybe, but it doesn't fit snugly with all the facts, does it?

.....

On another, related note, whatever the reasons were for Flynn being fired, I also think it's quite possible the leak came not from the intelligence community but, rather, from one of Flynn's detractors in the WH. He didn't have a lot of fans in the Administration.

great stuff JFL, but didn't you forget something....?

Wouldn't surprise me. (But you're going to have to remind me.)

Warszawa wrote:Here are some Trump FB page comments.

Not only does President Trump has His supporters behind Him, Mr. Trump has God Father, God The Son,And God The Holy Spirit all around Him giving the wisdom to lead American back where this country needs to be.

Don't care about polls! Trump just gave the best press conference ever. He put the media right where they belong! In the Trash!

I absolutely approve of what Trump is attempting to do - and hope he gets the chance without you politicians screwing it up for him -

Love what he's doing and finding! Just sorry he's having to fight at every turn to get what he needs. Unreal. Disrespectful. Corruption galore. No wonder they're scared!!!

But Obama has made a lot of firsts himself …
During His Tenure Obama:
* Has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined
* Sentenced whistleblowers to 31 times the jail time of all prior u.s. presidents combined
* Prosecuted fewer financial crimes than President Reagan, Clinton or either of the Bush presidents. (As bad as the Bush administration was, they at least prosecuted the heads of Enron, Worldcom and some other white collar crooks. In contrast, Obama hasn’t prosecuted even one high-level Wall Street executive.)
* Is the most secretive president ever
* Is more hostile to the press than any president in history
* Claims the power to strip Americans' liberty in a way that no other president has ever tried to claim ... and that even King George of England didn’t claim. Indeed, Obama has rolled back some of our liberties to the time of the enactment of the Magna Carta in 1215
* Has turned America into the most spied upon nation in world history (and see this and this)
* Has arguably centralized power more than any other president
* Has granted less pardons than any president since Garfield, who served only 200 days as president before being assassinated in 1881
* May be the only U.S. president in history who failed to deliver a single year of at least 3% economic growth (when adjusted for inflation)

In addition, Obama has presided over:
* The greatest inequality of any president
* The first time in its history that America is viewed as the world's greatest threat by the people of the world
* One of the largest net changes in debt in American history
* Perhaps the most corrupt government ever in the U.S.
And as the New York Times notes this week, Obama has been at war longer than any president in history.

CalvinBall wrote:Scarborough, who has been pretty good with his sources, said Rs were panicked by Trump's performance today. Maybe they'll do something about it.

LOL.

TenuredVulture wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:Scarborough, who has been pretty good with his sources, said Rs were panicked by Trump's performance today. Maybe they'll do something about it.

LOL.

Can Congress even draft and pass a tax cut package with no leadership from the whit house before trumps head explodes?