How about this: all politicians are lying scumbags.

you're right, you didn't say anything positive about trump (there's nothing positive to say). you just made sure that the negatives of the side you don't like are raised to par, which gives you permission to continue to vote for those who are either selling your country down the river, or abetting it through their acquiescence.

when you say the, "hypocrisy of both sides is sickening", and "they all suck", this is trump-speak (all sides are to blame for our bad relationship with russia). obama never did "similar stuff". you may not have liked his policies, but he wasn't a traitor. i didn't like the policies of obama's predecessor, but he wasn't a traitor. hell, nixon wasn't a traitor. your entire post is an attempt to make sure we all know that trump's betrayal of his country, for personal edification, is nothing new. happens all the time. nothing to see here.

you either stand for your country, or you stand for your party. moments like this make it clear who is who.

There's a lot of confusion in your post. You say that you're not equating them, but then use terms like "doing similar things" and "Obama doing similar stuff".

Then you say Trump has "gone above and beyond" which concurs with your original point that they are not on par.

All politicians lie. Bush senior said "Read my lips: no new taxes" and then raised taxes. Obama backtracked on his promises re ACA of being able to keep your doctor, although it could be argued that when he made the statement he intended to keep the promise.

The key differences with Trump are: A) he lies when he doesn't have to lie - it's almost like he can't help it, or he enjoys it (it's not even clear if he knows he's lying sometimes, and B) he lies to serve himself and in doing so is breaching the oath of office he took to serve the American people.

I'm not aware of any past presidents doing either of those things.

How about this: Endlessly blaming politicians for acceding to the mewling of an electorate that increasingly insists on blaming everyone except themselves is weak. You rail about "them" and then give some sort of free pass to an electorate that blames immigrants/foreigners/free trade/elites, and nods approvingly at interventions such as tariffs, massive deficits, defense increases, budget over-runs. In our incoherent ramblings, we prove repeatedly that we aren't even worthy of the "scumbags" that you detest. We eventually vote for an entirely new set of folks to do "the will of the people" without ever blaming ourselves that we have let our "will" become chaotically parochial and self-destructive. Government does poorly, because we have become proudly ungovernable.

BTW, any response to the fact that most non-immigrant states and regions are the most virulently anti-immigrant?

you're posting what the other republicans have posted: basically, that obama was also a traitor. that he also sold his country down the river. that he also threw all america's allies under the bus and that he also cozied up to tyrant after tyrant. no. he didn't. you just didn't like his policies. but he never betrayed america.

by saying "all politicians are scumbags", first, that's lazy. no. they're not. there are plenty of hardworking, honest, honorable politicians in both parties. second, that's just another statement that elevates trump and debases those you don't like so that trump can be excused. and, i know you're not excusing trump, but... you are. placing trump and everyone in the same pot inoculates you from making any hard decisions about this guy.

no, i don't think only one side is evil. i think one man is the problem. your decision is what your posture should be toward that man.

every time you write this, every time you try to bring those you don't like down to trump's level, you normalize betrayal. all this but... but... but... shows that your party is more important than your country. and, i get that. for some people it is.

comey, schmidt, and a lot of other republicans are telling those who listen to them to vote democrat this november, and they aren't even parsing between the palatable versus unpalatable democrats. they're reacting to folks like you, who are building a rationale for continuing to enable the spineless congress who's prostrate before this despot.

However liberals seem to think that more centralized power - socialized health care, free state-run higher ed, greater regulatory powers - is the right approach.

Your post sums up my point nicely so thanks for it. You talk about Bush lying yet don't take up for him at all. Then you talk about Obama lying and then try to soften his lie. Obama knew that his keep your plan and doctor line was a blatant lie. He lied so he could get his bill passed because he knew that without the lie the bill wouldn't get passed. Multiple people that wrote the bill have said that they knew that he way lying but said nothing, Rep Yarmuth, and Ezekiel Emmanuel to name two. Anyone that knows anything about insurance knew that it was a lie and it wasn't how the insurance business works.

So are you fine with politicians lying when they have to get a bill passed or get elected, because that is what it sounds like from your point A?

Trump is biggest foe. He and team considering handing over former ambassador mcfaul to Russians for questioning. What a bunch of fucktards. Tit for tat on Russians just indicted.

Fair point. I do believe that Bush senior didn't intend to raise taxes when in office, though let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time a campaign promise was broken. If Obama knowingly lied to get his ACA passed that is indeed worse than breaking a campaign promise.

As for Trump, I think he is compromised by the Russians, which is on a whole different level. I just don't see how he stands next to Putin and throws his intelligence agencies under the bus unless he's completely compromised. Can there be another explanation? I read Michael Goodwin's theory in The Post (a conservative who generally supports Trump), and it was wholly unconvincing. Goodwin argued that Trump is so distracted with the Mueller probe, that he fell into the trap of conflating Russian meddling with his campaign's collusion. He should have separated the two, denouncing the first while denying the second. That wouldn't be hard to do, so sorry, I don't buy that.

You need to back up and see the difference. There's selling out Americans to... other Americans (to the insurance industry in Obama's case, or to the rich for the recent Republican tax cuts).

And there's selling out to a foreign power / adversary. If you can't figure the disconnect between those two, there's no hope for you.

As per today's tweets, the American media and free press are the "enemy of the people".

My grandfather was a Colonel in the Polish Army and fought the Soviets on Poland's eastern front the when they invaded Poland in 1939. He continued to resist as a member of the underground army after Poland fell. He survived the war but in 1947 he, like most Polish officers, was labeled an 'enemy of the people' and handed over to the Soviets.
He got 'lucky' - a life (death) sentence in a forced-labor work camp east of the Urals. The 'un-lucky' ones were simply executed in secret. He and one other officer managed to escape the camp, and in a story worthy of a Hollywood movie, strapped themselves to the undercarriage of a train for several days and escaped the Soviet Union, eventually making it out into Romania then back north to Poland.

Stalin used the "enemy of the people" moniker to dehumanize and to justify terrible injustices that were done to those that opposed him. Trump's statements and actions have shades of this. His language and actions are those of someone who believes that the state and people are His. Now that He became President, the USA is somehow indebted to Him for his brilliant leadership and there is some implicit contract to serve Him. You can see this from his 'enemy of the people' statements or his off-the-cuff remarks like that "His" people (note the possessive) should be as obedient as Kim Jong Un's people. "
‘He speaks, and his people sit up in attention. I want my people to do the same.’" - Trump's quote from a Fox News interview

As per today's tweets, the American media and free press are the "enemy of the people".

My grandfather was a Colonel in the Polish Army and fought the Soviets on Poland's eastern front the when they invaded Poland in 1939. He continued to resist as a member of the underground army after Poland fell. He survived the war but in 1947 he, like most Polish officers, was labeled an 'enemy of the people' and handed over to the Soviets.
He got 'lucky' - a life (death) sentence in a forced-labor work camp east of the Urals. The 'un-lucky' ones were simply executed in secret. He and one other officer managed to escape the camp, and in a story worthy of a Hollywood movie, strapped themselves to the undercarriage of a train for several days and escaped the Soviet Union, eventually making it out into Romania then back north to Poland.

Stalin used the "enemy of the people" moniker to dehumanize and to justify terrible injustices that were done to those that opposed him. Trump's statements and actions have shades of this. His language and actions are those of someone who believes that the state and people are His. Now that He became President, the USA is somehow indebted to Him for his brilliant leadership and there is some implicit contract to serve Him. You can see this from his 'enemy of the people' statements or his off-the-cuff remarks like that "His" people (note the possessive) should be as obedient as Kim Jong Un's people. "
‘He speaks, and his people sit up in attention. I want my people to do the same.’" - Trump's quote from a Fox News interview

As per today's tweets, the American media and free press are the "enemy of the people".

My grandfather was a Colonel in the Polish Army and fought the Soviets on Poland's eastern front the when they invaded Poland in 1939. He continued to resist as a member of the underground army after Poland fell. He survived the war but in 1947 he, like most Polish officers, was labeled an 'enemy of the people' and handed over to the Soviets.
He got 'lucky' - a life (death) sentence in a forced-labor work camp east of the Urals. The 'un-lucky' ones were simply executed in secret. He and one other officer managed to escape the camp, and in a story worthy of a Hollywood movie, strapped themselves to the undercarriage of a train for several days and escaped the Soviet Union, eventually making it out into Romania then back north to Poland.

Stalin used the "enemy of the people" moniker to dehumanize and to justify terrible injustices that were done to those that opposed him. Trump's statements and actions have shades of this. His language and actions are those of someone who believes that the state and people are His. Now that He became President, the USA is somehow indebted to Him for his brilliant leadership and there is some implicit contract to serve Him. You can see this from his 'enemy of the people' statements or his off-the-cuff remarks like that "His" people (note the possessive) should be as obedient as Kim Jong Un's people. "
‘He speaks, and his people sit up in attention. I want my people to do the same.’" - Trump's quote from a Fox News interview