[ExI] Whitewash

[Darin Sunley]

Bush I was probably the last genuinely dangerous President we had.

On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 5:10 PM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:

> Of course you're right. I misspoke myself on the 2024 date.
>
> Suleimani, to name an example, had the levels of popular and military
> support to overthrow the Iranian regime and make it stick, had he so chosen.
>
> Trump, otoh, may be a force at a boardroom table or even at the head of an
> election rally, but he's just not in the same league. He talks a big game,
> and that's enough to at least not completely drown in Washington DC, but
> he's not a dangerous man.
>
> To use V for Vendetta as an example, think Suttledge, not Creedy.
>
> When Trump starts surrounding himself with genuinely dangerous people,
> thats the time, not to panic, but at least to worry.
>
> We're not there yet, and haven't been for quite some time.
>
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 5:01 PM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If we want to seriously discuss the possibility of a sitting President
>> successfully enacting a coup d'etat in the United States [as opposed to
>> mindless partisan posturing], I would submit that an absolutely necessary
>> precondition would be cult-of-personality levels of popularity amongst the
>> military, including prominent senior leadership.
>>
>> In the last 40 years, only Reagan and Bush II have been even close. Trump
>> isn't even in the same zipcode, let alone the ballpark.
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 4:50 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> +1.  I will also offer this bet to any takers.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 6:23 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I will bet anyone who wants to take it $100 USD that President Trump
>>>> will obey the results of the elections of both 2020 and, if applicable,
>>>> 2024.
>>>>
>>>> I have been hearing this ridiculous horse puckey my entire life - that
>>>> [insert President here] will declare themselves Caesar and
>>>> President-for-Life.
>>>>
>>>> It was implausible nonsense about Obama.
>>>> It was implausible nonsense about Bush II.
>>>> It was implausible nonsense about Clinton.
>>>> It was implausible nonsense about Bush I.
>>>> It was implausible nonsense about Reagan.
>>>>
>>>> It makes the otherwise reasonable, intelligent people who spout it, on
>>>> bith sides of the aisle, sound like paranoid loons.
>>>>
>>>> There are many plausible failure modes of a complete breakdown of
>>>> federal politics.
>>>>
>>>> Caesars are not one of them.
>>>>
>>>> I may have ti make this offer every election year - like your psychic
>>>> research wager.
>>>>
>>>> Just stop this. It's silly.
>>>>
>>>> [Of the presidents in that list the most worrying was actually Bush I.
>>>> Word-to-the-wise: don't elect former heads of the CIA to high office. They
>>>> know where entirely too many bodies are buried, from direct involvement in
>>>> the burial.
>>>>
>>>> Until we see a President normalizing wearing a high ranking service
>>>> uniform and supplementing the Secret Service with mainline military units
>>>> and/or private security forces, we're a long way from El Presidente.]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:45 PM John Clark via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The grand whitewash has now been successfully completed. The US
>>>>> Senate, the so called "greatest deliberative body in the world" has
>>>>> cowardly made it clear that it doesn't want to know the truth and will do
>>>>> everything in its power to prevent you or any of the American people from
>>>>> knowing it. And so only one more step is needed for the march toward
>>>>> dictatorship to be complete, staying in power after January 20 2021
>>>>> regardless of the November election results.
>>>>>
>>>>> John K Clark
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>>>
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>>
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