America's shame: A Tragic Fall from Grace

[Hodad]

I spent this past weekend walking the National Mall. Standing in the Rotunda of the National Archives, looking at the faded ink of the Declaration and the Constitution, you feel the weight of a specific kind of intellectual ambition. These weren't just laws; they were a tour de force of Enlightenment philosophy. Then you move to the Lincoln Memorial, where the prose is so lean and haunting it feels as if it was inevitable that it should be carved in stone. Collectively, they represent a massive legacy, a vision of "exceptionalism" that, while imperfectly realized, aimed for something transcendent, far greater than what had come before.

And then, there’s the current reality. Leaving the presence of those great men and their momentous words, only to be met with the ubiquitous and self-aggrandizement of the Trump era, feels like falling off a cliff into a vat of toxic kitsch. Like a spoiled child dressed up in his father's suit, hopelessly trying to make it fit. 

The founders (flawed as they were) spoke of a "Sacred Honor." Today, the highest virtue seems to be the ability to dominate a news cycle through sheer noise.

How did we go from the quiet, terrifying dignity of the Bill of Rights to a political landscape that feels like a sweeps week stunt for bad reality TV?

Is this just the natural entropy of a Republic, or have we fundamentally lost the ability to distinguish between "greatness" and "fame"?

This is the latest nauseating reminder today of just how far we've fallen. This bloated vulgarian isn't fit to polish the marble likenesses of his predecessors. How did we get here? It seems impossible to have fallen so far so fast from dignity to disgrace. 

Edited April 5 by Hodad

[Deluge]

13 minutes ago, Hodad said:

I spent this past weekend walking the National Mall. Standing in the Rotunda of the National Archives, looking at the faded ink of the Declaration and the Constitution, you feel the weight of a specific kind of intellectual ambition. These weren't just laws; they were a tour de force of Enlightenment philosophy. Then you move to the Lincoln Memorial, where the prose is so lean and haunting it feels as if it was inevitable that it should be carved in stone. Collectively, they represent a massive legacy, a vision of "exceptionalism" that, while imperfectly realized, aimed for something transcendent, far greater than what had come before.

And then, there’s the current reality. Leaving the presence of those great men and their momentous words, only to be met with the ubiquitous and self-aggrandizement of the Trump era, feels like falling off a cliff into a vat of toxic kitsch. Like a spoiled child dressed up in his father's suit, hopelessly trying to make it fit. 

The founders (flawed as they were) spoke of a "Sacred Honor." Today, the highest virtue seems to be the ability to dominate a news cycle through sheer noise.

How did we go from the quiet, terrifying dignity of the Bill of Rights to a political landscape that feels like a sweeps week stunt for bad reality TV?

Is this just the natural entropy of a Republic, or have we fundamentally lost the ability to distinguish between "greatness" and "fame"?

This is the latest nauseating reminder today of just how far we've fallen. This bloated vulgarian isn't fit to polish the marble likenesses of his predecessors. How did we get here? It seems impossible to have fallen so far so fast from dignity to disgrace. 

You actually had me going for a second when the word "exceptionalism" came up, and then everything turned to shit the second you turned this into another Trump bashing session. 

God you people are trash, but happy Easter anyways. 

[bush_cheney2004]

29 minutes ago, Hodad said:

How did we go from the quiet, terrifying dignity of the Bill of Rights to a political landscape that feels like a sweeps week stunt for bad reality TV?

 

We didn't go anywhere different...a little American political, social, and economic history would quickly clarify any such confusion.   Bill of Rights includes the First and Second Amendment since 1791.

[Hodad]

37 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

We didn't go anywhere different...a little American political, social, and economic history would quickly clarify any such confusion.   Bill of Rights includes the First and Second Amendment since 1791.

Lol. Sure. Everything's all the same all the time. Nothing is different. (WAVE HANDS ENTHUSIASTICALLY)

 

[User]

So... basically just another Trump-has-mean-tweets thread. 

 

[bush_cheney2004]

2 hours ago, Hodad said:

Lol. Sure. Everything's all the same all the time. Nothing is different. (WAVE HANDS ENTHUSIASTICALLY)

 

So you long for the days of old...like this ?  

[paxamericana]

Greatest presidential president ever! Andrew Jackson is a hard contender though @bush_cheney2004

[bush_cheney2004]

3 minutes ago, paxamericana said:

Greatest presidential president ever! Andrew Jackson is a hard contender though @bush_cheney2004

 

Indeed...right up there with Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy, Wilson, and FDR for massive expansion of Executive Branch powers.   The Trump haters don't know their American history very well.

[Hodad]

27 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

So you long for the days of old...like this ?  

Actually, yes. Not because of a civil war or the extraordinary damage wrought, but because Americans held American principles so dearly, believed so deeply, that "the right thing" was something worth fighting for. Even dying for.

Now, "conservative" America will eagerly sacrifice any principle or value to the politics of spite. Even sacrifice democracy itself if it "owns the libs." Quite literally. Zero exaggeration. 

So yes, a people of principle is something worthy of nostalgia. 

As a self-identified amoral person, that may seem strange to you, but power as the end into itself is a hollow, petty thing. 

Edited April 6 by Hodad

[bush_cheney2004]

12 minutes ago, Hodad said:

Actually, yes. Not because of a civil war or the extraordinary damage wrought, but because Americans held American principles so dearly, believed so deeply, that "the right thing" was something worth fighting for. Even dying for.

Now, "conservative" America will eagerly sacrifice any principle or value to the politics of spite. Even sacrifice democracy itself if it "owns the libs." Quite literally. Zero exaggeration. 

 

You can't be serious after watching what the Democratic Party did in 2024 for candidate selection and lack of primary elections.   Incredible....

[Hodad]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

You can't be serious after watching what the Democratic Party did in 2024 for candidate selection and lack of primary elections.   Incredible....

Primaries are party business, having little to do with democracy. They make their own rules. She won the overwhelming support of the convention delegates, which is how one wins a party nomination. 

Would the Democrats have fielded a different candidate if Biden had chosen not to run early enough to hold a proper primary? Possibly, though a sitting VP has a massive advantage in any such race.

But really what you're doing here is a petty deflection. As if nominating a candidate at the party convention on short notice is in any way comparable to the narrowly failed Eastman coup plot? That's just silly.

But it does rather nicely highlight the issue. You've got no problem returning to power a man who tried to overthrow a democratic election and seize power illegally. A man who tried to steal from the people that which the founding fathers risked lines and fortunes to secure: a government by and for the little. It should bother--anger and incense--any patriot. But it doesn't bother the majority of "conservative" America in the least.  

Instead, you would throw it away casually for a man of no worth and a chance to spite *the other team.'

These are sad times. 

Edited April 6 by Hodad

[Reg Volk]

3 hours ago, Hodad said:

Primaries are party business, having little to do with democracy. They make their own rules. She won the overwhelming support of the convention delegates, which is how one wins a party nomination. 

Would the Democrats have fielded a different candidate if Biden had chosen not to run early enough to hold a proper primary? Possibly, though a sitting VP has a massive advantage in any such race.

But really what you're doing here is a petty deflection. As if nominating a candidate at the party convention on short notice is in any way comparable to the narrowly failed Eastman coup plot? That's just silly.

But it does rather nicely highlight the issue. You've got no problem returning to power a man who tried to overthrow a democratic election and seize power illegally. A man who tried to steal from the people that which the founding fathers risked lines and fortunes to secure: a government by and for the little. It should bother--anger and incense--any patriot. But it doesn't bother the majority of "conservative" America in the least.  

Instead, you would throw it away casually for a man of no worth and a chance to spite *the other team.'

These are sad times. 

And yet not nearly as sad as things were under Obama and brain dead Joe. That was downright morbid.

[CdnFox]

9 hours ago, Hodad said:

I spent this past weekend walking the National Mall. Standing in the Rotunda of the National Archives, looking at the faded ink of the Declaration and the Constitution, you feel the weight of a specific kind of intellectual ambition. These weren't just laws; they were a tour de force of Enlightenment philosophy. Then you move to the Lincoln Memorial, where the prose is so lean and haunting it feels as if it was inevitable that it should be carved in stone. Collectively, they represent a massive legacy, a vision of "exceptionalism" that, while imperfectly realized, aimed for something transcendent, far greater than what had come before.

And then, there’s the current reality. Leaving the presence of those great men and their momentous words, only to be met with the ubiquitous and self-aggrandizement of the Trump era, feels like falling off a cliff into a vat of toxic kitsch. Like a spoiled child dressed up in his father's suit, hopelessly trying to make it fit. 

The founders (flawed as they were) spoke of a "Sacred Honor." Today, the highest virtue seems to be the ability to dominate a news cycle through sheer noise.

How did we go from the quiet, terrifying dignity of the Bill of Rights to a political landscape that feels like a sweeps week stunt for bad reality TV?

Is this just the natural entropy of a Republic, or have we fundamentally lost the ability to distinguish between "greatness" and "fame"?

This is the latest nauseating reminder today of just how far we've fallen. This bloated vulgarian isn't fit to polish the marble likenesses of his predecessors. How did we get here? It seems impossible to have fallen so far so fast from dignity to disgrace. 

Translation -  I saw some stuff from somone I liked and i was happy and then i saw stuff from someone i didn't like and i was sad. 

Cool story. 

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Reg Volk said:

And yet not nearly as sad as things were under Obama and brain dead Joe. That was downright morbid.

Here's the thing. With the left anything they don't like is terrible awful lowbrow no good very bad. Anything that came before the thing they don't like was very good much appreciated super better.

In fact many on the left have criticized Lincoln tremendously I said what a terrible person is, yet here we go watching a person on the left to try and praise the same person because they decided they don't like trump more

Trump is hardly the first president to swear. And as far as his vision for America we'll see how enlightened it was or wasn't when the dust settles.

[Nationalist]

14 hours ago, Hodad said:

I spent this past weekend walking the National Mall. Standing in the Rotunda of the National Archives, looking at the faded ink of the Declaration and the Constitution, you feel the weight of a specific kind of intellectual ambition. These weren't just laws; they were a tour de force of Enlightenment philosophy. Then you move to the Lincoln Memorial, where the prose is so lean and haunting it feels as if it was inevitable that it should be carved in stone. Collectively, they represent a massive legacy, a vision of "exceptionalism" that, while imperfectly realized, aimed for something transcendent, far greater than what had come before.

And then, there’s the current reality. Leaving the presence of those great men and their momentous words, only to be met with the ubiquitous and self-aggrandizement of the Trump era, feels like falling off a cliff into a vat of toxic kitsch. Like a spoiled child dressed up in his father's suit, hopelessly trying to make it fit. 

The founders (flawed as they were) spoke of a "Sacred Honor." Today, the highest virtue seems to be the ability to dominate a news cycle through sheer noise.

How did we go from the quiet, terrifying dignity of the Bill of Rights to a political landscape that feels like a sweeps week stunt for bad reality TV?

Is this just the natural entropy of a Republic, or have we fundamentally lost the ability to distinguish between "greatness" and "fame"?

This is the latest nauseating reminder today of just how far we've fallen. This bloated vulgarian isn't fit to polish the marble likenesses of his predecessors. How did we get here? It seems impossible to have fallen so far so fast from dignity to disgrace. 

Awwwe...you're up set. Have a cookie.

[bush_cheney2004]

5 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Trump is hardly the first president to swear. And as far as his vision for America we'll see how enlightened it was or wasn't when the dust settles.

 

Right...Trump is just another American president with the power(s) that office wields.  Been that way for a very long time.   History will record and report the policies and outcomes, books will be written with short titles like "FDR", "LBJ", "Ike", "JFK", "Nixon", "Dubya", and "Trump".  Life will go on same as before.  

[bush_cheney2004]

9 hours ago, Hodad said:

Instead, you would throw it away casually for a man of no worth and a chance to spite *the other team.'

These are sad times. 

 

No...I just have a much broader perspective and historical view about the office of president.   Trump is just another chapter in a very long book.

Example:   FDR, one of the greatest American Presidents did all kinds of things that would be found objectionable today, including the internment of American citizens and legal residents during WW2.   Should he be hated and disparaged for doing so ?   Does this prove he was an awful man with poor character?

These times are no sadder than before...there will be more long after Trump.

[Nationalist]

@Hodad and The Pansie Posse are just expressing their TDS. 

Pre-internet, all people, including presidents, could not instantly say things to the world. So what they thought was filtered by second thoughts and in the president's case, PR experts. 

Had people known how President Johnson privately felt about black people, people like The Pansie Posse would be aghast.

Were I to give Trump a piece of advise, I would advise him to not post his immediate thoughts without checking with the PR folks first.

[Hodad]

30 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

@Hodad and The Pansie Posse are just expressing their TDS. 

Pre-internet, all people, including presidents, could not instantly say things to the world. So what they thought was filtered by second thoughts and in the president's case, PR experts. 

Had people known how President Johnson privately felt about black people, people like The Pansie Posse would be aghast.

Were I to give Trump a piece of advise, I would advise him to not post his immediate thoughts without checking with the PR folks first.

Do you really think that the President of the United States should be a person who needs a PR team to know that those kinds of intemperate communications are both unwise and beneath the dignity of the office? I mean, it's not like it was a close call or he was navigating a deeply nuanced moment. That's kinda like saying the only reason he doesn't shit on the floor is because the custodial staff is there reminding him not to. -- No, in both cases that there is a baseline of conduct and decency that a person fit for the job would clear without a second thought. He can see the Washington Monument and Lincoln n Memorial from his "house." 

[Hodad]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

No...I just have a much broader perspective and historical view about the office of president.   Trump is just another chapter in a very long book.

Example:   FDR, one of the greatest American Presidents did all kinds of things that would be found objectionable today, including the internment of American citizens and legal residents during WW2.   Should he be hated and disparaged for doing so ?   Does this prove he was an awful man with poor character?

These times are no sadder than before...there will be more long after Trump.

To a nihlist, everything is equally unremarkable, but anyone with an actual broader historical perspective would know that these are not normal behaviors and these are not normal times. We've never had a perfect president, but they were all committed to building a more perfect union in service of the founding principles. We've never had a president attempt to overthrow democracy before--to take something sacred from the people and put himself squarely and literally before the country the office is meant to serve. No, we've had flashes of self dealing and corruption, but Trump has been uniquely destructive in terms of American identity, striking at the core of what this country is supposed to mean. 

 It's dishonest to pretend that unprecedented behavior is really no big deal, and doubly so to do so under the guise of historical literacy. 

[Nationalist]

37 minutes ago, Hodad said:

Do you really think that the President of the United States should be a person who needs a PR team to know that those kinds of intemperate communications are both unwise and beneath the dignity of the office? I mean, it's not like it was a close call or he was navigating a deeply nuanced moment. That's kinda like saying the only reason he doesn't shit on the floor is because the custodial staff is there reminding him not to. -- No, in both cases that there is a baseline of conduct and decency that a person fit for the job would clear without a second thought. He can see the Washington Monument and Lincoln n Memorial from his "house." 

Please try hard to not be such a fool. Presidents are just civilians. They all have their own minds. Trump just splatters his mind all over the internet before anyone can advise him.

Trump is what he is. He's POTUS because Brandon was such an abject failure.

You want power back? Stop advocating for bat-shit crazy shit.

[Hodad]

8 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

Presidents are just civilians. They all have their own minds. Trump just splatters his mind all over the internet before anyone can advise him.

 

This is the point. Should the POTUS really need someone to advise him NOT to behave as he does? Why is this a valid defense of disqualifying character and behavior?  

[Nationalist]

29 minutes ago, Hodad said:

This is the point. Should the POTUS really need someone to advise him NOT to behave as he does? Why is this a valid defense of disqualifying character and behavior?  

Defense? No, its more just an explanation. I cant defend some of the things Trump posts...or says in some cases. But I can understand why and how his bloviations happen.

But...he's POTUS exactly BECAUSE of the dumb-ass garbage Brandon did AND you Libbies, for the most part, still advocate for. And here's the proof. 

Steve Hilton is leading in most polls in deep blue California. 

You Libbies have lost touch with reality. Until you regain your senses, you're fighting an uphill battle. 

Here's more proof.

this "opinion" is well over the top. You silly buggers really need to ground yourselves. As it stands now, y'all are just silly.

 

Edited April 6 by Nationalist

[Deluge]

18 hours ago, Hodad said:

Lol. Sure. Everything's all the same all the time. Nothing is different. (WAVE HANDS ENTHUSIASTICALLY)

 

I don't get why you're upset. You're the a$$holes who flooded the country with illegal aliens - was it deliberate? 

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Right...Trump is just another American president with the power(s) that office wields.  Been that way for a very long time.   History will record and report the policies and outcomes, books will be written with short titles like "FDR", "LBJ", "Ike", "JFK", "Nixon", "Dubya", and "Trump".  Life will go on same as before.  

Pretty much. Although it can be said that trump is the latest in a very long line of presidents who have pushed the boundaries of the power of the office. Many who have come before him have put their finger on that scale a little bit. Obama did quite a bit. Some might rightly say it feels a little bit more lopsided these days with the president being slightly more empowered than the founding fathers originally intended. But you can't pin that on trump, of dems and republicans have been allowing that for ages

But as you say, regardless trump will come and go and the earth will continue spinning its diurnal travels around the sun