Talking Politics with Trump Supporters...

[Joe Guy]

This video is almost 20 minutes long but it's worth watching in its entirety....

[BoSoxGal]

I made it until 13 odd minutes when one of the Trump supporters asserted that Biden was going to be killed for his treason.

Massive kudos to this Luke Beasley kid, who has far more patience with adult idiocy than I have ever mustered.

Last night I stumbled on 60 Minutes, which I rarely watch anymore, because I’d just finished a movie and wanted something with ads so I could just mindlessly scroll my phone while halfheartedly listening. Whoops, they replayed an episode from 2021 that was about the FDNY and 9/11. I cried so hard I saturated an entire hanky. I felt so sad, thinking about that horrible day and the terrible way our country has gone astray since. We have not honored the people who died that day. Beautiful memorials and yearly remembrances aside, we have failed them utterly.

I miss the America of September 10, 2001. I mourn for the America that might have been but for September 11, 2001. It makes me sick to say it, but I think bin Laden got everything he could have hoped for and more from his evil act of terrorism. America is well on the way to self destruction and I struggle to feel hope for our future.

[Big RR]

I honestly miss the world that could have been had we not responded to the attack the way we did--jailing people without charge, condoning torture, attacking Iraq for elusive (nonexistent) WMDs, ... We had a time where much of the world stood as one with us, and we just threw it away; the inmates ran the asylum and both parties participated in supporting it rather than appear "unpatriotic". It just pave the way for Trump and his minions. When I think what it could have been had we behaved as sane adults, I am completely disgusted. That's the real legacy of Sep 11, and bin Laden could not have done better if he tried. I guess we're getting what we deserve.

[BoSoxGal]

I honestly miss the world that could have been had we not responded to the attack the way we did--jailing people without charge, condoning torture, attacking Iraq for elusive (nonexistent) WMDs, ... We had a time where much of the world stood as one with us, and we just threw it away; the inmates ran the asylum and both parties participated in supporting it rather than appear "unpatriotic". It just pave the way for Trump and his minions. When I think what it could have been had we behaved as sane adults, I am completely disgusted. That's the real legacy of Sep 11, and bin Laden could not have done better if he tried. I guess we're getting what we deserve.

Yes, that’s what I meant but didn’t articulate effectively. Lawrence Wright the author of The Looming Tower was interviewed on Morning Joe yesterday and he said exactly what you did - that our response after the attack, the paths we chose, have massively diminished our standing in the global view and our war on terror has resulted in al Qaeda going from a few hundred members to tens of thousands of members and also resulted in many millions of people living in refugee camps and/or displaced to other countries because of the knock on effects of our actions in the Middle East and Africa.

This piece in Foreign Policy is from 2017 so doesn’t cover the end of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it gets the major points just the same. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/10/al-qaeda-won/

We wasted so many lives, of Americans and Afghanis and Iraqis and Sudanese and Libyans etc. and trillions of our national wealth that should have been spent on infrastructure and education and healthcare and what did we get? Nothing of any substance. A terrorism movement at home that poses a huge threat to lives and our very democracy.

[Big RR]

We wasted so many lives, of Americans and Afghanis and Iraqis and Sudanese and Libyans etc. and trillions of our national wealth that should have been spent on infrastructure and education and healthcare and what did we get?

What did we get? A bunch of vocal chicken hawks running around screaming and looking to beat up someone, anyone, because of the bloody nose we got in our "war". I also add to this the "permission" the previous opposition gave to these jerks to frame the question, and how they just fell in line behind them, lest they be seen as cowards or, worse, unpatriotic. Once the dems fell in line with W's WMD BS and did not stand up against torture, they just paved the way fro someone like Trump to come in. It's really sad, but I seriously wonder if our time as a nation has come and gone.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I don't disagree with yez but wish to point out that terrorism's true victory is when we give in to despair. I know - preaching to the choir . . .

I take comfort that "Some of the people who have done the best have been downright pessimistic about the outside world, but they’ve paid less attention to external circumstances and focused more on what they could do to persevere"

[Big RR]

Sure Meade, and maybe we will persevere; we have faced significant challenges in the past, and may well face many in the future. But honestly, our response after the attack upsets me a lot more than the attack itself because the response was in our control and we should have known better. FWIW, it's the only life we have and we have to try to make the best of it, even if we don't succeed.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sure Meade, and maybe we will persevere; we have faced significant challenges in the past, and may well face many in the future. But honestly, our response after the attack upsets me a lot more than the attack itself because the response was in our control and we should have known better. FWIW, it's the only life we have and we have to try to make the best of it, even if we don't succeed.

Too much "we" mate. I didn't do it. It's them as is to blame