Melania: define bully

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

From the person Limbaugh referred to as the White House dog.

 

[eku zhong]

There was always a lot of venom being directed at her. And A lot of what I'm trying to say here is that no, she didn't "let" anything happen. She was never empowered to control her husband. You can certainly make the case she should have left, but she's really ONLY his gold digger and not any kind of shot caller.

If it was some other gold digger in her place, it wouldn't make a difference. The believe that she "let" anything happen gives her too much credit.



Her hyperbole was silly, and she's obviously cracking. She's not as strong as previous first ladies. She's guilty of being a gold digger, and guilty of being fragile. I don't agree she is guilty of much more than that. But what I'm really trying to say is this what Sid said:



YES. Everything else liberals talk about doing against Trump is more productive than worrying about the first lady being a special snowflake.

Um no...
Pretty much when a hot young thing gets together with a rich, old, unattractive, obnoxious person, it is a mutual agreement.
The obnoxious rich person gets the flesh and the hot young thing gets access to the money.
From the get go she agrees to put up with him for however long it takes for him to get tired of her.
In Melania's case she has taked full advantage of this symbiotic relationship.
The rich lifestyle, citizenship for herself and her family, her own businesses etc.
For Trump, bragging rights to young pussy and another offspring. (FWIW)

But now since Trumpipoo is the First Buffoon, she can publicly swat his hand away when he reaches for the goods he thinks he is entitled to. She can publicly make woe is me faces when the Donald gazes publicly and longingly at his own daughter.
She is not the victim here in any way at all. She went into the agreement with her eyes open.. and locked onto the prize.
All of the pity seeking is only calculated preparation for the upcoming divorce as soon as the Trump is Dumped off his throne of office.
All the delicious ammunition the press is providing, the 'grab them by the pussy' conversations, Stormy Daniels etc etc will come into play to get her maximum settlement to get out of an agreement that is tied up tightly with anti-nup.

I have about 1 little toenail's worth of pity for her .. if that.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Granted, she's your typical trophy wife. But that doesn't mean that she has no rights nor feelings at all, far from it. Maybe it's an act, maybe not, we are going to see.

 

[eku zhong]

Granted, she's your typical trophy wife. But that doesn't mean that she has no rights nor feelings at all, far from it. Maybe it's an act, maybe not, we are going to see.

of course she has rights and feelings. I don't think anyone said she didn't.
Everybody has rights and feelings.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

When it gets right down to it, none of us would even be having this conversation, if the presidency hadn't been stolen.

We might now be debating whatever efforts Mr. First Gentleman, Mr. Bill Clinton, might be initiating and its pluses and minuses.

 

[Sid]

Granted, she's your typical trophy wife. But that doesn't mean that she has no rights nor feelings at all, far from it. Maybe it's an act, maybe not, we are going to see.

Yes of course she has rights and feelings.
But she could have known that getting in the center of criticism was one of the possible outcomes, when hooking up with a guy like Trumptydumpty.
A big tree attracts the woodsman's ax.

 

[Cristiano]

Granted, she's your typical trophy wife. But that doesn't mean that she has no rights nor feelings at all, far from it. Maybe it's an act, maybe not, we are going to see.

She's absolutely entitled to her feelings, and of course she has rights. No one ever thought Trump would win. She's in a role she never signed up for. I did feel sorry for her early on - she's been thrust into the spotlight and clearly doesn't know how to handle it. However, when people show you who they really are, you should listen. She's shown her callousness and her true colors, and I don't give a fuck about how she feels about it all.

 

[Shiloh Lyric]

Long before she was "First Lady", she publicly pushed the lie that President Obama was born in Kenya. She not only went along with it, she helped propagate it. She deserves scorn for that alone, if nothing else, and there IS more.

Hillary was mercilessly criticized for her reactions to accusations of Bill's infidelity and the claims of sexual assault. Yet, Melania reacts in the same way, and considers it "bullying" when she's criticized? Puh-lease. Spare me.

Not one iota of empathy from me for her. If she WERE unhappy in her situation? Divorce is a thing. Unless she's being forced to stay, which doesn't at all seem to be the case, I don't care what the *rumored* agreement was during his campaign, she doesn't need to stay married to someone if she doesn't want to be.

No, Melania is not being "bullied". Do some people say some nasty, unwarranted things? Yep, but they always have and always will. But is there rightful criticism for her past and present actions as Mrs Trump? Yep, and there will continue to be as long as she continues to be the myopic entitled whiner she came off as being.

And she's plenty 'strong'. To even insinuate that she's not is ridiculous. Why would she be any less "strong" than Michelle Obama? Or any other former First Lady, for that matter. She's not a delicate little lily. She's played in Big Leagues. She's marred to the ultimate mobster, for fuck's sake. You don't last in that if you're faint at heart.

 

[eku zhong]

Oh and before anybody actually feels sorry for her

What Is Melania Trump's Net Worth?

 

[Shiloh Lyric]

Aaaaand another thing. I can criticize Melania Trump AND go out and knock on doors for candidates, phone bank and attend meetings of a local progressive group. It IS possible to do all of that. In fact, between now and 11/6, that's how I'll be spending a lot of my time.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I do agree that Baron should be off-limits. He is a child. He doesn't have a platform, as Melania does. Anyone who attacks him, is well..not well. I feel like the goalposts are changing, again.



Where does Baron fit into this discussion? Are we not talking about Melania and her own personal choices, her own chosen agenda?

Cristiano brought up Presidential Children in post number 47 and I was always trying to talk about political families in general.

There is a very big disconnect between what I am trying to say and a lot of the responses. Look at my very first post on this thread on page 1 and See my post on this thread. Notice both posts are trying to express the idea that you shouldn't involve families as a very general rule. This isn't a goalpost move, because that's what I said first. This discussion was never really about Melania for me. I was never really interested in defending her personally.

Also, if Melania isn't as bad as her spouse, then she'd being doing what Elanore Roosevelt did, and it was more because she had the freedom to say her -her- spouse couldn't, in regard the New Deal excluding non-whites and other racism issues. FDR had his hands tied; he needed the support of the conservative, racist southern Democrats. Her hands weren't.

I think you are letting FDR off a little easy, but that is a totally different discussion.

Elanore was a courageous hero. We agree Melania falls well short of the great Elanore, but that's not really the point I was making at all. See my response to Jolene above.

Why do we care? I only know why I care.

I don't think we Americans have much experience with dictators and oligarchs so we don't grok how power is wielded by them...

Okay, you ripped my statement way out of context. Jolene was saying we should talk about Melania in isolation from Trump. I was saying that you have to associate her with Trump to have much to discuss. You then associate her with Trump to show why you care.

... I think I get insight into how the administration is working by understanding Trump's relationships that precede the presidency. For example, to me, Melania's character and motivations and Mitch McConnell's now have some startling similarities, which have enabled Trump to USE them both. Like Putin, Trump does not attempt to utterly dominate the people he uses; Melania and McConnell are permitted a lot of independent action. But so long as they agree to never oppose Trump, he can exploit the needs and urges he shares with them. Perhaps I have been uniquely naive in not understanding this from the get-go.

This dynamic works on larger scales as well. Putin doesn't have to outlaw homosexuality; he just has to make it known that he will not oppose anyone who attacks LGBT persons, and voila, LGBT lives become so acutely miserable that many re-closet or simply leave the country, if possible. Trump is attempting to mold his followers, and parts of the government, into the same sort of de facto militia.

So I have been very interested to learn that Melania is the same sort of conscienceless, amoral person that Michael Cohen, Jared Kushner, Tom Price and others whom Trump has elevated into positions of unmerited power are. She fits the mold, and that pattern is interesting to me, and helps me mull over possible changes to the US Constitution to prevent this aberration from occurring again.

Mitch McConnell and Tom Price are stand alone politicians and not family members of Trump so I of course agree they would be fair game. Jared Kushner is using nepotism to get political power, so I agree he's fair game too. I think Melania is the odd person out among them.

Simply not true. I think we all have to be careful about asserting things that we've told ourselves are true, but have never verified. Nowadays, if I know a portion of a person's argument is blatantly false, I tend to toss the rest of their argument into the 'probably false' bin. There is so much blatant lying around nowadays that simply being mistaken can cost one a lot of credibility.

I was thinking of how dirty Andrew Jackson's campaign got. Mary Todd Lincoln was also viciously mocked. But I did some more digging and I admit that I found little evidence of many of the others being attacked with any real zeal. So I'll concede the point.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Cristiano brought up Presidential Children in post number 47 and I was always trying to talk about political families in general.

There is a very big disconnect between what I am trying to say and a lot of the responses. Look at my very first post on this thread on page 1 and See my post on this thread. Notice both posts are trying to express the idea that you shouldn't involve families as a very general rule. This isn't a goalpost move, because that's what I said first. This discussion was never really about Melania for me. I was never really interested in defending her personally.



I think you are letting FDR off a little easy, but that is a totally different discussion.

Elanore was a courageous hero. We agree Melania falls well short of the great Elanore, but that's not really the point I was making at all. See my response to Jolene above.



Okay, you ripped my statement way out of context. Jolene was saying we should talk about Melania in isolation from Trump. I was saying that you have to associate her with Trump to have much to discuss. You then associate her with Trump to show why you care.
.

I don't think we are going to come to a middle. I understand completely your belief that they should be off-limits. Where we differ is that I don't consider the first lady to be off-limits with exception to obviously, vulgar attacks that have nothing to do with anything she espouses.

I do not have to associate her with Trump. She is the First Lady. She can easily be separated from what her husband does depending on her own choices; what she chooses to do. I thought I made that pretty clear with my Laura Bush post, but I guess not.

That's okay. I don't think you are malicious at all. We just disagree. We have very different ideas about what constitutes good behavior by first ladies., and their pet projects.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I don't think we are going to come to a middle. I understand completely your belief that they should be off-limits. Where we differ is that I don't consider the first lady to be off-limits with exception to obviously, vulgar attacks that have nothing to do with anything she espouses.

I do not have to associate her with Trump. She is the First Lady. She can easily be separated from what her husband does depending on her own choices; what she chooses to do. I thought I made that pretty clear with my Laura Bush post, but I guess not.

That's okay. I don't think you are malicious at all. We just disagree. We have very different ideas about what constitutes good behavior by first ladies., and their pet projects.

I understood what you meant with your Laura Bush post, but we disagree on the use of going that route.

In any case, I will agree to disagree. My beliefs on this issue are subjective, so I can't prove them and you can't refute them. I appreciate you not thinking I'm malicious. I am obviously outnumbered here, but don't think the bored is being malicious to me either.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I understood what you meant with your Laura Bush post, but we disagree on the use of going that route.

In any case, I will agree to disagree. My beliefs on this issue are subjective, so I can't prove them and you can't refute them. I appreciate you not thinking I'm malicious. I am obviously outnumbered here, but don't think the bored is being malicious to me either.

At the risk of flogging the chicken, yes I CAN, and many others have, refuted your beliefs.

Sorry. Had to say it.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Just for the record. A first post is the opening of a conversation. I've yet to be involved in a conversation [of the verbal sort] that didn't evolve and change. Otherwise, its a lecture or an echo chamber.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

At the risk of flogging the chicken, yes I CAN, and many others have, refuted your beliefs.

Sorry. Had to say it.

You can refute a factual claim, you can't refute a subjective claim that they should be off limits. That is purely an opinion.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Just for the record. A first post is the opening of a conversation. I've yet to be involved in a conversation [of the verbal sort] that didn't evolve and change. Otherwise, its a lecture or an echo chamber.

I agree, I was just saying that I wasn't moving the goalposts.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

You can refute a factual claim, you can't refute a subjective claim that they should be off limits. That is purely an opinion.

*sigh*. I certainly can. I made a good case as to why she isn't off limits due to her own public facing opinions/words/behavior.

I really haven't seen any objective proof from you that she should be excluded other than, as you say, your subjective belief, that she should not be held up to to scrutiny.

Well, sure, I could argue with you for days about the existence of planets, and you could tell me that, subjectively, you just don't believe it.

We're not making forward movement, in any event.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

*sigh*. I certainly can. I made a good case as to why she isn't off limits due to her own public facing opinions/words/behavior.

I really haven't seen any objective proof from you that she should be excluded other than, as you say, your subjective belief, that she should not be held up to to scrutiny.

Well, sure, I could argue with you for days about the existence of planets, and you could tell me that, subjectively, you just don't believe it.

We're not making forward movement, in any event.

The existence of planets is an objective discussion, but the ethics of political families in the news simply isn't.

I can give you an objective proof that the square root of 2 is irrational, but nobody on earth has ever produced an objective proof of anything in ethics.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

We are dangerously moving into territory where feels/opinion are given equal weight to facts.

I hope that isn't what you mean, at all.