Trump is no FDR

By
The Martha's Vineyard Times
-
76

To the Editor:

Some days ago I listened to Donald Trump on TV, giving his usual what – me- worry spin to the rising number of coronavirus cases. I heard him say, “Ninety-nine percent of these cases are totally harmless.”

As I sat  there, stunned that even Trump could make such a statement, my mind ran back to the year 1944. And I wondered how Americans would have reacted if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had given a nationwide radio address in which he said: “This year our armed forces will cross the Channel  to liberate Europe from Hitler. Many of you will have fathers, brothers, sons, other relatives and friends in the invasion force. But don’t be apprehensive. Ninety-nine percent of the men we put ashore on D-Day will be perfectly safe.”

Donald Trump, you are no Franklin Roosevelt.

R.E.L. Knight
West Tisbury

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76 COMMENTS

  2. Donald is the greatest President this nation has ever had.
    He has done a great job.
    If you have any questions just ask him, he will set you damn straight.

  3. FDR was naive about communism and signed an agreement at Teheran conference with Stalin that kept millions of refugees like me from fleeing post war Europe. He called him Uncle Joe. We don’t want Trump to be like FDR. He wanted big government. For those of you who care he was also unfaithful to his wife. The State Department was full of communists In high places, but most of you don’t care.

    • Post some links about communists in the state dept.
      And for those of you who care, trump is also unfaithful to his wives…

      • Pre-WWII, FDR famously said that “no American boys will sent to foreign wars.”
        Obama famously said “if you like your health insurance, then you can keep it.”
        So much for presidential truth telling.

    • I’m sorry your family had a difficult time emigrating to the US. Certainly, FDR had his flaws. Curiously, you point out that he was unfaithful to his wife but fail to recognize that the subject of this letter to the editor was not FDR, but Donald Trump, a man who has been proven to be unfaithful to all three of his wives. Apparently, you don’t care about that.

      • Jane, Andrew tells such whoppers on here that I don’t believe his immigration tales of woe. I just don’t buy a word from him, which is the result of mixing untruths, half-truths, exaggerations, and bold-faced lies in everything he posts. That’s the problem with people who prove themselves dishonorable. He makes up stuff to promote his agenda, which is about his cult’s insane doomsday narrative, and that Donald Trump was elected President because all the privileged white christian racists prayed to their god for that to happen. Don’t be sorry for someone who does not care about children separated from their parents and put in cages.

      • I don’t care about President Trump’s marital fidelity anymore than you do about Clinton’s or JFK’s or LBJ’s or my plumber’s. I voted for him to clean out the sewer of Washington. And I will again.

        • Someone forgot to tell you that racist, anti-semitic Trump lives in the sewer and surrounds himself with criminal sewer rats who, even when they get arrested, he pardons them. Everything he touches turns to sewer waste. Trump calls Republicans who won’t vote for him “human scum”. He is psychologically projecting who he is and who he acquaints himself with. Trump has no standards, no taste, and no friends. He is unlikable. Even his racist wife thinks so. And he is not smart enough to know the difference between sewers and his own grotesque living room. Trump supporters have inabilities. The smart ones, and there were some, have already bailed. I can’t wait for the exterminators to have him forcibly escorted out of the WH in January, 2021.

          • But other than he is a pretty nice guy.
            Mrs. Lincoln likes him about as much as she liked the rest of the play.

        • I don’t think someone should have to be progressive on every issue (I’m not) to care about justice. Guess that talk about the rule of law has been for show. Empty. Anyone describing racism as a narrative is announcing, “I’ve never had to deal with it from those in power, so it’s not real or important, no matter how much evidence is offered.” As a female, I’ve never experienced testicular cancer, but you won’t find me trying to interfere with men receiving help. We can support things that do not affect us. Some just choose not to. At least own your apathy rather than excusing it.

      • jbnorton. I do care about that but my main point was that FDR was flawed just as Trump is flawed and in my mind FDR hurt me and millions others a lot more than Trump ever has. All Presidents are flawed and many of them were unfaithful. Yes I care.

    • Trump is ignorant of communism, socialism, anarchism, democracy, and our Constitution. He doesn’t have a clue about Stalin—or any history of our country or anywhere in the world. Only a fool admires him over FDR. Trump puts refugee children in cages and is unable to distinguish any difference between refugees, DACA, foreign students and workers, and illegal immigrants. He is the stupidest, most negligent, and worst President in history, totally responsible for the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of Americans because he is incapable of leading the nation through this health crisis, preferring instead to do nothing to contain it. People who are not brainwashed, including all good Republicans, don’t want an inept imbecile as President. Trump cheats on all his wives and brags about sexually abusing women, including leering after undressed teen girls in beauty contests. But the dutiful cult followers come out from hiding under their rocks to pledge their loyalty to their chosen one who they imagine will help this racist and anti Semitic privileged white bunch attain their insane doomsday narrative. But Trump loves Putin. Do you love Putin too, Andrew?

      Pay your $1000 debt. People who weasel out of owed money, lie about that and anything else they feel like, plagiarize, express racist tropes, make up fake statistics but refuse to provide evidence, brag about congregating in groups without masks, etc etc etc, sound ridiculous bringing up anyone else’s moral failings. Only the very weak and poor character fail to face their unethical, very public bad behavior as you have, going into hiding when you know you’ve been caught in your lies, only to slither out again to repeat some brainwashed blather.

      • Gotta love that FDR for his courage for sending hundreds of thousands of Japanese American citizens into concentration camps while he was cheating on his wife.

        • Guess what? It’s 2020 now! I guess we can count on your vote for Biden for our next President. Surely a person of such standards as yours would not vote for the cheating, lying, friend of Jeffrey Epstein. Moral people would never support a known racist who tears little brown children away from their parents and puts them in cages.

          • I agree with you Jackie. Obama’s policy of putting children in cages was immoral and you should tell him so next time you see him. I am glad that President Trump discontinued the practice.

          • He is actually better than I feared.
            By now I expected the Department of Home Security’s Customs and Border Patrol ‘Brown Shirts’ to be manning all of our roadway intersection checkpoints (actually in camo and no markings whatsoever).

        • I know, KAG, sometimes it’s a choice between peace of mind or the reality of what’s happening to our country.

          • I agree wholeheartedly. The country is being taken by a mob of violent neo-Marxists aided by a band of cowardly corporations based on a false narrative of systemic racism fueled by a nasty flu bug and a media that can be described only as vermin.

          • I agree wholeheartedly. The country is being taken by a mob of violent totalitarians aided by a band of cowardly corporations based on the true narrative of systemic racism fueled by a nasty flu bug and a media (MV times too?) that can be described only as vermin.

      • The woke progressives are worse than Trump. Editors forced to resign not for criticizing the president but for writing something the left didn’t like. Professors at colleges have been fired for writing the mildest criticisms of BLM. Goya foods is boycotted because its CEO said something complimentary about Trump. NBA player James Harden attacked for wearing a mask that supports law enforcement. Here we now are in the USA. Virtue signaling, calling out, public and private shaming, destroying our cities, tearing down statues, and running rampant with intimidation and threat. So it is on these pages often when Left wingers and their cancel culture are determined to shame and silence anyone who disagrees with them. One person in particular never challenges an argument head on but simply attacks ad hominem with the vilest invective. ‘’As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly’’

        • Andrew–You say “One person in particular never challenges an argument head on but simply attacks ad hominem with the vilest invective.” is your comment referring to yourself ?
          Do you even see the irony of your comment ?
          Let me remind you of some comments you have said recently about me —
          “Mediocre carpenter”
          “uneducated”
          You have criticized my religious beliefs as “nonsense” and seem to have sort of superiority complex when it comes to dealing with dissenting opinions.
          You rarely put up links to back up your opinions.
          You make sweeping generalizations about liberals, and often defend the indefensible..
          And you refuse to pay a debt that was properly incurred.
          Give us a break—

          • dondondon I dont put up links because I dont trust any of them. Certainly not the main stream media or Huff Post or Nation or USA Today or CNN or any of them. I do trust the Heritage foundation and National Review. You dont need links to justify your ideology and I dont need them for mine. Did you need a link to convince you that Trump was no good? I dont think so. You knew it years ago. Can you give me a link to the Pastafarian truth? Your worldview was established long before we had links as was mine. As for statistics on Covid for example I go to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

          • Andrew– If I didn’t trust the news and web sites that I was reading, I would go to sites that I did trust, and post links to them.
            For corona , I use worldometer also. It shows that of of the 2 million cases in this country which had an outcome ( cured or dead) 7 % have died.
            How does that square with your less than 1 % number ?
            And you want some Pastafarian information ? Thanks for giving me the opportunity to proselytize here.

            This one an overview:
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_the_Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

            Here are some interesting quotes from the holy “scripture”
            https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/43552-the-gospel-of-the-flying-spaghetti-monster

            And here is where one can actually become an ordained minister of the faith. Having the card is a great conversation starter at parties. https://www.spaghettimonster.org/ordination/
            All hail His noodely appendage .
            Peace, love and Pasta to all.

          • Andrew, not giving links for info you post but don’t trust as reliable means your agenda is more important to you than truth. If (actually, when) you post info that is untrue, you admit you don’t care if it’s factual because you’ve used a source that you admit is untrustworthy. People under the influence of a cult’s mind control do this, without regard to truth. This is not surprising to me that you routinely post unreliable (even to you) information on these pages. What’s surprising is that you openly admit this dishonorable practice.

        • Hey, Andrew, your chosen one wishes Ghislaine well. What a fine Christian you support. She has something on Trump. So does Putin. “People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.” No one needs to shame you, Andrew. You’ve taken care of dishonoring yourself all on your own. Pay your debt and apologize for lying.

          • Jackie– Ghislaine has nothing to worry about. As long as she keeps her mouth shut about trump, he will pardon her, like he does with all the corrupt people who’s only reason for a pardon is their continued support for him. Then she can write the book , and of course, no matter how convincing her story, no matter what proof she comes up with, Andrew and his ilk will say she is a loser and a liar.

          • I can’t get over that the president of the united states said in a news conference that he wish Ghislaine Maxwell well, a known sex trafficker of young girls. Imagine if Obama ever said something like that.

        • Also, Andrew, since the “one person” who you claim doesn’t “challenge an argument head on” is either Don or me, I can speak for myself and tell you that when you put forward your racist and anti Semitic tropes, and your dishonest statements about anything and everything, those are not “arguments” to debate. What they deserve is exposure for being what they are: lies, hatreds, and intolerance. Further, imposing a fake and cult religiosity into virtually every weak and dishonest political point you have, makes your “arguments” illogical and hardly debatable. You lash out with ad hominem attacks or whining or inappropriate bible rants when your arguments are exposed for what they are, instead of standing up for what you support with anything that makes sense. You can’t explain why you support Trump. Trump will end up on the trash heap of history, where he belongs. FDR has a place in history that your blithering idiot can only fantasize about, (even though FDR’s inaction on escaping European Jews impacted my family). Still, FDR is not comparable to the blithering, morally bankrupt idiot you STILL support. FDR was not bolstered into office by a lunatic, fringe, religious, and fascist right wing that used him to promote their white racist control, insinuating their distorted and fake Christianity into our government, demeaning everything that our Constitution stands for. The white religious right is doing that with Trump and to our country, even though some have bailed on your idiot— and for good reason. Your guy wasted 6 months into this pandemic, and he still doesn’t offer our country a plan. 1000 Americans died of TrumpVirus yesterday— that is one day’s dead. Your unpaid debt remains 1000 dollars. You are your own worst enemy on these pages. Take responsibility for it.

        • Editors are generally employed at will.
          Who should get to decide if they should be fired?
          Should professors be able to be fired?
          How about school teachers?

    • Andrew, how do like Trump’s latest walkback?

      Trump says the virus will probably ‘get worse before it gets better.’
      President Trump abruptly departed on Tuesday from his rosy projections about the coronavirus, warning Americans from the White House briefing lectern that the illness would get worse before widespread recovery.

      “It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better,” Mr. Trump said. “Something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is.”

  5. Quite true. President Trump hasn’t nominated a former Ku Klux Klan member to the Supreme Court as FDR did.

  6. Neither for against Trump with this response, just questioning the logic of comparing catching COVID-19 to fighting in World War II. Seems like a ludicrous comparison that undermines the author’s attempt to craft a point.

    • Wesley,

      “Seems like a ludicrous comparison that undermines the author’s attempt to craft a point.”

      That is the exact thought I happened upon after reading the article. One need not even be for or against Trump to see the two points the author cites are not analogous. ????

      :-^

    • Wesley– I think the author was not so much comparing the fighting in ww 2 to covid– They were pointing out the absurdity of the way that trump has handled the virus– Indeed, if FDR had said the attack on Pearl Harbor was an accident , that the Nazi’s were “good people”,that Great Britain was doing quite well, and the news about the bombing of London was just the media looking for ratings ; If he refused to mobilize private business to produce the necessary equipment while assuring the public that the soldiers had all the ammunition and equipment they needed without actually producing anything,and in fact were beign slaughtered , the war would have went quite differently.
      FDR showed leadership and was honest with the public.
      Bunker boy has been playing golf, undermining the validity of the science and the scientist, and lying every step of the way.
      Doesn’t seem ludicrous to me.

      • ”the war would have GONE quite differently” is the correct grammar. I am sorry that I called you uneducated dondondon. By the way FDR was naive and foolish about alot of things and mostly about his pal Stalin ”uncle joe”. You might look up the ship St Louis that had 900 Jews attempting to escape Nazi Germany in 1939 before the war. Cuba rejected the ship as did FDR when they tried the USA. Incarceration of Japanese US citizens by FDR is interesting also dondondon. There is lots more but I dont want to find the links.

        • Andrew– thanks for being the grammar police.
          I know about the St Louis and all the things you speak of. Look up the level of anti Semitism in the United States at the time.
          907 on the St Louis ,by the way. Refugees turned away at the border– Horrible.
          Hundreds of thousands turned away at the southern border in the last few years under trump’s illegal executive orders concerning immigration.
          Trump is no FDR

          • dondondon. Are you comparing illegal immigrants attempting to enter the US with Jews fleeing the Holocaust? Are you giving FDR a pass because there was much anti semitism in the USA? How about FDR obstructing many rescue plans for Jews that would have cost him nothing. He had many of the same sentiments that caused him to intern 120000 Japanese in the US. What would FDR have to do to have you be slightly annoyed with him?

      • DonDon, I am not here to weigh in for or against Trump- but I am against poorly structured rhetorical arguments that undermine what could be a coherent and valid point. Did Trump ever call himself the next FDR? There certainly are plenty of bombastic and foolish comments coming out of his mouth, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he did say it- I just don’t know whether or not he did based on the letter. And living in America today with Covid is nowhere near as frightening as storming Normandy or fighting the Battle of the Bulge. What I predicted 4 years ago is coming to pass- the moderate middle that was sick of politics as usual and Hilary’s lackluster campaign cast enough votes for Trump that, combined with his hard-core base, was enough to squeak out a narrow victory. Now that Trump has had 4 years of being president rather than a free-wheeling candidate who can fire up crowds with incendiary speeches, that middle group is deserting him, paring his support back to 30-35% of the electorate. The only thing that can save him now is the Democratic Party itself, whose self-destructive tendencies have resulted in following up one of the worst candidates since Dukakis in 2016 with the candidate who lost the nomination race to Dukakis in 1988.

        • Wesley– I don’t know if trump ever compared himself to FDR. I didn’t see any reference to that in the letter.
          You are correct about the Democrat’s self destructive tendencies.

          • Sadly, the reason the Democrats could very easily blow a slam dunk in November (i.e. beat a novelty celebrity candidate in over his head) is that they don’t learn from the past. They’ve yet to seriously reckon with the reason Trump got elected and the discontent that was brewing in the national psyche with shifts in economics, society, etc. They struggled to relate to anything outside of Washington, NYC, and LA, with a few enclaves in Chicago thrown in. Their only hope is that disgust with Trump is stronger than indifference to them. Hardly a winning strategy, but they may pull it off.

          • Wesley, Trump “won” because of misogyny, Russian interference, and the cheating and lying. Trump lost the popular vote. There just aren’t enough stupid, racist, women haters to claim a majority. He won’t have the advantage this time of “build that wall” and “lock her up”. Who do you think promoted Pizzagate and the “emails” blather? Americans, and all the world, are on to Trump and cognitive test brags. He’ll never be reelected. The only people who support him now are the KKK, white racists and anti-semites, evangelical cultists, and people dumber than rocks. You’re right, though, the Dems can do absolutely nothing and Biden will still win, unless the Repubs figure out a way to cheat on the vote counts.

        • Don’t think he’s called himself the next FDR. (Yet. We are never more than one Twitter meltdown away…) But as I said at the top of the thread, Trump believes he’s at least on par with Lincoln. That’s worse.

  9. dondondon. yes 7 percent of those who CONTRACT Covid die. But those who contract it is 4million out of 330 million. My one percent number is valid and your thinking is disordered because you mix statistics to suit your ends. You never tell us about the seriousness of the cases and you never mention that deaths are not progressing with any speed as they did before.

    • Andrew, earlier in this thread you admit you use sources you don’t trust as reliable, and that’s why you do not provide a link when you are asked for evidence of the untrue numbers you give. If you don’t believe the garbage you post and think it’s not to be trusted, why do you whine so much when you’re called out for lying when you are caught? I know why you post untrue garbage. I just don’t know why you publicly admit it. You’ve made it clear you’d say anything to promote the cult. It’s like shooting your self in the foot, though, as if we all aren’t already familiar with your dishonorable conduct, like when you weasel out of paying your debts, make racist comments about Chinese, and plagiarize to attack another commenter.

    • Andrew– I clearly said that my statistic was based on people who have contracted this. Your equating the total number of U.S. residents to the final mortality rate is disordered.
      In the 1998 when air bags were required in all new automobiles, the reasoning was that they saved lives when there was a serious accident. It would be a totally irrelevant statistic to base a decision on how many cars didn’t get into an accident. The fact of the matter is, if you were an engineer developing safer vehicles, you would not argue that 100 % of people that were not in an accident survived .
      Your argument is as dumb and desperate as any argument that you have ever made. A comment like that makes me wonder if you are uneducated.
      You might as well say that if you get shot, it’s no problem, because 99.99 % of Americans who do not get shot in their entire lifetime will be fine — So don’t even bother to go the hospital if you do get shot.
      You mentioned the metric of deaths as the proper way to measure whether this was getting worse.
      The total deaths in the U.S have exceeded your ill conceived wager with me each day for the last 2 days.
      Over a thousand deaths from covid 19 a day, and you view it as progress because someone could say that in march , death were doubling every 10 days ( when there were 100 deaths) and now they are only doubling every 50 days ( when there are 1000 deaths a day) .
      Pretty sick denial of the value of human life. Any “Ninja4life” would be ashamed at your callous disregard.

    • Andrew, cut to the chase.
      Covid -19 is the defining factor of the Trump Presidency, ust like 9-11 was for Bush.
      How many covid – 19 deaths will it take for Trump to lose in November?
      200,000?
      400,000?
      I do hope that we agree that Trump will be dead meat if we have a million Covid deaths come election time. l

  10. Yes Jackie you are correct I gave an untrue number. I agreed with dondondon that 7 percent of all Covid cases die and yet I was wrong on the math. It is only 140000 deaths divided by 4million cases. It is 3.5 percent and dondondon was incorrect with his 7percent number. I do not use links to calculate percentage(maybe I should). However we have 330 million people and 4 million cases so that would be slightly more than 1 percent of people and if 42 percent of those deaths are in nursing homes and 82 percent of deaths are over 65 then you would agree that the chances of getting the virus let alone dying is very slim. Or would you prefer to continue your incessant virulent rant? As for racism on Chinese, I lived in Hong Kong and it is the 4th most populous country in the world per capita and its propensity for illness is high. That was my statement and hardly racist. Besides some of my best friends are Chinese. lol. My daughters were born in Hong Kong and Singapore and one is nick named sing-sing. But of course you dont believe my resume or any of my bs lies.

    • You said Chinese are dirty and spit on the street. That’s what you said Andrew, the first time you said you lived in China. You are being untruthful when you try to change what you said. In fact, you are the most dishonest person on here. “A false witness shall be punished and a liar shall be caught.”

    • ANDREW– how dare you denegrate the lives of elderly people.
      Who gives a fence if you allegedly lived in Hong Kong ?
      Given your propencity to lie about everything, why would any of us believe it, or care ?
      We ( the left) care about all lives– your comments seem to indicate that in your mind, “old lives don’t matter ”
      Shame on you, —-old lives do matter

      • Andrew denigrates everyone who is not white, Christian and on board the cuckoo cult train. And he denies he says what he says. Maybe he needs a test that asks him to remember “person, woman, man, tv, camera”, a narcissist’s stream of consciousness.

      • ”prospensity” dondondon. Please use spell check. When I lived in Hong Kong it was a colony of the UK. In 1997 it was handed over to China due to an agreement made many years before. It is now a part of China but has its own Passport and some basic law but is essentially under the boot of China. I have lived in 11 countries and visited 124. Yes it is tragic lives are lost but it is also tragic to shut down the country and the statistical probability to die from Covid is low. Cases are sloping up but deaths are sloping down. You dont want any deaths and it unrealistic. You are going to get them and you protect the vulnerable and let others go back to normal. 2.6 mm people die in this country every year and we are not going to stop that.

        • Deaths are “sloping” up, Andrew. Do not lie. No one believes or cares a word about where you say you lived. This is what happens when people don’t tell the truth.

    • Why does it matter if people are over or under 65? When did we take a national vote and decide we were throwing people away once they reached their 60s? I keep reading this point, and it makes no sense. I’d rather not lose loved ones of any age, and everyone is worth protecting.

    • “I lived in Hong Kong and it is the 4th most populous country in the world per capita”
      Now I understand your statistics.

  11. Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.
    What does the imbecilic Donald Trump have to do before Andrew admits he supports an idiot only because the evangelicals can use this narcissistic, cognitively demented conman for their anti-American, fascist, and cuckoo ends?
    Being responsible for the deaths of all these Americans just isn;t enough to undo ongoing damage in the mind controlled and brainwashed Trump supporters.

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