Chas_P, on 2020-June-02, 18:05, said:
Just so that we all understand...are you saying that none of the arson, looting, beatings, etc. would ever have happened had Pence been at the helm? Because he would've been had Trump been removed from office. And here's another hypothetical...Let's assume that Hillary was elected in 2016. Would the arsonists, looters, etc be obeying Her Majesty's decrees and staying at home watching Netflix? Or would they have been on the streets setting fire to police cars, government buildings, stealing liquor, Nike shoes, cigarettes, and Louis Vuitton purses?
It's impossible to prove a hypothetical. But I feel quite confident that things would not be nearly as bad with anyone else at the helm.
I may not agree with Pence's opinions, but he seems like an intelligent, thoughtful person. If something like this happened on his watch, he would try to calm things down, not fan the flames.
Trump is an idiot and bully. He doesn't care about anything except increasing his power and profits.
At one time during the campaign he said he could act "presidential" and gave an impersonation of it. So far during his term, every time we needed him to act presidential, he has utterly failed. He ignored the coronavirus threat until it was too late, and since then his actions have been practically useless, although he continues to claim that they were great. His response to the violence this week have been more authoritarian than presidential.
When he was elected I thought "this sucks, but the country has survived sucky presidents before, we'll get past it". I don't think any of us could have imagined just how disastrous it would be, and now I'm not so sure how well we'll recover. And if he does get reelected, it's game over for the country. It's been a nice 2.5 centuries, but the wonderful experiment in American democracy will have failed.