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THOMAS M. COLE JD's avatar

BTW, the US is a Constitutional Republic..

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Jerry Roberts's avatar

it was until Trumpkins started his project of turning it into an autocracy...

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THOMAS M. COLE JD's avatar

Hysterical.

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Jerry Roberts's avatar

And which part isn't completely true?

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THOMAS M. COLE JD's avatar

Trump has lost many hundreds of millions since running for president. How can that be equated with grifting the system?

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Jerry Roberts's avatar

hahahahaha...according to Forbes, no friend of the libs, Trump has made $3 billion on his grifts THIS YEAR...Thomas, please get out of your Fox/Info Wars bubble -- there's actual reality outside!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2025/09/09/presidency-boosts-trumps-net-worth-by-3-billion-in-a-year/

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THOMAS M. COLE JD's avatar

Apparently there are several realities.

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Jerry Roberts's avatar

Don't worry Tom, we'll rescue you from the cult yet...

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Jerry Roberts's avatar

do you really think Forbes is making this up? These are what you like to call your Actual Facts.

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THOMAS M. COLE JD's avatar

Well, it seemed to indicate Trump made money on Truth social. That is hardy grifting the American people..

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Jerry Roberts's avatar

Actually what I like to call "The Real World", is where I and other sane people live, and then there's the delusional world of Trumpism...

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THOMAS M. COLE JD's avatar

I'll reply, OK. I'm on a different time scale than most people perhaps. A different drummer. Looking at the last time our nation was so thoroughly divided, back in the 1850's. The huge issue was slavery. And Abe Lincoln was very unpopular with the south. They were certain Abe was a tyrant, a king, an ogre. Lines were actually legislated by congress across the entire nation dividing enslaved states and the 'free' states. The division was over the north basically taking the entire livelihood of the plantations against the rest of the more industrialized Northern states. As you surely know.

For instance, in that conflict I would have proposed a different solution than the two sides lining up and killing each other. Instead the north could have offered to buy all the enslaved people from the southern states. It was only fair to do so because the nation as a whole and laws all granted the south their rights to own and buy enslaved people. And now in the late 1850's the North was threatening the entire lifestyle and primary income for millions of southerners, and they were also Americans.

And to put it bluntly, but with respect, in today's dollars enslaved people were 'worth' somewhere in the $50K range. Thus to buy all enslaved people in the US in 1850 dollars would have been about $3.2 billion.

The cost of the Civil war at that time was about $3.1 Billion for the North, and $2B for the south. Grand totals for the war cost are placed around $6.5-$10Billion US in 1850 dollars. There were several attempts by Lincoln to offer phased buyouts, but by 1858 the south was filled with rage at the north's interference with their perceived ownership rights and states rights, and the north was also adamantly against bailing out what they consider 'traitors. And so war was the result with 800,000 dead and a nation in lain in ruins and debt.

Today we can ask, is there some solution between us conservatives and the progressives? Can we find a bargain that both sides could live with?

Here for instance I could proffer that taxes be cut by 90%. And government be cut by 90%. What loss is there to conservatives? Because many of us want smaller government. With smaller welfare to foreign nations, less taxation and interference to our private enterprises and business and our private lives. Could there be an acceptable offer to the progressives? What do you all want? So that's a short thought experiment that I'm working on now. Thomas

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