Democratic House candidate compares Trump to Osama bin Laden - Polidicks

A new campaign ad from Democrat Dan Helmer, who wants to challen.. The White House on Thursday denounced a campaign ad produced by a Democrat seeking the nomination to challenge Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), which compared President Trump to Osama bin Laden. The ad flashes an image of bin Laden followed by one of the White House as the candidate, Army veteran Dan Helmer, says: “After 9/11, the greatest threat to our democracy lived in a cave; today he lives in the White House.” Helmer uses the line in nearly every public appearance, but the 30-second spot slated to air on broadcast television from Thursday until the June 12 primary just provoked a response from the Trump administration. “The message sent in a campaign ad from a congressional candidate from Virginia is nothing short of reprehensible. Leaders from across the political spectrum — starting with Leader Pelosi — must swiftly condemn this abhorrent message,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement. He referred to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Helmer’s campaign responded by accusing Trump of failing to uphold his oath of office. This is the same guy from like a month ago that bought a rifle at a gun show in 15 min

Dems like this are how Trump won.

To be fair, he's not wrong

I despise Trump, but he hasn't killed 3,000 people by planning for planes to be flown into two buildings, a military installation and the ground. He's not the same as Osama Bin Laden.

Right yeah, I didn't mean there was any connection between trump and bin laden, just that Trump is the greatest threat to American Democracy today, I edited my post to clarify what I meant

You're right, because the threat to Americans' lives that Trump poses is far more insidious than that. It's the systematic dismantling of our country's civil services and infrastructure, and his gratuitous saber-rattling practically provoking others into attacking us instead. Yeah, he didn't manage to wipe out 3,000 lives in an instant - so what? He has the potential to wipe out far more over time with the path he's taking us down. So sure, he's not the same as bin Laden - he's worse. The latter's capabilities were limited to a sudden, singular strike on a few strategic points with a death toll in the thousands. But everything Trump and today's Republicans do are like a slow-acting poison throughout the entire country.

Where's the lie though.

I think you're confusing causing death through negligence/incompetence/indifference with causing death through direct violence. There's a reason that negligent homicide has a lower sentence than death via brutal knife attack in which the victim is stabbed 30 times, for example.

Was Bin Laden ever really a threat to American democracy? He was more of a threat to American security

I think you're giving Trump too much benefit of the doubt in assuming that the force behind Trump's systemic destruction of everything this country stands for is incompetence as opposed to simple malevolence. Trump is evil. He is motivated by one thing, and one thing alone: a desire for power, by any means necessary, and at anyone's expense but his own. Bin Laden and Trump are entirely different kinds of threats, and I don't think it's appropriate to try to stack them up against one another as a direct comparison. Both, however, are unquestionably evil, and both have done (or will continue to do) immeasurable damage to the social, economic, political, and diplomatic stability and security of our country.

i mean when this is the same guy who said "you have to take out their families"? would anyone honestly expect him to act any differently were he in the same position?

Not in a direct sense, but there's definitely an argument to be made that 9/11, and the resulting hysteria, prompted reactionary policy that ultimately degraded the social and political foundations of our country. I'm not trying to blame the guy who invented the wheel for automobile accidents here, it's clearly not the ONLY factor, but 9/11 was at least a significant catalyst to the normalization of right wing extremism, xenophobia, nationalism, and isolationism that gave rise to Donald Trump as a politician.

when comparing one person to a known horrible person it does not matter if it is apt, its just going to be used as fodder down the line.

Trump also doesn't have a big black beard. They can have something in common (both are/were the greatest threat to democracy), without being "the same". And also, civilians are being bombed under Trump much more than before, something Trump publicly supported ("you have to take out their families"), so that first part isn't even that far off, either.

My post was responding to his post before he added the qualifier that he was a threat to democracy. His initial post just said "He's not wrong", or words to that effect.

You don't agree that that's what the quote in the OP means, too? Yeah, the quote seems to imply that Bin Laden and Trump are somehow one entity that moved from living in a cave to living in the White House. But since that is absurd, I think the real meaning is that "the person who is the greatest threat to democracy" switched from being a man in a cave to a man in the White House, and that only implies that Trump and Bin Laden have that thing in common, not that they are the same.

Also the bin Laden reference is to try to remind voters of his military service and associate him with being pro-American, concerned about terrorism, etc.

People who are taking the headline to heart without reading the intent of the statement are why Trump won. It was a comparison in the most vaguest of sense.

As what point can the person being compared finally be judged as "horrible" themselves? Only once they're in the history books? It doesn't take 20/20 hindsight to see that Trump isn't one of America's heroes.

It's not a very good comparison. bin Laden actually had plans and succeeded at carrying them out.

Also fox news is using it out of context to push their "the left is getting crazier every day!" Agenda.

I'd argue he killed 2,400ish people through his ineptitude on Puerto Rico

Or it's a shit idea to compare Trump to a literal terrorist in the first place. Given how hard Ted Cruz got filleted during the Republican campaigns for whining about Trump's ''New York values'', you would have expected the Dems to not repeat such a mistake, but leave it to the Dems to not fucking learn from prior mistakes.

Yeah, he's only killed thousands of citizens by delaying aid to Puerto Rico.

I understand that we must hold politicians responsible for these things, but I do believe there's a difference here. For example, there were many drone strikes under Obama, and I have always criticised him for this due to the amount of civilian casualties, but I don't think Obama should be likened to Osama Bin Laden. Obviously, Trump is much worse than Obama and in fact ended up killing an 8 year old American girl with one of his strikes, a strike considered 'too risky' by the Obama administration and shelved. I do agree that Trump has directly and indirectly caused deaths, but I don't think we should be comparing people to Bin Laden because it muddles the issue and will only be used as ammunition by MAGA people to suggest that 'the left' is [insert partisan criticism here].

Yes but the dismantling of and obstruction of a free healthcare system will result in potentially millions of American deaths, Donald trump is a bigger threat to the United States than any terrorist organization ever was and will be, and the worst part is you can shoot a terrorist but this mad man was elected legally so the only thing We can do is vote him out, when in reality if an entire organization of corrupt old men murdered millions of Millions of people, society would be burning them at the stake, let alone have a legitimate chance at public office.

Don't drone strikes cause less collateral damage than wars though?

Yes, but a war is not necessary, surely? The US is currently bombing, I believe, 7 countries. I think this creates more terrorists than it destroys, personally.

what do we do about pre-existing terrorists? Working on it in a law enforcement framework historically has led to bad results. Terrorism, today, is a military issue

You should really look up the numbers on civilian casualties from drone strikes. It is unlikely that any one terrorist would kill as many innocents as often perish in drone strikes. The US also classify any male of fighting age automatically an 'enemy combatant' to fudge the numbers. I find it all quite distressing. It would likely cause less deaths if we just left them the hell alone when they're in another country...