Thom Hartmann shared this on his show today. Thread 🧵via Marty Taylor, Executive Director NewBlueUSA. President niteflyermedia. Pilot. Musician. Political and media consultant. 1/...
A personal story about Donald Trump, Marla Maples. The “Carpet King” Bob Shaw, Adolph Hitler and my wife Martha.
@GottaLaff
The only thing that surprises me about this story is that it was retold.
But let's be honest, it wasn't retold in the summer of 2016, when it could have prevented this. Not that I recall.
2/ My wife is a computer engineer. She sets up and runs large computer servers for companies and the government. She has worked all over the country from Connecticut where she set up servers used to support our nuclear submarine fleet. To Dallas where she worked for Ross Perot at EDS and many other large corporations.
3/ In 1996. Martha was working at Shaw Industries Group in Dalton, Georgia. Shaw is the largest carpet manufacturer in the world. Dalton, Georgia is dominated by the carpet and flooring industry. The CEO was Bob Shaw. His family built the carpet business and he was very influential in Georgia Republican politics.
4/ In 1996, Donald Trump has been married to Dalton native Marla Maples since 1993. Since Marla had family in Dalton, she and Trump visited often. They were seen around town many times. But on this particular visit, Trump was meeting with Bob Shaw for dinner. Shaw invited some of his employees to the dinner at the popular Dalton restaurant “The Depot”. My wife Martha was one of those employees invited to have dinner with Shaw, Marla Maples and Donald Trump. It was a dinner she will never forget.
5/ Although my wife and I have only been married for a few years. We have known each other since we were in High School in Tenn. We were always great friends. & always kept in touch. Martha shared the details of this story to me many time before Trump was Pres or even being mentioned as a candidate. I have heard the story for almost 30 yrs & the story never changes. What happened that night at the Depot is a real eye opener & tells us a lot about who and what Trump is and always has been.
6/ As the Trumps ate dinner that night in Dalton, Ga w ‘The Carpet King’ Bob Shaw & his semi interested employees who were bored by the bragging & buffoonish action towards the staff by Trump. It was obvious that even Bob Shaw was not interested in Trump’s incessant bragging about 1 building or another. So Trump decided to change the convo to his political ideas and where his political theory came from. The dinner was about to take a dark turn that no one in attendance would ever forget.
7/ The first words that got the groups attention was when Trump said” Hitler did some great things and had some great ideas. He just didn’t get to finish what he started.” The table grew quiet as Shaw and his startled employees threw furtive glance at each other, all were hoping that maybe Trump was drunk or kidding. But his glass only held Diet Coke and the look on Donald Trump’s face was deadly serious. He was not kidding. This is what Trump believed then and believes now.
8/ As Trump continued to regale the now silent table with his admiration of Adolph Hitler and how he thinks America needs to be more like Nazi Germany, his wife Marla tried to mitigate the words that were coming out of her husbands mouth. “ Oh Donald, you don’t believe all that. Stop it.”
9/ Marla turned to Bob Shaw and said “Donald keeps that book by Hitler beside our bed, it’s the only thing he ever reads. And he watches tapes of Hitler’s speeches. But I don’t think he believes all of that stuff.”. “Yes I do Marla” Trump said as he waved his hands to dismiss his wife. “And America would be a lot better if we had someone like HItler in charge”
10/ As the evening went on Trump continued with his lavish praise for Adolph Hitler and the Nazi’s. When anyone tried to disagree or question him they were shut down by the loud and obnoxious Donald Trump. When the Shaw employees finally left the Depot that night. They were shocked and disgusted by Trump’s words.
11/ My wife’s co worker Marianne was especially upset as she was Jewish and my wife also has Jewish heritage. But the conversation ended in the parking lot at the Depot that night with Martha and Marianne ensuring each other that “at least Donald Trump will never be President.” Boy were they wrong.
12/ I have heard this story for years. My wife Martha and other Shaw employees have all verified the facts and conversation at the Depot in Dalton that night. Just yesterday Donald Trump said that immigrants are”not human” this followed Trump claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling immigrants “vermin”.
13/ These statements are taken from Hitlers Mein Kampf and his own words. There can be no doubt that Donald is emulating the words and deeds from that dark time in world history. We must never allow this in America. Donald Trump decided a long time ago that America should be more like Nazi Germany. His goal is in sight.
14/ The only thing standing in Donald Trumps way is you and I. We will never let the dark vision of Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler become reality in the United States. We will stand against Donald Trump and all who support him. We will not bend nor break. America‘s future depends on it.
@GottaLaff TY for sharing this thread with us. It's still important. #Trump must never be president again. Democracy and the future of America depend on it. #VoteBlue#BidenHarris
@GottaLaff
I'm sure Marla Maples could (and should) verify that story, but I'm also certain she has a very strict NDA as part of the divorce settlement.
@GottaLaff I never understood his appeal to so many long before he ran for president. And it absolutely floors me that people still follow him knowing who he is. It is just disgusting and depressing.
Perhaps your experiences were different than mine. In 2016 it seemed obvious to me that rural areas in general, and rural southerners specifically, would swear allegiance to his brand of racist populism.
@ang6666@eldubuu@GottaLaff You would think that. So would I. But I watch instead as my own family members go down that road. The excuses just get more convoluted and twisted. He's a victim in their eyes, like they imagine themselves, only unlike them, they think, he has the courage to stand up to the bad people disenfranchising them of their privilege. They don't see it as privilege. They see it as rightfully theirs. They think the other folks don't deserve to get the same treatment because they don't look, act, and think the same as them, and only people like them could deserve fair treatment. So any threat to that position of privilege is a threat to them, and goes against the natural order. The enemies of the natural order are wrong and deserve to die, from this perspective. Just like the villains in any story...however fictional it may be.
@ang6666@eldubuu@GottaLaff They yearn for the satisfaction of putting the villain to death and saving what they hold dear. They will believe whatever they are told to believe, to get that feeling. We will have death camps, and "good people" will call it, doing what is necessary, a righteous act of self-defence, a heroic defiance against the forces of darkness. They won't just stand by and allow it to happen. They will go right along with it, singing praises and thinking they're in the right. They won't have to wrestle with their consciences, because they'll be told stories about how they're the forces of good, and the killing will happen in death camps hidden in the boondocks, out of sight, out of mind.
@ang6666@eldubuu@GottaLaff They will shake their heads and tut tut at the people who try to stand against them. "How could so-and-so join the forces of darkness -- those despicable people trying to take our country from us? I thought s/he was a good person. How could I have been fooled? You can't trust anyone!"
@ang6666@GottaLaff
I often wonder if the followers of the orange shit stain see him as a representation of their own futures. That a man as dumb as that can be president proves the adage that anyone can become president, including them.
@ang6666@GottaLaff
He appealed to the adversaries of democracy, who backed him to achieve their own ends. It appears that most of them don’t like him either, but they use him to advance their agenda, including the military-grade brainwashing of his voters, who unleash their anger and hatred, even if it acts against their own interests to vote for him.
@GottaLaff
Every. Single. Word.
He has always admired Hitler and as Maya Angelou stated,
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
@GottaLaff
A little ironic that he was actually sitting on land taken from Native Americans. The concept of clearing land for those 'more deserving' was discussed by Isabel Wilkerson in her book Caste.
@GottaLaff
Fred Sr was a rabid anti-Semite, as well as a racist. This was well known & documented. And TFG, ever eager to garner love & attention from daddy, was fine with adopting those sentiments. In Queens, it was easier for him to get away with it, but because he wanted to make it bigger in Manhattan, he had to temper his bombast a bit. But nobody in NYC liked him.
...the saying should be extended to the son in law, too?
"#JaredKushner has praised the “very valuable” potential of #Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested #Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip." (#TheGuardian)
... in there,” he said. “I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.”
#Hitler and his minions were were diligent at destroying people. Apart from (male) homosexuals and the handicapped, it never was about #Palestinians. It was about the "Final solution to the #Jewish question" (Die Endlösung der #Judenfrage in German.)
...repeatedly demonstrated that he has no qualms ditching decades-old [#NATO] allies. #Japan, #Taiwan, #SouthKorea, and #Australia are surely feeling uneasy by now, too.
To think that #Israel would have a "more special" status than all the other nations would be ridiculous.
So just, MAYBE we should be asking ourselves WHO would be the final residents that would be moving into this "vary valuable"...
...and his (probable) #WarCrimes regime. They do the "clearing," the #TrumpCrimeFamily (and its #Saudi investors) reap the benefits.
Circling back to that infamous dinner of #MarthHartman.
Can we really continue to believe that #Israelis will be inhabiting these luxurious condos, after #Hitler "did not finish the job?!?"
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