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Fascism

There, I said it.

Everyone knows Trump has always used incendiary rhetoric, which many have observed that in some cases comes real close to fascist-speak. Until recently, reliable sources have apparently determined the rhetoric does not quite cross the line for them to report it as such. But this has changed in recent weeks as Trump has sharply escalated his rhetoric, such that multiple reliable sources have now explicitly reported his rhetoric echoes that of fascists such as Mussolini and Hitler. And now significant reporting has emerged about plans he and his allies are making for a second term. This NYT lede alone is particularly stunning in drawing historical parallels to fascism:

Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.[1]

And there's a lot more than that. I believe the sourcing is now sufficiently DUE for this to be mentioned in the BLP and not merely relegated exclusively to his 2024 campaign article.[2] soibangla (talk) 23:53, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

There continues to be an overriding NPOV fail on this page in its presumption that Trump was a successful businessman and a patriotic politician. These are not thecurrent views of the best RS. SPECIFICO talk 00:39, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

I suggest this be discussed to elicit compelling reason why I should not restore this edit[3]:

In the fall of 2023, Trump drew criticism for stating undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country" and characterizing his political opponents as "vermin." The statements echoed dehumanizing rhetoric of white supremacists and fascist dictators such as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung sought to downplay the significance of the remarks, saying of critics that "their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House."

soibangla (talk) 07:44, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

(The better term is "Nazi rhetoric", and I used it at Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign.) "In the fall of 2023" is still a year away from the election, WP:NOTNEWS. What’s the enduring notability of Trump and his spokesman/campaign spokesman’s unfiltered speeches, and do we want to turn this article or the 2024 campaign article into a platform for every outrageous thing Trump/his campaign utters until the 2024 election? He’s now playing high school auditoriums with a capacity of a few hundred, not convention centers. He’ll repeat the material his rally attendees love, and he’ll say anything that will get him headlines in the "fake news" — it’s going to be a long year. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 11:40, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

• Space4Time3Continuum2x, you used 3 sources to support the notion of "Nazi rhetoric." Two of those, the NYT and WaPo, are behind a subscription wall. The third one, CNN, which is freely accessible, does not contain the word "Nazi" in its text. Could you add in your citations a full quote of the pertinent sentences from the two sources' text? -The Gnome (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

• This should be reinstated but in a very summarised trimmed way, just mentioning "vermin" and "crushed" and that it's Nazi rhetoric. It bears mention but it's little more than a way to get attention, and we shouldn't focus on that at the expense of covering his overtly authoritarian 2024 plans (Agenda 47, Project 2025; deploying the military against civilians and replacing the executive branch with loyalists). We could do all this in fewer words than what's being proposed for reinstatement. DFlhb (talk) 11:57, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

"Nazi rhetoric" seems unduly inflammatory and less on point than "fascist rhetoric" - the cited sources do make the connection with Nazi wording - our users can see that from the cited sources - but "Nazi rhetoric" gets close to the kind of labeling that we try to avoid and that is likely to alienate readers without giving broader context. SPECIFICO talk 14:12, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Agree that avoiding the word Nazi is the better part of valor. Mentioning Hitler and Mussolini is also problematic, no matter how accurate. Just mentioning Mussolini I think works better. Fascists of the mid-20th century is another option. Has to be some way of saying Nazi without using the word. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:49, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's better - DFlhb (talk) 15:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Depends if the RSs are saying it, in which case, why shouldn't we (with attribution)? Yr Enw (talk) 19:20, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

"poisoning the blood of our country" The statement reflects Nativism in United States politics, which has centuries of history in that xenophobic country. The main article cites xenophobic texts and policies by the politicians Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton in the 18th century as the foundations of American nativism. Dimadick (talk) 16:13, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

It`s text book Know Nothing politics Anonymous8206 (talk) 03:00, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

The only thing I don't like about the first suggested edit is the way it leads with "drew criticism for" rather than going straight into what he said and afterwards saying it was criticized. Sennalen (talk) 06:07, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

While I agree with the take that Trump is a fascist, Wikipedia is no place for such heavily debated things, even if they do seem pretty obvious & objective. This sort of precedent of not stating such controversial things, at least not far in advance to when said controversial things happened, can be found everywhere on Wikipedia from articles on Christianity to ones on Hitler. I think we must stick to the non partisan leaning of this article even if the partisan info is 100% true. Including info on his fascism is fine, as long as it isn't stated matter of factly. 25eanglin (talk) 19:36, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe we should refrain from labeling a U.S. president as fascist. I'm already skeptical of the Project 2025 article, as it seems to suggest Trump's desire for changes, which is a common aspect of any head of state throughout history. I propose waiting until after the election; if he loses, the relevance diminishes. I'd even consider deleting the Project 2024 article. While I personally don't support Trump, I'm undecided about labeling him as far-right. Overall, I suggest waiting for the election results. If he wins and the country turns into a dictatorship, then I would agree with such classifications. Otherwise, if he doesn't run in 2028, perhaps it's best to move on from discussing him. LuxembourgLover (talk) 03:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

can we move toward a consensus on phrasing and inclusion? here's another source: "Trump's Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent". The New York Times. November 20, 2023.

Recommend the proposed paragraph be placed in the his 2024 campaign page. If he becomes US president on January 20, 2025 & then implements or attempts to implement such policies? then we could add the paragraph here. GoodDay (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Trump currently presents these totalitarian, xenophobic narratives and the agenda of converting the US government to his personal instrument of retribution against whomever he chooses. It is his personal core. It is extensively sourced and discussed in secondary and tertiary RS. It should be prominently placed in this page. The question is whether the proposed wording should be inserted or whether it can first be improved. SPECIFICO talk 21:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The US Constitution is the law of the land, not the president. GoodDay (talk) 21:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That is unintelligible. Please read recent references and comment on the arguments in this thread. SPECIFICO talk 01:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I already have read them. Again, the proposed paragraph belongs in the Trump's 2024 prez campaign page, not here. GoodDay (talk) 02:04, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

This relates to the man. We don't need to wait for a second presidency to include significant well-souurced content about the man that is known now. soibangla (talk) 21:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. This relates to a potential second term in the White House, for Trump. GoodDay (talk) 21:48, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Let's say this is about anyone but Trump. Would you agree that with the extensive reliable sourcing here that this rhetoric would and should be included in anyone else's BLP? soibangla (talk) 22:16, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

If this was about (for example) Joe Biden? I would recommend such a paragraph be added to Biden's 2024 campaign page, not Biden's bio page. GoodDay (talk) 22:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Even if the person has a long history of highly incendiary rhetoric that multiple reliable sources now explicitly report has crossed into the realm of fascism, regardless of his presidential candidacy? soibangla (talk) 22:41, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

His promises/proposals belong in his 2024 campaign page & again, what he believes he can do & what he can actually do, are different things. GoodDay (talk) 22:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

"poisoning the blood of our country" and "vermin" are not campaign promises/proposals, they are dehumanizing rhetoric that are classic tells of fascism, as multiple reliable sources have reported. soibangla (talk) 23:08, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, the statements belong in his 2024 campaign page. I think we few have given our input on this. So, it's best to allow others to give their input, as a circular discussion, just goes... in circles. GoodDay (talk) 23:11, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Why not both? Sennalen (talk) 22:49, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

GoodDay, that objection is basically the same as the false and failed claims of the American right that claims Trump's incitements, coded calls to calumny, and extra-constitutional aspirations are just good ol' American Free Speech. Those claims are widespread, from Trump to his rotating set of defense attorneys to the far-right social media. So it is not merely about what might occur in the future. There have been multiple arrests for attacks, planned attacks and other crimes incited by Trump's rhetoric after he was no longer president. See Attack on Paul Pelosi. SPECIFICO talk 16:03, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

My position hasn't changed, concerning whether the proposed paragraph should be added to this BLP or not. However, I foresee this discussion devolving into unpleasant areas. Therefore, I'm going to stand aside & allow the content dispute to continue forward, by others. GoodDay (talk) 16:15, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

How does it not relate to the present time ? it needs to be in the article Anonymous8206 (talk) 21:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

soibangla, the NYT lede fails rs, per WP:NEWSORG. It's hyperbole. It's not what fascism experts say. TFD (talk) 03:23, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

did you take a deep dive into the first NYT article, it's a major article, and dive into the second NYT article I've cited here to see remarks by people such as Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Jennifer Mercieca? have you googled Trump fascist rhetoric? soibangla (talk) 04:19, 22 November 2023 (UTC)::How does it not relate to the present time ? it needs to be in the article Anonymous8206 (talk) 21:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Jon Meacham: "To call your opponent 'vermin,' to dehumanize them, is to not only open the door but to walk through the door toward the most ghastly kinds of crimes."[4]

Michael Beschloss: "Please tell us if this reminds you of any earlier historical figure."[5]

Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: "It doesn't echo 'Mein Kampf.' This is textbook 'Mein Kampf' ... Trump's comments are remarkably evocative particularly of Hitler's rants against Marxists and socialists -- Hitler also decried pro-democratic forces as Marxist ... [Hitler] took it that Jews were behind the international left, Marxism, communism, but his real target was democracy. This overbroad use of Marxism to target basically any political opponent, this is familiar from fascism and the way you attack democracy. And of course labeling your political opponents vermin, yeah, I mean the Nazis targeted their political opponents, they targeted them for incarceration and concentration camps."[6][7]

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: "There are echoes of fascist rhetoric, and they’re very precise. The overall strategy is an obvious one of dehumanizing people so that the public will not have as much of an outcry at the things that you want to do ... calling people 'vermin' was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence ... Trump is also using projection: note that he mentions all kinds of authoritarians 'communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left' to set himself up as the deliverer of freedom. Mussolini promised freedom to his people too and then declared dictatorship."[8][9] soibangla (talk) 04:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Jennifer Mercieca: "He describes a world of threats and a nation that is humiliated - he claims that there is danger everywhere and he's the only one who can provide safety - he claims that his opposition are enemies who cheat. Those are the classic arguments of fascism."[10] soibangla (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Timothy Naftali: "The language is the language that dictators use to instill fear. When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human. That’s what dictators do."[11]

Public Religion Research Institute: "What we have witnessed from Trump over the last few weeks is something new," said Robert Jones, founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI. "Trump has clearly crossed into the domain of Nazi ideology openly."[12]

Brian Klaas: "I study the breakdown of democracy, and I don’t know how to say this more clearly: We are sleepwalking towards authoritarianism, and people are not waking up to this."[13]

Stephen Miller: "Any activists who doubt President Trump's resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown. The immigration legal activists won't know what's happening."[14]

"How Trump's rhetoric compares with Hitler's". The Washington Post. November 13, 2023. soibangla (talk) 07:20, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Fascism is the subject of extensive academic study. Tens of thousands of books and academic papers have been written about it. People write PhD papers about fascism, become professors, write academic papers and books. The academic community then decides which views are most credible and which scholars are most authoritative. IOW it's a real academic area of study, no different from any other.

Some of the people you mention are noted fascism scholars and none of your sources was published in an article or book in the academic press.

Jennifer Mercieca is a scholar of rhetoric. Jacob Urowsky is a professor of philosophy whose book was published by Random House, which is not an academic publisher.

See Is Trump a fascist? 8 experts weigh in (Dylan Matthews, Vox Oct 23, 2020). It says, "Call him a kleptocrat, an oligarch, a xenophobe, a racist, even an authoritarian. But he doesn’t quite fit the definition of a fascist."

The experts include Roger Griffin, Robert Paxton, Stanley Payne, who are among the top ten if not the top five fascism scholars.

Also, note that the article mentions Jason Stanley and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, whom you quote in support of your thesis. But note the article says they have both said Trump is not a fascist.

You need to show us a textbook that says there is consensus among fascism scholars that Trump is a fascist. In the meantime you are doing what climate change deniers do. They present non-significant scientists, editorials and distortions of expert sources to support a predetermined conclusion. TFD (talk) 03:37, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I have noted over the years that in certain instances you insist on academic research papers to substantiate content, when that is rarely the norm of what we do here. Rather, we overwhelmingly rely on contemporaneous reliable sources. And what we have here is subject matter experts quoted in reliable sources, right here and now. Moreover, this is not a matter of whether Trump is a fascist, but rather whether his rhetoric reflects that of fascists. soibangla (talk) 05:11, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

BTW, Robert Paxton whom you cite in 2021 wrote an op-ed for Newsweek in which he stated that he now believed Donald Trump was a fascist, after insisting for several years that he was instead a right-wing populist soibangla (talk) 05:53, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

What part of this article meets that textbook standard? ~None. SPECIFICO talk 09:07, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Different types of sources are required for different types of claims. Rather than recite them all, let me point to the common sense approach to this. Articles should only refer to people as fascists if that is the academic consensus. The best way to determine this is to consult textbooks, but articles that poll leading experts such as the Vox article or the earlier one for History can be useful.

Note that I am not recommending that the Vox article be used as a source. I am merely citing it as evidence that your opinion is contrary to expert opinion.

Paxton wrote an editorial for the NYT saying that his opinion on Trump had changed after 1/6. However, he has not written a paper on this and remains an outlier.

Calling one's political opponents fascists is very common. It is however offensive because it trivializes fascism. Fascists were responsible for WWII and the Holocaust, leading to the deaths of tens of millions of people. They suspended parliament, banned rival political parties, locked up or killed opponents, censored the press and had gangs terrorize local populations. However odious the Trump administration might have been, that didn't happen, at least not to any significant degree.

When you trivialize fascism, you help its rehabilitation. If everyone is a fascist then no one is a fascist. This is exactly what the gun lobby does when it harps on about gun control in Nazi Germany.

I don't understand why, with so many actual facts you can use to criticize Trump, you rely on the argumentum ad hitlerum. This type of hyperbole is more likely to backfire than persuade and is best avoided. TFD (talk) 11:39, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

This is getting considerably away from the proposed article content. There's lots of RS detail about the efforts of Trump's current entourage to source and vet prospective appointees who, like various now-charged January 6 defendants and disgraced former Trump advisors, would support, enable, and execute presidential actions adverse to the American core. This thread is not about labeling Trump a "fascist" at the top of the lead. SPECIFICO talk 15:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Please note that all the references I provided above are from this month. The Vox piece you cite is from three years ago. You also mention some fascism experts who wrote their major work decades ago and appear retired now. Things have changed. The proposal here relates to the change in Trump's rhetoric in recent weeks, on which subject matter experts have been quoted in publications here and now, rather than academics writing papers that get peer-reviewed and published years later.

As SPECIFICO notes, there is no proposal here to label Trump a fascist. No one is suggesting the lead should say Donald J. Trump is a fascist who was the 45th president of the United States. It's about his rhetoric. As it stands, nowhere in this article is his authoritarian rhetoric even mentioned, despite it being extensively written about for several years. The article says "Trump's political positions and rhetoric were right-wing populist," with sources from 2+ years ago. Nowhere in the article does rule of law appear.

June 2016: Donald Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say. Donald J. Trump’s blustery attacks on the press, complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview that shows contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law, legal experts across the political spectrum say.

And now many reliable sources, supported by modern fascism and rhetoric academics, report his rhetoric now reflects that of Mussolini and Hitler. soibangla (talk) 05:25, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

His authoritarian rhetoric and lack of respect for the rule of law both definitely deserve mention, along with what I suggested in my first comment. DFlhb (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The article already says, "During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist...Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist and many as misogynistic."

That description has similarities to Fascism and Nazism. It also makes him comparable to contemporaries such as Duterte, Modi, Putin, Viktor Orban, Meloni, Javier Milei, LePen and Bolsonaro.

But it also has similarities with nativist and other movements throughout U.S. history: the Salem witch hunts, the Sons of Liberty, Andrew Jackson, Know Nothings, Copperheads, Klansmen, anti-Communists, Birchers, etc. These are more likely to be influences on Trumpism than foreign ideologies.

There are rs making these comparisons. However, if the article makes comparisons of Trump and Fascism/Nazism, then it should write about all the comparisons made in proportion to their support in rs. We must not give greater prominence to Hitler than Andrew Jackson, just because Hitler is less popular with the U.S. public.

TFD (talk) 14:20, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

That completely ignores the subject of this thread, the prominent awareness an RS discussion of his agenda to implement extra-legal powers by installing select agents in his second term. SPECIFICO talk 16:45, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

You might be confusing this tread with another one. This thread is called "fascism" and is introduced with Trump's "rhetoric echoes that of fascists such as Mussolini and Hitler." There's also mention of a crackdown on immigration, although it's unclear how this relates to Mussolini and Hitler.

I haven't read about the "select agents." Has this been covered in news media? TFD (talk) 20:36, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Kudos for sharing that you have not been reading recent secondary and tertiary sourcing about Trump's current campaign, current statements, and current staff activities. ANS: yes. If you're interested in getting up to speed with how he's projecting himself and his vision for the future, there are numerous daily, periodical and book format references on that. This thread is discussing how best to convey their descriptions and, in some cases, revelations. SPECIFICO talk 21:24, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The content is widely covered by several reliable sources that quote contemporary fascism/rhetoric academics who explicitly liken the Trump rhetoric to fascism, specifically that of Hitler and Mussolini. No one is proposing this be included in the lead, as is the language you cited above. Characterizations like "populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist" should explicitly include "authoritarian," as this has been attributed to him for several years. The current language, indeed the entire article, ignores the elephant in the room. It is passive POV by omission.

My edit was deep in the article, as the matter arose during his 2024 campaign. It is by no means prominently placed. It is notable that Trump's spokesman said of anyone making such comparisons that "their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House."[15]

I am aware there is a long history of people calling others they hate "fascists" and "communists," which sets up a "cry wolf" dilemma, but that's not what is happening here. It's not people screaming on Twitter. This is highly reliable sources going through rigorous editorial controls to report this. soibangla (talk) 18:23, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality says that opinions reported in the article should reflect the weight in rs articles about the topic, in this case Donald Trump. It's not enough to show that Trump's rhetoric has been compared to Hitler's, but that it is a significant aspect of the topic as reported in rs.

Comparing political opponents with Hitler is pretty hackneyed by now, which is probably why rs don't give it the degree of attention to merit inclusion, per weight. You see the argumentum ad hitlerum more frequently in right-wing sources, whether it's about gun control, abortion or even unisex restrooms. TFD (talk) 20:53, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Again, have you googled Trump fascist rhetoric? Do I need to list even more RS and experts than I already have? That sourcing alone would almost certainly be sufficient for inclusion of this content in anyone else's BLP. I just explained that this is not the usual phenomenon of people calling each other Nazis on message boards and podcasts, it's many reliable sources reporting on the man's rhetoric. It is "clearly fascistic," says Peter Wehner.[16] soibangla (talk) 21:07, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion should be widened via RFC soibangla (talk) 21:27, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we are at the point where an RfC is going to help. Some editors are up to date on RS narratives and others have not yet seen them, before somebody takes the time and trouble to produce even more references, e.g the ones at "stephen miller 2024" "trump retribution" "trump kelly" etc. It's beyond me why the most elaborate opinions here are based on the least familiarity with recent sources, but that's nothing new. SPECIFICO talk 22:14, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

NOTNEWS? NPOV? RS? I seriously doubt that news reports about Trump in the last few weeks have had a major change on how you or anyone else perceives him. Can you explain what you now think about Trump that you didn't several weeks ago? Or do you just have more ammunition for your opinions? TFD (talk) 13:59, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

No I didn''t google Trump fascist rhetoric because I don't begin with what I think should be in the article and search for it, but instead use reliable sources to determine what should be in the article. Please read the policy on neutrality. What weight if any an aspect of the topic should receive is not based on the political biases of editors. If it were, then the content would be determined by the relative number of editors who were MAGA Republicans or Resistance Democrats.

You should thank your stars that rs are already negative toward the subject so you don't have to google search for additional negative material to add. TFD (talk) 13:54, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

well ok then. anybody else want to join this discussion? soibangla (talk) 17:07, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

There appears to be no opposition based on the sources, so I think you could proceed to implement article text. SPECIFICO talk 17:17, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Soibangla, I'd recommend not adding the proposed paragraph, without a consensus to do so. Perhaps, you should consider opening an RFC instead. We're inching closer to the official opening of the 2024 US presidential campaign & such proposals need as wide an input as possible. GoodDay (talk) 17:36, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

This page has thousands of page watchers, with no meaningful dissent. No, we donxt need RfCs on each and every sourced content improvement. SPECIFICO talk 18:04, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I oppose soibangla's text above.

1. ...dehumanizing rhetoric is both a MOS:EGG and a MOS:SEAOFBLUE. (It really, really ticks me off that no one has pointed that out, for various reasons.)
2. Fascist, sure. It is clearly supported by reliable sources. Nazi? Not so fast. No matter how accurate, I oppose Nazi. I also oppose comparing him to Hitler or Mussolini in Wikivoice.

Cessaune [talk] 17:59, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

multiple sources say "dehumanizing rhetoric" but rhetoric can be dewikilinked here if that will address your concern. multiple sources explicitly relate the rhetoric to Hitler, Mussolini and Nazis, so is that in wikivoice? soibangla (talk) 18:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Cessaune, does my reply mitigate your concerns? soibangla (talk) 23:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Delinking rhetoric is good. I don't like the idea of stating it in Wikivoice, regardless of the number of sources. Cessaune [talk] 18:24, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

You have to go back to the far-right authoritarians in the 1930s in Europe or in 1970s Latin America to find the kind of dehumanizing and violent language that Trump is starting to consistently use

said Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die about how elected leaders can gradually subvert the democratic process to increase their power.[17] soibangla (talk) 23:55, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Also, this and this SPECIFICO talk 19:15, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I would like to see more participation in this discussion, but lacking it I will seek to widen participation via RFC by Wednesday. soibangla (talk) 05:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

• Lasting impact, coverage in RS? So far, we have a couple of speeches and a TruthSocial post. I think we should keep this in Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign for now. Trump is revisiting all of the highlights (lowlights?) of his two prior campaigns with plans/threats/promises to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 15:37, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

  Recent developments are quite distinct from any plans articulated in his prior campaigns. Even his election denial in 2020-21 was couched in terms of the American legal process and remedies, albeit tenuous and ultimately resolved as vacuous. The current plans are to dismantle the civil service, staff the executive branch with anti-constitutionalists, and politicize the American military for Trump's personal goals -- among other things reported in RS including the several linked on this talk page. SPECIFICO talk 16:00, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Noticed that twice, attempts were made to give this discussion a more neutral heading. I recommend those attempts be allowed & not reverted. GoodDay (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that was Mandruss's reason for reverting Soibangla's revert. I reverted for a different reason than Soibangla; I think this heading is better. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 15:40, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Vermin

I see the word “vermin” occurs eight times in this talk page section so far, but never in context. Trump discussed “radical left thugs that live like vermin….” Thus, he was only referring to a certain subset of his opponents as vermin. No reliable source has suggested, of course, that he was calling Republican opponents such as Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis vermin, nor that he was calling Democratic opponents like Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer vermin. He was only calling “radical left thugs” vermin. Any discussion in this BLP about “vermin” should include at least the immediate context: “radical left thugs that live like vermin….” That quote with context is widely reported in RS’s. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:51, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

who are the "radical left thugs" he characterized as vermin?

Former President Trump wished his supporters a happy Thanksgiving in a Truth Social post early Thursday while slamming New York's attorney general, the judge overseeing his civil fraud case, President Biden and the "Radical Left Lunatics" ... Trump also targeted Biden, accusing him of weaponizing the “Department of Injustice” against his predecessor in the Oval Office, as well as “all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY."[18]

soibangla (talk) 08:56, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe Trump has said those people are vermin or thugs, maybe not, but the article you link to uses neither word. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:12, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Your "immediate context" isn't the full context. On Veterans Day, he defined the "radical left thugs" both in the speech and in a post on social media: we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections. They're not off-the-cuff remarks where he went off-script, he then published the script. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 13:14, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

That particular quote does not clearly accuse marxists, communists, or fascists of being like vermin. I can understand why opponents of Trump wish he had called those people vermin, or called his other opponents vermin, but I haven’t yet seen that he did so. He called radical left thugs vermin, which is pretty nasty language on Trump’s part. I suppose maybe the “vermin” might apply to stuff earlier in the sentence, it’s hard to tell. But even if so, he wasn’t calling all of his opponents vermin. I have no objection to using the longer quote which includes more context in this BLP, so long as we don’t suggest he generally called his opponents vermin. Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:22, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it does. the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. Notice the "and"? His Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire is on C-SPAN. This is a transcript of the last minutes of the speech, starting at 1:45:00. The text of the TruthSocial post is in green.

Transcript

We are a failing nation. We are a nation in serious decline, and now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement. It’s totally corrupt, and we will not let it happen. If you want to save America from "crooked Joe" and then get every, you have to go out, you have to really do it. We have to do it. You know, the one way we win like you’ve never seen before, we have to slam it on Election Day. We have to come up with votes because there’s a point at which they’re cheating, can’t get it done. We, there’s a point at which the cheating can’t get it done. So get every patriot, you know, and get them out to deliver a massive victory in the primary but honestly more importantly in the election, the primary, let’s get the primary done first. We’ll be back here many times, but we gotta get the primary done first. So join our campaign by visiting … or text Trump … OK? 2024 is our final battle. With you at my side and you’ve been on my side from the beginning, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel, we’re going to expel those horrible, horrible war mongers from our government. They want to fight everybody, they want to kill people all over the place, places we’ve never heard about before. Places that want to be left alone. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, marxists, fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will route the fake news media until they become real. We will evict Joe Biden from the White House and we will finish the job that we started better than anybody has ever started a job before. The great silent majority is rising like never before, and under our leadership, the forgotten man and woman will be forgotten no longer. You’re going to be forgotten no longer, and with your help, your love and your vote we will put America first, and today especially in honor of our great veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. The real threat is not from the radical right, the real threat is from the radical left, and it’s growing every day, every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not gonna want to play with us, and they didn’t. Despite the hatred and anger of the radical left lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will make America great again!

They removed a few sentences from the speech, including the one I bolded. It says that the real threat is not from the radical right. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 15:03, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

”Joe owned three cats and two dogs that barked constantly.” That doesn’t suggest cats bark! Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:02, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it does. You're only exclusing excluding barking cats because cats usually don't bark. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 16:06, 28 November 2023 (UTC) Fixed typo. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 16:16, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

No it doesn’t, ”exclusing” is not a word, and I gotta go. Have a good day. Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:09, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

"Joe owned three poodles and two bulldogs that barked constantly." - It's less clear when both are things that bark. --Onorem (talk) 16:12, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Right, it’s less clear. Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for changing “exclusing” to “excluding.”[19] Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

See C-SPAN link, above. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 16:26, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

this discussion is unimportant because it doesn't matter who he called vermin. the point is he used dehumanizing rhetoric against adversaries, whoever they may be, and the effect is to reduce them to a subhuman level so not-so-smart people might kill them. this is how genocide starts. soibangla (talk) 18:17, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

That's a wild assertion. Cessaune [talk] 18:22, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I hope editors can remain focused on the subject of this thread: rhetoric. I am not calling him a fascist or a genocidal maniac. perhaps some of the resistance to inclusion stems from a failure to draw that distinction soibangla (talk) 18:30, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

So we should discard your proposal that we say Trump “echoed dehumanizing rhetoric of white supremacists and fascist dictators such as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler”? Okay. Keep in mind that Trump has been the target of dehumanizing rhetoric too. For example, Jim Acosta of CNN called him a “snake in search of a sewer”. [20]. Truman said Eisenhower “doesn’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:29, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how you get from what I said to So we should discard your proposal that we say Trump “echoed dehumanizing rhetoric of white supremacists and fascist dictators such as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler”? This is not the BLP of Acosta or Eisenhower. soibangla (talk) 19:34, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

You said that you’re “not calling him a fascist or a genocidal maniac.” As for Acosta, he’s a CNN reporter describing the subject of this BLP, so of course it’s relevant to this talk page discussion. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:38, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

I read what you wrote soibangla (talk) 19:42, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

And didn’t you also propose that we say Trump “echoed dehumanizing rhetoric of white supremacists and fascist dictators such as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler”? Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:45, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

there is nothing contradictory in what I've proposed here. I recommend you and I disengage here soibangla (talk) 19:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Acosta didn't call Trump a snake. He said he was "Like A Snake In Search Of A Sewer". Truman didn't call Eisenhower a pig, and neither one wanted anyone to be rooted out or crushed. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 19:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Comparing Trump to a snake or Eisenhower to a pig was dehumanizing, but no reason for Wikipedia to classify those speakers with Hitler and Mussolini, or to give undue weight to people who do make that very offensive comparison. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

It matters that he called, per the TruthSocial post your Hill cite cites, e.g., Judge Engoron a "Radical Left Trump hating judge", later mentioning "crooked Joe Biden ... & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY." And what are the "Radical Left Lunatics"? Vermin, according to the above transcript and TruthSocial post. Yeah, kind of SYNTH at the moment and I oppose inclusion in this article until further notice, BUT that clearly puts Engoron, Biden, James, etc. in the vermin category he intends to root out. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 19:03, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Sources show that he calls all of his critics, Republican opponents, Democrats, government officers and civil servants -- and any others whom he feels are adverse to his interests -- words from America-hating radical socialist communists to vermin, rapists, etc. Not all at once. The targets change from day to day, appearing and receding with the tide. The reason it's significant for his bio is that it's apparently about conversion of official governmental power to serve whatever crosses his mind. SPECIFICO talk 19:46, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Would be better placed in his 2024 campaign page. Afterall, weren't we trying to make his BLP shorter? GoodDay (talk) 15:15, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, for the reasons you state. Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello I’m an member of dispute resolution who will try to get and/or keep this conversation civil and on topic. I would also like to disclose my opinion on this I think we at this point should not use fascists any where in the article as that would spark more. Controversy •Cyberwolf•talk? 20:22, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Cyberwolf. I also contacted administrator @ScottishFinnishRadish: to monitor the entire discussion. GoodDay (talk) 20:25, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

This discussion is around 2.5 decitomats so I may have missed something, but I've reviewed it and don't see anything standing out as requiring an administrator. Is there something in particular I should be seeing? Right now looks like it's a not-particularly-heated-for-American-politics discussion that's headed for an RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:11, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

It's my hope that administrative actions won't be required. That being said, I hope you'll continue to monitor the discussion, considering its topic. GoodDay (talk) 23:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Cyberwolf please note there is no proposal to call Trump a fascist. rather, there are multiple reliable secondary sources and multiple subject matter experts that report his rhetoric echoes that of fascists, and those sources explicitly cite Hitler and Mussolini. I do not believe this encyclopedia should shy from including this simply because it is distasteful to some. Godwin's law is not at play here. soibangla (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm calling for a somewhat stronger proposal: discussing the subject-matter experts who have described Trump as a fascist, with appropriate attribution of course. There is no need, in my view, to dance around the matter. As for Godwin's law, note what Godwin himself says about Trump: If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump, or any other politician. Generalrelative (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

OK, Godwin's law is settled. Lets make sure we don't run afoul of the Cute cat theory. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:01, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Never! Generalrelative (talk) 23:15, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Not to be a smart a$$ the article literally states

In December 2015, Godwin commented on comparisons being made between Hitler and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying: "If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump, or any other politician." In August 2017, Godwin made similar remarks on social media with respect to the two previous days' Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, endorsing and encouraging comparisons of its alt-right organizers to Nazis.

So I guess another source

So godwins law is at play kinda •Cyberwolf•talk? 02:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Godwin's law has never really meant that you shouldn't compare things to Nazis. It is reminding people that you need to be careful and make sure that there are actual similarities involved, don't just call someone a Nazi because you disagree with them. If you are dealing with someone who says and does things that really are like what the Nazis said and did, then the comparison is appropriate and the need to make it increases. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Posted at NPOVN

I have posted a request for participation at NPOVN. SPECIFICO talk 17:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Post-posting break

I don't have this page on my watchlist, was just summoned by the posting on NPOVN. But I will say that I still stand behind everything I said back in February 2021 at Talk:Fascism/Archive 53#Trump. Indeed, the number of mainstream subject-matter experts who freely use the term "fascist" to describe Trump or Trumpism has continued to grow, and with good reason. This article needs to go with what the best of these say, focusing on concrete aspects of his politics which qualify as fascist under the various overlapping definitions that are considered mainstream. For example, as SPECIFICO points out, Robert Paxton (by far the most celebrated historian who has written a monograph specifically aimed at defining fascism) had for a long while resisted using the term to describe Trump but made a dramatic about-face after the January 6th 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. That short opinion piece is definitely worth reading. Note why he changed his mind, and why he thinks this is significant, why the label now seems not just acceptable but necessary. Generalrelative (talk) 20:35, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

The call for participation was unfocused. Are we being asked if Trump is a fascist? (Yes.) Or is there a content question? Sennalen (talk) 06:43, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

No, we are not arguing whether Trump is or isn't a fascist. This is about whether or not we should characterize his remarks as fascist. Cessaune [talk] 08:08, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

To clarify my statement above: we should be discussing what subject-matter experts have said –– some of them characterizing Trump's words (and deeds) as fascist, some disagreeing with this characterization –– and in each instance giving proper attribution, i.e. "So-and-so argued that..." per WP:YESPOV. That Trump's remarks are fascist is clearly not a ubiquitous enough position for us to state it in Wikivoice. Generalrelative (talk) 14:46, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm curious, do you haave examples of expert credible dissent to the effect that Trump's current agenda and pronouncements are not fascist, totalitarian, extra-constitutional, Unamerican, or similar bad news? SPECIFICO talk 15:06, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

That's too many things to have a real discussion about. We should be more precise than that. And I haven't been keeping up with the current crop of positions on the matter. But here, for instance, is Richard Evans in the aftermath of January 6th arguing that while Trump is very bad news indeed he shouldn't be called a fascist: [21]. Note that my opinion, as stated in that archived thread at Talk:Fascism is otherwise: I find figures like Paxton and Timothy Snyder more convincing. But Evans is a big deal, and so are some of the other holdouts (Samuel Moyn is another example, see [22]). Generalrelative (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, I gave that long list of words because I don't see much expert dissent from the many mainstream assessments that his recent posture and intention is to govern as a totalitarian. Also, this discussion is about his recent extension and amplification of his authoritarian proclivities. So post jan-6 is not what this is about. Note that this article did not call him fascist in 2021. So I wouldn't consider Evans a counterpoint to recent assessments and reporting about his current active recruiting/vetting of accomplices. SPECIFICO talk 15:40, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Understood. Would you like to propose some text to be added to the article? (Apologies if you did so above and I missed it.) Generalrelative (talk) 15:46, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Remarks are a dime a dozen. I would lead with Paxton's assessment that January 6th was a fascist turn, and any commentary on remarks can buttress that. Sennalen (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with you there. To call Trump himself fascist requires more than a single source, or two, or three. Cessaune [talk] 15:19, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

This way of framing the question appears to miss the point of WP:YESPOV. We shouldn't be calling him anything. That's an entirely different question to whether we report what experts say on the matter. Generalrelative (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I assumed that was implied. Obviously we aren't calling him anything. Cessaune [talk] 15:27, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Aha, so can you explain the issue then? Have folks not provided enough high-quality sources in your opinion? Generalrelative (talk) 15:34, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

No they really haven't. Qwexcxewq (talk) 02:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I haven't been convinced of any of these arguments to include the proposed paragraph, in this BLP. Forgive me, but I keep picturing Scarborough's over the top dramatics on Morning Joe, a few days ago. GoodDay (talk) 15:49, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Is there a proposed paragraph? Or just a general idea that something should be said? Without concrete language to discuss (and sources attached to that language), I'm afraid that this conversation will keep on going around in circles. Generalrelative (talk) 16:51, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I’m afraid this will spiral into many weeks if not months of worthless debate
Or a possible policy •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

That's rather pessimistic for a member of dispute resolution, no? I think we're better than that, though I'm also prepared to be proven wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Generalrelative (talk) 17:18, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

As step 1, I would bring this[23] directly over to the January 6th section of this page. Sennalen (talk) 17:29, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I typed in "trump fascist" to scholar.google.com and there's a lot of hits. Some that jumped out to me were[24][25][26] but I have no idea if they're the best on offer. Has anyone been collecting these? I see a list of news opinion sources in the archives. No telling what might be tucked away around other talk pages in the topic space. Sennalen (talk) 23:24, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I strongly advise against explicitly labeling him a fascist soibangla (talk) 23:31, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Right now I'm just talking about what sources exist. Sennalen (talk) 23:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

that's fine, but you might winnow down the search results with trump fascist rhetoric soibangla (talk) 23:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

This is not about 2023 rhetoric, but I think the best approach to the first introduction of "fascism" on the page is with more established material, namely Paxton's assessment. It has stood unchallenged on the January 6th page for a long time, and one of the sources I found today adds secondary support. The journal article by Dennis Tourish would be usable for other things probably too. I propose to add the following to the end of the January 6th section of this page:

Historian of fascism, Robert Paxton marked the January 6th attack as the turning point of Trump's movement away from democratic norms and towards fascism.

Sennalen (talk) 02:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

the reliable sources and subject matter experts of this month make clear this is about his most recent rhetoric. efforts to label him a fascist will almost certainly fail to achieve consensus at this time. I discourage going that way. soibangla (talk) 02:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Just speak for yourself. Consensus will reveal itself. Sennalen (talk) 02:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Looking for wider context and contesting claims that might expand the treatment. There are some significant dissenting voices. Forgive me if I'm retreading old ground.

This has an interesting claim about the increased use of the word "fascist" in media after January 6th.[27]

This[28] names some experts who continued not to think Trump was fascist after January 6th: Roger Griffin, Matthew Feldman, Stanley Payne, and Ruth Ben-Ghiat

It looks like Ben-Ghiat flipped due to the recent rhetoric. [29] (probably not RS)

This... I read it three times and can't figure out whether Feldman was saying yes or no.[30]

Sennalen (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I think Feldman is supporting the fascist label (Monday’s actions, at the very least, smacked of radical-right extremism, if not full-blown revolutionary nationalism — that is, fascism.), but I do admit there are multiple later paragraphs that read like he's walking back that claim a little (But is “it” fascism? Granted, the Trump administration increasingly walks and quacks like a duck. Perhaps the answer no longer matters; or rather, it is not urgent enough now. Whether fascism or merely ‘illiberal democracy’, what Trump is unleashing is deadly, both for constitutional freedoms as well as for ethnic and religious minorities in the US.). It's definitely not the clearest argument. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Tomorrow I will begin drafting an RFC to solicit wider participation and focus centered on this question: should this BLP include that by 2023 Trump's rhetoric echoed that of fascism? soibangla (talk) 03:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Why RfC? That text has not met much objection. SPECIFICO talk 04:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I seek to establish firm consensus to avert a contentious edit war, and to ensure the focus is limited to rhetoric rather than to a label soibangla (talk) 04:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Politics rfcs tend to attract less informed editors and diffuse unsourced views. SPECIFICO talk 04:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with SPECIFICO.

Before we think about RfCs, people should start drafting their own paragraphs. Maybe an alternate wording is all it takes. Cessaune [talk] 04:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I can only hope that mindful editors and admins would corral others from wandering into the wilderness in such a contentious matter, but call me naïve. We should test this. soibangla (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

We should not test this. History speaks for itself. Cessaune [talk] 04:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't even know what that means. The matter is deadlocked in extensive discussion and a focused RFC is now warranted. Is this not the way it's supposed to work around here? Or are we to just argue each other to exhaustion until everyone just walks away with nothing gained? soibangla (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll just go back to my original point—let's solve the whole thing now, instead of dragging ourselves into a month-long process that will only solve half of the question. Cessaune [talk] 05:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

we've tried that to no avail. there is now a deadlock that should be resolved by a focused RFC to resolve the whole thing now by a formal process. this is what we do here, is it not? soibangla (talk) 05:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There isn't really a deadlock. The only people who are directly opposing any sort of characterization of Trump's comments as facist are Anythingyouwant, and GoodDay (only for this article).

Propose a new wording. Cessaune [talk] 05:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

In this discussion, there are some who seem to object to labeling Trump a fascist, when that has not actually been proposed, and others who would prefer that characterization.

Propose a new wording I said I would begin drafting a focused RFC tomorrow, that I hope will not go off the rails into diversions. I remain optimistic in how this project should work. soibangla (talk) 05:41, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm kind of confused. Can you explain what you mean when you say "focused RFC"? Thanks. Cessaune [talk] 05:51, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Tomorrow I will begin drafting an RFC to solicit wider participation and focus centered on this question: should this BLP include that by 2023 Trump's rhetoric echoed that of fascism? soibangla (talk) 06:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Soibangla: I've no objections to your having an RFC. GoodDay (talk) 05:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be wanting to architect a planned consensus as a moat against edits that haven't even been proposed yet. I don't think that would be helpful. Just say what you, as a solitary person, think content should look like. Sennalen (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I tend to disengage from editors who use the term you soibangla (talk) 04:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll say it differently then, because I get your point but Sennalen brings up a good point herself—draft a wording. Let's solve the whole thing now, instead of dragging ourselves into a month-long process that will only solve half of the question. Cessaune [talk] 04:41, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

draft a wording is exactly what I said I would do, to avert a protracted dispute and resolve the issue soibangla (talk) 04:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Soibangla, we've seen RfCs fail before. The best-informed participants of the current group decline to repeat themselves, a few newcomers arrive from their talk-page invitations and shoot from the hip - failing to review or understand the considerable thought that's already been presented - and a month later some well-meaning closer may or may not make sense of it all. I think you and Sennalen are on the right track and can quickly agree on acceptable article text. It won't preclude adding more in the future, but we have a core of agreed points that can be included now. SPECIFICO talk 12:20, 30 November 2023 (UTC)T

I don't see a consensus for the latest addition, concerning this topic. Yet, it's been added (then re-added) to this BLP anyway. GoodDay (talk) 16:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I suggest a edit freeze on the facist part until this dispute is concluded •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:42, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I think handling of January 6th should be decoupled from handling of 2023 remarks. The latter is what an RfC would be about, to my understanding. Sennalen (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish:, IMHO WP:ONUS calls for the addition-in-question to be reverted, in this situation. What say you? GoodDay (talk) 16:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

If there is no consensus new material should not be added. Slatersteven (talk) 16:56, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The proposal attracted no response by the time everyone involved had made other comments, so consensus was presumed. It became contested at the moment GoodDay reverted. After that, ONUS applies, reversions should stop, and we should discuss the edit rather than meta-discuss the merits of discussing or not. Sennalen (talk) 17:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD too, the addition should be reverted. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Also per BRD you should explain your reasons to revert. That's where the discussion starts. Sennalen (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I did explain my reversion, in my edit summary. There was no consensus for your addition. GoodDay (talk) 17:39, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Per brd you actually have to explain on the talk page •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

So I shall. The addition was done without a consensus to do so. This topic being contentious, the addition shouldn't have been made. GoodDay (talk) 18:36, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

GoodDay, you have been all over this thread, despite a statement you were quitting it and despite a visit to an Admin's page that resulted in their coming here unable to see why you were so agitated. You are welcome and urged to state a reasoned, sourcing and policy based view concerning article text, but several editors have asked you to refrain from empty nervous comments that are not constructive. On some pages, unconstructive comments are removed on sight. Sounds severe, but it's worth considering. SPECIFICO talk 19:47, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

That's still in the realm of procedural meta-reasons. If no one has something specific to say against the actual edit, then it has consensus. Read WP:DRNC for explanation. Sennalen (talk) 19:54, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@Sennalen: Well then, we'll see if anybody elese does or not via comments or reverts. If nobody else 'reverts' your addition, then so be it. I'm certainly not going to revert it (every 24 hrs), only to have that revert undone. GoodDay (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I oppose this text very, very strongly. You can't mention one person's opinion without mentioning the opposing opinion, which is not WP:FRINGE or anything. Cessaune [talk] 15:20, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The following language has been repeatedly inserted and removed from this BLP: “Robert Paxton, a historian of fascism, marked the January 6th attack as the turning point of Trump's movement away from democratic norms and toward fascism.” It was properly removed, for several reasons, including the following. It is very one-sided, as another editor has already explained (“some experts who continued not to think Trump was fascist after January 6th: Roger Griffin, Matthew Feldman, Stanley Payne, and Ruth Ben-Ghiat”). If we are relying upon Trump’s recent comment about “vermin” then we ought to say so, and also quote how he used that word (i.e. to say that certain “thugs” are vermin). I will say in passing that I believe thugs have rights too, but calling them “vermin” is not something that upsets me at all. A further reason to support deleting the proposed language is that it’s very tangential to fascism. Fascism is primarily about action or proposed action, and not so much about how Trump or some foolish blowhard chooses to exercise his right of free speech. A recent essay by historian Christopher Browning stated. “I still deny that Trump’s presidency was fascist—but I’m concerned that if he wins another trip to the White House, he could earn the label.” There is no current scholarly consensus that Trump deserves the label at present, and anyway it’s much better for us to report what Trump has said or done and let readers evaluate it, instead of us essentially engaging in name-calling. It’s not fascist name-calling, but we should avoid any kind of name-calling. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:33, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

once again, and again and again, this discussion is not about labeling Trump a fascist, nor is it limited to his vermin remark:

Since launching his first campaign for president in 2015, Trump has often derided immigrants in inflammatory terms, but the phrase "poisoning the blood" echoed language used by White supremacists, who fixate on so-called blood purity. Adolf Hitler wrote about the "contamination of the blood" or "blood poisoning" in Mein Kampf.[31]

soibangla (talk) 00:58, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

It’s labelling his language, and labelling his language implicitly labels him. I think you’re referring to a speech in Dubuque, Iowa where he said this: “We're taking people in, from prisons, we're taking people in, from insane asylums…. we're bringing in terrorists. That's what's happening. That's so accurate. That's so accurate and it's happening now. But it's going to happen more so and more so. But we'll stop it for the most part. Look, there are 15 million people. That's a lot. But we'll stop it one way or the other. We're going to stop it. What they're doing to our country is they're destroying it. It's the blood of our country. What they're doing is destroying our country. Not one more innocent life should be wrecked by Joe Biden's open border agenda.” If you want to suggest an edit that discusses this, then go ahead, I think it would be better in a sub-article though. There’s no question that a country is made up of its people, and the greater the ratio of bad people or unworthy people to good people or useful beneficial people, the worse off the country is. The lifeblood of a country is its people. This is especially true in a democracy, where the people rule. Trump obviously was not speaking about racial or ethnic groups, he was talking about mentally ill people, criminals, and terrorists. That’s the exact opposite of discriminating based on race or the like. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Seriously? There is no evidence that the immigrants are mentally ill people, criminals, and terrorists. These are labels that he has applied to immigrants who are Hispanics. This is racism in its purist form. As he said once before, "We should have more people from places like Norway", one of the whitest of countries. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:48, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

There’s no question that a country is made up of its people, and the greater the ratio of bad people or unworthy people to good people or useful beneficial people, the worse off the country is.

"Comparing Crime Rates Between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Native-born US Citizens in Texas," Trump DOJ, December 2020:

Relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.[32]

soibangla (talk) 01:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

You are attempting to have Wikipedia demonize a presidential candidate, by implying that he’s a fascist like Hitler and Mussolini, you cherry-pick a speech in Dubuque to do so, but that speech clearly shows the opposite. Trump in that speech was not being racist, he was concerned about other countries emptying their prisons and mental hospitals into an unvetted flood of migrants to the United States, along with a large proportion of military-age young men including many on terrorists watchlists. Maybe the benefits of having other people come to the USA outweighs the downside of immigrants who are felons, mental patients, and terrorists. But Trump was clearly not speaking about race. Hitler was all about race. You want this BLP to imply he’s another Hitler, and you have expressed no willingness at all to let our readers know that Trump wants to screen out felons, the mentally ill, and terrorists. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:06, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Provide a source that backs up this claim. Cessaune [talk] 02:07, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I quoted the Dubuque speech at length above, and also specified multiple historians who disagree with characterizing Trump or his rhetoric as fascist. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

You quoted a speech, then applied your own reasoning to it. Provide a source that agress with your viewpoint. Cessaune [talk] 02:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I specified multiple historians who disagree with characterizing Trump or his rhetoric as fascist. Another editor cherry-picked the Dubuque speech so I added more of it here. It speaks for itself. Feel free to point out to me the part where he endorses anything that Hitler endorsed. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:15, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't speak for itself, because you spoke for it! Everything you said above about the Iowa thing besides the quote doesn't seem to be sourced. Provide a source verifying your claims, and if you've already provided it, provide it again. If Trump obviously was not speaking about racial or ethnic groups (emphasis mine) it shouldn't be too hard to find sources, right?

Is Trump a fascist? Some people seem to think so. Many don't. And I don't think that there is anywahere even remotely near a strong enough consensus among RSs to directly call him fascist, or to even state that he has been described as fascist. However, quoting soibangla, "once again, and again and again, this discussion is not about labeling Trump a fascist."

You take issue with the idea of labeling Trump's remarks as fascist, since doing that implies that he is a fascist. (If I am characterizing your opinion incorrectly, please correct me.) I very strongly dislike this idea that labelling his language implicitly labels him. By that standard, we can't ever report on anything that RSs characterize negatively without applying the entire label to the person. At least to me, it is obvious that someone can say something sexist and not be a sexist, and the idea that we shouldn't include it simply because it implies that he is a fascist... that speaks to the type of man he is, I guess, since people are so willing to make that jump, but what does that have to do with Wikipedia? We should report the dominant RS opinion, and nothing more. What the dominant RS opinion seems to imply is irrelevant. Cessaune [talk] 02:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

is there actual evidence that other countries [are] emptying their prisons and mental hospitals into an unvetted flood of migrants to the United States, rather than just the rhetoric of one man? soibangla (talk) 02:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Here’s a small sample: NYT: “many detainees are too mentally ill or mentally disabled to understand anything.” Politifact: “CBP reports that so far in fiscal year 2022, which ends Sept. 30, officers at ports of entry have encountered more than 15,500 foreign nationals who have criminal convictions or are wanted by law enforcement.” NBC News: “So far in fiscal year 2023, 160 migrants whose identities match those on the [terror] list have been stopped trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, compared to 100 in 2022.” I have much else to do this evening, thanks for the discussion. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:33, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you provide links? That would make life easier. Cessaune [talk] 02:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, what? As long as no source explicitly says that other countries [are] emptying their prisons and mental hospitals into an unvetted flood of migrants to the United States, we can't say it on Wikipedia. Cessaune [talk] 02:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I have argued here to exclude new content, not arguing to include anything. I think you know that. Anyway, as I said, I have to go now. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:51, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

all that is a digression, a diversion, a red herring, that does not present evidence other countries [are] emptying their prisons and mental hospitals into an unvetted flood of migrants to the United States as Trump has asserted, and I recommend we focus on what the man has actually said about "poisoning the blood." this is not a discussion of immigration policy. soibangla (talk) 03:00, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Old news and/or missing context and/or cherry-picked. Many detainees are too mentally ill or mentally disabled to understand anything is from a 2010 article. The mentally ill/disabled weren’t people who were caugbht crossing the border. Some of them were people who legally lived in the country for years or decades, had families, and came to the attention of authorities for minor infractions. Politifact: Most of the apprehended "criminals" were repeat crossers "but agency data doesn’t yet provide the full picture." NBC report: "The number of border crossers on the watchlist was higher in fiscal year 2019, at 280. A DHS official told reporters that the increase from fiscal 2022 to 2023 is consistent with the overall increase in migrants crossing the border and the rising number of migrants coming from areas of conflict." (Also doesn’t say how many turned out to be mistaken identities.) Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 13:56, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

What? This is such a fundamental misreading of the statements made I don't even know where to begin. Ill refrain from actually speaking on the issue, since I'm too lazy to look for sources. Cessaune [talk] 01:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a long list of experts who say Trump is fascist, but they do so by way of splitting hairs, so what they mean is that it's more precise to call him authoritarian, narcissistic, or kleptocratic. If editors feel it's unbalanced to only quote experts that say fascist, we could provide some of these others for contrast. Sennalen (talk) 04:41, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

as I said at the outset, many reliable sources have long refrained from characterizing his rhetoric as fascistic, but only in recent weeks have they deemed it crossed the line such that they can now report it as such. I still find it astonishing that after all this time, this article hardly hints at his authoritarian rhetoric, instead characterizing it "right-wing populism," which certainly at this point constitutes passive POV by omission. soibangla (talk) 06:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Another reference Wapo today SPECIFICO talk 02:17, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Rather than argue forever about the "perfect" edit, what about one sentence in the 2024 presidential campaign section that says Trump's campaign has been noted to feature increasingly violent and dehumanizing rhetoric against his political enemies. His comments have been compared to echoing the rhetoric of fascist dictators. and use | this NY Times article as the source. BootsED (talk) 03:06, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

By simply adding the attribution to Paxton, an agreeably reputable source, we can conceivably forgo a drawn out RfC. DN (talk) 07:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I’d like to add there’s been two more articles that came out today that I think could also be used as sources for the page. This one from the NYT and this one from CNN. Both detail Trump’s increasingly anti-democratic rhetoric. BootsED (talk) 14:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

New resource

Chock full of RS analysis relating to this issue in The Atlantic]'s current issue about Trump's revelations of his plans for his second presidency. SPECIFICO talk 02:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The analysis seems solid, but I'm not sure that's really the issue. Without an overwhelming mainstream consensus, we shouldn't state Trump's "fascistic sentiments" as evidence thereof in wiki-voice, or, without providing properly detailed context and attribution per BLP. Such mainstream consensus usually only appears to be appropriate in hindsight, with undeniable evidence after the fact. DN (talk) 03:42, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Well it's after the fact of 1/6, Lafayette, etc. etc. and his current campaign promises and staff vetting are in that vein. There has been wide mainstresm coverage of these developments. SPECIFICO talk 04:03, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Just attribute opinions and supplement with evidence. There is likely enough stuff on this topic there and elsewhere to justify an article: Predictions about a second Trump presidency. There is plenty of writing on the wall. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

If you’d like to add this Valijean I’d like to encourage you to do so. I don’t have the necessary permissions on Wikipedia yet. BootsED (talk) 17:09, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Scholarly consensus and NYT

There seems to be scholarly consensus that Trump has sometimes used language that sounds like fascists, but no consensus that he actually is one. Using fascistic rhetoric does not imply that someone is or is not a fascist. According to the New York Times, scholars are undecided about whether Trump's "rhetorical turn into more fascist-sounding territory is just his latest public provocation of the left, an evolution in his beliefs or the dropping of a veil." Because being a fascist is a lot worse and a lot more notable than sounding like one, I continue to think this subject should remain in the sub-articles only. If there’s consensus to include it in this main BLP, then it would have to be crystal clear that there’s a difference between the two things. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:52, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for the promised RFC, on this entire topic ;) GoodDay (talk) 23:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

BLP length concerns?

In the RFC below (Abraham Accords), arguments are being made that the proposed addition of said info, goes against attempts to shorten this BLP. If that's a concern? Then we can simply delete the Fascism/Vermin content. GoodDay (talk) 18:04, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

THis is in truth an unrelated issue, and should be a whole separate topic, this is not tit for tat. Slatersteven (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

We can't use the too long/too short arguments, concerning both topics. I mention this 'here', because it's been brought up in the Accords RFC. GoodDay (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Time for an article on Trump's alleged authoritarian inclinations and statements?

This subject has been getting tons of attention from reliable sources over time and I fully expect that to continue. A quick look around did not reveal an article on this specific topic. At the risk of pouring gasoline on the fire, is it perhaps time for this to get its own page? Thoughts...? -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:02, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Have you looked at Donald_Trump_2024_presidential_campaign#Rhetoric? It seems kind of POV-forkish to have a separate article. Especially since we’re still at the “alleged” stage. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:13, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

The level of attention this subject has been getting and the amount of material to work with might exceed what could be effectively covered in an already fairly large article. But if the sense is that we are not yet at that point, well, that's why I'm asking for input. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I definitely don't think we're at that point yet. It can be covered in this article, or the Presidency of Donald Trump article (which already covers it to a mediocre extent). Cessaune [talk] 19:22, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Donald Trump explicitly stated he would be a dictator on live television in direct response to a question asked by Sean Hannity as to whether he would abuse his power and be a dictator as his opponents allege; and Trump said he wouldn't, except for Day 1. Therefore, Trump explicitly stated that he would be a dictator. He even made clarifying comments after the fact where he affirmed what he said. There is no "debate" over whether he really meant it or not. Trump is an ex-President and current Presidential candidate, who stated on live television that he would be a dictator on "Day 1." This has made the rounds on every single reputable newspaper in the country. There has never been a President in the history of the United States that openly admitted that they would be a dictator, and refused to walk it back. There must be an article on Trump's authoritarian inclinations and statements. Even if its very small, there must be a mention of this statement on this page. If there is not a mention of this statement on this page, this would be clear bias. This is a newsworthy event. Here's an article in the New York Times for those unfamiliar with this most recent statement. BootsED (talk) 23:03, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you draft potential section headers for what such an article would look like? Cessaune [talk] 18:16, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Pertaining to what he said, that statement alone does not deserve its own article, at least not yet, and I think that most if not all people on this talk page would agree with me. Cessaune [talk] 18:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Trump did not say he was going to be a dictator. Let's be caution, not to put words in his mouth. GoodDay (talk) 20:27, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

This is not a good idea, too much recentism Slatersteven (talk) 18:21, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Oppose creating such a page, per WP:RECENTISM & also, the US Constitution safe guards against 'unlimited' presidential powers. IF any place? put that info in Trump's 2024 campaign page. GoodDay (talk) 18:29, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

"Unlimited" is a red herring. RS documentation of the pledges of Trump/Patel/Bannon/Miller, et al make clear that there are plans actively pursued, dating back to the time of the first impeachment, to implement authoritarian agenda, utilizing a combination of proscribed but feasible executive powers, plausibly deniable misrepresentations of law (as in 2020-21) and mass extinction of the nonpartisan apolitical civil service that is typical of all Western democracies for the past ~200 years. SPECIFICO talk 18:46, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

You're not convincing me of your arguments. GoodDay (talk) 20:16, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I have made no argument. I have stated facts about which, it appears, you have absolutely no knowledge. SPECIFICO talk 22:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

THis is not a forum to discuss if this is possible. Slatersteven (talk) 18:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Strong Support for creation of a stand-alone article on Donald Trump and Authoritarianism, though not as an excuse to purge such material from the main. Few topics in the history of media have ever received as much scholarly and media coverage as this, and rightfully so. Such a proposed topic clearly meets notability standards, as it has been extensively covered in reliable sources and is inherently notable due to the unusual nature of a U.S. president openly supporting authoritarian rule. Relatedly, I have opened a discussion in Talk: Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign as to whether a new section on Trump's plans for a "dictatorship" (the term our sources use) should be added to the article, and would value the contributions of any editors from the main Trump page to this ongoing discussion. I have also added a bibliography of 75 reliable sources on that talk page regarding Trump's plans for a dictatorship, which should help provide references both for a section on Trump's plans for a dictatorship in 2025 in the campaign article, as well as this new stand-alone article on Trump and Authoritarianism. Thank you, comrades. 67.82.74.5 (talk) 20:10, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Trump didn't say he was going to be a dictator. Let's be cautious, that we're not putting words in his mouth. GoodDay (talk) 20:22, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Has any dictator in world history said he was going to be a dictator? This is about scholarly analysis, not Trump's choice of word. All we have to avoid is wikivoice; i.e., we would have to use attribution. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

We have to be caution on these matters. News media tend to over-react, on anything this former US president says. GoodDay (talk) 20:40, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely. We can cautiously talk about things like authoritarianism and, yes, even "dictator", with sufficient sourcing including scholarly sources, and with attribution. You're not "cautioning" us about anything we don't already know. Anyway, it's at least as much about his actions as his rhetoric. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:00, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

But does it actually warrant an entire new article? Methinks not. Cessaune [talk] 21:01, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

It certainly seems as significant as many of the other Trump sub-articles, such as Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations (which, btw, survived AFD with a SNOW keep). Which is more significant in your view, his alleged proclivity for abusing females, or his alleged desire to break down American democracy as we know it? Seems a no-brainer to me, no offense intended to the allegedly abused females. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a large article to justify its creation (and frankly I'd prefer a hundred smaller, narrowly focused articles over five huge ones). ―Mandruss ☎ 23:27, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

"Methinks not" as the sole basis for your position does not contribute to the discussion. Provide reasons please if you're going to dispute the importance of this topic. 67.82.74.5 (talk) 22:07, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Will there be a page created (I presume going the draft route, would be proper)? I don't know. Either way, I won't exhibit any Morning Joe hysterics over it ;) GoodDay (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Off-topic about proposed but nonspecific new content in this article. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:11, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

It's astonishing this BLP has never mentioned his authoritarian rhetoric going back years,[33] and we can't agree to include his more recent fascist rhetoric that has been widely reported.[34]. This BLP ignores the elephant in the room. I recommend we start there before moving to a new article. Much as a lead summarizes an article, this BLP should include a brief discussion of his rhetoric that a standalone article can elaborate on. soibangla (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2023 (UTC) soibangla (talk) 23:15, 7 December 2023 (UTC) Per summary style, I think you've got it backward. The only time the main article content comes first is in a spin-off situation, and this isn't that. If the proposed sub-article creation fails, then we should be talking about content here and/or in an existing sub-article. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC) Agree with soibanga that we must first expand our coverage of this topic in the main. It is absurd that the article fails to properly discuss one of the most notable aspects of Trump, his authoritarianism. 67.82.74.5 (talk) 02:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC) Fair enough, but you're both at least off topic in this thread. It's not about new content in this article, and it doesn't help to send discussion in multiple directions within the same thread. Try your luck in a separate thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:53, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

"A quick look around did not reveal an article on this specific topic. " We have an article on Trumpism, which clearly specifies that it is an authoritarian political movement and a new variation of fascism: "Some commentators have rejected the populist designation for Trumpism and view it instead as part of a trend towards a new form of fascism or neo-fascism, with some referring to it as explicitly fascist and others as authoritarian and illiberal." Dimadick (talk) 02:11, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Ad Orientem, please do; I'll help if I can find the time. This talk page can't give or withhold permission for that, and any relevant content can be separately added to the 2024 or Presidency articles; Trumpism is about the movement, but we could have a long article about Trump and authoritarianism, with extensive scholarly sourcing (search terms: authoritarian and democratic backsliding combined with Trump), as well as normal RS (non-opinion) sourcing that would be uncontroversially used if it were any other topic. This won't "pour gasoline"; it'll clarify what reliable sources have to say on the subject, and make it more accessible not just to readers but to editors. DFlhb (talk) 07:13, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

My reason for coming here was mainly to gauge community sentiment on a touchy subject that is obviously also a major BLP issue. That said, I have generally avoided directly editing articles relating to Donald Trump as I have periodically had to use my admin tools on this and related pages. WP:INVOLVED can be a gray area sometimes, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. So, while I lean towards supporting the creation of a page on this topic, taking great care with respect to BLP, I will not be the one to create it and I will most likely not edit the page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:35, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

No comment in three days; is this going to die for lack of interest? For God's sake will somebody please start the article (others can help flesh it out once the basic framework is in place). Not I, article creation is not my forte and I've never created one in my life. I also lack sufficient, nay, any familiarity with the relevant sources. If there is going to be an AFD challenge, the sooner the better. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:05, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Hie thee to a library. A dozen+ recent books are a trove of RS information. SPECIFICO talk 00:23, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't doubt that the sources exist. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:27, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

No doubt, such a page will 'eventually' be created. Just a matter of someone starting it. GoodDay (talk) 00:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Don't be so sure. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:27, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how the creation of an ancillary article about his authoritarian rhetoric can be justified without first noting it in the BLP. Gotta have a hook to hang that hat on. soibangla (talk) 00:39, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Alternatively, the hook is the sub-article and the hat is the main article content. See summary style. You might have better luck selling main article content if there's an article to summarize. At best, the sequence of events isn't really important. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:44, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

creating a new article is premature if we cannot even establish the phenomenon exists soibangla (talk) 00:56, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

We have more than enough sourcing for an article. So you start the article and see if it survives AFD (I'd give it a 90% chance per my 23:27, 7 December (UTC) comment above). ―Mandruss ☎ 01:01, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

If We have more than enough sourcing for an article then we should have more than enough for a simple BLP inclusion. soibangla (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

disruptive trashtalk soibangla (talk) 02:07, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
That is not an argument against a sub-article. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC) I am not arguing against a sub-article soibangla (talk) 01:17, 12 December 2023 (UTC) Yes. You are. At least you were a few minutes ago. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC) nope soibangla (talk) 01:22, 12 December 2023 (UTC) Yep.[35][36] Can't believe we're actually doing this. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:26, 12 December 2023 (UTC) "without first" "premature" not a definitive rejection gonna hat this soibangla (talk) 01:32, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

With 10.5 months to go until the next US prez election. There'll likely be multiple new pages created, in relation to the former (potential future) US president. GoodDay (talk) 00:51, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, said on Saturday that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” repeating language that has previously drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing of Nazi rhetoric.[37]

soibangla (talk) 00:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Also very explicit enumeration of characteristics of the blood-poisining immigrants - insane, sick, criminal, etc. - at this evening's campaign speech in Nevada. SPECIFICO talk 02:15, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not certain how the related-RFC will conclude. But should consensus be for 'inclusion'. Will you be presenting some write-up examples, to propose? GoodDay (talk) 02:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

So, now that Donald Trump's rhetoric has been approved, should the BLP still exclude any mention of his authoritarian rhetoric? Any at all? Really? soibangla (talk) 06:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I presume the RFC on this topic, is gradually formulating an answer. GoodDay (talk) 06:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

what does that even mean? I am reaching the conclusion it means WP:IDONTLIKEIT soibangla (talk) 06:43, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The only answers that RfC is formulating are that (1) editors generally don't like vague, open-ended RfC questions, and (2) one doesn't need permission to propose specific content. I suggest cancelling the RfC (the fastest way to do that is a withdrawal-closure by the OP) and getting started workshopping some specific content options in a new thread. We're wasting time. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:03, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

there's just no way to do an RFC right without someone saying it's just too broad or it's just too narrow, to thus nullify it. the RFC asks only if any mention of fascist rhetoric should be included at all, the qualitative aspects to be determined in subsequent discussions. as things stand, the BLP makes no reference to it at all soibangla (talk) 07:20, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

First, see my preceding as to the pointlessness of the current RfC.

A new RfC with three specific options couldn't possibly be called too broad. As for too narrow, I think any such arguments would be in a small minority and easily ignored. I would certainly help defend such an RfC if necessary, as would others. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

...the qualitative aspects to be determined in subsequent discussions—that's the exact issue. It's too vague of a question. An answer of yes leads to another month of deliberation, and that will only start after the RfC is done, which it won't be until well past Christmas. We'll be sitting here come early February talking about a topic that started mid-November. That's a quite annoying thought, at least to me. Cessaune [talk] 07:26, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

absolutely, it's a very annoying thought. I hate it, and I don't wanna even deal with it, in fact. but I won't look away from including it because Santa is coming soibangla (talk) 07:51, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Leave the current RFC run its course. If it ends with a consensus to 'put something about Trump's rhetoric in his BLP'? Then go to the next phase - propose a written out sentence or paragraph, to be included. GoodDay (talk) 07:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

You will never reach agreement with maga. The facts should be written. 82.9.195.40 (talk) 22:06, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Hat & manually archive

Seeing at the Rhetoric RFC has been closed as "malformed". Perhaps this entire discussion should be hatted & archived. This BLP's talkpage is getting rather long. GoodDay (talk) 23:44, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree GoodDay - this all should be closed and archived. Since there was no consensus, the status quo remains, per WP:NOCON, but discussion can continue and new proposals for new discussions and RFCs and proposals may be drafted. Righto? Andre🚐 23:46, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. GoodDay (talk) 23:57, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree and would like to add one rfc is enough for one article and due to politics there is no consensus without bias (in my opinion 😂) •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

keeping the bots away?

would the page benefit from a formal block of IABot so we don't have to do edits like this once every month or so? thought id bring it to discussion rather than just doing it. {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} would be the one to use, acording to the bot documentation. ValarianB (talk) 15:06, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Lead content

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I think that the intro paragraphs need more info on his presidency and policies. Its very focused on his post-presidency and various scandals. Do not delete this talk section without a consensus on this issue. 68.234.168.25 (talk) 04:47, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Do not delete this talk section without a consensus on this issue. sounds like something a frequent disruptive presence would say. What other IPs have you edited under? As for the intro, no. Donald Trump is a 77 year-old man, 4 years of which were spent on a singular term in office. The amount of the intro dedicated to presidency and policies is sufficient. Further detail can be found in the article body and in related articles. Zaathras (talk) 05:24, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Lets hear what others think before you delete or archive this. 68.234.168.25 (talk) 07:40, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Please justify your response beyond simply saying "is sufficient" and attacking my inquiry as "disruptive." 68.234.168.25 (talk) 07:43, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Donald_Trump/Response_to_claims_of_bias. The lead has three paragraphs on Trump’s presidency, including the paragraphs on his refusal to concede, January 6, and the impeachments. The third paragraph mentions his presidency, as well — promoting conspiracy theories and making many false statements. Unless you have a specific, policy-based suggestion for a change to the lead, we have no basis for discussion. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why there are a few authors who seem to make an extremely disproportionate amount of edits to this article?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

If you look at the article edit history, you will see extremely disproportionate amounts of edits made by specific users, despite the fact that Trump is known worldwide and is an iconic figure of the last 20 years. Why do some users such as "Space4Time3Continuum2x" appear so frequently in the edit history, is it related to the padlock on the article?220.245.249.73 (talk) 15:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Unsure what value this has, but I will give a partial answer. To a degree yes, the Padlock stops new accounts for editing, but that does not help explain why older accounts do not. But it is also not really relevant, as any experienced user can edit here, so you would need to ask them why they do not, on their talk page. Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Why do editors edit or don't edit certain pages — a matter of personal interest in and knowledge of the subject? This page is protected due to vandalism and edit-warring problems, and editing is restricted to administrators and extended confirmed user accounts (at least 30 days old with at least 500 edits). Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 16:05, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:Focus on content, not on contributors. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

(It doesn't really matter but I don't understand how the dispute resolution principle you're quoting applies here.) Levivich (talk) 16:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It's good general advice for any talk page discussion. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:31, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Because the 80-20 rule applies everywhere. For any given article, most of the article is written by just a few people. Levivich (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 February 2024

Hi, I would like to edit your information on Donald Trump, I found that some of the information was not correct and I would like to add some things to it myself so please let me edit. GDWBOOM123 (talk) 15:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done If you have spotted something that is incorrect or feel something should be mentioned, please mention it on the talk page in an edit request. We do not change the protection settings on the page. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 15:30, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

You need to tell us what it is, or ask for page protection to be removed here WP:RFPP. Slatersteven (talk) 15:31, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Noninterventionist doesn’t mean isolationist

I object to this edit, because the cited source says Trump is “noninterventionist” and says nothing about isolation, isolationism, or isolationist. Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

"semi-isolationist"? Slatersteven (talk) 15:08, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Trump said he advocates a light footprint in the world. In spite of unrest abroad, especially in the Middle East, Trump said the United States must look inward and steer its resources toward rebuilding domestic infrastructure.

that's literally isolationism dude. ValarianB (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Nope, there’s nothing pejorative there, whereas “isolationist” (like xenophobic) is a pejorative. There are reliable sources that characterized his 2016 campaign positions as isolationist, but the source we cite isn’t one of them, and there are reliable sources that instead use the word semi-isolationist, such as the sources that were removed in this edit. Here’s another one: Denton, Robert. The 2016 US Presidential Campaign Political Communication and Practice, p. 296 (Soringer, 2017): “Trump's 2016 messages drew heavily on his personal image enhanced by media exposure. His positions were right-wing populism-nativist, protectionist, and semi-isolationist and differed in many ways from traditional conservatism.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The source may not use the exact term but it describes Trump's proposed and later executed isolationism. "Pejorative"? How so? Merriam Webster: isolationism - a policy of national isolation by abstention from alliances and other international political and economic relations; xenophobia - fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 14:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Problem is it does use is, as I quoted. Slatersteven (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

It using is — are you referring to one of the two sources Anything added in the edit I reverted? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 15:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the term semi-isolationist" is sourced to this [[38]] Slatersteven (talk)

Editing conflict - correcting my previous post. It using is — are you referring to one of the two sources in Anything's edit which I reverted? Anything proposes to change long-standing material. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 15:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

No. I am pointing out the objected-to content is actually sourced, using the actual term, We do not need to go into definitions. 15:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Slatersteven (talk)

We’ve been discussing the article body, but there’s also a corresponding undue weight problem in the lead, which says, “During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist.” Why should we give a list of policy adjectives for his 2016 campaign even though the adjectives changed and evolved for his presidency, his 2020 campaign, and his 2024 campaign? I suggest that if we give only one list of policy adjectives in the lead, it should be for his presidency, not for his three campaigns, much less his first one only. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:06, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

This leopard has never changed his spots. The descriptions are adequate. Zaathras (talk) 18:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Zaathras, the leopard changed his spots quite quickly: Watson, Kathryn. “Trump's shift away from ‘America first’ stance polarizes supporters”, CBS News (14 Apr 2017): “These actions, which came as the White House weighs what to do in the event of a North Korea nuclear test, clearly pivot from Mr. Trump’s previous, semi-isolationist stance. Mr. Trump on the campaign trail espoused his ‘America first’ philosophy, saying he would beef up America’s military presence, but avoid tumultuous areas like the Middle East to focus on American interests.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:06, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

A brief blip of get-your-war-on in a 4-year presidential term is like when Trump said "go peacefully" once amidst his J6 insurrectionist rhetoric. His foreign policy stance was still primarily isolationist, just as his January rhetoric was primarily incitement. Zaathras (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Do any of the sources currently in the article actually use the term isolationist? Cessaune [talk] 00:45, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  An interesting answer is that there's over 800 citations, 200+ more than the second highest, Biden, and for only one term. DN (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

”Isolationist” is pejorative, and we cannot fling this epithet around without any reliable source, especially given that it’s disputed by scholars, and also by the BLP subject. Here’s what the body of this BLP says:

“ Trump questioned the need for NATO and espoused views that were described as isolationist, non-interventionist, and protectionist. ”

The 2016 source just cited does not mention isolationism, it does not cover one minute of his presidency, and even if it did both of those things, the rest of the sentence in our article body (which I’ve just quoted) does not adequately summarize the main article which says this:

“ As president, Trump described himself as a nationalist while espousing views that have been characterized as isolationist, non-interventionist, and protectionist, although the "isolationist" label has been disputed, including by Trump himself, and periods of his political career have been described by the alternative term “semi-isolationist.” ”

Sources

Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:57, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

While the term is a pejorative, that's not a claim we are making in wikivoice, it's attributed to other notable sources. DN (talk) 22:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

We misattribute it, which is worse than using wiki voice. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I was just looking at the Isolationism page, and it appears that while that article does call it pejorative, I had no idea why. When I checked the sources include The American Conservative and American Enterprise Institute...Seems dubious on its face. DN (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I didn’t mention anything about that Wikipedia article. The word “isolationist” is “the most feared epithet in the U.S. foreign policy establishment”. It’s an “odious epithet” having “pejorative connotations”.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I would agree it may be used pejoratively in certain context, but to try to limit its general use to that context seems prejudicial and POV. We say "described as" or "characterized as", so how is it misattributed? DN (talk) 23:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

As I’ve said, the source we cite doesn’t mention the word. Plus we don’t mention that various experts disagree, or that Trump himself denies it. Nor does the cited source support our implication that this stance of Trump continued into and throughout his presidency. In other words, the source we use, and how we use it, are pathetically inadequate. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'm OK with Trump being characterized as either a noninterventionist or an isolationist. The terms are roughly synonymous and both are supported by sources. pbp 23:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Your proposal is okay with me. But note what our Wikipedia article on non-interventionism says: “Non-interventionism or non-intervention is a political philosophy or national foreign policy doctrine that opposes interference in the domestic politics and affairs of other countries but, in contrast to isolationism, is not necessarily opposed to international commitments in general.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  is not necessarily opposed to international commitments in general.... Well, as the man has frequently threatened to not support America's traditional allies and seeing how Congress had to protect our NATO membership from his threats to withdraw, we can kinda plainly see that "non-interventionism" does not apply to Donald Trump. Zaathras (talk) 03:17, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  That was about money. He was happy to maintain costly alliances if the costs were fairly shared. None of his financial demands led to ruptures during his presidency, and there is scarcely any sourcing that the U.S. was already paying no more than its fair share when Trump made his demands. Do you have sourcing for that User:Zaathras? Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think we can work it that way. As far as I'm aware, none of the sources in the article actually use the exact term 'isolationist', so it is simply untrue to state that he/his policies have been characterized/described as isolationist. It implies a broad agreement between reliable sources, one that simply does not exist per the above sources provided by Anything. Semi-isolationist? Maybe. Cessaune [talk] 03:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

• No editor gets to make an interpretation that's not explicitly stated in the source. No editor gets to apply labels that are not found in the source. Period. The fact that experienced editors are trying to get away with this is disappointing, especially since there are plenty of sources that can confirm this fact explicitly. This is a CTOP article, and divergence from best practices is particularly inappropriate here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

  Correct. Status quo is untenable. However, I would oppose merely adding a footnote, that would not properly summarize the main article. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:40, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  Couldn't agree more. Cessaune [talk] 13:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  So you're saying this is purely an editorial description and not an attribution to sources? DN (talk) 20:31, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Thebiguglyalien: your list of sources supports "isolationist". You object to the cited source? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 21:26, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

  I know that it supports "isolationist". That's why I linked to it and said can confirm this fact explicitly. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant:, someone will be taking you to WP:AE if you do not self-revert, as you are ignoring the "wait 24 hours" requirement of this page. Calling someone isolationist is not like an ethnic slur, it is not a BLP issue, and your invocation of it is disingenuous and hurtful towards actual BLP issues. The word has also remained in the article the entire time this discussion has been ongoing. Zaathras (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: the status quo ante — until your edit, that is — was During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist. You removed "isolationist", were reverted, then replaced it with noninterventionist (new content), were reverted, reinserted it four minutes later because in your opinion the discussion has been going on too long? Seems like a double violation of the 24-hour BRD cycle to me. It's new content — we need a consensus to add, not to remove. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 21:09, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

It’s a BLP matter as stated in my edit summary. Moreover, the word noninterventionist was apparently objected to because I had included a hyphen after “non” so I reinserted without the hyphen. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Trump is a WP:PUBLICFIGURE, and as Thebiguglyalien stated, there are "plenty of sources." The sources would seem to meet WP:V and it is easily attributable to those experts and scholars that have used that term to describe his policies. Wasn't there a previous consensus? DN (talk) 22:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Chicago Council on Global Affairs

• Dina Smeltz
• Ivo Daalder
• Craig Kafura
• Karl Friedhoff
• Results of the 2017 Chicago Council survey of American public opinion and US foreign policy (under Introduction) "To many observers, the “America First” plank in Donald Trump’s campaign described a policy vision that would overturn decades of bipartisan US foreign policy. President Trump outlined his vision for America First in his inaugural address: “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.” This position has been interpreted by some as a return to isolationism that could radically reorient America’s foreign policy and by others as a rejection of America’s traditional security alliances, long-standing commitment to trade, and major international agreements."

Richard H.K. Vietor

• "This strategy of isolationism was first advocated during the interwar period (1918-1939), when depression, fascism and communism set the stage for the Second World War. These isolationist measures by the Trump administration has reduced American influence and power throughout the world." RCCHarvardexe.com

Charles A. Kupchan

• Isolationism: A history of America's efforts to shield itself from the world (p. 4, 1st paragraph) "Trump generally delivered on an America First approach to foreign policy that was decidedly isolationist, unilateralist, and protectionist in tone and substance."

Cheers. DN (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Isolationism was a movement in the 1930s that advocated the U.S. have no treaties or cooperation with other countries and take no military actions overseas.

Trump kept the U.S. in the UN and Nato, did not dismantle overseas bases and was even praised by Democrats for bombing Afghanistan. Furthermore he renegotiated Nafta.

Trump draws on many of the themes of isolationism, including the slogan "America First," and appeals to actual isolationists. That should be in the article. But calling him an isolationist is an opinion and the article should not report opinions as facts.

TFD (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see where the conflict lies. "During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist." This doesn't seem factual according to the cited references above? It doesn't say "Donald Trump is a populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist." in wikivoice. DN (talk) 00:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Neutrality concern over ranking

In the opening, there is discussion of how scholars rank Trump poorly as a president. Considering there’s a very good possibility he could become president again this November, should we remove this section until perhaps after the election if he loses? My main concern is that this disturbs the neutrality of the article and the fact that he’s a candidate right now, which would almost make that part of the article seem like an anti-endorsement. Dancingtudorqueen (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

no, this has been discussed in the past. it is well sourced and we do not take into consideration current political activities. ValarianB (talk) 15:24, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

And you could make the same argument about every Trump-negative thing in the article. No, we're not going to remove any of that because he's running in 2024. That's not what "neutrality" means at Wikipedia. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:19, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If elected, he'd only become president on 20 January 2025. GoodDay (talk) 23:33, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

As he is a candidate for high office, the general public is best served by leaving well sourced material about experts' opinions on him and his presidency in the article. If the vast majority of experts consider him to have been a poor president, that is something important for the public to know when making their decisions as to whom to vote for. User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

"My main concern is that this disturbs the neutrality of the article" Your idea of neutrality is hiding inconvenient truths? In the Historical rankings of presidents of the United States, the cited historians have ranked him as having the 45th position in the background rankings (indicating his family, education, and experience), the 43rd in the imagination rankings, 45th in the integrity rankings, 45th in in the intelligence rankings, 44th in the rankings for the ability to compromise, 44th in the rankings for executive ability, 43rd in the rankings for leadership ability, 43rd in the rankings for communication ability (his skills in speaking and writing), 43rd in the rankings for overall ability, 42nd in the rankings of the presidents' relationship with Congress, 43rd in the rankings of his court appointments, 41st in the rankings of a president's handling of the U.S. economy, 45th in the rankings of executive appointments, 43rd in the rankings of a president's domestic accomplishments, 45th in the rankings of a president's foreign policy accomplishments, and 43rd in the rankings for a president's ability to avoid crucial mistakes. The 45th position is reserved for the worst president in the cited poll. Trump is ranked below Andrew Johnson in several of these rankings. Dimadick (talk) 23:19, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Neutrality means reporting RS without expressing an opinion on them or choosing some over others according to any editor biases. Neutrality does not mean writing an article that fails to report significant criticism (or praise). Rankings of presidents by presidential historians are significant, so it's NPOV to include them, whatever their general conclusion. If there is a lot of controversy in the rankings or significant criticism, then report that as well. But Wikipedia can't just get rid of it, because that would be the opposite of NPOV. JM (talk) 15:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

"...which many of them then attacked,..."

If you have 500,000 items and you detach 5,000 of them, is that "many" or is that "some"? WithGLEE (talk) 16:01, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

What do RS say? Slatersteven (talk) 16:03, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

From the lead of January 6 United States Capitol attack:

More than 2,000 rioters entered the building, many of whom vandalized and looted parts of the building, including the offices of then House speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress.

Considering that "entered the building" was illegal and required crossing police barricades, I think all 2,000 can fairly be said to have "attacked" – regardless of whether they committed any violent acts outside or inside. The force was constituted in their overwhelming numbers. If only 100 committed violent acts, few of them could have done it without the presence of the other 1,900, who served to keep law enforcement largely at bay. So the 1,900 were complicit in the violent acts simply by being there.

And 2,000 is "many" any way you cut it. This was a far higher proportion than the one percent in your analogy; there weren't anywhere close to 200,000 protesters at the Capitol.

Sources

―Mandruss ☎ 00:29, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I seem to recall RS put it in the thousands (now not even tens of thousands. Slatersteven (talk) 12:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this is tricky. "Many" could mean a large proportion of the crowd, or it could mean a large group, regardless of what fraction it was of the crowd. Maybe we could reword to avoid the ambiguity.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:37, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Reword how? "...which many of them then attacked, if you include all those who entered the building and consider 2,000 to be 'many.'" I don't think so. The dictionary definition of "many" says nothing about proportion, and we needn't cater to readers having a poor command of the English language; particularly when there is no reasonable way to do that. But I could be swayed by a reasonable specific proposal. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:15, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

How about "thousands" or "about 2,000 of them"? More specific, and verifiable per reliable sources. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't really address an ambiguity objection, since it doesn't define "attacked". Remember, we're talking about the lead, and the lead can rarely fully cover all the nuance. Readers have to drill deeper if they want the full story. Put differently, readers who stop at the lead will be frequently ill-served no matter what editors do, here or anywhere else. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Is 500,000 the crowd size Trump currently claims? Rally organizers had told the NPS that they anticipated 30,000 attendees, the Associated Press estimated the crowd as "at least 10,000. By 1:15 p.m., the procession was on the move." The crowd at the Capitol was estimated at "several thousand". An estimated 2,000 to 2,500 people entered the Capitol, more than 1,200 rioters have been charged, 750 gave been convicted so far. Many attended the rally, many marched to the Capitol, many entered the Capitol, many have been charged, many have been convicted. many: a large number of persons or things. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I think "many" is ambiguous and does have a sense of proportion. If you say many people are X, and in fact it's 2000 out of the population of Earth, that is a misuse of the term "many".--Jack Upland (talk) 04:33, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

When someone refuses to defer to the dictionary on matters of vocabulary, that's when I stop responding. It's not unlike going to trial with two different versions of the law: there is little basis for debate. And a comparison to the population of Earth is hardly apt or helpful. After I pointed out that the OP's one percent is far too small, your analogy is now 0.000025%. I call that a big step backward. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:28, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Russian interference in the 2016 and 2020 election

The lead says, "A special counsel investigation established that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign." This is a peculiar sentence because foreign interference in U.S. presidential elections has happened a lot since the country was founded, including some foreign interference against Trump in 2020, so if this material about 2016 remains in our lead then it should be modified to say why it's significant enough for the lead. Most reliable sources say that it's unknown whether the Russian interference affected the close election outcome. Most reliable sources also say that the investigation(s) failed to establish Trump-Russia collusion. Of course, there was a ton of publicity about this matter during Trump's term of office, but most of that publicity was inspired by the idea that maybe he or his campaign had been complicit with Russia, or maybe Russia had changed our election outcome, but ultimately those things could not be established, so the result was kind of a nothingburger as far as Trump himself was concerned. I suggest either removing it from the lead, or instead clarifying, for example like this: "Russia and other countries interfered in the U.S. elections of 2016 and 2020 for and against Trump, but investigations failed to establish that Trump conspired with any of it, or that it affected any election outcome." According to WP:Recentism, "during a news spike...there is mass interest to create and update articles on a current event, regardless of whether it may be historically significant later on." It's pretty obvious that the historical significance of this particular material would now be vastly greater if collusion by Trump had been established, or if it had been established that the election result was affected, but those things have not been established. Readers who just look at our lead will suspect that they have indeed been established, for otherwise the matter would scarcely be worth putting in the lead (keep in mind that "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic"). Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

None of that invalidates the brief factual statement from the article that's bolded at the top of the paragraph. SPECIFICO talk 13:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I've no objections to any of your proposals. GoodDay (talk) 14:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Before we discuss mentioning the alleged 2020 election interference in the lead, we need to discuss whether and, if so, how to add it to the body - I just reverted your edit. The difference between the two cycles of election interference: the one in 2016 was successful and thoroughly investigated by Mueller and the U.S. Senate after the fact, the one in 2020 wasn’t. The cited sources are from 2019. Also, what are the sources for both for and against Trump? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 16:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I can agree that the Russian interference in our elections isn't significant enough to Trump himself to be in his lead, though it would likely belong in the lead of his presidency article. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

As the predicate to much of Trump's victim narrative and slogans Russia Russia Russis No Collusion etc. I think the brief lead bit does relate to him personally. He didn't seem happy with the disclosures. SPECIFICO talk 16:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Russian interference definitely relates to Trump, but this article is already realllly long and will get longer with 2024 election and criminal trial results that will need to be in the lead. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:22, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

We'll cross those bridges when we get to them. He didn't seem happy with the disclosures: not happy at all, on a personal level — see "Russia hoax" at Russia investigation origins counter-narrative, Russia_investigation_origins_counter-narrative#Durham_investigation, and every campaign speech and most other speeches he has given since 2019. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 16:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Mubs. that's a reasonable point, but there's an increasingly significant problem with it. Longtime editors on this page and STEWARDs such as SpaceX and yourself have tried to forcus on trump, cut NOTNEWS, resist being snookered by Trump's best-ever self promotion, etc. But time and again, less experienced editors (all good) come here and insist on this or that being added because..."obvious". Even on the current talk page, such discussions are evident. Because WP pages publish dynamically, it's not possible to address due weight and personal significance with a lexicographic ranking. Maybe we need to state a guiding prinicple to codify why newsworthy but not DUE content is regularly rejected by well-informed editors here? SPECIFICO talk 16:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, RECENTISM bias affects us all, some more than others. With time, we can apply the WP:10YT to help us decide what items we added in the past that can be cut. And we must remind all editors to keep the long-term encyclopedic view at hand. And that can involve cutting Russia/2016, especially since it's debatable exactly how much that helped him. Comey's late October announcement may have had a bigger impact, for instance. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

The lead says, "A special counsel investigation established that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump's campaign." Established should be changed to "concluded" in line with how reliable sources reported the conclusions of the Muller report.

Also the article uses a lot of innuendo to imply that Trump was more favorable to Russia than Obama or Biden. Instead it should directly address the question. Despite DNC talking points, most expert opinion is that Trump was at least if not more hostile in his actions toward Russia than Obama or Biden. TFD (talk) 17:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

his actions, or his State Department's actions? soibangla (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

First bit, good. Second bit, no sources for that. SPECIFICO talk 18:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

most expert opinion is a bold statement requiring some RS. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 21:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

See the article by Jeremy Shapiro in the European CFR: "In its details, [Trump's Russia] policy has broadly reflected the bipartisan consensus in Washington that Russia is a malign actor and a national security threat to the United States. Obama-era economic sanctions against Russia have remained in place and become even tougher. The administration has increased military assistance to Eastern Europe and sent arms to Ukraine. The most recent US National Security Strategy, released in 2017, identified Russia as a strategic competitor and a revisionist power that threatens the integrity of Western democracy."[39]

Of course Trump, like other presidents, followed State Department policy. But as president it is his choice whether or not to follow it. I realize that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman devote their broadcasts to connecting Trump and Russia but it's a rhetorical device with no basis in fact. It's the DNC equivalent of tying Biden to cultural Marxism. TFD (talk) 20:45, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

TFD, your cable TV habits are beside the point. And it's known to virtually every RS and to the likes of John Bolton and ninety-nine neocons that the 2017 Trump still had the likes of Tillerson, Gary Cohn, and other sorts who thought they could continue in the mould of Bush, Bush, Cheney, and Cheney. SPECIFICO talk 22:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources say that Trump was as tough on if not tougher on Russia than Obama and Biden. His wording however was less belligerent and more like that of George W. Bush and Secretary Clinton.

While I appreciate that the party line is that Trump is a Putin puppet, that type of rhetoric belongs in our social media comments not in an article that is supposed to reflect mainstream assessments.

Speaking of Bolton, in the Trump-Russia article we use Trump's hiring of him as proof Trump was pro-Russia and now we use his firing as proof Trump is pro-Russia. Since we know Trump is pro-Russia, everything he does must fit into our conception. TFD (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Shapiro is one expert, and he says in the next paragraph that But all of this has been undermined by the president himself. Trump has treated Putin and Russia with rare politesse, even deference. Unlike virtually every other world leader, Trump has refrained from criticising Putin personally and sided with him over the US intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election. Bolton - which Trump-Russia article are you referring to? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

" Unlike virtually every other world leader, Trump has refrained from criticising Putin personally and sided with him over the US intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election " for obvious reasons Anonymous8206 (talk) 23:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 February 2024

I am adding this information from the final disposition of the NYC case.

"On Feb 2024, Judge Arthur Engoron hit Donald Trump with his biggest punishment to date in a ruling that fined the former president $355 million for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties. began developing real estate there."

From: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-civil-fraud-trial-decision-02-16-24/index.html Missbellanash (talk) 07:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This editor mis-placed my comment, there's too much stuff on this page.

This is my proposed add:

"Judge↵ Arthur Engoron hit Donald Trump with his biggest punishment to date on Friday, in a ruling that fined the former president $355 million for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties.

"Judge Arthur Engoron hit Donald Trump with his biggest punishment to date on Friday, in a ruling that fined the former president $355 million for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties. Missbellanash (talk) 07:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Last try!

Judge Arthur Engoron charged Donald Trump with his biggest punishment to date in a ruling that fined the former president $355 million for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties. Engoron found Trump liable for fraud, conspiracy and issuing false financial statements and false business records, and Trump is barred from serving as a director of a company in New York for three years. The judge did not dissolve the Trump Organization, Engoron issued a blistering 93-page opinion that painted the former president as unremorseful and highly likely to commit fraud again.

Judge Arthur Engoron charged Donald Trump with his biggest punishment to date in a ruling that fined the former president $355 million for fraudulently inflating the values of his properties. Engoron found Trump liable for fraud, conspiracy and issuing false financial statements and false business records, and Trump is barred from serving as a director of a company in New York for three years. The judge did not dissolve the Trump Organization, Engoron issued a blistering 93-page opinion that painted the former president as unremorseful and highly likely to commit fraud again. Missbellanash (talk) 07:30, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

It's a bit unclear which one of the versions you propose to add. I've updated Donald Trump#New York State's civil fraud case with a summary-level version. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 14:41, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi, yeah I was working on the Trump Organization page, the DT page needed updating too, good job! Missbellanash (talk) 01:37, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

No references at top

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The top of the article literally has no references and it’s mostly just criticism. Turtlepro22 (talk) 02:43, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Turtlepro22 please scroll up to #Top is almost completely unreferenced. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:53, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Include mention of Abraham Accords in opening section

The opening section of the article is heavily critical of Donald Trump, citing his controversial policies, controversial actions and failings. I am not disputing this, but I suggest that it may improve the article's balance and neutrality, to also mention successful aspects of his administration. The Abraham Accords are the main achievement I suggest; under the Trump administration's mediation, Israel normalized relations with 4 Arab nations: the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. This was a significant development, creating diplomatic relations between key US allies and advanced economies in the region. It was also a key step closer towards ending the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Looking to build consensus. Neutral Editor 645 (talk) 18:44, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times here, and the consensus has been that they are not relevant to Trump's bio. Zaathras (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

How an arbitrary pool of scholars and historians rank Trump is relevant, but one of his greatest tangible achievements from office isn't?

Now that the dust has settled a little more, this should possibly be open to discussion again. The current state of the article is imbalanced and everything that Wikipedia should avoid being. Neutral Editor 645 (talk) 21:50, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

one of his greatest tangible achievements from office ? Lol what? The Abraham Accords were largely ceremonial agreements between states already in de facto peace agreements. Trump himself didn't even have a personal hand in any of it, until it was time to put pen to paper. It has no importance to this article, and is better covered elsewhere. Zaathras (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

A lot of this is your own opinion, on a contentious topic. I can see from the past archives that you have been quite active in promoting this view here. Something tells me that you likely do not apply similarly high standards of scrutiny to the successes done under other administrations - just the Trump one. Please do remember what Wikipedia is for.

We could debate about Trump's level of involvement in the Abraham Accords, but this is a red herring. Ultimately the Abraham Accords were a hugely successful accomplishment under his administration.

Just because it is covered in other articles about the Trump administration, does not neglect the importance of including it in the Donald Trump article, amid paragraphs extensively discussing his actions and policies in office. Neutral Editor 645 (talk) 22:45, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a can of worms. In addition to having just about nothing to do with Trump, it would open the door to the RS narratives concerning his son-in-law's pandering and cultivation of the Saudi's that culminated in an otherwise inexplicalble investment in the young man's untested and undistinguished investment fund. The talk archives have repeatedly determined this Abraham bit is UNDUE for this page. SPECIFICO talk 23:24, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. May I ask you to clarify what you mean by "RS narratives"? Genuinely sincere question. Neutral Editor 645 (talk) 01:26, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Something tells me that you likely do not apply similarly high standards of scrutiny to the successes done under other administrations - just the Trump one. My my, Whataboutism and casting aspersions in one go. Your stay here may be a short one. Zaathras (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

It's interesting that you chose to focus on one sentence, out of the seven wrote in my response, ignoring the more pertinent points. This tends to be known as cherry picking. Anyhow, it is clear that we shall disagree on this topic. I shall wait to see if any further consensus arrives. Neutral Editor 645 (talk) 01:29, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Neutral Editor 645:

Provide reliable sources that back up your claims. Since no one has done so to back up any claim in this thread, be the first one to do so. If the Abraham Accords are truly one of [Trump's] greatest tangible achievements then it shouldn't be too hard to find sourcing.

Ultimately the Abraham Accords were a hugely successful accomplishment under his administration—according to who? To you? It sounds like [a] lot of this is your own opinion, or am I mistaken?

It's interesting that you chose to focus on one sentence, out of the seven wrote in my response, ignoring the more pertinent points. This tends to be known as cherry picking. It is not, and will never be cherrypicking to point out behavior that goes against enwiki policy. Cessaune [talk] 18:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

The Accords, and Trump's personal involvement, are far less significant than some would have us believe. The agreement was not significant because the parties were not in conflict and it was an open secret they had been cooperating on various levels for years, they just didn't publicize it. Trump needed a foreign policy win going into an election year and this was a fairly easy one that his campaign and base could tout as worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. His direct involvement was negligible beyond telling Kushner to get it done, and even then, Kushner needed to pull a 180 (annexation of West Bank settlements) in his long-awaited peace plan he had released months earlier to get it done. Then Trump showed up for the signing ceremony photo op. It was nothing close to the Camp David Accords. soibangla (talk) 02:14, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Leave it in..if it`s the best he could come up with in 4 years w/e...he signed some half-hearted bill regarding ivory importation the first day when he was signing everything his handlers were putting in front of him qualifying it with " I don`t hunt " Anonymous8206 (talk) 03:32, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

We can't leave it in if it isn't in to begin with. Zaathras (talk) 03:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

It was also a key step closer towards ending the Arab-Israeli Conflict. In light of recent events, simply ignoring the Palestinians for preelection photo-ops of people signing documents seems to have been a key step closer towards the current war. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 13:30, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Quite so, and the acceptance of various narratives boosting the purported significance of the cleverly-branded "accords" is symptomatic of the larger NPOV issues yet to be resolved on this article page -- in particular the portrayal of Trump as a successful businessman rather than a successful street-level media star. SPECIFICO talk 15:40, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

@Neutral Editor 645: I doubt you'll get a local consensus for such an addition. As for going the RFC route? That's up to you. GoodDay (talk) 15:51, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Respectfully, GoodDay, stop suggesting RfCs when RfCs are not warranted. Cessaune [talk] 18:14, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I was responding to Neutral Editor, not you. GoodDay (talk) 18:18, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

You're missing the point. It's not helpful to suggest an RfC for every single issue, especially one with such broad consensus to not include. It doesn't matter who you're talking to, as the RfC is something we all collectively have to deal with. Cessaune [talk] 18:21, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Not discussing this with you, any further. Neutral Editor, can make their own choices. GoodDay (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Cessaune. In a one-against-many situation, launching an RfC after only two days of discussion is a waste of community time. And you don't get to pick who responds to you. O3000, Ret. (talk) 15:59, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

See discussion, below. GoodDay (talk) 01:53, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, an RFC on this topic is probably warranted at this point. There have been at least 4 other threads about this in the last year and a half asking for some mention of the Abraham accords to be mentioned in the article [40] [41] [42] [43], and the last discussion that looks anything like an RFC was in early 2021 [44]. Over this time, 14 editors have expressed support for inclusion (Bob K31416, GoodDay, myself, Bill Williams, Chrismorey, Iamreallygoodatcheckers, Andrevan, Anon0098, Anythingyouwant, Pavlor, Berchanhimez, Szmenderowiecki, Chrisahn, HAL333, and now Neutral Editor 645) and 11 editors have expressed opposition (Zaathras, Firefangledfeathers, Space4Time3Continuum2x, Specifico, Crazypredictor, Slatersteven, ValarianB, Calton, Pincrete, Symmachus Auxiliarus, and soibangla).

Every discussion since 2021 has essentially been met with a couple editors saying "this is a settled issue." If every editor from every thread opened participated in a new RFC, consensus may look stronger than what we have from 2021, where only 12 people participated. If we go the RFC route and get a stronger consensus on this issue, I'd support adding it to the FAQ list as a reason to stop re-litigating this. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:57, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

There's repeatedly confirmed lack of consensus to include this. RfC would just waste lots of editor time and attention, which is increasinngly limited given the many AP recent events and developments. SPECIFICO talk 23:08, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

There's repeatedly confirmed lack of consensus; there most certainly is not. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 01:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Instead of that comment, all you'd need to do is link to the consensus you think is affirmed. Please. SPECIFICO talk 03:54, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

You're right - lack of consensus to include isn't actually consensus to exclude. The latter is what there isn't. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Right, so thats why its a big waste of time. SPECIFICO talk 04:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

RFCs are intended to generate consensus in the absence of clear consensus, so... PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:47, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Are you unaware that WP does not require consensus to exclude? SPECIFICO talk 16:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

PhotogenicScientist, the addition of the Accords to this BLP, would be acceptable to me. GoodDay (talk) 04:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Considering the fact that such a proposal has ended multiple times with a lack of consensus to include, why would an RfC be any different? Cessaune [talk] 04:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

An WP:RFC should attract more discussion than a regular discussion, would it not? Also, we could invite anyone who's had an opinion on the matter in the last 5 discussions to participate - get a holistic idea of consensus from all the editors that have expressed interest about this topic. 04:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC) PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:46, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

What is the significance of the Accords for Trump's personal biography, per the majority of recent reliable sources? Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 12:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

You cannot require editors to come here for no reason to repeat their views. You can see the entire range of views by reading the archive. That's why we archive past labors. What are you trying to say with "holistic"? Do you mean comprehensive? We already have that. SPECIFICO talk 12:44, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

So, to avoid running an RFC, you say we can just look through the archives to assess consensus. Alright then - there are two ways to interpret the 5 talkpage discussions on this article: 1) There has never been a local consensus to include this content, or 2) A majority of editors on the talk page agree that this content should be included. Why is it more fair to go with the first interpretation? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Oh hey, you and I were here last November, where we discussed that exact point: [45]. I mentioned that it's really weird to draw this WP:UNDUE line in the sand here.

We don't make that distinction at other points in this article (The Trump administration "water[ed] down the toughest penalties the U.S. had imposed on Russian entities" after its 2014 annexation of Crimea...; ...the Trump administration sanctioned 12 companies and 13 individuals suspected of being involved in Iran's missile program...). We don't make that distinction on the article for Barack Obama (In 2016, the Obama administration proposed a series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia worth $115 billion...; The Obama administration asked Congress to allocate money toward funding the Iron Dome program...). We don't make that distinction on the biographies of any other president, it seems (In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8 million (equivalent to $245.93 million in 2022) in settlement...; Reagan's administration continued discussions with the Soviet Union on START I. I just don't see a compelling reason why we wouldn't include it here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:28, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Obama, Clinton, Reagan: any problems with their articles need to be discussed on their Talk pages. I just removed the sentence on the sanctioning of the suspected collaborators with Iran; it's the same sentence as in the Presidency of Donald Trump article, and that's where it belongs. Watering down the penalties on Russia: this belongs in his personal bio because of Trump's history with Putin. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 15:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

And PhotogenicScientist just reverted my removal. The point is consensus #37: Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. Neither one of these is likely to. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 15:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

You conveniently left off the second half of consensus #37: If something is borderline or debatable, the resolution does not apply. I think Trump's first dealing with Iran in his presidency is rather notable for his presidential legacy. It affected the tone of 4 years of US-Iran relations. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:44, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's borderline or debatable? Six years later, are there reliable sources saying what the lasting impact on his life or long-term presidential legacy was? Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 17:06, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

We're debating it now, aren't we? The consensus item does not specify "debatable by whom." Just that if it's debatable, it doesn't apply.

Moreover, Trump's policy toward Iran in his presidency was one of increasing tensions - one of the mechanisms by which he did this was sanctions. Here's an NYT article that analyzes Trump's Iran policy, shortly after the killing of Suleimani, which mentions his sanctions in the context of his broader strategy: He took the United States out of the nuclear agreement and imposed sanctions against Iran — which some see as setting off a crisis that continues today — on claims that it was “on the cusp” of acquiring nuclear weapons “in just a short period of time.” Also from that article, there's this quip: How Confusion Fell Over America’s Iran Strategy... Part of the uncertainty is specific to Mr. Trump. Which sounds pretty personal, for this personal biography of his. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:31, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

We're debating it now, aren't we? If memory serves, I'm the author of that sentence. I doubt it was my intent that unanimous agreement was required for application of the consensus item. If memory serves again, the sentence lacks a strong connection to the underlying discussion; it just seemed like a reasonable thing to add at the time. Had I known the word "debatable" would be used in this manner, I would have been more circumspect about its use. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:50, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Cessaune regarding the proposition that the Iran sanction had "limited impact on anything", Trump's policy of escalating tensions with Iran, of which sanctions were a part, is noted as having contributed to the crisis that followed the Assassination of Qasem Soleimani. See the NYT source above. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

If it's important in that context then the article should say so. Cessaune [talk] 01:01, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

There are 3 paragraphs and numerous additional mentions of Iran in the article. Exactly the perfect amount of Iran. SPECIFICO talk 02:33, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

WP does not require consensus to omit. There has never been anything close to agreement for inclusion. No, RfC will only attract a waste of time. You posted a long list of the participants in past rejections of this content. There's no reason to think that yet another rehash is going to "attract more discussion" that will produce a tidal wave of support to overwhelm the well-established rejection of such content. SPECIFICO talk 11:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC) Consensus is not a majority vote count. WP:STICK SPECIFICO talk 16:28, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

@PhotogenicScientist:, I say you should have an RFC & put this include/exclude argument to rest. After all, there can only be two possible outcomes. GoodDay (talk) 15:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Users need to read WP:ONUS, it is down to those arguing for inclusion to get consensus. Slatersteven (talk) 16:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Therefore, I'm curious as to why WP:ONUS has been ignored, concerningt the other major topic being discussed. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

RfC for inclusion of Abraham Accords in article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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In an attempt to end the never-ending proposals for including the Abraham Accords in either the article or the lead section, I propose an RfC. A mention in the article body would be a prerequisite for inclusion in the lead. I am not supporting or opposing its inclusion, but I believe that the following proposal would be the most likely to be supported by consensus, being minimal and based on lead content from the Abraham Accords article.

Should the Israel subsection of the foreign policy subsection be updated to include the bolded sentence below? (Edit: Proposed addition in bold.)

Trump supported many of the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Under Trump, the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, leading to international condemnation including from the United Nations General Assembly, the European Union, and the Arab League. In 2020, the White House hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords, normalizing the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Onetwothreeip (talk) 16:15, 14 January 2024 (UTC) 10:02, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Pinging Neutral Editor 645,Objective3000, PhotogenicScientist. Cessaune [talk] 22:15, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Why ping? •Cyberwolf•talk? 22:23, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Grammar issue: Who or what normalized the relations? Current phrasing says that it was the WH (by hosting the event). Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 17:00, 3 December 2023 (UTC) Clarify. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 12:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

:Support. Probably one of his greatest acheievements. DanRayy (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Account blocked indefinitely for vandalism before they posted here. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Sources

Survey

• Improper RfC. The first two sentences are the current text of Donald_Trump#Israel. The proposal is the addition of the last sentence ("hosted the signing" — that was about the extent of it (photo-op), formalizing would be better than normalizing, "foreign" is redundant). Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 11:00, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  How is that improper? The addition is bolded. Onetwothreeip (talk) 11:30, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  The RfC is alright. A piece of additional text, clearly marked, is submitted for consideration and comments. -The Gnome (talk) 12:09, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  RfC's attract users who are not previously familiar with the details and context of the page content. The RfC, even if valid or necessary, should have been worded with a straightforward question on the table, to wit:

  Should the following text "..." be appended to the mention of the Abraham Accords in the "..." section of the page

  SPECIFICO talk 15:45, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  @SPECIFICO: AFAIK, RfC questions are "community property", not "owned" by their original authors. Any editor can improve them, even involved, and clarity should never be controversial. I've made an attempt to improve that and I don't think inclusion of the existing text does any harm provided it's clear that it's existing text. It does provide some potentially useful context: Is the proposed sentence DUE in such a short subsection? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:37, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, but it all depends on which OP feels like complaining to which Admin, etc. Thanks for at least mitigating the damage. The other missing piece is that the horde of prior commenters has not been summoned. SPECIFICO talk 17:02, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  Then summon them. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:09, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  Not my job. OP ordinarily does that. SPECIFICO talk 01:33, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

• Improper RfC abuse of the RfC protocol, which is not meant to bludgeon views that have failed to gain support.@Onetwothreeip: 15:33, 2 December 2023 (UTC) Please remove RfC formatting, banner, and notifications. SPECIFICO talk 15:33, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  A properly worded, formatted and posted up, RfC is, by definition, impossible to denote "bludgeoning" activity. And by "posted up" I mean that if an RfC were to put across the same essentially question on a subject that was recently decided, then, yes, we'd have a problem. Has there? If not, nothing is amiss. As to your argument about "RfC's attract[ing] users who are not previously familiar with the details and context of the page content," I'd say that RfC's should actually aim to attract such users! Lord knows, extended and heated discussions about a subject, "controversial" or not, always need outside, more detached input. -The Gnome (talk) 17:41, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  @SPECIFICO: If I removed the RfC formatting then it would cease to be an RfC. I have never requested any addition of content to this article regarding the Abraham Accords, and I do not support it. This is to put an end to endless discussion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:19, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  I doubt that I'm the only one puzzled by your theory of ending this silly little discussion by expanding and prolonging it for at least another month. Folks are allowed to propose things on the talk page, and when they do not achieve a reasoned consensus -- as this proposal had surely failed to do -- the disussion subsides and goes away. There is no requirement for a consensus not to include any proposed content. And you are always free to ignore discussions you feel are pointless rather than offer your services to exterminate them. I really think it would best be withdrawn, but that's up to you at this point. The only reason editors are responding at this time is because you have more or less forced a vote. SPECIFICO talk 23:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose so what was its impact, this text is just a list entry. Slatersteven (talk) 12:12, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  A full analysis of the accords, including their significance or impact, is better found at their article: Abraham Accords. Inclusion of events that happened during Trump's presidency on this article are meant to be limited to summary-level description - including links to appropriate articles and sub-articles is the better way to provide more information. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:37, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as it has been shown time and time again, in past discussions the "Accords" were between non-warring nations, had no significant geopolitical impact, and Donald Trump himself had no involvement into the process. Also Close this RfC now as inherently disruptive. This has been discussed ad nauseam - Feb 2023, Nov 2022, July 2022, March 2022, May 2021. This is a dead issue, and continuous rehashing is unwarranted as consensus to exclude is crystal clear. Zaathras (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support - mentioning the Accords in this BLP. GoodDay (talk) 15:13, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  This is about the suggested text. Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  I know & support its inclusion. GoodDay (talk) 15:16, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  This is not an election, and votes without reasoned explanation may be disregarded. SPECIFICO talk 15:38, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  Evaluating each editors' stated position, will be in the hands of the RFC closer. I'll accept the decision of this RFC when it's closed (in early January) & hopefully the entire include/exclude argument will be settled. GoodDay (talk) 15:54, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  I know previous discussions on this have been interminable, and you might not like re-litigating your opinion. But it's true that a simple comment of "Support" means very little in an RFC. Providing even a bit more justification would add strength to your position to the closer. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:53, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not one to over elaborate on my positions in RFCs or RMs & am always mindful of WP:BLUDGEON & so I leave the RFC evaluation in the hands of the closer. PS - Besides, other 'support' editors are making strong arguments. GoodDay (talk) 21:18, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support. The Abraham Accords "marked the first instance of Israel establishing diplomatic relations with an Arab country since 1994," as the article puts it. This was a significant, perhaps major, change in Middle East relations. In the context of the article's section on Israel and U.S. foreign policy, the proposed sentence informs the reader of a verifiably important event occurred during Trump's presidency. -The Gnome (talk) 17:41, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  Sources: The significance of the Abraham Accords has been disputed in this discussion ("the Accords were between non-warring nations, had no significant geopolitical impact"). Proving that, in fact, they were quite significant is a rather trivial exercise:

  First, some 'primary' sources: The State Department; the United Arab Emirates; and Israel.

  Then organizations, think tanks, etc: American Jewish Committee, "landmark", "game changer"; Middle East Institute, "opened new opportunities for defense and security cooperation"; Middle East Institute of Japan, "Jews have the potential to play a valuable multicultural role in the UAE and Bahrain"; Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, "even in the Mideast, where passions are inflamed, interests can on rare occasions gain the upper hand"; Modern War Institute, West Point, "important development"; The Hoover Institution, "greater than the sum of its parts"; Indian Council on World Affairs; The Wilson Center, "a three-year success"; etc.

  Media: The Jerusalem Post, "historic agreement"; The New York Times, "major diplomatic agreement"; The Washington Post, "reflected a real political exhaustion with the Palestinian cause on the part of some political elites in Arab countries"; etc. Even media criticizing current Israeli actions, accept the Accords' significance, e.g. Al Jazeera. -The Gnome (talk) 18:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  That is a truly dreadful list of references, comprising statements by parties at interest, contrmporaneous reports later revised or reversed by the sources, and publications that do not stand up to the books subsequently published and cited by SpaceX and me in the comments section. These sources do not support any case for inclusion. SPECIFICO talk 19:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment While I am not supporting or opposing the proposal, I will explain why I justify this wording to be most modest proposal and the most likely of any proposal to succeed. The proposal uses language directly from the Abraham Accords article, and does not credit Donald Trump with any active role (such as "brokering"), only that the signing was hosted, implicitly by him, at the White House. I decided to specify that it was foreign relations being normalised, as opposed to economic or other relations. If editors believe that there should be even more content about the Accords in the article, they should support the proposal, and if they believe that there should be no content about it at all, they should oppose it. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:28, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support per the other supporters’ explanations above. The accord opened the door to wider economic cooperation, and investment. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. This addition doesn't demonstrate why the Accords are important/notable. It doesn't tie the Accords to Trump. It doesn't even mention Trump. At least relating to this wording specifically, this isn't something we should include in the article. Cessaune [talk] 22:30, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

  The Accords are demonstrably "important". One has only to peruse the relevant lemma here. (I offered a sample of sources here, as well.) And they were signed during Trump's presidency, with Trump's Foggy Bottom actively involved, and in his presence. What's there to dispute the merits of mentioning them in the foreign policy section, Israel subsection? -The Gnome (talk) 10:18, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  You're misunderstanding what I said. I did not say that the Accords weren't important. I said that [t]his addition doesn't demonstrate why the Accords are important/notable. The fact that we as enwiki editors can demonstrate why the Accords are notable is separate from the fact that none of the proposed texts actually do demonstrate why the Accords are notable. The proposed wordings belong in the Presidency of Donald Trump article, not here IMO. Cessaune [talk] 00:14, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  So, you would support some mention of the Accords in this article, just not the proposed wording? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Depends on if editors are willing to demonstrate how the Accords are specifically notable to Trump the man, as opposed to just Trump's presidency or the Trump administration. So far the vast majority of support arguments refer to the notability as it pertains to the Trump administration, and forget that this is not the Trump administration article. Cessaune [talk] 15:08, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Not every tidbit included in this article needs to have a full analysis of its importance. MOST of the information in the Presidency section is not analyzed or given reason for import. Your criteria, if applied to all events in his presidency, would lead to a full-scale rewrite of the section. I do think the proposed wording could be better, but it does a better job than omitting mention of the Accords entirely - best not to let perfect be the enemy of good. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

User:Cessaune, we do not demonstrate "why the Accords are important/notable" by adding the information on the Accords to the article. This was never the intention and cannot be the intention! Demonstration of notability is exclusively proven and verified by sources. And I have already provided a small sample of about a dozen such sources, out of a myriad out there, which demonstrate conclusively and irrefutably the Accords' notability. Please take a look and see what you make of them. Having certified the Accords' notability, the question arises as to whether to insert information about them here. Well, a lot of items concerning or related to Trump's presidency are important enough to mention also here. The Accords, being a "game changer" in Middle East politics, per sources, certainly merit a mention here. All the noise about their signing being "only" a media event is unfounded. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 10:18, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

This is fundamentally mistaken. Yes, NPOV requires all information in any article to be assessed for its importance as evaluated by its prominence in high quality Reliable Source references. And again, folks should stop discussing what's significant for his presidency -- it is settled consensus that this page includes content that is significant for his personal life story and in which he has been personally instrumental. Those are the factors that should be addressed here, and clichés are the enemy of the good and no excuse for us to dilute the focus of the article content. SPECIFICO talk 22:46, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

• it is settled consensus that this page includes content that is significant for his personal life story and in which he has been personally instrumental Could you provide a reference to this "settled consensus?" I don't see this anywhere. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:23, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Friendly advice: Don't hold your breath. -The Gnome (talk) 13:49, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Actually, what I wrote is fundamentally correct, and that's speaking in literal terms. [WP:POLICY|Wikipedia policies]] on providing multiple, reliable sources that explicitly verify the information imparted, i.e. Abraham Accords are notable & significant are irrefutably satisfied. Against that wall of solid, uncontestable proof, we get red herrings such as "this page includes content that is significant for his personal life story and in which he has been personally instrumental". What a valiant attempt to distract and derail, honestly! The very long, and quite rightly very long, section on Trump's presidency includes a plethora of items that are blatantly unrelated to the man's "personal life story" , as well as items in which he was involved simply in his capacity as President. A President is not, and one cannot emphasize this enough, "instrumental" in every diplomatic or government action. End of story. -The Gnome (talk) 13:49, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

P.S. One has to salute the appearance of a newfangled "argument," the one about the threat of diluting the focus of the article, which is also just a lot of chaff. -The Gnome (talk) 13:49, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support - the Accords are a notable aspect of Trump's presidency with sufficient weight for the one sentence proposed. NPR described the Accords in June 2022 as "one key pillar of Donald Trump's Middle East policy" and a "huge rupture from recent history in which Arab nations had made it clear they would not negotiate with Israel..." It also noted that the Biden admin has embraced the Accords. A fact noted by AP as well. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 22:37, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - Sorry but I just don't see how hosting this signing or the signing itself or the accord itself had any historical effect or why it belongs in the this bio. Maybe in a child article. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:19, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  Proof that the Accords were and are still]] significant has been shown above. At to why mention of their signing belongs in "this biography", the answer is simple: Irrespective of what one thinks of Trump and/or his tenure, this happened during his presidency, with his State Department actively involved. It's truly a trivial matter. -The Gnome (talk) 10:18, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support because this feels like a no-brainer item to include - it's a notable happening of his presidency for certain. Most prior Oppose rationales hinge on the argument that this article should make no mention of the Accords because they are mentioned at the Presidency of Donald Trump article, pretty much in line with consensus item #37. However, from the numerous sources that have been discussed in the discussion above (and in prior ones), it's apparent that the Accords were notable enough to have a lasting impact, at the least on Trump's presidential legacy. Perhaps I'll be back to collect some of these sources once again (as I've done before) to link here, but for now, I'll note that the Accords get a mention from Foreign Policy in their analysis of Trump's presidency [46]. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that the current wording is the best way to present the information, though. I like this proposal from Iamreallygoodatcheckers a while ago:

  In September 2020, Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and two foreign ministers from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords, which formally normalized relations between Israel and the two Arab states.[47]

  PhotogenicScientist (talk) 05:18, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  This wording is better. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 05:22, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  ... which one? The proposed RFC wording, or the one I just pasted? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 05:29, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  One you just proposed Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 01:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Trump wasn't a signatory. Netanyahu and bin Zahyed al Nahyan signed the agreement between the UAE and Israel; Netanyahu and Al Zayani signed the agreement between Bahrain and Israel. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 12:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  He's not a "signatory" in the diplomatic sense of the word, but he did sign it - his signature is right there below those of the others on both of those documents. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:40, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Right after "Witnessed by". Ronald McDonald's signature would have had the same effect — none. It was just a show. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 17:51, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Equation of the importance of a sitting US president and Ronald McDonald. Bold. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:19, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Nah, just equation of the importance of the witness signature of a sitting US president and Ronald McDonald on those particular documents. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 18:24, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: There is an erroneous argument in some of the suggestions here, to the effect that the Accords have failed to deliver what they promised and, therefore, they're not important enough and do not deserve a mention in Trump's biography. That is false, as false as arguing that, since they too failed, the Munich Accords do not deserve an article in Wikipedia.
  There might also be in play some kind of erroneous view of the whole issue. I hope no one opposes the inclusion of the Abraham Accords on the basis of their personal dislike of Trump and abhorrence for his actions as president. I truly hope so! -The Gnome (talk) 10:25, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  No, the principal objection is that this was a Trump media event and that the underlying relations and documents signed for TV had nothing to do with Donald Trump other than the insinuation of his family (and its ongoing business interests) into Mideast diplomacy and commerce. SPECIFICO talk 15:49, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  If your objection, or anyone else's, is based on the claim that the Abraham Accords were merely a "media event" then that claim is easily refuted by the extensive and widespread preoccupation with said accords undertaken by almost all major media in the world, as well as by think tanks and strategy institutions of established credentials from most big world powers - not to mention what the signatories themselves have emphatically stated. None of those sources can be seriously labeled as Trump mouthpieces. "Media events" have a very short shelf life. The Abraham Accords were a "game changer" in the Middle East, to use just one term, among many, from those used in our sources. The claim that the Accords was merely a "media event" has not been seriously proffered except for obvious partisan reasons. -The Gnome (talk) 15:59, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  Well, that's a new one. Of my dozens of flaws, nobody has previously accused me of not reading or following the sources. See my several comments here about sourcing. And anyone who takes a look at our Abraham Accords article will see that it's largely Original Research and sources misrepresented or off-topic appended to original research. SPECIFICO talk 17:04, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  If the article is flawed, we should correct it. In the meantime, the significance of the Accords is beyond doubt, per the plethora of extant sources, a small sample of which I quoted here above. Did you follow up those? Do you dispute their relevance? Or perhaps their reliability? -The Gnome (talk) 20:19, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  Hosting the signing of an agreement between third parties was a media event. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 16:15, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  The Camp David Accords signatories were Egypt and Israel. The UInited States hosted the signing ceremony and witnessed formally the signed documents. No one has yet disputed the legitimacy of including the Accords in Clinton's biography. Their signing too was a "media event"! But neither the Camp David Accords nor the Abraham Accords were 'only media events. They were both "game changers." And the U.S. actively mediated between the parties. See here for America's "weeks of intensive mediation to broker the final deal." -The Gnome (talk) 20:19, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  That document is not RS for anything. You don't appear to know the what, where, when or how regarding the Camp David Accords which had nothing to do with Mr. Clinton. SPECIFICO talk 20:35, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  You're conflating the 2020 Camp David Summit with the 1978 Camp David Accords. I don't know enough about the 2020 Summit to have an opinion on it. The Camp David Accords are a peace treaty between two countries that had been repeatedly at war for 30 years, and Carter was actively and personally involved in the peace process for more than a year, cajoling both parties back to the negotiations a few times. Quoting the 2002 Nobel Prize press release: During his presidency (1977-1981), Carter’s mediation was a vital contribution to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, in itself a great enough achievement to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Abraham Accords are formalizations of the normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab states Israel had never been at war with, and Trump's involvement was the photo-op. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 13:20, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support per above. ~ HAL333 15:50, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Inclusion of this media event - a ceremonial signing which amounted to a command performance by presidential election candidate Trump - gives UNDUE emphasis to the Trump media claim that he was involved in the establishment of these relationships. In fact, the parties had been warming relations for years and the insertion of Trump's son-in-law into the codification of these relations was consequential mainly as a factor in the solitification of young Kushner's financial interests in the region. If editors will give a careful read of our Abraham Accords article, they will see that most if not all of the article text crediting Trump or his Administration for these artfully-named "accords" is sourced to Trump's own employees. SPECIFICO talk 16:06, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  Comment Most of the "support" !votes here do not address the only pertinent issue -- the issue which has led to this failing consensus time and again in previous discusssions: What does this have to do with Trump the man?. General anodyne statements "obviously important" "highly notable" etc. do not provide policy/sourcing based rationale to support such !votes and should be eliminated by whichever poor soul arrives to close this rehash. SPECIFICO talk 16:06, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  What does this have to do with Trump the man? isn't really a hard criteria to make a decision on. The only thing remotely close to this is consensus item #37, which states that presidency events can be covered in this article as "summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy." The notability of the Accords as covered by plenty of RS here place them squarely into his presidential legacy. If you don't want to take my word for it, check out Foreign Policy's assessment of Trump's presidency from a foreign policy point of view.

  Not to mention "If something is borderline or debatable", consensus item #37 doesn't even apply for excluding content. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:35, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  See this. No one foresaw the unintended consequence of that sentence. When it comes down to it, (1) at this article, any content of any significance is debatable, and (2) "borderline" is so subjective as to be useless as a guide. Emphasizing the letter over the spirit undermines the value of the consensus list and, imo, borders on wikilawyering. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:37, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  That consensus item got support as written in its discussion. This despite the fact that people did oppose at the time because "decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis" or "what constitutes borderline or debatable will be endlessly debated." On this article, quite uniquely, the consensus list is often used to shut down discussions where "strong consensus" has been shown before. When you have what amounts to local guidelines like this, the wording matters quite a bit. The letter of the item is quite clear, even when the spirit of it is not and subject to discussion. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:30, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  the wording matters quite a bit. I totally agree, and we do our level best to make the letter and spirit one and the same. That sentence was not my best performance. the consensus list is often used to shut down discussions where "strong consensus" has been shown before. I'm not sure what you mean by that. We at this article do exhibit a reluctance to repeatedly revisit an issue merely because an editor shows up who disagrees with the existing consensus, not because of any significant change in the situation surrounding the issue; in such cases, shutting down discussion is a feature not a bug. The article is not unique but unusual in its ability to remember consensuses as the editor mix changes; I call that continuity. Anyone who feels the system is too inflexible should note the number of supersessions in the list, many on fairly major issues. This is getting pretty meta and a collapse may be in order with the option of continuing the meta within the collapse. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:35, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Your Foreign Policy cite said this about the Abraham Accords in October 2020: The move, which the White House heralded as "the dawn of a new Middle East," praised by Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike as a rare spot of good news. Still, some experts questioned whether Trump was claiming credit for diplomatic dealings that were long in the works; the UAE and Israel, for example, had been cooperating on security matters behind the scenes for years. "You’ve got to give them some credit for the Abraham Accords," said Emma Ashford, a foreign-policy expert with the Atlantic Council, referring to the deal by its official name. "This isn’t an earth-shattering change in foreign policy, but getting some of the Gulf states to come out and admit they were actually more friendly with Israel, that's something that's an achievement." Yay - direct flights between Israel and Dubai (currently suspended due to war). Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 17:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  I get that you're trying to chip away at the notability of the Accords themselves It's pretty clear you think the Accords aren't very notable - they involved more than just a direct flight route between Israel and Dubai, after all - but they quite plainly are already notable. Whether as an influence for good or bad, the Accords are still being talked about for their impact on relations in the Middle East, by plenty of reliable sources. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  That's 1. a personal attack, 2. irrelevant, and 3. denying our NPOV policy. All unnecessary. SPECIFICO talk 19:03, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  I feel that my comment was not "particularly offensive or disruptive," so blasting me for a PA isn't particularly helpful to discussion here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:16, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Tip: never characterize someone else's opinion without simply quoting them, or be damn sure you're hitting it on the nose. Cessaune [talk] 22:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Also, referring someone to WP:NPA#Responding to personal attacks after they have accused you of a personal attack is... weird, and likely to be construed very negatively. Cessaune [talk] 15:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  A personal attack? What offends you? •Cyberwolf•talk? 19:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  There was no pa •Cyberwolf•talk? 20:35, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Comment #2 If any further emphasis on this signing event is to be placed in the article, we would also need - per NPOV - to include additional content that reflects RS narratives of this event as another in a vast array of empty Trump media stagings in part based on his personal need to mimic the appearance that his presidency was similar to other conventional prediencies - in this case Jimmy Carter's role in the Camp David Accords. SPECIFICO talk 16:06, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. (Do some of the commenters here think that WP doesn’t mention the Abraham Accords?) The signing ceremony was a photo-op. As Muboshgu wrote in May 2021, "the signing of documents does not in and of itself demonstrate 'historical impact'". Trump touted "the peace deal" as "a testament to the bold diplomacy and vision of President Trump, and he is honored to be considered by the Nobel Committee [nope]. President Trump will host the Israeli and Emirati delegations for a signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords on September 15 at the White House". Most of the sources Gnome cited don’t even mention Trump, and when they do it’s something along the lines of "brokered by the Trump WH" or "[a]nother reason for [other countries’] caution [to sign on] was that the leaders of the United States and Israel at the time, namely, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, persistently advertised the Abraham Accords as their own achievements. President Trump hailed the Abraham Accords as a historic achievement during his run for re-election in the November 2020 presidential election". Also, only two of them were written after October 7 ("Oct. 7 also sounded the death knell of the Abraham Accords as initially championed by the Trump administration and latterly embraced by the Biden administration"). Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 16:38, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  In other words, Space4Time3Continuum2x, you are saying that a source that reports some major event involving U.S. foreign relations has no place in the biography of the president during whose watch the event occurred unless the source contains the name of the president. And if present in the article, that source should be chucked out. Is this truly a position you want to support? Is this something you'd want to see adopted as a rule for Wikipedia political biographies? A new interpretation of where the buck stops? Seriously. -The Gnome (talk) 20:25, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

  Huh? You get all this from me writing "photo-op without historical impact"? Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 12:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  I could be mistaken of course, but it doesn't sound as if you've surveyed the RS accounts of the announcement, signing, and substance of the Abraham accords. Have you looked at our article page. I started to look through it and found that much of the narrative there is derived from self-serving press releases and other statements by the Trump administration and its spokesmen at the time of the election campaign. In fact there is plentiful RS detailing how little was accomplished by the so-called Accords, which codified existing relationships while trading away various bon-bons to the signatories. When you say "per-Gnome" or per-Socrates or whoever, your view takes on the collinearity of a parallelogram without internal structure to stand on its own. It would be more helpful and strenghten your !vote to hear what sourcing and policy-based rationale you have to include this sentence -- you do understand the RfC is about a single sentence? -- in this article. SPECIFICO talk 23:02, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  "Per-Gnome"?! Where did I ever write "per Gnome"? (What are you reading?) The only instance I use here the word "per" is to point out to sources, i.e. "per sources" or "per source XYZ." Which is actually implementing Wikipedia policy. Nothing to do with geometrical convolutions. -The Gnome (talk) 10:57, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support Is this information well sourced? Yes. Is this an important aspect of the article subject (as demonstrated by reliable sources)? Yes. Is the proposed text short and written in a NPOV manner? Yes. Editorial decisions about what to include and what not (due weight) are one of the hardest tasks for an Wikipedia editor, because our own biases play a great role here. If I take my bias towards the article subject aside, the proposed addition is due for inclusion. Now if you excuse me, I will rather edit other articles than those about some American politician. Pavlor (talk) 06:27, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support as per The Gnome. Also, as a  Comment:, it appears that most "Oppose" !votes are along the lines of "it wasn't actually a big deal"; "it was just a photo-op"; or (arguably the worst one) "it's already been decided". The first two are either the editor's subjective view of it, or a very weak WP:SYNTH providing sources about the state of conflict and implying significance through that. As for the "There's already consensus", the only marked RfCs provided aren't what I would say are landslide consensus; Consensus can change, to try and shut down an RfC only because a razor-thin consensus was formed over 2 years ago, especially seeing the engagement in the current discussion, seems short-sighted and against the ethos of Wikipedia. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 21:25, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support honestly it is absurd to me how people so obsessed with hating on Donald Trump (I obviously dislike him as well, but most of this talk page is just trying to bash him) are going to pretend as if this is not something worth including in the article. It was historic in creating new economic, military, and political ties between not only Israel and the countries it signed with, i.e. United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco (which merits inclusion as well), but also nations like Saudi Arabia that are beginning to have more open relationships with Israel. If this doesn't merit inclusion as substantial foreign policy, I don't see how recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights is somehow more relevant even though this changed quite literally 0 foreign relations with Israel, including our own. I fully agree that this may not be the best wording of the proposal, but if anything that is because it should mention more about how expansive the agreement is. It is hilarious to me for editors to claim that the negotiations were not a result of Trump even though it is clear to any foreign policy observer that the Accords would not have occurred under any other president. You cannot both dislike Trump for being too pro-Israel (e.g. Jerusalem/Golan recognition) and also act like he was not the reason for this deal occurring. Bill Williams 23:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  Bill, most of what is written in the so-called Accords predates Trump's presidency or even his candidacy. Are you aware of that? SPECIFICO talk 23:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  And the recognition of Jerusalem was "written" into U.S. law for over 20 years before Trump actually followed through with what Congress required. It is irrelevant if negotiations had been underway for a long time, and if people had "written" anything before, the actual agreement went absolutely nowhere until Trump made them a priority. The normalization of relations was under Trump and because of Trump, and clearly that is notable for an article about Trump. Bill Williams 23:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

  No, it's not that there were talks underway and Trump closed the deal. Read the RS reporting. The relations were already in place. And this poll has nothing to do with Jerusalem. SPECIFICO talk 00:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  You fail to understand a basic point in response to your irrelevant mention of previous "relations," which is that it does not matter if they had been negotiated previously, if those negotiations went nowhere. Relations are official recognition between two countries, which didn't exist. There were no military and economic ties between the two countries. So you are mentioning some minor, under the table cooperation, meanwhile there is now billions of dollars in public deals being made. To compare these two is not a reasonable analysis of foreign policy, like saying if Taiwan declared independence and formed relations with the U.S. it wouldn't be substantial because we already had informal relations. Bill Williams 15:24, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Sounds like you don't think there is such a thing as premarital relations. Well, fine. SPECIFICO talk 19:08, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose change/support status quo. This seems to be a lot of fuzz and hot air about not much. This conversation is so far off the level of what a reasonable Wikipedia metric should be for inclusion. Does anyone have sources that the Abraham Accords are a significant accord in Arab-Israeli conflict history? Or are they simply the most recent accord that we happen to be talking about, and because it's Trump the man, we're having an, as usual, extremely overblown, self-obsessed, narcissistic, cartoon animal circus performer carnival barker huxter showman go of it? If someone will respond to this comment with a succinct, 3 sentence, maybe 4 sentence exposition of a specific source or 2 that states that Abraham Accords was 1) relevant to Trump's personal biography as pertaining to major presidential accomplishments and something he plans to run on or make central to his personal story, 2) relevant to historian or biographer views of importance to Trump's life or presidency, and 3) relevant to the Arab-Israeli conflict history, or some combination of 2/3, I will change my view. Andre🚐 00:05, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Andrevan: This meets at least prong 2 and 3. See my NPR source above saying the Accords were a key element of Trump's Middle East policy (prong 1) and marked a noted change in relations between the signatories (prong 3). Here's Politico calling the ceremony hosted by Trump "historic". Here's a scholarly piece that says "this event marked the most important foreign policy accomplishment of President Trump's term in office and doubled the number of Arab states recognizing Israel." Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 07:53, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  You are not addressing the issues under dispute: What is so important about the media staging that it should be added to this page. What sources credit this to Trump personally or any personal involvement other than the bolstering of his family's post-presidency financial wellbeing? SPECIFICO talk 19:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Did you actually read that Politico piece? It's all political puffery and campaign drivel by Trump and his flaks. Not to mention the ignorant and casual, now tragic, statement that this media event would pressure a settlement with the Palestinians. SPECIFICO talk 08:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, I agree with SPECIFICO about the Politico piece. That piece is from 2020 and it's a bit of a puff piece. It works fine for factual accuracy and for information that tells us what happened that day. Ie, it's more of a primary source (not a fully primary source, but not a great secondary analysis). The Fred Lazin 2023 is closer to what I had in mind. In my view that satisfies my argument of point 2. So, Iamreallygoodatcheckers, I am going to give you point 2. However we still don't have 1 or 3, in my view. Andre🚐 01:21, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Why does NPR not satisfy prong 1? It's dated to 2022. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 01:43, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  It satisfies point 2 - importance to Trump's presidency. Not point 1 that it's part of his biographical story or something he personally intends to run on or make part of his personal story. Also, it's more of a contemporary piece about Biden than an article about Trump's presidential biography. Andre🚐 01:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  "In addition, this accomplishment is quite personal for President Trump and his closest family." - Marshall Center This scholarly source also reiterates the fact reported in multiple reliable source -- secondary, academic, etc. -- that the Accords are considered to be a significant foreign policy achievement during the Trump Administration. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 04:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Think tanks are not what we consider "scholarly sources". Once again you beg the question -- Donald Trump vs. "Trump Administration". SPECIFICO talk 16:10, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Hmm. That one is getting close, Iamreallygoodatcheckers. Its actual subject in the next 2 sentences is Trump's family member, Jared Kushner. If we had a little more insight into Kushner's relationship with Trump and the Abraham Accords, I will give you point 1. Maybe in Kushner's or Ivanka's book, even. Andre🚐 04:32, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed, if AA ends up in this article, we would also need to contextualize with the personal business interests of Trump/Kushner - which have been an integral part of mainstream RS discussion and ongoing coverage of their mideast activities. SPECIFICO talk 16:13, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  The sentiment in this discussion (and past ones) has been that Kushner's involvement has been an argument to say "it has nothing do with Trump then." When in reality, as seen in the source, the success of the Accords is personal to Trump the man as it's related to family and his son-in-law. Do what you will with that narrative in the Marshall source. To me, the fact that this is significant to his presidency, which is intrinsically part of his own legacy, is sufficient for the one sentence. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 05:03, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'm actually saying the opposite. I'm saying if there was some information about how Trump and Kushner talked about the Abraham Accords specifically, beyond what's in the Marshall source which certainly suggests it but is a little vague, that would be enough for me to tip it into the personal column and satisfy why it belongs here. Something about how Trump's relationship with Kushner and the Accords were related to his personal life or biography, absolutely makes it relevant in my view, and is not an argument against including this. Andre🚐 06:30, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Trump announced in 2017: "We want to create peace between Israel and the Palestinians." Because: "It is something that I think is frankly, maybe, not as difficult as people have thought over the years." How: appoint his real estate developer son-in-law to make the deal. Kushner's bold new plan recycled the 1979 Drobles Plan to surround Palestinian towns with Jewish settlements, creating little "bantustans". Kushner, the "architect of the recently released U.S. Israeli-Palestinian peace plan", called it "Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Israeli and Palestinian People". Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 18:34, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  I also think the Accords meet the 2nd and 3rd criteria. For 2, it will be hard to provide opinions from biographers and historians, since those will pretty much be found in newer books, which aren't freely accessible - but Foreign Policy sees the Accords as notable enough to mention in their overall analysis of Trump's presidency, and it's hard to get more credible than FP on the internet. For 3, here's at least Responsible Statecraft and The Intercept discussing the impact of the Accords in the Middle East, especially as they relate to the current war in Gaza. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:44, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  The Foreign Policy link is thin sauce. A brief article that quotes one person's lukewarm opinion and attributes nothing to Trump's personal actions. You ignore the issue that's been agreed to be the deciding factor -- is this relevant to Trump personally and not his bio. And as a thought experiment, look at how slimly we attribute the one million American COVID deaths to Trump personally, even though many RS and scholarly studies attribute about half of those to his personal negligence or malice. SPECIFICO talk 19:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  I believe that the Responsible Statecraft and Intercepte piece definitely does go to point 3. We're getting somewhere. However, I think it probably still doesn't touch on point 1 and I'm not sure on point 2, as I agree it's a little on the thin side, but we I think satisfied point 2 above with the Lazin piece. However we still have a thin case for all three points. Feel free to continue. I consider point 1 largely untouched, and a solid punch on point 2 and one on point 3, so I'm still at an oppose for now. Andre🚐 01:25, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Respectfully, you said that if the Accords could be considered "relevant" to your criteria, that would be enough. Now it seems we need to get to "very relevant." Why do we need to demonstrate so much notability for a single sentence inclusion on this biography page, anyway? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:05, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Well, PhotogenicScientist, you summoned me here, so I'm offering you a chance to get my support for the proposal. If you'd rather, I can oppose on principle and throw up my hands and be intransigent. That's not really my style though, which is why I prefer thoughtful probing and engagement, or at least I am attempting to approximate something that can be described as such. I certainly think that there is a case being made and I will absolutely change my position if I judge it over my personal view of where the line lies. It's not an exact science, but an art. Andre🚐 04:34, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Could you explain your personal criteria more - why they would result in exclusion of the content? In your initial oppose, you seemed more concerned with the length or the substance or the character of the discussion itself than the proposed content. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  Well, it's all of that, the substance and the character to be sure, but also the length, but also the importance of it, but to me, if you're going to write in the header of "Donald Trump" that "Abraham Accords" is a primary aspect or chiefly associated with him, and not just padding his resume, we need to illustrate the 3-pronged test I laid out and honestly, it's closer than I thought it would be, since I probably have a prior belief that it is fluff. Is there a rejoinder to SpaceTime or shall we let it lie? Andre🚐 22:56, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  It's not going under any important "header" - it's going in the "Israel" subsection of the "Presidency" section of this article. Which in the grand scheme of things, is a rather small place to add a wikilink to an existing article. And honestly, I'm not sure what S4T3C2x is getting at with that comment. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 23:01, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  I wrote header, and I meant lead, that is just another brain fart. As you can tell, I have a few misfiring neurons at the moment. And that was going off the header of this talk section (opening section) which, at a glance, I misinterpreted - but my test still applies to the body, though much less stringently. Andre🚐 23:08, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

  If your test applies less stringently, do you still think the proposed sentence is not worth including in the body? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: (sigh) We are not here to debate the consequences, the outcome, or the developments following the Abraham Accords. We are not here either to discuss the notability of the Abraham Accords! That ship has sailed. A myriad of sources from across the planet testify in the affirmative. All we are here to discuss in this RfC is whether or not the suggested sentence merits a place in the Trump bio, section foreign policy, subsection Israel. That is all. It is quite sad to see people still arguing about the agreement's trivially established notability and denouncing it as a "media event." (As if there was ever in the modern era a significant agreement between nations that was not a "media event"!) If this had not happened during Trump's watch, with American mediation still "crucial" per the words of the signatories, I submit that no debate would be necessary, much less an RfC. So, can we please, pretty please, with sugar on top, get back to serious work? -The Gnome (talk) 10:49, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  If it were true that such White House media extavaganzas are commonplace, that would be exactly why we would not include one in a biography. Please don't be offended, Gnome, but notability is not at issue. I've addressed that above and yet you repeat it -- apparently without having scrutinized our highly flawed article page and sourcing on the event, so that you might offer substantive comment. Above, similarly, you asserted something or other about the Camp David Accords apparently without even the most basic knowledge of the subject. And now -- again -- you refer to the political promotion and ego gratification of the Trump orbit, extensively and near-exclusively quoted in the bulk of RS praise, as if that sad feckless abuse of Trump's office should be elevated by this encyclopedia. If we draw special attention to this media event, it opens the door to RS discussions of the Trump-Kushner family's personal interests in the mideast, to the spectacle of a command performance that showcased Netanyahu and Trump, two leaders on thin ice politically, now on the verge of imprisonment, and a document that contrived an unnecessary bonus signature line for Trump to deploy his Sharpie. If this ceremony is added to the article, its context must also be added for NPOV, unduly lengthening the content and violating WEIGHT. SPECIFICO talk 13:04, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Still fighting the good fight, I see, to denigrate the established significance of the Abraham Accords. singatories to it call it a "game changer" but Wikipedia editors know better, I guess. -The Gnome (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Easy boys, no fighting in the war room. Andre🚐 01:27, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  One boy (maybe) and a girl named Clark, rumor has it. "Easy guys" works better. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure why I wrote boys, the quote I think is "gentlemen" Andre🚐 01:52, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room". Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 13:30, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose not a meaningful foreign relations accomplishment and of no importance to Donald personally, also contemporary sources that lauded it as a grand accomplishment should be consigned to the same dustbin assigned to Dewey Defeats Truman. with a few years to assess the impact, the present day opinion is quite different. It’s Time to Scrap the Abraham Accords, Assessing the Abraham Accords, Three Years On. ValarianB (talk) 13:55, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  The Abraham Accords, per the myriad of sources out there, a small sample of which I quoted above, have been extremely significant. They are still being cited in Mid East analyses. Present opinion only affects the assessment of what the Accords achieved or didn't achieve; not their notability. Once notable, always notable. The Munich Accords, which failed miserably in their objective, are thankfully still in Wikipedia. There must be better arguments our there than the one abt throwing the agreement to the "dustbin." Start an AfD proposal for the Abraham Accords and see how that goes. -The Gnome (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  and I quoted sources to say they were not significant. please don't misrepresent the sourcing in a contentious topic, that does not lead to good outcomes. also, no one mentioned notability here, so kindly do not fabricate what i said. ValarianB (talk) 20:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Now, Mr. Gnome, in addition to your strangely uninformed comments about the history of Mideast diplomacy and peace accords, you again demonstrate that you do not attend to the difference between WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NPOV, the latter of which is under discussion and the former of which is irrelevant to this discussion. SPECIFICO talk 19:11, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support Significant signing of Abraham Accords should be at least mentioned once on this page somewhere given its impact and forms part a key part of his administration's foreign policy in the region.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:35, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - This article is 428k (!!!). This doesn't rise to the level of significance of the information already in there. We should be pruning specific details of his administration, not adding more. Regarding arguments like key part of his administration's foreign policy in the region - yes, that's why it's covered in multiple articles already. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:15, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

  Word. That was the intent of consensus #37, which has proven to be too vague to be very effective. On the other hand, the article is the same size as in May 2019, so it could be worse. Watch what happens as we approach the 2024 election, and keep watching if he gets re-elected. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:45, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  The article will keep growing regardless of the election outcome or the outcome of his 4-5 major prison-sentence-carrying trials and sentencings, and of course, he will eventually die as well and the article will grow even more to cover that event and its legacy. And along the way we should, as Rhododendrites says, cut stuff that hasn't stood the test of time - but in my view, now is not the time to cut stuff. Andre🚐 01:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Size of the article has been brought up in past discussions, but not here yet. The article currently is ~428k bytes, and the Presidency section is ~223k. The addition being proposed weighs in at 154 bytes. This would represent a 0.069% expansion of the Presidency section, and a 0.036% expansion of the article.

  Is so minor an addition really a good enough reason to completely exclude all mention of the Accords in this article? Especially considering the other arguments above to their notability, or their relevance to Trump's presidential legacy? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  If this article were expanded by that teensy amount for everything on the page that's mentioned, or adjacent to, a WP:NOTABLE topic, the article would bloat up bigger than the Hindenburg. I note that your last sentence ignores the arguments and concerns presented in opposition of the inclusion. SPECIFICO talk 15:22, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  It's true that the article's bloat largely results from hundreds or thousands of applications of exactly that "it's just a little bit" logic. We don't say a lot about anything (much). By the way, the proposed addition would increase the Israel subsection's word count by 52%. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:33, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  And of course fans of Internet Irony will recall that it is OP of this goofball RfC, @Onetwothreeip: who has often called for cuts of significant detail from the page merely due to the overall page length.#Mandrusstotherescue. SPECIFICO talk 17:27, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Not helpful. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:21, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  Also not true. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:04, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  The only way to address the bloat is to change the fundamental nature of what we include in this top-level biography, which is about the man not the president. That was the goal of #37, but it has been met with resistance from editors, both regulars and drive-bys, who view the article as a political battleground and want their viewpoints placed where they have the highest visibility. They don't care (and/or understand) much about good article structure, size issues, etc., so here we are.

  (And #37 takes a piecemeal approach, not the slash-and-burn that would be required. As written, we would have to conduct protracted discussion about each little removal. That would be entirely impractical and it would take decades to achieve the goal.) ―Mandruss ☎ 19:47, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  One problem with this "not one more byte" approach, and drawing a hard line here, is that editors will likely to continue coming here asking why the Abraham Accords aren't mentioned. Or why any other single piece of content couldn't be added to the Trump article. I fully agree with you, consensus item #37 should be used judiciously to keep the Presidency section of this article summary-level and a manageable size. And by and large, the section here could and should be trimmed. However, the omission of even a single sentence of this particular presidential event strikes me as incredibly odd. The more notable stuff can stay - the rest can go (to another article). But how are the Accords not notable enough to include? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:08, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

  how are the Accords not notable enough to include? If you're asking me specifically, I haven't taken a position and don't intend to. I use my semi-retirement as an excuse, but in truth I never got much into such political-content issues anyway. See my UTP for my full reply, which went very meta very early. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:50, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose With Gaza being bombed daily, touting Trump's "achievements" in securing peace in the Middle East would now seem farcical. There are much more important matters to be added to the lead, such as the looming plans for a 2025 Trump dictatorship and the end of American democracy. 67.82.74.5 (talk) 11:07, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

  No one here uses this information as a means to promote (or "tout") a Trump "achievement." I'd be among the first to object to such an attempt! The Accords were signed during Trump's watch and this alone makes them unquestionably worthy of mention in the prez section. As to developments after the signing, these are not for us to judge. We are not here to make assessments but to relay information based on sources. And a veritable avalanche of sources proclaimed at the tine the Accords as "quite significant," a "game changer," etc. If, like the Munich Accords, the aims and the expectations of the Abaham Accords were not met, this takes nothing away from the event's notability. -The Gnome (talk) 14:43, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  P.S. your suggestions about inserting in the article Trump's plans for a dictatorship are a clear case of a biased approach to Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is not a forum for promoting political ideology. -The Gnome (talk) 14:43, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  The AccordsOrders to repaint Air Force Onewere signed during Trump's watch and this alone makes them unquestionably worthy of mention in the prez section. -- Agree or disagree. You're baiscally just saying that your view is obviously correct. SPECIFICO talk 18:43, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  Sounds like WP:OTHERSTUFF. And Gnome has already extensively explained above why they believe the Accords are worthy of mention. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:19, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  Gnome has extensively shared his view, and what you call "otherstuff" refutes it. SPECIFICO talk 20:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'd hardly consider your single counterexample here a refutation of Gnome's position, which they've detailed not only in this comment but numerous ones above. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:01, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

  Do you have enough sources that support the claim that repainting Air Force One was a "significant", "game-changing" development in History? For which, the United States as an entity played a "crucial part"? Because these are some of the words used in the sources I already provided, and in detail too, in this thread! Sources whose content, in every response you since made, you have chosen to ignore. You simply paint over them a generic, unsubstatiated dismissal. And now you take the path of denigration, e.g. that I'm just saying my view is correct. This is a truly sad state of affairs. -The Gnome (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support This received significant coverage and is a slam dunk for due inclusion in this biography. It is not our our job to decide if the the event was useful or a PR campaign. That's too much like original research. This part of the presidency is significant enough to be mentioned here. Nemov (talk) 14:11, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support This is something that has perhaps taken on more significance and garnered more coverage from RS in the years after the fact. It's an enduring part of his presidential legacy and should be mentioned.LM2000 (talk) 16:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Survey (continued)

• The closure of the above discussion was contested at AN, where I found consensus to reopen the RfC. Please continue discussing. Sandstein 10:41, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose not a meaningful foreign relations accomplishment and of no importance to Donald personally. This article is already quite weighty and could do with some consolidation rather than coat-tailing. TarnishedPath^talk 10:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support We have an entire article on this, so the idea that this is "not a meaningful foreign relations accomplishment" is IMO a terrible argument. It clearly passed the notability guidelines to have its own, in fact quite lengthy, article. It's less clear that it can be credited to Trump personally rather than his administration, but that doesn't matter, because we regularly mention things a president's administration did in their articles. There are enough sources on this that it is very much WP:DUE to have at least a short mention of it in Trump's article. Loki (talk) 20:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@LokiTheLiar: I just started to go through that article and think it may have been plagiarized from or by one of the people involved in the Accords. See my remarks at the Abraham Accords talk page. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 17:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support - noticed I was pinged when I logged in though I'm quite inactive now so I don't expect my opinion to be given the weight of those who may be more versed in recent policy changes. The Abraham Accords are generally considered one of, if not the most, significant foreign policy achievements of Trump's presidency. Other presidential articles do not distinguish between things that the president directly did versus major achievements that they took major part in directing their staff to achieve. As one example, Barack Obama has multiple paragraphs about his foreign policy that merely review what his staff did or tried to do under his direction. Go back even further and you'll see that this follows at every president's article for which we have reliable sourcing as to who did what. Ultimately, people saying it's not relevant to Donald personally should consider that it is, as he considers it one of his biggest achievements while in office (especially since he never forced Mexico to "pay for the wall"). Great deference needs to be given to precedent at other articles here such that Wikipedia isn't being viewed as withholding achievements from one President's biography just because editors have a bias against it being "significant" enough, or because the President didn't "have a big enough impact on the actions". Overall, this is no different than how I viewed before - the only reason not to include it here without also refactoring every other biography of a president on Wikipedia is because people think it makes Trump look good (which it doesn't) and want to avoid making him look any semblance of good on his biography. In other words, bias. I likely won't be able to reply to replies here as I am virtually never on WP anymore, but I think my view is clear based on my past inputs to this topic and hopefully I've explained my view well enough above. I'm sure someone who wants to can feel free to add links to policies/essays that support this view - as many did above and as I did in past discussions. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:16, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support - User Berchanhimez ("User/say hi!") nailed the reason for opposition with perfect accuracy: the only reason not to include it here...is because people think it makes Trump look good (which it doesn't) and want to avoid making him look any semblance of good on his biography. Exclusion of content on the basis of partisan feelings and home-brewed assessment of events flagrantly violates Wikipedia policy on neutrality and original research.

Supporters in this discussion have extensively documented reports and commentary in RS that characterize the Accords as important, significant, ground-breaking, etc. Opposers parry with dismissive personal evaluations and analysis, and so far, to my knowledge, have not offered a single specific RS citation that supports their dismissive views. However, even if opposers can show multiple RS that support their views, such documentation would only further confirm the overall noteworthiness of the Accords that BAL and NPOV tell us justifies inclusion of this single sentence. The idea that a single sentence about the signing violates NPOV is absurd on its face.

This article misses no opportunity to describe and document negative aspects of the Trump presidency in a panoply of topics, whether in policy contradictions or adverse results and responses to actions, initiatives and policies. This event—signing of the Accords with Trump as MC—could be construed as a rare positive that happened during his term, and thus it remains a target for exclusion. My support for inclusion is unrelated to anything I think about Trump; it is based on the fundamental working of Wikipedia: we are prohibited from determining inclusion or exclusion of content based on our politically biased feelings about people or our personal analysis of events. We are mandated to determine content based on descriptions in reliable sources, while applying the principles of due weight and balance. By those measures, inclusion of the sentence is a no-brainer, and always has been.

While I'm at it, I offer the following modification of the sentence proposed by the RFC to relate the issue directly to Trump, who is the subject of this article:

"In 2020 at the White House, Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords, normalizing the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain." DonFB (talk) 05:12, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support - The Abraham Accords themselves are very well covered by scholarship [48], but the test for inclusion here (WP:BALASP) is whether the sources for this article -- a biography of Trump -- include this as a significant aspect. The sources for this article are biographies of Trump. Abraham Accords was in 2020, and I was only able to find one post-2020 biography of Trump (by a reliable publisher), which is Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America by Maggie Haberman. She mentions Abraham Accords on p. 427. It's a small sample size but it's good enough for me, for now. When more biographies of Trump are published, if they don't mention the Abraham Accords, then I'd vote to exclude it. But for now, include. I'm not particularly wedded to the specific language propsoed, but the Abraham Accords should be mentioned/linked somewhere where the article talks about Trump's Israel/Palestine foreign policy. Levivich (talk) 17:24, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  Kudos for checking a source that is not contemporaneous news and punditry. We need to be doing a lot more of that here. But Haberman mentions hundreds of events, incidents, and initiatives related to Trump that are not NPOV DUE for this article page. It's helpful to review our Abraham Accords page and see how weakly even that page content is sourced to independent third party references and how the best sources there, AP et al, covered the personal connection to Trump as one of his many promotional extravaganzas. We could include that NPOV framing on this page, but it's best IMO to draw on the RS that discuss his promotional prowess and proclivities more generally instead of recounting various otherwise UNDUE instances. SPECIFICO talk 17:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, and I agree about looking more at high-quality Trump bios rather than punditry to determine NPOV, but I disagree that "Haberman mentions hundreds of events, incidents, and initiatives related to Trump that are not NPOV DUE for this article page" -- in fact, I think that's exactly backwards. What's DUE (or what's an WP:ASPECT that should be included) is determined by what's in the sources. If it's in the sources, it should be included in the Wikipedia article. All Trump biographies include hundreds of events, etc., and those should all be included in Wikipedia's Trump biography, because it's a summary of the other Trump biographies. Any event, fact, etc. that is in multiple (or most) Trump biographies should be in the Wikipedia biography. With a relatively recent fact -- like 2020's Abraham Accords -- we don't really have a lot of recent Trump biographies to look at... but in this case, 1 out of 1 Trump biography includes it, so we should include it. If it was 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4, I'd say the same (and same for any other fact that was in 2/3 or 3/4 of Trump bios... same for any other bio, or any other article on Wikipedia). Levivich (talk) 19:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  But to winnow the hundreds of mentions times dozens of high-quality books and articles, i.e. many thousands of bits - hundreds of which may arguably be NOTABLE for their own WP articles - we need substantial emphasis in numerous such high quality mainstream sources. That's not been offered here. Instead we have lots of !votes by (frankly, sorry) less widely-read editors who do not demonstrate that such a test has been met. I'd be in favor of more general coverage of Trump's highly effective promotion and his staging of numerous spectacles and illusions, of which this was one instance. SPECIFICO talk 19:21, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  Personally I don't think NPOV says the standard is substantial emphasis but rather proportionality. I wouldn't suggest we have an entire section for the Accords, as that would not be in proportion to the RSes. But the proportion of RSes (post-2020 Trump bios) that include the Accords is 100% (albeit that's a small sample size, 1 out of 1). That source spends a paragraph on it; in my view, that's a very minimal amount, and suggests this Wikipedia article should include it, but in a minimal way, i.e., one sentence or less. In my view it could be just "Trump's foreign policy initiatives included X, Y, Z, and the Abraham Accords" -- just a few words. But more than zero. Levivich (talk) 19:27, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well, it certainly looks as though we’re heading toward proclaiming that the WH/Trump's hosting normalized the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Sigh. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 19:50, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  There's nothing stopping you from gathering scholarly articles about the Accords from Google Scholar and demonstrating that "normalizing the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain" is not an accurate summary of the scholarship, if that's the case. For my part, I'd support inclusion of it merely in a list of foreign policy initiatives, or any sentence that accurately summarizes the cited RSes (which should be scholarship, of which there is plenty). Levivich (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  1 out of 1 is, respectfully, useless. Cessaune [talk] 03:32, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think we're up to 3 out of 3 now, with two more sources mentioned by other editors below. Levivich (talk) 05:22, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  It wasn't an American initiative. The Emiratis proposed it, using Jared as the messenger to Netanyahu. SPECIFICO talk 04:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'd upgrade my vote to a "strong support" based on the additional sources put forward since my initial vote. I still think the most weight should be given to sources that are biographies of Trump (not about his presidency) written after 2020 (when the Abraham Accords happened). However, there are very few such books--maybe just one, Haberman's, which spends a paragraph on it. Since then, the following additional sources have been mentioned in this discussion:

  1. The Divider, a book about his presidency, spends most of a chapter on it (starting on p. 504)
  2. I Alone Can Fix It, a book about the last year of his presidency, spends about 2 pages on it (pp. 269-271) (and calls it "a rare foreign-policy achievement")
  3. Foreign Policy from Sept 2022 did a retrospective, calling it "arguably one of the Trump administration’s few foreign-policy achievements"
  4. This WaPo column today mentions Trump's foreign policy on Israel ("Trump’s policy on Israel, meanwhile, amounted to ..."), and it lists the following things: support for Bibi, recognizing Jerusalem, closing the Palestinian consulate, and the Abraham Accords. Donald Trump#Israel only mentions two of those things.

  Seems clear that the post-2020 sources consider the Abraham Accords a significant aspect of his presidency, specifically his foreign policy, specifically his Israel foreign policy. It's an WP:ASPECT that should be included in the Israel section of his bio (and the "lasting test" of consensus 37 is demonstrated by the fact sources are still writing about it years later). Levivich (talk) 19:54, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

"Bibi" refers to Netanyahu. See my reply to Malerisch on consensus 37. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:44, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose More than enough about them at Foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration, not needed here, especially as Morocco wasn't really much of an accord and Sudan turned out to be a damp squib. Selfstudier (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  Your approach is at odds with the current consensus (see item #37 above) regarding presidential material on this article - "Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy." Just because it is covered in another article does not mean any mention is "not needed" here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support per Levivich. In addition to Confidence Man, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017–2021 (2022) by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser contains a detailed discussion of the Abraham Accords in Chapter 26: Secretary of Everything (pages 505 to 524), so it's hard to believe that this is so insignificant an aspect of Trump's presidency that it shouldn't be mentioned. Yes, The Divider is a book about Trump during his presidency rather than his entire life, but articles about US presidents should absolutely cover the major events of their presidency (about half of Confidence Man is devoted to Trump's presidency), and these books show that the Abraham Accords meet that bar. Malerisch (talk) 23:03, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  The Baker/Glasser book you cited does not take 20 pages on the Abraham Accords. Have you seen the book or just the linked googlized preview? And the discussion that does appear in that book is mocking the signing as a hamfistedly staged political event by Trump trailing in the election polls. Context matters, NPOV etc. SPECIFICO talk 15:33, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  I have access to the entire book. At the very least, pages 505 to 507 and 519 to 524 are directly about the Abraham Accords, and many of the pages between those two sections are about related information (Kushner and Israel). I think that's enough coverage for at least a sentence about the Accords to be WP:DUE, especially since I'm not aware of any other comparable RSes (besides Confidence Man) whose scope covers at least the entire Trump presidency. To be fair, Baker and Glasser seem to have a mixed appraisal of the Accords—they call it both a genuine breakthrough in the region and far less significant than the peace agreement Trump had promised to forge between Israel and the Palestinians. And I think their view of the Accords is less relevant for WP:BALASP than how much coverage it gets.

  I get the argument about Trump's lack of personal involvement—as the book notes (and as Space4Time3Continuum2x quoted below), Trump was no more involved in this foreign policy achievement than he had been in his big domestic policy initiative, the first-year tax cuts. However, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act not only gets a whole paragraph in this article but is also mentioned in the lead, so it's odd for the Abraham Accords to go unmentioned. Malerisch (talk) 18:29, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act not only gets a whole paragraph in this article - the paragraph (four sentences, plus the first one in the next paragraph about the tax cut’s effect on the national debt) is the summary-level text on a policy that had a huge impact domestically. "Summary-level" does not mean we have to restrict mention to one sentence for the purpose of providing a Wikilink to another page. Summary-level on the Accords, IMO, needs to state what they are, what Trump falsely claimed they were, and what their actual impact was. That’s at least three sentences and should include at least one post-October 7 cite. The arguments for inclusion in previous discussions started and ended with his biggest foreign policy achievement. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support inclusion. Saw this due to AN and the strange earlier closure. The argument that the Abraham Accords were a lot of hot air is a non-starter - so what? Even if we accept they were indeed a nothingburger, for the sake of argument, plenty of things that are irrelevant distractions can be worthy enough to include if they're discussed enough. See Ford's Whip inflation now buttons for a particularly egregious example — which is indeed covered in the Gerald Ford article. SnowFire (talk) 23:04, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm in agreement with this point. The fact that something failed/had little impact (which in this case hasn't even been adequately demonstrated) is irrelevant. Cessaune [talk] 23:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and these were significant foreign policy accomplishments. They should be mentioned in the article. Not persuaded that they belong in the lead. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support It should be mentioned in the article because he was president at the time. Whether or not you support Trump, this an important event that occurred during his presidencey that should be included in the interest of accuracy. Coalcity58 (talk) 16:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  By that standard, we would also mention the solar eclipse and dozens of other ceremonies and events. SPECIFICO talk 18:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think it's clear from CC58's remarks, he meant that it was a component of his presidency. An eclipse was not and is awfully pedantic. Buffs (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  I guess you haven't seen all the RS reporting on the eclipse. SPECIFICO talk 17:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support inclusion per the above, Levivich and others + my remarks at WP:AN. The Accords were a notable component of his presidency initiated at his direction. WP:BADGERing from some needs to cease. Buffs (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose; the standard for inclusion in the personal biography of a president is extremely high and this just doesn't make it; there's insufficient coverage from neutral high-quality WP:RSes supporting the idea that this is significant to Trump's personal biography. This is the sort of blow-by-blow nitty-gritty detail that belongs on the dedicated page for his presidency, not here. I want to particularly emphasize how paltry and unconvincing the list of sources presented by The Gnome above is; first they link WP:INVOLVED parties touting their own action, then a truly massive number of think-tanks, where only the most WP:BIASED ones actually use language describing it as significant, and finally, tepidly, a mere three (!) news sources; and again, the only one of those to actually describe it in particularly significant terms is the WP:BIASED Jerusalem Post. The New York Times source is useless because the only part Gnome could find that (even then, tepidly) made the accords sound significant was the word "major" in the headline, which is unusable per WP:HEADLINES; and the best they could find from the Washington Post doesn't say anything about significance at all. Now, are biased sources sometimes usable? Sure. But for WP:DUE weight in particular, it is extremely important to not rely heavily on sources biased in a single direction in order to try and argue for inclusion. The fact that someone who seems to have been making their best honest effort to find sources that could be used to support inclusion could only come up with that paltry and unconvincing list and had to rely so heavily on WP:BIASED sources to pad it out it serves as the best argument available that the sourcing that would support the necessary level of importance to include this in Trump's personal bio simply doesn't exist. --Aquillion (talk) 09:36, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
• Support: Per WP:N and WP:RELEVANT. (Abraham Accords) The action is supposed to lead to significant collaborative, (§ Aftermath) economic, (§ Economic impact) and environmental (§ Environmental impact) impact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Urropean (talk • contribs) 15:55, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
• Support. First of all, it's legit. Lots of things happen that the president did not personally work on. Presidents are busy. They get credit and discredit for things that happen on their watch. Dumb, but true, let's not make an exception here. Second, everybody here hates Donald Trump so let's bend over backwards to be fair. We all have biases that we may not even be aware of. Check your personal ideologies at the door. I note that Operation Warp Speed is apparently not even mentioned on this page. Good grief. Warp Speed was real successful, got a vaccine earlier than expected, saved many lives, and it was on his watch. Not only that, but I believe he even had something to do with with it. He put pressure on the FDA to speed it thru I suppose. He did sign the order to sell only in America first. Yeah I know about drinking the bleach and the cruise ship denial and how he later turned anti-mask and I think anti-vax and all the other stuff. Hitler built good roads, should we not mention that just because he's Hitler? Warp Speed not being in here makes me suspicious that the article is biased anyway. Which I would not be surprised but I wouuld be dissapointed. (Also FWIW IIRC thes accords were the reason Hamas attacked Israel, to mess them up, probably. So, super important in history). Herostratus (talk) 05:27, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

It seems to me that as we have not had an RFC on this there is no harm in having one. Slatersteven (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree. GoodDay (talk) 16:03, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I really don't understand the strong opposition to starting one. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 04:47, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The objections were stated quite clearly above, so whether you understand is not really the issue here. SPECIFICO talk 16:11, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I opposed starting it when there were like eight editors involved and only two of them (one, the OP, had not respoonded to pings and seems to have abandoned the discussion) supported addition. Cessaune [talk] 14:13, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

As I pointed out, there had been many discussions prior to this one in the last 1.5 years. All considered, this issue attracted 25 editors (14 supporting and 11 opposing), though not in a centralized discussion. An RFC seemed a good way to get everyone in one place and hash out consensus. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:49, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I consider each discussion on its own merits. It's fine if you want to look at the whole history, and you may be on to something there, but, at least on this specific talkpage, no one has ever done that as long as I've been here. Cessaune [talk] 15:14, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging other users who've voiced an opinion on this in one of the 5 recent(ish) talk page threads. Feel free to disregard: @Bob K31416 @GoodDay @Bill Williams @Chrismorey @Andrevan @Anon0098 @Pavlor @Berchanhimez @Szmenderowiecki @Chrisahn @HAL333 @Firefangledfeathers @CrazyPredictor @ValarianB @Calton @Pincrete @Symmachus Auxiliarus @Soibangla PhotogenicScientist (talk) 05:02, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

being pinged to Talk:Donald Trump is no courtesy ;-) Andre🚐 05:54, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I just spit out my coffee, Andre. ~ HAL333 15:49, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

"Civilized life cannot be sustained without hypocrisy." Ian Buruma, courtesy of Merriam-Webster. Space4Time3Continuum2x (cowabunga) 16:47, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Example of what's being ignored In ascribing due weight to article content, we need to examine sourcing and substance of any supporting references. this citation from our WP Abraham Accords page is a case in point. The claim of Trump's involvement, published in RS, turns out to be one of Trump's own coterie making that claim. What support !voters should be doing is to back up their view with independent third-party assessments that Trump personally facilitated any of these arrangements. While it's verified that he staged this White House event -- even though US was not a signatory to anything and the photo shows him standing empty-handed among the signatories -- the issue for this biography page is whether mentioning this inconsequential command performance in DC gives UNDUE weight and the misimpression that the accords themselves were due to Trump.And here is another RS, pointedly describing Trump's presence only in terms of a self-serving campaign promotion. SPECIFICO talk 16:20, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Here are the undeniable facts, as supported by sources, facts which oppose !voters should dispute with contrary sources: The Abraham Accords themselves, dated during Trump's presidency, were significant; the United States, during Trump's presidency, were involved in "weeks of intensive mediation to broker the final deal," per the exact words of the participating Israeli side (see here) [my emphasis]; and they were signed during Trump's presidency. And that is all that matters when it comes to have the Accords in this article, in a section about US foreign policy regarding Israel. -The Gnome (talk) 20:10, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

That is just repetition of various prior comments that do not address the central point made by numerous opponents of this gratuitous addition to the article: You have not provided affirmative sourcing that demonstrates the weight of mainstream views that Donald Trump personally did anything other than stage a media event and use his position as POTUS to insinuate his family and its interests into the signing of these largely ceremonial condifications of the previously-developed thaw in relations. In other words, quite contrary to your claim, you have failed to establish any case for WP:N. SPECIFICO talk 20:29, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Specifico, you are imposing your own standards. Nothing in our guidelines requires what you are demanding ("independent third-party assessments that Trump personally facilitated any of these arrangements") in order to mention it in a biography. As numerous people have pointed out, your standards are nonstandard for many heads of state including US Presidents. While I get that's what you want, it is not required. Buffs (talk) 19:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

The top of the executive chain in a presidential republic is ultimately responsible for everything that happens, good or bad, during his watch. (I already made a reference to where the buck stops but I guess it went unnoticed.) You invoke a non-existent argument. Even if president Reagan was minimally involved, or even not involved at all, with the formulation of the Star Wars plan, we'd still credit him for it in his biography. (Or debit him, as the case may be.) There is absolutely no need to demonstrate that "Donald Trump personally did anything". My emphasis. A cursory glance at presidents' bios here in Wikipedia shows that they correctly filled with info on events that the prez did little if anything "personally" about or for them. Which is why I commented that this whole teapot storm is about Trump, rather than the Abraham Accords. -The Gnome (talk)

No matter what the result of this RFC. We'll have that result, to use to shut down any further discussion on the matter, in the new year & beyond. GoodDay (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2023 (UTC) Some have brought up that adding the Accords, will go against attempts to shortened the BLP. If ya'll want to shorten this BLP? then remove the bits about Trump's 2024 campaign Fascism/Vermin content. GoodDay (talk) 17:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

There may well be a valid discussion to be had about what to remove to make this article more manageable. That is not however a good argument to add something., Slatersteven (talk) 17:59, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I hope then, that the too long/too short argument will be discontinued in this RFC. GoodDay (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Why? If someone thinks the article is already too long adding something makes that worse, thus is a valid argument for exclusion. Slatersteven (talk) 18:25, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Because, it would also be a valid argument, for the preceding discussion. GoodDay (talk) 18:28, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Per sources, and irrespective of my personal assessment of his performance, Donald Trump may possibly pass into History as the worst person to ever have served as U.S. president. I think the article may actually be short of what such a unique distinction merits. -The Gnome (talk) 12:37, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

What does this have to do with anything? Cessaune [talk] 16:44, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

TDS? Buffs (talk) 19:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Procedural oppose: I will try to address issues that I have noticed. The RFC is long so somewhat complicated to glean. Adding anything to the article, without addressing the elephant in the "article", means there really shouldn't have been a RFC at this time.

• 1)- Article needs reducing or splitting. It seems there are 17,466 words of readable prose. At 15,000 an article "Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed."
• 2)- The article has, including the short opening lead paragraph, seven paragraphs. Someone stated if the article is expanded then the lead would too. That is not actually true but even when the article was stretched to 16,000 words there should have been talks concerning size. I saw where this was mentioned but apparently ignored. However, the last paragraph in the MOS states: As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate, although it is common for citations to appear in the body and not the lead. Certainly there really should not be any more "expansion" considering the current size.
• 3)-The prominence and importance of the Abraham Accords is overshadowed somewhat by the Biden administration's use of "Normalization agreements", however, the aftermath of the Accords created several first in history so "should be in the article. Although important, I do not think the Accords are a "defining legacy" that should be in the opening paragraph of the BLP and certainly not before size is addressed. -- Otr500 (talk) 23:42, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm confused by your comment here... the RFC is about adding the proposed sentence to the Israel subsection of the foreign policy subsection, not the lead. If you think it should be in the article, that would be a "support." Also, you should move your message to the 'Survey' section above - this section isn't for bolded !votes, just discussion. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I've removed their initial bullet as this section is not a bulleted list. Per WP:REFACTOR I think any editor could move that to the Survey section, but per your comments it doesn't appear ready for prime time. And I think the ship has sailed for procedural opposes; the amount of participation to date constitutes acceptance of the RfC's existence. I think I've seen an RfC shut down once or twice in my 10 years here, despite many attempts to shut one down. There, that's three "I thinks" in four sentences, demonstrating my humility. :D ―Mandruss ☎ 06:22, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

@Otr500 would you mind clarifying your comment above? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@ PhotogenicScientist: Sorry but I have been sick. There were comments above, that include from the beginning opening statement in the "RfC for inclusion of Abraham Accords in article" section, A mention in the article body would be a prerequisite for inclusion in the lead., so is why I mentioned it. I can only surmise either you missed this, or I missed where is was deemed not to be

"a prerequisite for inclusion in the lead."

I actually find that inclusion, normally, should be allowed. However, there are issues that should have been resolved before the article was assessed B-class, and certainly before discussions and an RFC on adding yet more content.

On 6 December 2023 Slatersteven mentioned size. It was shot down by GoodDay because it seems size is only important in not important in a section that has the intent of adding yet more content.

I placed this in this section for a particular reason. I would support "EXCEPT" not in the present shape of the article.

I have no horse in the race and was (Summoned by bot). If my comments are not important then ignore them. -- Otr500 (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The only way in which the lead was mentioned was in reference to the way this whole Talk page thread was opened; the OP mentioned we should put a mention in the lead. The discussion evolved quite a ways since then. The RFC proposal, word for word, is: "Should the Israel subsection of the foreign policy subsection be updated to include the bolded sentence below?" This RFC is not about adding anything to the lead.

The concern about this article's size is a valid one, but imo carries less weight than appropriately describing an article subject, to which end I think a short sentence about these Accords would help. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:58, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, if the Accords had happened during the Biden Administration? I would've supported their addition at Joe Biden's page. GoodDay (talk) 09:01, 8 December 2023 (UTC) Report: Kushner involvement in Abraham Accords gives him inside track to be Secretary of State in second Trump administration

Nepotism. Reminds one of JFK's appointment of RFK as attorney general. GoodDay (talk) 16:07, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

What is the similarity. I see no RS that describe Jared as qualified for the role. Did you read the linked article? Are you unaware of RS accounts of RFK's qualifications and activities as Attorney General? SPECIFICO talk 16:44, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (continued)

Shouldn't this RfC be reopened IAW Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Restarting_an_RfC? The only people aware of the closing having been vacated are the editors involved in the complaint at AN, which wasn't mentioned on this Talk page until it had ended. And I only noticed Sandstein's edit because I went through the edit history looking for the reason the blue RfC was gone. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:58, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

No objections. GoodDay (talk) 15:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I have extended it two weeks. Nemov (talk) 16:17, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Maggie Haberman's mention of the Abraham Accords in her book "Confidence Man" was cited by Levivich above, as a reason for supporting inclusion. For everybody who was also denied access to the preview by Google Books, here are the 3.5 sentences mentioning the Accords (it's not an entire paragraph): Kushner was also forging ahead with an ambitious plan to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, known as the "Abraham Accords". Efforts to move forward with a broader peace deal had not succeeded, so Kushner pushed on other fronts. Advocates eventually viewed the Accords as a significant achievement, bringing change to the Middle East and refocusing alliances against the threat presented by Iran. (Kushner was aided on [sic] the effort by some of O'Brien's National Security Council Staff; coz Kushner was otherwise engaged, trying to get a security clearance. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 21:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC) Haberman cites this NYT article for "to normalize relations". Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 13:01, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for that. The book discusses Chief of Staff Kelly's efforts to corral Kushner's impotent efforts in the Mideast upon reviewing intelligence reports from multiple countries about how easily Kushner could be manipulated to their will. The Emirates' initiative to formalize their relationship with Israel is portrayed as having fallen into Jared's lap. There's no narrative of Trump's actions except to have the benefit of his ceremonial insinuation of himself to claim an achievement for his administration.

  Another high quality source is the Leonnig/Rucker book I alone can fix it (p.269 ff) which is dripping with disdain for the staging of the signing at the White House with Netanyahu, desperately trying to avoid Israeli prosecution for corruption, found the perfect partner in the presidential candidate Trump, who assembled an impressive horde for the show and deployed horns and cymbals. Trump announced that the Accords had laid the new foundations of Mideast peace, while a "witness" line was added to the official document to permit Trump to pitch himself as a signatory.

  See also, RE: Kushner positioning himself as Mideast peacemaker-w/o-security clearance here. SPECIFICO talk 23:03, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@Space4Time3Continuum2x and SPECIFICO: Your comments are misplaced in this section. Suggest moving them for the sake of organization, and you have my permission to remove this comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I defer to you or SpaceX to move both. SPECIFICO talk 00:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I would happily refactor, but I'm not going to guess which of four subsections was the intended context, or whether Space4T intended to reply to someone. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:01, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I misplaced my comments. They were intended for the Talk:Donald_Trump#Discussion_(continued) section (keeping in mind goodDay's "do not bludgeon or rebut in the 'survey' section") but, after reading the discussion at AN and the latest !votes, I'm going to move everything into a comment in the Talk:Donald_Trump#Survey_(continued) section. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:03, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Moved from Talk:Donald_Trump#A_reminder section. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:06, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding some excerpts from Baker/Glasser's The Divider, cited by Malerisch above. The chapter is about Kushner's Chickenman white-winged warrior exploits (he’s everywhere, he’s everywhere). Pg. 505: It is not the landmark agreement ending generations of conflict over the West Bank that he and Trump had promised, but in an unspeakably grim year of disease and domestic unrest it was by far the most tangible good news for the administration before the election. Trailing Joe Biden in the polls, the president wanted a splashy signing ceremony that September on the South Lawn, mimicking historic peace accords of the past to present himself as a transformational figure and maybe even revive his quixotic quest for a Nobel Peace Prize. (Only to be initially rebuffed by the First Lady’s office who didn’t want the newly re-sodded lawn trampled again so soon after it had been ruined by the GOP national convention.) Pg. 507: A the same time, the diplomatic normalizations were far less significant than the peace agreement Trump had promised to forge between Israel and the Palestinians, who were not invited and mentioned only in passing at the ceremony. For all his boasting, Trump made no more progress on that than any of his recent predecessors, and the Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement that he once boasted would not be "not as difficult as people have thought" turned out to be every bit as difficult as people thought. In fact, Trump arguably set the process back by giving away multiple bargaining chips to Israel without getting anything in return. Pg. 523: Unlike presidents who had been intensively hands-on during Middle East negotiations, Trump had left the details to Kushner and his team, no more involved in this foreign policy achievement than he had been in his big domestic policy initiative, the first-year tax cuts. But he was happy to swoop in now to take credit. Soon he would be touting it on the campaign trail as his shot at a Nobel Peace Prize.

It's easy for people to waltz in here, cite a book or two or nothing, and accuse other editors of bias. Trump is not a president like others before him. Yes, the "Abraham Accords" were mentioned in RS but how are we going to boil down even the short excerpts I cited and Specifico's paraphrase of Leonig/Rucker to summary-level per consensus #37? The proposed text, In 2020, the White House hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords, normalizing the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (still think this RfC was a good idea, Onetwothreeip?), doesn't do it. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Is anything in that quotation not true? (And, to make it duly personalized, the text should be modified to: "In 2020 at the White House, Trump hosted....") The event did happen under the aegis of the Trump presidency, did it not? The Accords did normalize relations between those specific countries, did they not? RSes reported these facts, did they not? People who want more context can follow the links and get it. We can't provide reams of context in this article section, because it's summary only, as has been explained ad nauseam. It's only editors who are bringing their political views to bear on Wikipedia who think this text should be excluded. Editors should leave their political analysis at the door before entering this site and endeavor to report facts straightforwardly without a heavy overlay of personal political bias, like: "sad feckless abuse of Trump's office"; "a document that contrived an unnecessary bonus signature"; "political promotion and ego gratification of the Trump orbit"; "Trump is not a president like others before him" (justifying special unbalanced politicized treatment by Wikipedia?); "photo shows him standing empty-handed among the signatories" (this is a new incisive method of research to determine what text to add or withhold?) DonFB (talk) 12:36, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Re Trump not being a president like others before him (no idea whom else you're quoting) is referring to the length and complexity of his bio and our size constraints. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 12:54, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for that clarification. The irony, if it's not already crushingly obvious, is that we do have a whole constellation of articles about Trump, covering every aspect of his life, and yet, a few editors think it's wrong or impossible to include a single sentence about a prominent reliably-sourced event in the precisely appropriate location in one of those articles. It's true that any given article should not be excessive in size; it's also true that this encyclopedia is not paper. DonFB (talk) 13:19, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

What you think you're disproving, you're actually proving further. Disengaging with this RfC may be advisable. Levivich (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not trying to disprove anything (venting, maybe). I provided quotes from cited sources that not every reader may have access to. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 13:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Further to SpaceX, if we decide to include the RfC text, we will also, per NPOV, need to contextualize it with ~5 times as much additional text about the political setting, the RS portrayals of the ceremonial contrivance, the pre-existing and post-accords mideast, etc. SPECIFICO talk 16:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

For this article, I feel like that'd be way too much detail to include - we'd start running afoul of WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE, wouldn't we? All that stuff can be found at the Abraham Accords article, which is wikilinked in the proposal. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

That's like, "Japan sank the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and later surrendered, ending World War II. See links for detail. SPECIFICO talk 17:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

NPOV says that we page editors must present the significant facts as represented by the weight of RS discussion of them. We can't just leave a link to point to another page. First, as happens to be the case with this content, the main AA page is in poor shape. Second, what's DUE for the primary topic page does not tell us what's DUE for a page that links in that direction. Context and framing matter. We are responsible for NPOV presentation to our readers. We don't get away with punting to another page. SPECIFICO talk 18:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, perhaps when this RFC ends, should it end in the affirmative to include any mention of the Abraham accords, we can move on to improving how exactly that gets implemented in the article. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:16, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT: Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 18:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

I see. And are you stipulating, or can you demonstrate, that the policy applies to every last topic mentioned in an article, as opposed to applying to the main subject of the article? Every event, action, speech, decision, etc that an article mentions must have its relevant context thoroughly explicated in the article? Very practical. Let's look at the application of your interpretation. In the Israel subsection of this article, the text states that "Under Trump, the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel". That bare bones text omits all the context about widespread opposition to that action, and omits all the context surrounding the intractable problem of the "final status for Jerusalem". You arbitrarily apply your interpretation of policy to a single matter, the Accords, as a convenient method of excluding what some, though not all, liberal pundits describe as a rare positive event in the Trump presidency. But even one such event is clearly one too many according to the editing pattern of a few contributors, some of whom in discussions like this, overtly and self-righteously express their profound political antipathy toward Trump, showing their profoundly compromised ability to apply a neutral point of view while editing articles like this one. DonFB (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It should, in theory, apply to everything. The fact that it doesn't means that it needs to be fixed. Cessaune [talk] 21:57, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Flagging this !vote as dubious. See other edits by the editor ("bruh"). Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 13:14, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The fuck? How is this democratic at all? DanRayy (talk) 13:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a pure democracy, and RFC discussions are not a vote. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:36, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

They've been blocked. Cessaune [talk] 14:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment—to clarify, what I see as a major issue with the proposed wording is that it fails to demonstrate the Accords' connection to Trump, instead lumping Trump together with his administration. In 2020, the White House hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords, normalizing the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Doesn't even mention him. 'White House' in this sense refers to the Trump administration, I presume, which is why I think this sentence fits better at that article. As long as the proposed wording is unable to demonstrate why the Accords are notable in a Donald J. Trump context and not just a Trump admin context (in this case, the wording fails to mention Trump and how he was related to the event), I will oppose it. And if other POTUS articles include every little detail about a respective POTUS' presidency, it is no excuse for us to do so here. A president's bio should be limited to things that they were personally instrumental in orchestrating, and going into detail about things that don't fall under that category is why so many POTUS bios are way too massive. We have Presidency of XXXX articles for a reason. Let's stop cluttering their bios with tedious amounts of info. Cessaune [talk] 23:23, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

  And if other POTUS articles include every little detail about a respective POTUS' presidency, it is no excuse for us to do so here. Spot on. From my UP:

  • "In Wikipedia editing, the existence of bad stuff does not justify or excuse the addition or retention of other bad stuff of the same kind. Not all consistency is good consistency. —January 2018."
  • "Widespread good things should persist because they are good, not because they are widespread. "This is how it's normally done" is a terrible argument for anything, allowing widespread bad things to persist. Instead of making that argument, explain why it's better than the alternatives. Change is not a bad thing, and resistance to change impedes progress. —May 2019."

  Most cross-article consistency arguments are weak ones, and this one is no different. It's extremely unlikely many readers even notice such cross-article inconsistencies, let alone are ill-served by them. We're here to serve readers, not ourselves. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  I would like a Support !vote to adress the points I have made. Cessaune [talk] 15:58, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  You say that as if these points haven't been brought up in this discussion already... Just because the Accords are discussed in more detail at our articles for Abraham Accords, or Presidency of Donald Trump, or Foreign Policy of Donald Trump, that doesn't necessarily preclude any information whatsoever being included in this article. On the contrary, we have consensus item #37, which says "Content related to Trump's presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy." We're supposed to cover these things on a short, summary level here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  Why are you repeatedly neglecting to acknowledge the ending sentence of the consensus item? Cessaune [talk] 17:31, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  The resolution was proposed to limit content related to Trump's presidency. If you're implying it's not applicable here... do you want us to say more about the Abraham Accords here? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:37, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  1) You never really addressed my comment above in your prior comment. That's not really the point I made.

  2) The resolution only exists as a way to weed out the simple, unnecessary stuff. It's specifically not meant to be invoked in situations such as this. See the comment by Mandruss that was linked by Space4T below. It doesn't mean that things shouldn't be limited to summary level if the are borderline or debatable. It's just something to invoke when someone adds or attempts to add something that's clearly only marginaly relevant to Trump's life/presidency. Consensus item #37 is irrelevant here. Cessaune [talk] 22:06, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  Consensus item #37 is irrelevant here Considering we're dealing with "content related to Trump's presidency", I very much disagree that the consensus item is not relevant.

  And before I even invoked it, I said Just because the Accords are discussed in more detail at [other articles]... that doesn't necessarily preclude any information whatsoever from being included here. Seems like a valid stance to me. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well, you're missing the point of consensus item #37 then. Cessaune [talk] 23:17, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  Can you actually address my above points? You've address a lot of things related to my points but not the specific points. Cessaune [talk] 14:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

  PS, Regardless of why that point 37 is not being fully observed, it's not helpful merely to assume (as your WP:OR)that this event is going to have some lasting impact except as one among dozens of orchestrated charades. Some, like the Church Photo Op are clearly significant, per RS. But many others have already faded and this is one of them. All participants here should take a close look at the AP source cited in the lead of the Abraham Accords article. And aside from its portrayal of this as a political/media stunt by Trump and Netanyahu, it pointedly indicates the vague and uninstrumental wording of the document that was so grandly heralded and signed at the White House. Per that reporting, both UAE and Israel soon affirmed that they were not bound by the actions listed in the AA. SPECIFICO talk 17:58, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  Seeing as you've decided that I'm conducting WP:OR to assert that the Accords are even somewhat notable to Trump's legacy, completely ignoring my comments earlier which cited Foreign Policy's retrospective on Trump's 4 years regarding foreign policy, in addition to the other numerous RS that have been cited in this discussion, I'm going to have to say my WP:AGF for you has just about run dry. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:46, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  I've explained above why those sources fail our standard for NPOV weight. So you are left offering us a single cherrypicked source vs. at least 4 books that at least 4 editors have cited that have covered the question extensively to show that AA was just one of Trump's characteristic publicity stunts. SPECIFICO talk 23:24, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

About consensus #37. The editor who proposed the resolution that led to #37, Mandruss, referred the participants to their comments in the preceding article size subsection as they comprised their arguments:

I think we should be able to reach a consensus endorsing a "resolution" that content related to his presidency should be limited to summary-level about things that are likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. That would clearly exclude "Trump also praised Poland under the EU-skeptic, anti-immigrant Law and Justice party (PiS) as a defender of Western civilization." Merely removing that and everything like it, and pointing to the consensus whenever somebody attempts to add something new like it, would in my opinion solve the size issues for the remainder of his presidency. If something is borderline or debatable, the resolution would not apply, but I don't think there would be any editors claiming that the example given is likely to have a lasting impact on his life and/or long-term presidential legacy. And nobody would call it summary-level in any case.

So, is the hosting ceremony the equivalent of praising Poland or does it have a lasting impact on Trump's life and/or long-term presidential legacy? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 18:17, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I and many other editors above, citing plenty of RS, have made the case that the Accords are relevant to Trump's legacy. You and many other editors - citing many fewer sources, I might add - have asserted they are not relevant to his legacy. Is it, or is it not? That seems to be up to consensus, isn't it? After all, Wikipedia is not a WP:CRYSTALBALL - how could we say definitively right now that something is or isn't notable to his legacy? PhotogenicScientist (talk) PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:50, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

That last sentence argues against your position. In this particular article, the default in a CRYSTALBALL situation should be omit. Inclusion should wait until the legacy impact is shown. I see you asserting that it has been shown, but that was weakened by your last sentence. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, CRYSTALBALL may not be a perfect fit here... but to quote, it says It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced. It is not appropriate for editors to insert their own opinions or analyses. Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included. By one reading of CRYSTALBALL, consensus item #37 should be completely invalidated, since we are not to decide for ourselves if material that may be included here is "likely to be" relevant to a lasting historical legacy. By another reading, if there are enough sources discussing potential future outcomes, these can be cited to include the relevant material. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:52, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I just wonder when this will be considered played out as regards the few most active participants. We could continue this until Northern Hemisphere summer without getting much further, and without affecting the final consensus assessment. I suggest the few back away and hope for other participation. If we don't get it, I think the main reason for re-opening was re-closure, despite Sandstein's comment. In any case, I don't think Sandstein's Please continue discussing. meant "Please continue discussing among the same few editors until they're all too tired to type." ―Mandruss ☎ 23:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Kind of the nature of the beast — why would sources mention events they deem irrelevant/unimportant for Trump's legacy? Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 11:06, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• @Cessaune: you said "As long as the proposed wording is unable to demonstrate why the Accords are notable in a Donald J. Trump context and not just a Trump admin context (in this case, the wording fails to mention Trump and how he was related to the event), I will oppose it."

  I trust that you have done due diligence in this discussion. You have seen the supports side arguments and all the sources provided, as well as the arguments from the oppose side and their sources. So I will ask: Do you think there is a specific wording where you would support inclusion? Because if you think they should be included with a but, then just say so. If you support inclusion on some capacity, say what about the verbage should change in your opinion. Because, this RfC at its heart is a question of whether or not the Accords should be included at all, rather than a bicker over specific wording. It would be a damn shame for the wrong decision to be made in a time consuming discussion such as this over a mere "it wasn't worded correctly" objection.

  Remember, specific wording is pretty malleable, but whatever result happens here over the core question, is essentially written in stone. Iamreallygoodatcheckers ^talk 06:51, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Iamreallygoodatcheckers, nothing is written in stone, as proven by numerous superseded and several omitted and obsoleted consensus items. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 16:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Perennial debate about "proper" use of Survey and Discussion sections. Can continue within the collapse. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:27, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Can you please move this section from the survey into discussion? You can strike my comment, but this RFC is already cluttered and this is just muddying the waters even more in the survey section. Nemov (talk) 17:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Agree. It's been moved by three different editors (inc me) and Cessaune moved it back each time. Levivich (talk) 17:37, 29 January 2024 (UTC) How come everyone wants to move my comment, but not the other comments placed in the survey section? Makes no sense to me. Cessaune [talk] 17:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC) There are no other bolded comments in this section. You still have a chance to move this to the discussion section and avoid being sanctioned for edit warring. Levivich (talk) 17:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC) In the original survey section there are at least three. I'm lumping both sections together because they are basically the same thing. Cessaune [talk] 17:44, 29 January 2024 (UTC) For one, your comment and S4T3C2X's comments are newer, at a time when there's renewed interest in this thread, since the overturn of the previous close. Older Comments in the survey section have sat for a while, and refactoring serves less purpose for those at this point, imo. But I wouldn't be opposed to those moving, either. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:43, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Well, what is this newfound zeal when it comes to my edit? Cessaune [talk] 17:45, 29 January 2024 (UTC) I... feel I just told you why? It's a newer comment, at a time of new interest in the thread? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Or "This RFC is a bit of a mess, some poor sod will have to read it (again) and close it (again) lets not make their job any harder". Slatersteven (talk) 17:54, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Both of you were present at the beginning of the discussion, before the RfC. When other editors put comments in the survey section, neither of you attempted to refactor their comments. Photogenic: you have been especially involved in this discussion, and no doubt were aware of the comments beings placed in the survey section before. Yet, there was no attempt to remove the text. It's a newer comment, at a time of new interest in the thread—it is, and I don't get why this matters. The other comments were new at some point, and were allowed to exist back then. Why? What is the difference between my comment and Gnome's comments? Why is my edit being flagged, while other editor's edits weren't? I can't understand the logic. I think it is unfair that !voters have been impacted by the comments of others that were placed in the survey section (which is vastly more visible than buried somewhere in the discussion), yet my comment is being targeted so heavily. Should comments in the survey section exist? Maybe, maybe not. It is obvious to me that this is a relatively common occurence. Cessaune [talk] 18:10, 29 January 2024 (UTC) To answer to your specific charge: The earlier discussion was incredibly messy. From the very start, we got comments from people who called it improper, and an abuse of protocol; there was much bickering and a fair bit of bludgeoning; and Gnome was not the only person to put a bolded Comment in the survey section - Onetwothreeip did as well, and I believe I remember SPECIFICO having done so, before refactoring their comments into their oppose. To use a metaphor, when the house is burning down, it's not wise to be straightening up the picture frames on the wall. At that time, I was primarily letting the discussion play out. As for now, the thread is in a better place. And like Slatersteven said, some poor sod is going to have to come along and read all of this. In their interest, it's best to keep the Survey section tidy and readable - a good way to do that is by having only !votes and perhaps a bit of clarifying back-n-forth, rather than including long discussions about sourcing or other Comments. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:22, 29 January 2024 (UTC) I will accept the outcome. It is clear that I am not going to convince people of my point. But I hope that you understand that this is incredibly unfair—the idea that other editors can get away with something that isn't even generally frowned upon, as least as far as I'm aware. Cessaune [talk] 18:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC) The difference between then and now is the overturned close that happened in between. That means the first round was messed up. So we're going to have a less-messed-up second round (with new participants and more orderly discussion). What needs to happen in this second round is for the folks in the first round to step back and allow new editors to examine the issue. (Which doesn't mean that everyone in the first round has to be completely silent, but they should be very circumspect as to whether they're saying anything new or repeating what they already said before.) The key trick is to not be the most disruptive editor during round 2. If Round 2 doesn't go better than Round 1, Round 3 will involve kicking people out, and that's why you don't want to be the most disruptive editor. Go with the flow... Levivich (talk) 18:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC) At this point in the numerous discussion threads, WTH does it matter where anything is located? It takes me minutes to find my own frigging comments. I think it's just plain rude to move another editor's comment(s) without their consent just because a few other editors think they are better placed elsewhere. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 18:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC) That dead horse is very dead, but the beating continues. Nemov (talk) 18:34, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Refactoring talk pages is common practice, and doesn't have to be done with others' consent - I made a bold change that I felt improved the flow of the discussion, and the readability for the future closer. But by all means, feel free to dispute this by reverting my change - it is your contribution after all. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:18, 29 January 2024 (UTC) Shouldn't you refactor your own comment in the "Survey (continued)" section then? As for moving my comments adding the excerpts of sources cited by !votes, repeating my earlier comment: WTH does it matter where anything is located at this point. Cessaune objected to the refactoring of their comment, to no avail, and, yeah, it looks as though some comments are more equal than others. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:51, 30 January 2024 (UTC) Er... that's not a Comment, bolded and created on its own line in the survey section; that's a reply to a !vote. Of which there has been plenty in this discussion, and all RFCs - though I imagine you've been around long enough to have seen this. You really think people shouldn't be allowed to reply to !votes in RFCs? Not even once? Because if you do, that would be rather hypocritical of you. Cessaune did object, and was overruled by more editors than myself. But, you have the ability to object after being refactored - it says so right in WP:REFACTOR. If you did so, I would not reinstate my refactoring - I was only trying to boldly improve the thread. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:44, 30 January 2024 (UTC) hypocritical of me — nope, only if I had refactored other editors' comments or replies (not much of a distinction, IMO). I only moved aka "refactored" my own comment with the replies of two editors who had given me their express permission to do so — see the thread for the particulars. Anyway, prior to this I had neither heard of nor ever noticed refactoring. I think I'll continue to live by the WP rule I learned early on and keep my mitts off other editors' edits. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 16:05, 30 January 2024 (UTC) The reason this debate is "perennial" is that nobody has ever come up with a very good way to handle replies to !votes (and replies to the replies). Anything other than including them inline takes them out of context, and I've seen at least two experiments that didn't work very well for that reason. I personally don't have a problem with including them inline; for someone uninterested in the replies, it only costs them some scrolling. Each !vote is clearly marked by a bullet. Then the Discussion section would be only for comments that are not replies to !votes (or replies to the replies). ―Mandruss ☎ 20:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC) Yes. That's why we use threaded indents. What shouldn't happen is griping about it with time that could be used actually surveying RS sources. SPECIFICO talk 21:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC) I also have little problem with bulleted and bolded Comments in a Survey section. It's a fairly common practice, and, again, these are easily bypassed with some scrolling. But it raises the question of what the Discussion section is for, and "higher visibility" is a poor reason to Comment in a Survey section. It's not unlike using a lot of bolding to give one's comment greater prominence, which is discouraged by guidelines. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:50, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Ah, explains everything Selfstudier (talk) 17:53, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Selfstudier: wanna see one that really didn't age well: a month before 10/7, the Federalist proclaimed, "Trump ushered in a new era of peace and collaboration in the Middle East without a single bullet fired" [49] He's been trying to get a Nobel for years ("for a lot of things"), because Obama has one. Levivich (talk) 00:09, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Excerpt from today's WorldView newsletter, headline "Behind Biden's Middle East crises is the long tail of Trump's legacy": Taking a wrecking ball to diplomacy with Tehran, Trump broke the nuclear deal forged between Iran and world powers, restored a slate of sanctions on the Islamic Republic and assassinated influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani in a 2020 drone strike. Trump’s policy on Israel, meanwhile, amounted to a tight bear hug of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the boosting of the agenda of the Israeli right. He was punitive to the Palestinians — markedly shifting U.S. policy against them by formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, shuttering a U.S. consulate intended for Palestinians, and brokering “peace” deals between Israel and a clutch of Arab monarchies that further sidelined Palestinian political aspirations.

Foreign Policy, September 3, 2022: But two years on, the accords are losing luster because inside Israel, they are overshadowed by the intensification of conflict with the Palestinians. At the time, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the accords as a breakthrough because they divorced normalization with Arab states from any Israeli peace with the Palestinians. What looked like a breakthrough then now looks like the biggest drawback of the accords.

PolitiFact, December 5, 2023: Trump claims he made peace in the Middle East with Abraham Accords. That’s False. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 15:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I would (again) point out that it should not be in the lede if it is not in the body. As well as the lede is a summery of important parts of THIS ARTICLE, is this an important part of this article? Slatersteven (talk) 12:06, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Opposers say the qualification for text in the "Presidency" section of the article is that it has to be about "the man, not his presidency", or that "there's insufficient coverage from neutral high-quality WP:RSes supporting the idea that this is significant to Trump's personal biography". Trump himself personalized the issue by claiming he was bringing peace to the Mid East. Opposers dismiss that personalized statement, but apparently believe Trump quitting the Iran nuclear deal does qualify as significant to his "personal biography". Explain the difference between these events. Why is one significant to his personal bio, but the other is not? What sources support that analysis? Some opposers have shown sources that disparage the Accords or evaluate them as not achieving their goals. The opposers who think negative response or analysis of this particular Trump policy--the Accords--is a reason to exclude any mention of it should explain why abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal, which garnered far more negative reviews than the Accords, does deserve the place it occupies in the "Presidency" section. I'll help clarify. They both deserve a place in the article not because they were uniformly positive, but because they were significant actions approved by Trump, as shown by huge amounts of persistent coverage in reliable sources. The "Presidency" section in this article is very large. It's not credible that all the text in it is about "the man, not his presidency", the oxymoronic standard that opposers would impose for inclusion of text in the Presidency section.

One other reason opposers would exclude the sentence is their heads I win, tails you lose rationale, which says the sentence needs added context, but that's not allowed, because it would bloat the article. Take note, therefore, that Trump's abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal is stated in one sentence, and a second sentence is included for context. Trump's order to kill Soleimani is stated in one sentence, followed by three sentences for context, and another sentence about downing of the Ukraine airliner, an event completely unrelated to Trump's "personal biography". There is one reason, and one reason only, for opposition to a single sentence about the Accords. That reason is stonewall resistance to including anything in this article that might look like something positive from the Trump administration. That stonewall resistance is draped in some glib policy justifications, but the motivation is unquestionably political bias, as seen in some discussion comments, which amounts to a repudiation of everything Wikipedia stands for. It is a certainty that if this same agreement and ceremony occurred under an Obama or Biden administration, none of the opposing editors would object to inclusion of the sentence in either of those biographical articles. DonFB (talk) 13:33, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Trump doesn't get to define what's relevant to his personal biography. RSs do.

Iran nuclear deal: Trump ran on the idea that he would renegotiate the deal, but failed to do so [50]. That's already more Trump involvement than the Accords can claim. He made public statements on the matter as well [51], including the final withdrawal [52]. Considering that the JCPOA is at least as notable as the Accords, the comparison here doesn't make any sense. Trump was specifically involved in the withdrawal, and it was his decision to leave.

The sentence needs context and we should avoid bloat, given how massive this article is. That being said, adding context will always override any bloat issues. If the sentence goes through there will inevitably be another discussion about wording and context.

It's not credible that all the text in it is about "the man, not his presidency"—you're probably right. However, most of what's in there is either inextricably tied to his legacy (COVID-19 in the United States, for example), something that he was personally involved in (Lafayette Square) or is something that is notable in a global context (COVID-19 in general). Everything else should probably be removed. The Ukraine airliner is an example of what I've been saying for a long time: the fact that the article currently isn't perfect is no reason for us to make it less perfect.

You make a lot of very harsh, very generic statements. I'd like you to specifically accuse people of what you describe as stonewall resistance on the grounds of [unquestionable] political bias, with quotes and reasoning. It's very easy to claim that side B (in this case, "opposers"), is being/doing XYZ thing, so if you truly mean what you are saying, please indicate who specifically you are talking about. I think that's more than reasonable. I have made my opinion very clear from the outset, and I would like for it to not be summed up as some sort of underlying TDS-type bias hidden behind a policy wall of shoddy manufacturing. It's lazy and, frankly, rude to call an entire side biased, and it is especially arrogant to treat your statements as if they are facts, without providing even a single quote. Cessaune [talk] 14:44, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

@DonFB:, Cessaune has already reminded you to focus on the content issue rather than attributing your concerns to foul play by your colleagues here. Please take heed. It will make your participation more effective.

It's not "heads I win tails you lose" from the oppose editors. That's a bad way to frame it, because when the content is improved we all benefit, knowing that it better informs our readers. But to continue with that inappropriate analogy, it is more like those who support saying "heads I lose, tails you win". NPOV determines that, not a zero sum content battle.

The distinction between AA and Trump's ditching the Nuclear Agreement is that the latter has been enormously consequential, according to RS. In contrast, the best published sources cited on this page - several books and AP accounts - tell us that Trump's appropriation, branding, and messaging at and about his staging of AA amounted to nothing at all, while the multidimensional realities of regional relations have continued to unfold unaffected by what those sources describe as the political circus stunt of Trump's AA ceremony. SPECIFICO talk 16:14, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Do you recognize these quotes?

"It's all political puffery and campaign drivel by Trump and his flaks"

"a document that contrived an unnecessary bonus signature line for Trump to deploy his Sharpie"

"one among dozens of orchestrated charades"

"the photo shows him standing empty-handed among the signatories"

"one of Trump's characteristic publicity stunts"

"this inconsequential command performance in DC"

"political promotion and ego gratification of the Trump orbit, extensively and near-exclusively quoted in the bulk of RS praise, as if that sad feckless abuse of Trump's office should be elevated by this encyclopedia"

"political circus stunt of Trump's AA ceremony"

And this oldie but goodie:

"every time the Republicans try to bring their zombie conspiracy theories back from the grave"

Legitimate policy argumentation? Or chronic personal snark betraying clear political bias and not-so-hidden motivation to exclude abundantly and reliably sourced relevant content...in repudiation of the fundamental Wikipedia value of neutrality. DonFB (talk) 17:35, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Those are all backed up by the sources I cite in presenting content suggestions and analysis. Please review the references and mainstream reporting on the related events. The white house press corps and subsequent biographers have not treated the AA ceremony kindly. SPECIFICO talk 04:15, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The first one is: Did you actually read that Politico piece? It's all political puffery and campaign drivel by Trump and his flaks. What source backs that up? What source calls this Politico piece "all political puffery and campaign drivel by Trump and his flaks"? Levivich (talk) 04:31, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

We don"t need a second source in order to characterize a the quality of a reference. That politico piece is conveying and attributing Trump administration narratives. SPECIFICO talk 05:27, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

If you ask me, and you didn't but I'm going to tell you anyway: Politico is WP:TIER3; Foreign Policy, Maggie Haberman's book, and this commentary are all WP:TIER2; but these are all WP:TIER1 and all WP:TWL links so almost every editor has access to some of the best sources available about the Abraham Accords: [53] [54] [55] [56]. Levivich (talk) 06:06, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Preaching to the choir. Why was the above list of quotes (I assume that’s what they are) even dredged up here? Re Did you actually read that Politico piece?: that’s one quote I can place because I was briefly involved in the discussion. Missing context - the comment was made way back at the beginning of December, in response to an editor who said this about the Politico article: Here’s Politico calling the ceremony hosted by Trump "historic". Politico also says this: The Trump administration has pursued a Middle East policy favoring Israel and aimed largely at coercing the Palestinians to participate in peace talks — including by cutting off their U.S. aid, among other measures. But even if Trump hopes the accords become yet another pressure point for the Palestinians to agree to a peace deal with Israel, officials within the UAE and Bahrain do not necessarily share this view. For the Emiratis and the Bahrainis, the normalization agreements with Israel are more important for the united front they present against Iran, as well their potential economic and diplomatic benefits. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 10:32, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment — adding a Foreign Policy article published on October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas atrocities. Excerpt: Finally, in U.S. President Donald Trump and his ambitious son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Netanyahu found his dream partnership. Trump gave Netanyahu virtual carte blanche to move further into the West Bank and ensure Oslo’s destruction. Then, one by one, Trump began to unilaterally withdraw rights and recognitions from the Palestinians that both sides used to consider “final status” issues to be negotiated under Oslo. At Kushner’s urging, Trump announced that he was moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and ended the formal U.S. relationship with the Palestinian Liberation Organization by closing its office in Washington. The administration also denied a right of return for Palestinians to Israel and pulled funding to support Palestinian refugees—all without offering any real solution regarding the future of the Palestinian people. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 16:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

  The most important part of the article is this:

  "A status quo built on repression, which is what the Abraham Accords and the so-called Israel-Saudi ‘normalization’ deal are really about", quoting an advisor to Bernie Sanders. All the more reason to include a sentence about the Accords, given that reports exist both praising and condemning them, demonstrating their significance. To clarify my position: I do not oppose including one or more contextualizing sentences; earlier I lampooned the fact that such sentences already exist, while some opposers say we shouldn't add context to the Accords because of article bloat. That damage is already done, and one or two more sentences won't break anything. However, the following suggestion does not add an extra contextualizing sentence, but does add some text to the first sentence as follows:

  "Trump supported many of the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including initiatives that worked against the interests of the Palestinian people [footnote/s]." Retain existing sentence on Jerusalem/Golan. The final (third) sentence would be the one shown in RFC, though I would modify it to include Trump's name: "In 2020 at the White House, Trump hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords that were mediated by U.S. officials and normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain." DonFB (talk) 18:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

PLEASE put your 'support/oppose/neutral' postings, in the subsection "Survey (continued)". GoodDay (talk) 16:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

A reminder

Let's all be mindful of WP:BLUDGEON, during this RFC's process. GoodDay (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't know about BLUDGEON, but we can avoid circular discussion and the misconception that such debates can be "won". There comes a point where one's arguments have been fully articulated and further debate wastes everybody's time and talk page space, as well as making a closer's job a lot harder. And it's exceedingly rare to see someone's mind changed by this, for various reasons. Whether we're at that point I wouldn't presume to say. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:10, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, GoodDay, which is why I, for one, have already absconded. -The Gnome (talk) 13:03, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Now about bludgeoning? Slatersteven (talk) 18:33, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

That'll do ;) GoodDay (talk) 19:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

• Yawns* *looks at phone * W²⁰⁰

Anyhow Can i get a recap of whats happened •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:18, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Some folks support the proposal at the top of this RfC and some others oppose it. And a few from both sides are posting up a tad too much. -The Gnome (talk) 19:30, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Hopefully, this will put to an end, calls for the Accords inclusion. GoodDay (talk) 02:22, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Sadly no. See User talk:Vanderwaalforces/Archives/2024/01 (January)#Close at Trump. Zaathras (talk) 02:44, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

How is this still open? Slatersteven (talk) 15:28, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned above, the close was overturned[57] and this RFC reopened for more comment. Nemov (talk) 15:34, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

See this edit. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 15:40, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Let's be mindful of bludgeoning & not rebuttal entries in the survey section, now that the RFC has been re-opened. GoodDay (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I would remind users this is about him, the man, not his presidency, that is Presidency of Donald Trump. So what should be here is what is notable about him, not that something notable happens to him. Slatersteven (talk) 16:44, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The subsection of the article into which the proposed sentence would be placed is part of a main section called "Presidency (2017–2021)". That main section contains 48--count 'em--48 subsections and sub-subsections. Would you have people believe that all the text in all those subsections is about the man, but not the presidency? The distinction a few editors are trying to make between the person and the presidency in that main section is a fiction that merely serves to paper over politically inspired exclusion of valid content. Let's look at your working definition: "what should be here is what is notable about him". Just letting my eye fall on a random part of the "Presidency" section, how does the first sentence of sub-subsection "Economy" (5.3.1) fulfill that definition? It says: "Trump took office at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history, which began in June 2009 and continued until February 2020, when the COVID-19 recession began." Is that a sentence that says something "notable about him, not that he has something notable happen to him"? More to the point, the idea that the Accords happened to him--that he, as president, had no role in the process whatsoever--is a false predicate. Feel free to peruse the other 47 sub-subsections to see how valid the concept is of confining text in the "Presidency" section of the article only to information that is "notable" about Trump. DonFB (talk) 17:36, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The fact that the article currently isn't perfect is no reason for us to make it less perfect. While this edit isn't necessarily a bad one, this kind of justification is flawed. Cessaune [talk] 17:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

PLEASE put your support/oppose/neutral posts in the "Survey (continued)" subsection. GoodDay (talk) 16:46, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion of second closure

Seems we need clarification. I assume that this paragraph means exactly what it says (bolding added by me): The community's decision is to support the principle of mentioning the Abraham Accords, not to endorse the specific wording given in the RfC question. That wording can still be edited in the normal way. I.e., edits do NOT have to garner strong consensus on the Talk page, as this edit says. I don't know what to make of "very carefully reasoned"; the criteria should be NPOV and supported by the majority of RS. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 17:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

PhotogenicScientist, at least to me, it's obvious that the discussion switched from do I support this specific wording to do I support a mention of the Abraham Accords in the article? pretty early on. Cessaune [talk] 17:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

You're not wrong - the discussion took on a much broader scope over time. Though, 2 points to keep in mind:

1. The RFC question literally asked "Should the Israel subsection of the foreign policy subsection be updated to include the bolded sentence below?" - this is the explicit proposal which started garnering Supports
2. No alternative wording was sufficiently discussed in the course of the discussion; in the absence of such an alternative, why would we not use the wording originally proposed?

It seems wrong to me to try and read into the Support votes and deduce for ourselves that they didn't all support the wording as proposed.

Now, I personally think it would be wrong to codify that wording in stone - I generally believe that everything in any article is subject to improvement at any time. But this article is a special case. Especially so soon after a long and chaotic RFC, I think it would be detrimental to this article for us to immediately try workshopping some new wording.

But, its as Levivich said - unless someone has a change in mind to propose, this discussion seems purely academic. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@S Marshall I just saw the discussion at your talk page. Would you mind commenting here why you think the wording proposed in the RFC doesn't have community consensus? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'd mind. Direct questions about the close to my talk page please.—S Marshall T/C 19:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

This is pretty academic unless someone has a change they want to make to the wording? Levivich (talk) 17:50, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

And if we do change something about the wording, it might be to summarize this aspect:

• Confidence Man (2022): Advocates eventually viewed the accords as a significant achievement...
• The Divider (2022): The accords were, in fact, a genuine breakthrough in the region.
• I Alone Can Fix It (2021): On September 15, Trump notched a rare foreign-policy achievement...
• NYT (2020, the source currently cited in the article): But many analysts of the region, while affording Mr. Trump credit for helping to broker the agreement — work spearheaded by his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner — called the talk of peace overblown.
• Foreign Policy (2022): arguably one of the Trump administration’s few foreign-policy achievements

I'm not sure what other sources say. Generally I'd put a lot more stock in newer sources than older ones. Levivich (talk) 18:24, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

In 2020, the White House hosted the signing of the Abraham Accords, normalizing the foreign relations of Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.^[1]

normalizing --> formalizing. Cessaune [talk] 17:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Have you compared which sources use "normalizing" and which use "formalizing"? I just took a quick look at NYT (the source currently used in the article, which btw isn't the best source because it's now outdated), Confidence Man, The Divider, I Alone Can Fix It, and Foreign Policy. AFAICS, they all say "normalizing" and none say "formalizing." That's probably because "normalizing" is what it's called in foreign relations when two countries establish formal diplomatic relations. Levivich (talk) 18:13, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't mind switching to a better source; I just picked a contemporary news article since it seems like most of the Presidency section cites that kind of source. Malerisch (talk) 19:30, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Which source(s) do you think would be better? I think I'd support swapping the NYT cite with the 2022 Foreign Policy article linked above. Levivich (talk) 19:42, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure—that source, or the books you mentioned above, all work for me. Malerisch (talk) 19:51, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

TBH I just thought it made more sense. I didn't actually read the sources. If they all say normalizing then let's say normalizing. Cessaune [talk] 22:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I discovered today that I have been editing an appalling dump heap. The first closing was contested before AN. Now the same editor appears to be contesting a part of the closing they don't agree with. So, before getting accused of dumping more appalling heaps, let's get the parsing of the above-quoted sentence out of the way. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 19:20, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

You didn't appreciate the Grinch reference? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

According to the stats, I authored 19.5% of the characters in the article. Oddly, being told that I'm a major contributor to an appalling dump heap does not fill my heart with joy. Anyhoo, we now have consensus #65: Mention the Abraham Accords in the article; no consensus was achieved on specific wordings. Space4Time3Continuum2x🖖 13:58, 10 February 2024 (UTC)