Trump Thread

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Whatever reasons (or unreasons) lay behind the nomination the net result is: Trump was nominated by the Republicans. Period. After that any talk about him being out of establishment is ridiculous.

Any official connection to the current establishment makes you a full part of the establishment? So anything less and Raul, Fidel, and Ernesto up in the hills is playing the establishment game? I wasn't being that much of a purist. Of course Trump is establishment, he was never at the barricades. Let me say instead that the current "old boy" (and it is still mostly swinging Richards) network loathe him, were not happy he got the nom, and would like to see him out of office nearly as much as the Dems.

You may be right on reversing the roles (being no player of either of the games I can't make grounded conlusions on the style of playing them), but I was talking not about the relations between the players, but about the on-lookers hoping for any agreement between them.

Poker is associated with bluffing and is a solo effort by the players against the others. Bridge is a partnership bidding to signal to one another the best chance for a win with any given hand. Poker is considered the more "emotional" of the two games...though you can argue the point.

[Beskar]

What if the 'Establishment' is a collective grouping of multiple 'Establishment Cliques' which can hold contrary positions to eachother?

[Gilrandir]

Any official connection to the current establishment makes you a full part of the establishment?

In case of Trump it was not just a connection, but being picked by the establishment. Do you see the difference?

[Husar]

How is a TV celebrity and real estate mogul not part of the establishment?

What is the establishment?

a group in a society exercising power and influence over matters of policy, opinion, or taste, and seen as resisting change.
"he scandalized the Establishment of his day"
synonyms: the powers that be, the authorities, the system, the ruling class, the regime, bureaucracy, officialdom; the status quo, the prevailing political/social order; informalBig Brother; archaicthe regimen
"an irreverent comedy series that dared to poke fun at the Establishment"
an influential group within a specified profession or area of activity.
"rumblings of discontent among the medical establishment"

Don't Republicans often throw Hollywood actors and other celebrities in with the establishment?
Plus his Twitter rants about Obama made him quite famous in political circles as well. He was not as much part of the political establishment, but the Republicans themselves always blame the Hollywood, the Media and political left establishment of colluding to the point of being more or less the same "leftist establishment". See here for example: http://www.americanthinker.com/artic...blishment.html

In the same sense, Trump is part of the rightist establishment.

Or take establishment as elites in the wider sense, like here: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite...u-brexit/18483

REMAIN: THE LEFT HAS LINED UP WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT

Leftists now put bankers and bureaucrats before the people.

Brexit is a fake revolt’, writes Paul Mason in the Guardian this week: ‘Working-class culture is being hijacked to help the elite.’ A withering article in Vice agrees. ‘Brexit is the upper classes in revolt’, writes Sam Kriss.

Surely someone who brags about how many billions he has is part of the rich social elite aka establishment, no?

[Montmorency]

Gilrandir is correct. "The Establishment" is not a hive mind.

[HopAlongBunny]

A 50% cut in legal immigration?
But I thought this was the Growth President!:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN1AN269

[Gilrandir]

How is a TV celebrity and real estate mogul not part of the establishment?

What is the establishment?

I believe his voters consider establishment to consist of top politicians of the two parties who follow each other at the steering wheel. From their perspective Trump was outside of it.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I was amused.

[Montmorency]

heresy

[Greyblades]

Ask yourself though, could Trump have beat Obama? Would Trump have won the nomination if he was facing Obama as opposed to Sanders/Clinton? The point is not that it "results in bad Presidents" but that the enforced change of candidate often results in a less-impressive offering by the sitting party when the current President is so impressive.

I think by posing the question you are overestimating the popularity of Obama within his own country.

Obama was a domestic failure; the deciding states were the ones that stagnated under his administration and only flipped red because Clinton was actively promising more of the same. 2008 Obama would have run rings around Trump, true enough, but with two terms of general dissapoinment behind him all he would have over trump was eloquence, and that didnt help clinton or the other republican hopefuls in the slightest.

Ultimately Sanders had a better chance of victory than Obama for the same reason as Trump's victory: he was a clear break from the previous status quo.

[Kralizec]

Trump won with thin margins in a handful of states that handed him a clear majority in the Electoral college, while losing the overall popular vote by almost 3 million. If Hillary Clinton had been a little more popular, or had put more effort in states like Wisconsin, she would have ben president.

Obama had a reasonably high approval rating as an outgoing president. It's just an educated guess, but I think Obama would have beaten Trump in any year, and probably with better margins than he beat McCain or Romney.

"Domestic failure" is in the eye of the beholder, and I don't live in the country myself. All I know is that public approval of the Affordable Care Act has been going up ever since the Republican party has been in a position to actually undo it.

[HopAlongBunny]

It turns out leaving many posts vacant does have drawbacks.
Team Trump has left many top level gov't posts empty. Defense contractors are left wondering who to talk to about on-going and proposed undertakings:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN1AR2DT

Otoh maybe Trump is using this strategy to downsize government?

[Gilrandir]

Team Trump has left many top level gov't posts empty.

Do you think he is aware of it?

[Greyblades]

Trump won with thin margins in a handful of states that handed him a clear majority in the Electoral college, while losing the overall popular vote by almost 3 million. If Hillary Clinton had been a little more popular, or had put more effort in states like Wisconsin, she would have ben president.

Obama had a reasonably high approval rating as an outgoing president. It's just an educated guess, but I think Obama would have beaten Trump in any year, and probably with better margins than he beat McCain or Romney.

I do not, for the simple reason that the rust belt would have rejected him, as the cause of thier decline, harder than they rejected clinton, as the promised continuation. I could see him scraping michigen but without the rest of the rust belt it would require the flipping of florida and north carolina, a feat I dont think would be possible as he only got them by the skin of his teeth when he was in his prime in 2008.

"Domestic failure" is in the eye of the beholder, and I don't live in the country myself. All I know is that public approval of the Affordable Care Act has been going up ever since the Republican party has been in a position to actually undo it.

The approval upswing is based not on the merits of the system but with the context of the obvious failures of the proposed ryan and mcconnell-care.

Obamacare is designed to fail in such a way that makes singlepayer a more desireable choice, with a republican domination of every field this outcome has become impossible, making obamacare little more than a ticking timebomb.

[Montmorency]

I do not, for the simple reason that the rust belt would have rejected him, as the cause of thier decline, harder than they rejected clinton, as the promised continuation. I could see him scraping michigen but without the rest of the rust belt it would require the flipping of florida and north carolina, a feat I dont think would be possible as he only got them by the skin of his teeth when he was in his prime in 2008.



The approval upswing is based not on the merits of the system but with the context of the obvious failures of the proposed ryan and mcconnell-care.

Obamacare is designed to fail in such a way that makes singlepayer a more desireable choice, with a republican domination of every field this outcome has become impossible, making obamacare little more than a ticking timebomb.

The article makes the point that the ACA as put together with myriad components lacks the political durability to be a long-term policy; the strategic implication is then that something better has to be imposed sooner or later.

However, don't forget to separate the strategic element from the policy element to some extent. The law can become moribund if its opponents go far in refusing to implement it - an area where the Trump administration is leading the way - but those states that have with determination used many of the tools the law offers them have seen the greatest outcomes. So while it is an easy law for its opponents to sabotage, from the ideal perspective in governance we like to think that laws aren't going to be sabotaged...

It's a useful step, although, and in particular served the Medicaid-eligible population very well. Unfortunately, the ideological opponents of Obamacare don't find sympathy for this demographic. The bottom line is that the overall effectiveness of Obamacare contributes to the difficulty of cleanly repealing it.

More to the point, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated last week that partial repeal would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 23 million (other estimates are even higher). If you think blowback to the ACA's enactment was bad for Democrats, just wait for the anti-GOP firestorm that follows that sort of disruption.

Prescient.

When the Democrats get their next bite at the apple -- and they will, despite all the hand-wringing on the left and back-patting on the right -- they will have a chance to avoid past mistakes as they try to build a better healthcare system.

Let's say the more right-wing Democrats would be comfortable staying along the outlines of Obamacare, the mainline Pelosi/Schumer wing would prefer (at least compared to a single-payer plan) universal coverage with a public option balanced by extensive private insurer participation, and as always the Sanders wing wants Medicare-for-all (with a bill pending release in the near future).

It may seem ironic, but Americans have traditionally preferred really big government that doesn't play favorites when compared with somewhat smaller government that does.

Sadly so.

FDR understood that welfare programs work best when they are biggest.

Roosevelt also demonstrated that the best way to ensure the long-term viability of those programs is to ask people to actually pay for them. For Social Security, that meant a payroll tax.

I see the author even includes the man's famous words:

Payroll taxes “were never a problem of economics,” Roosevelt explained to one skeptical adviser:

They are politics all the way through. We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.

On a third term for Obama, while he was more popular towards the end than Greyblades makes out, it's hard to see us breaking the 2-term tradition for Obama's sake. Then of course you realize that you would need an overwhelming movement for a Constitutional amendment or repeal (of the 22nd amendment) to even have the opportunity to elect someone to a third term, so in a circular sense if Obama had somehow managed to convince the country and Congress to take that course, and with time to spare for ratification by 2016, he would have been popular enough to run for a third term.

[Greyblades]

On a third term for Obama, while he was more popular towards the end than Greyblades makes out, it's hard to see us breaking the 2-term tradition for Obama's sake. Then of course you realize that you would need an overwhelming movement for a Constitutional amendment or repeal (of the 22nd amendment) to even have the opportunity to elect someone to a third term, so in a circular sense if Obama had somehow managed to convince the country and Congress to take that course, and with time to spare for ratification by 2016, he would have been popular enough to run for a third term.

To run, but not win.

Despite assertations of a scandal free presidency the man had accumilated legitimate baggage, even putting aside obamacare and the benghazi incident (of which a legitimate criticism was pounded into the dust by overzealous republicans); Operation Fast and Furious was continued and intensified under his watch, his IRS targeted conservative non profits during 2012, he engaged in the politics as usual he promised to end with his role in the government shutdown, he was responsible for the the drone killing of americans without trial, he turned lybia into a second somalia, tried to do the same to syria, he traded 5 taliban leaders just to secure the return of a US deserter, he sued the state of arizona for following an anti immigration law it's people had voted for, his intrusion of privacy grew to the point it inspired defections in the NSA and the leaks damaged US diplomacy worse than even trump has achieved, he increased the debt to 20 trillion and pushed it past the national GDP, oversaw a period of less economic growth than that of every other president in the last half century.

This is not considering the callouts he set himself up for: "I'll close guantanamo bay", "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”, "We've excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs", "I Have Always Been Against Iraq", "Nearly one in five women in america have been a victim of rape or attempted rape"; the man was no less a liar than the best of capitol hill and trump would have had about as much material on Obama to work with as clinton, if not more.

I point to the gallup polls of presidential approval; throughout the entirety of 2015 it was a steady mid 40 and only began to climb in 2016, when the lacklustre of the candidates started to become truly apparant.

I contend that such approval would not have manifested if it was him who got down in the mud instead of clinton, his shining record now is only due to being allowed to retreat behind the bluster.

White Nationalism is now in vogue with Trump in office.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/u...=top-news&_r=0

Well if we take that metric we can say black nationalism was downright chic even before Obama took his.
http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/155653/

As the popularization of communists bolsters fascists; black identitarianism has bolstered white.

To denounce one and ignore or excuse the other is to encourage both, the best course of action is to let both extremes feel the truncheon with equal enthusiasm.

[Gilrandir]

The Trump problem has a simple solution:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...pushes-signers

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Trump is an ass. His incoherence is making Obama's smooth banality look incredibly classy.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It is August 14th, 2017. Trump is still an ass and Putin is still a fascist.

[HopAlongBunny]

The Mooch is gone but not forgotten.
Colbert runs him through a few hoops and the Mooch take it all in stride:



Scaramucci doesn't bother me; he was hired to do a job (flak for Trump) and he did it very well.
He was just another shiny object waved at the media to focus on instead of really digging down into policy reversals like:
voting rights
environmental regulation rollback
the budding shiny new conservative court (appearing soon in a courthouse near you)
etc...

[Gilrandir]

It is August 14th, 2017. Trump is still an ass and Putin is still a fascist.

The labeling list has a tendency to expand? Who's the next candidate? Kim? Maduro? Merkel (if Fragony pleases)?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The labeling list has a tendency to expand? Who's the next candidate? Kim? Maduro? Merkel (if Fragony pleases)?

I will define the numbers, labels, and salience of those I choose to list. You, Frags, X-man, et al. are free to list whomsoever you wish.

[Xiahou]

I took the liberty of splitting the Charlottesville/alt-right discussion off in its own thread. I think it probably deserves one.

[Xiahou]

I will define the numbers, labels, and salience of those I choose to list. You, Frags, X-man, et al. are free to list whomsoever you wish.

Political Label Generator
I'm a minarchist neo-libertarian!.

(Your post inspired me to Google for 'political label maker' on a lark. That site was my first result. )

[Gilrandir]

I will define the numbers, labels, and salience of those I choose to list. You, Frags, X-man, et al. are free to list whomsoever you wish.

Even this small community of Orgahs can't come up with a universal labeling list? How can the world hope to get a unity on any of the issues?

[Husar]

If I read any more stupid deflections on Facebook about "But the Antifa / alt-left!" I'll become Antifa myself and punch these idiots in the face!

It can't be a coincidence that these stupid, evil statements deflecting blame from the people who literally worship Hitler come from the side that thinks education should be an expensive, optional choice or just delivered by your inbred parents...

[Montmorency]

If I read any more stupid deflections on Facebook about "But the Antifa / alt-left!" I'll become Antifa myself and punch these idiots in the face!

It can't be a coincidence that these stupid, evil statements deflecting blame from the people who literally worship Hitler come from the side that thinks education should be an expensive, optional choice or just delivered by your inbred parents...

You married an American?

[Husar]

You married an American?

No!?

I just follow senator Sanders and sometimes check the comments. He/his tewam posted something about Trump not denouncing the Neo Nazis sufficiently and people began to comment about how Sanders should denounce the alt-left etc. The alt-left didn't kill anyone in Charlottesville and wouldn't have been there in the first place if it hadn't been for the racist protest. It's nothing but attempts to shift the focus away from the terrible deeds and behavior of right wing racists in Charlottesville.

[Beskar]

The Alt-Left doesn't exist.

There is no equal-movement in existence which currently matches the Alt-Right. Maybe in the future it could become a thing, but presently, it doesn't. No one identifies as alt-left and there are no known alt-left organisations.

It is a label used exclusively by people on the 'alt-right' to try to shame left-leaning groupings trying to play on the negatively they caused upon themselves in a kind of "You know how us, the alt-right are bad? those alt-left are just the same!". This is in contrast with the Alt-right which was coined by the Alt-Right in order to try to get extreme right views within the mainstream.

[Greyblades]

Someone better tell antifa that they dont exist.