Trump Thread

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Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.

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What a fucking degenerate.

Phil for one should appreciate it when I say the epithet most fitting for Trump in all the ancestral language is nithing.

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Originally Posted by CrossLOPER

I like the meltdown he had.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiIERTHvzfw

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Yeah. Funny.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Attachment 22912

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Originally Posted by CrossLOPER

LOOK, MAH, I POSTED!

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You're all allowed to laugh at our political meltdown and we don't complain - the least you can do is reciprocate the indulgence.

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Originally Posted by InsaneApache

My first post in this thread, so forgive me I havn't read it all (TLDR)

I like Trump. He's upsetting all the right people.

Oh and as a businessman he know how it goes. It shows in the economy.

Another thing he's stitched on for a 2020 win.

That is all.

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He is upsetting many of the right people, as well as a lot of the wrong people, as well as a lot of people who used to be staunch GOP.

He has had some positive influence on the economy (though some would assert this is short term economic gain at the expense of safety and global climate), though it is also true that the first half of a first term President's economy is at least half the product of the predecessor. Improved, yes. All Trump's doing....not so much.

He and McConnell are ratcheting the percentage of originalist judges way up in the federal judiciary. The traditional values crowd loves this a lot -- it is probably the number one reason so many evangelicals stick with him.

The Dems are pushing, so far, staunchly left of center where the hearts of their younger and most active and their ardent leftist core groups are happiest. But they will need to take back the white working class voter or Trump may well repeat his minority vote win in 2020.

The four front runners are either senile, infirm, corrupt bordering on supervillian or, well, Warren. The only two candidates who have a chance of matching trump are relegated to the single digits or actively shunned by the DNC.

You might as well call it here; The dems are destined for the grave they dug themselves.

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Originally Posted by Greyblades

The only two candidates who have a chance of matching trump are relegated to the single digits or actively shunned by the DNC.

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Nah, but if you keep the Big Lie going maybe others will believe you.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...eral_election/

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Nah, but if you keep the Big Lie going maybe others will believe you.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...eral_election/

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The outliers seems to have a better chance of beating him and trump is narrowing the lead of the "big three."

We should not forget that last time Trump faced Clinton, but we also should not forget the American habit of just electing the same guy twice.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

... but we also should not forget the American habit of just electing the same guy twice.

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13 of the 44 who have served as POTUS won two terms consecutively. 1 won two separate terms (and two pres #s) but lost the intervening election. 4 more have acceded to the office to finish a term following a death and subsequently won a second on their own pins. FDR, or course, won 4 consecutive elections.

Historically, we have less than half who have won a second term in office. However, 4 of the last 5 have served two consecutive terms making it seem the 'norm.'

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

13 of the 44 who have served as POTUS won two terms consecutively. 1 won two separate terms (and two pres #s) but lost the intervening election. 4 more have acceded to the office to finish a term following a death and subsequently won a second on their own pins. FDR, or course, won 4 consecutive elections.

Historically, we have less than half who have won a second term in office. However, 4 of the last 5 have served two consecutive terms making it seem the 'norm.'

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Historical norms aren't really norms if they're outside our lifetime. Democracy in its basic form only takes place in our lifetime. Before that, it's history. Dead people don't (officially) vote.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Nah, but if you keep the Big Lie going maybe others will believe you.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...eral_election/

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I'd be concerned if I believed they could keep that up over a year of campaigning, as it is the Big Lie is insisting the democrats havent backed the wrong horses but I'd believe that most of them dont see it yet.

After the eviceration Gabbard gave Harris the DNC have made every effort to avoid putting Biden and Warren on the same stage as her. They're scared shitless and it tells everything I need to know to how they'll fare with trump. Bernie is the exception, making the likelyhood he's blown before he could even begin downright tragic.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

He is upsetting many of the right people, as well as a lot of the wrong people, as well as a lot of people who used to be staunch GOP.

He has had some positive influence on the economy (though some would assert this is short term economic gain at the expense of safety and global climate), though it is also true that the first half of a first term President's economy is at least half the product of the predecessor. Improved, yes. All Trump's doing....not so much.

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In spite of the typically limited and diffuse impact of policy on the economy in the short-term, Trump has done more than almost any President since the antebellum era to singlehandedly and directly damage the economy, which is hard to do when administrations like Jefferson's, Jackson's, Polk's, etc. (hmmm, I'm beginning to detect a pattern) adopted basically suicidal economics. There's even an argument that, to the extent that this president's economic actions are largely executive as opposed to worked out with Congress (other than the 2017 tax law), he bears the responsibility and thereby becomes the very worst President on the economy. Though it does him no favors that the legislative action, the 2017 law, was so marginal a stimulus in its upward wealth transfer. Republican depredations are well-enough known to be an archetype, but the jokes about Trump running the country like a business by driving it into bankruptcy while enriching himself through embezzlement and fraud were obviously especially prescient.

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The Dems are pushing, so far, staunchly left of center where the hearts of their younger and most active and their ardent leftist core groups are happiest. But they will need to take back the white working class voter or Trump may well repeat his minority vote win in 2020.

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Without having to challenge your premises, it should cheer you that Trump is indeed bleeding among the white working class, especially white women, whose votes he cannot afford to lose.

Remember that (you can check this against the certified results) the Trump 2016 electorate was something like 45% white men and 40% white women, compared to <50% whites among the Clinton electorate. He can neither lose any of that nor afford any increase in turnout among the opposition, and he's consistently down on both counts so far. Meanwhile, seemingly the only demographic among whom he has enlarged his vote share are Never-Trump Republicans (lol). More pertinent is to relate this to the Electoral College, where I reiterate he must win all the states he won in 2016 and has no prospect of capturing any new ones. But his clinches in the decisive states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are in danger of evaporation if they haven't already, Florida remains in play with a heavy blue shift among the electorate (perhaps too heavy to disenfranchise), and now even Texas is becoming a battleground state.

On the other side, Warren is a fairly skilled and persuasive politician.

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Warren has won multiple teaching awards, and when I first profiled her in 2011, early in her Senate run and during what would be her last semester of teaching at Harvard, I spoke to students who were so over the moon about her that my editors decided I could not use many of their quotes because they were simply too laudatory. Many former students I interviewed for this story spoke in similarly soaring terms. One, Jonas Blank, described her as “patient and plainspoken, like an elementary-school teacher is expected to be, but also intense and sharp the way a law professor is supposed to be.” Several former students who are now (and were then) Republicans declined to talk to me on the record precisely because they liked her so much and did not want to contribute to furthering her political prospects by speaking warmly of her.

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I don't like her policy set, as you might well imagine Monty. On the other hand, she is intelligent, openly promoting relatively detailed policy initiatives (I don't have to agree with them to respect the policy goals intended or the fact that she has the ovaries to get this detailed this early in what is often only a beauty pageant at this stage), a solid public speaker, and seems likable personally. She would not, unlike the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania, constitute a stain on the executive.

I know that Trump's support has eroded in the working class in some of those swing states he must carry again to return to office. And I think he has slipped a bit in Florida too. However, running against socialism/communism is a doable "sale" to our working class (Reagan did it twice, as did Dubya and even term one Clinton with his Centrist stances on economics etc.). I am concerned that too ardent a progressive will backfire and yield a second term.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

1 won two separate terms (and two pres #s) but lost the intervening election.

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Misread that as "I won...", was thinking President Seamus wouldn't have been too bad.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

I don't like her policy set, as you might well imagine Monty. On the other hand, she is intelligent, openly promoting relatively detailed policy initiatives (I don't have to agree with them to respect the policy goals intended or the fact that she has the ovaries to get this detailed this early in what is often only a beauty pageant at this stage), a solid public speaker, and seems likable personally. She would not, unlike the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania, constitute a stain on the executive.

I know that Trump's support has eroded in the working class in some of those swing states he must carry again to return to office. And I think he has slipped a bit in Florida too. However, running against socialism/communism is a doable "sale" to our working class (Reagan did it twice, as did Dubya and even term one Clinton with his Centrist stances on economics etc.). I am concerned that too ardent a progressive will backfire and yield a second term.

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Cheers, but as often as conservatives recommend that Democrats can become more appealing by adopting conservative positions, it shouldn't be controversial to acknowledge a certain bias in the estimation.

"Hey bud, can you go get us two large pizza pies." "Regular?" "Some of that, but also some individual slices of pepperoni - and oregano and basil - and some mushrooms with chicken - and barbecue sauce - and buffalo - and Capricciosa if they have it." "Doesn't sound like that will leave much room for regular cheese." "Trust me, they're gonna love it."

For my part I'm not sure we could clearly establish as of now that any Top 5 candidate would lose to Trump, or more likely lose than another, though suspect with Biden the margins would be uncomfortably close. Trump loves nothing in his job more than campaigning, and by all I've seen he's a more energetic and confident campaigner than Biden could hope to be. We need that "crawl over broken glass" fervor, and yet Biden has been caught totally flatfooted by his role in the Ukraine controversy despite it being out there for months? This is the guy, who goes so far as to micromanage his campaign team, he is the electable one who is uniquely poised to defeat Trump?

Is Warren the one who pretended to be a red indian to get into college?

Why would you vote for a cheat like that?

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Originally Posted by InsaneApache

Is Warren the one who pretended to be a red indian to get into college?

Why would you vote for a cheat like that?

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I dunno.

Why would anyone vote for a dude who claimed to be a "successful businessman" and "a very stable genius", but can't provide the tax forms to back that up, even when he promised to do so? Why would someone believe that a guy who would promise to build a giant wall on the southern border and make the other government pay for it even though they clearly would not? Why would someone vote for a guy who screwed the farmers with a trade war, and then put a guy in charge of agriculture who told them "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out" (kinda tone deaf seeing as that there are a lot of people with money issues right now). Why would people vote for a guy who promised to revitalize coal, when it was in no way economically or environmentally feasible to do so?

Anything can happen.

Also, Trump kind of screwed over the Kurds really badly. It's going to bite really hard somewhere down the line. The worst part is that, although the US has done this type of thing before, this time the president abandoned allies because of his personal financial ties to another country's leader. The US got nothing out of this one, except a possible Islamic State resurgence and antagonizing another group of Muslims.

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Originally Posted by InsaneApache

Is Warren the one who pretended to be a red indian to get into college?

Why would you vote for a cheat like that?

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If you want to cast it as a battle of morals and that's as bad as it gets from Warren, well then she wins hands down against trump. The man is an odius imbecile.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

Misread that as "I won...", was thinking President Seamus wouldn't have been too bad.

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I think the Presidency would be better served if we did not elect them to that office....but sentenced them to it against their will.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

If you want to cast it as a battle of morals and that's as bad as it gets from Warren, well then she wins hands down against trump. The man is an odius imbecile.

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I am not sure that I agree with the imbecile label. I concur with odious, and I would probably add bombastic, crapulous, obstreperous, narcissistic, demagogic, and quasi-sociopathic, but he is not as stupid as he is ignorant and unethical.

Its funny, the more he is denigrated by the left the more humiliating it is that such a man has beaten the democrats and the more damning it becomes when the democrat who would replace him are shown to be or have done much the same and worse.

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Originally Posted by Greyblades

Its funny, the more he is denigrated by the left the more humiliating it is that such a man has beaten the democrats and the more damning it becomes when the democrat who would replace him are shown to be or have done much the same and worse.

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I think you should be more concerned that there are dumbasses who would still vote for him. They voted for a vague idea of perusing some abstract sense of nationalism that involved supremacy, but the policies are doing everything that is undoing that supremacy. If the ideals of Trump's America First policy were followed to the letter, the US would quickly become a hermit state like North Korea. It's infuriating that the braying jackasses who scream the loudest about their supposed patriotism are the ones totally incapable of appreciating what is it about their country that is actually great.

But, hey, he's showing it to the libtards, so he is winning. Because you voted for him, you're winning. That means you're not a loser anymore, even though everyone is worse off, including yourself. That's the winning strategy. Make people who, under more sane circumstances, be ridiculed and shunned, feel like winners.

There's also the typical strain of tribalism in R vs D, religion and single issue voters that ultimately play the system. It's a trainwreck sustained by whataboutism, cynicism, and a general disconnect with the world.

It's frantic psychosis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjwaVcDpAEU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC2FaAQntzo

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Originally Posted by InsaneApache

Is Warren the one who pretended to be a red indian to get into college?

Why would you vote for a cheat like that?

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The salient quality of this post is not its mere wrongness, but its premise that cheats are not worthy of votes - yet the poster would characterize Donald Trump, one of the most voracious fraudsters in American history (to say nothing of all the other violations), as a god-emperor. Hypocrisy in its original sense was understood to arise in professing a belief or persona that one did not hold: a kind of play-acting, really a subset of the lie. But the poster probably can't even be said to be deceiving us about a belief in the wrongness of cheating. It's worse than that.

The poster appears to engage in a sort of doublethink where their enemies are naturally cheaters and therefore cheating is bad, while at the same should their friends cheat it is a show of strength and prowess and therefore cheating is good. There could well genuinely be no psychological contradiction between these beliefs, because they are deployed serially in a goal-oriented fashion; they will not conflict except when the object is an ambivalent one in categorization. In other words, this type of person operates according to a principle of tribal aggression, which precludes normal human communication. When the aggression principle is active typical limits on the incoherence of a belief set may be exceeded. So what should we do with them, eh? Shave them with a rusty razor?

@CrossLOPER Innuendo Studies has a video series about the alt-right playbook.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

I am not sure that I agree with the imbecile label. I concur with odious, and I would probably add bombastic, crapulous, obstreperous, narcissistic, demagogic, and quasi-sociopathic, but he is not as stupid as he is ignorant and unethical.

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However one defines stupidity, Trump evinces it. At the very minimum a politician should be concerned for their political survival, yet Trump frequently acts against even his own (electoral) interests. A smarter politician would be shoring up his support while committing his crimes quietly, not the other way around - for three years straight.

No, the shoe fits. Moreover, I hope you don't defend Trump from charges of stupidity on the basis of his high status. A lot of powerful men throughout history have been plain fools. I know there's a kind of instinctive tendency to impute cleverness and ability to high-status men, but it's unwarranted deferential bias. Wishful thinking about the distribution of merit. The one exacerbating element would be that having power and wealth tends to damage good judgement all on its own because of insulation from criticism and consequences, but I would call that another component of stupidity all the same.


Unrelatedly, a review of James Comey's new memoir.

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If you read Comey’s memoir, the story that he doesn’t realize he’s telling you is a story about a man so convinced of his own heroism that he constantly searches for opportunities to intervene and ends up making things worse. An extremely American story.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

The poster appears to engage in a sort of doublethink where their enemies are naturally cheaters and therefore cheating is bad, while at the same should their friends cheat it is a show of strength and prowess and therefore cheating is good. ...

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I present the greater spotted old English brexiteer.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

The salient quality of this post is not its mere wrongness, but its premise that cheats are not worthy of votes - yet the poster would characterize Donald Trump, one of the most voracious fraudsters in American history (to say nothing of all the other violations), as a god-emperor. Hypocrisy in its original sense was understood to arise in professing a belief or persona that one did not hold: a kind of play-acting, really a subset of the lie. But the poster probably can't even be said to be deceiving us about a belief in the wrongness of cheating. It's worse than that.

The poster appears to engage in a sort of doublethink where their enemies are naturally cheaters and therefore cheating is bad, while at the same should their friends cheat it is a show of strength and prowess and therefore cheating is good. There could well genuinely be no psychological contradiction between these beliefs, because they are deployed serially in a goal-oriented fashion; they will not conflict except when the object is an ambivalent one in categorization. In other words, this type of person operates according to a principle of tribal aggression, which precludes normal human communication. When the aggression principle is active typical limits on the incoherence of a belief set may be exceeded. So what should we do with them, eh? Shave them with a rusty razor?

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The reverse is also true - that which disqualifies Trump in your eyes, racism, self-delusition, falsehood, incompetence, etc.... should also disqualify Warren.

Like IA you simply ignore the parts of your candidate you don't like.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

The reverse is also true - that which disqualifies Trump in your eyes, racism, self-delusition, falsehood, incompetence, etc.... should also disqualify Warren.

Like IA you simply ignore the parts of your candidate you don't like.

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Do you believe every person is identical to all other persons? That is e absurdity of both-sidesism. With such categorical reasoning we could find every human to be equally as bad or good as Hitler or Jesus.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Do you believe every person is identical to all other persons? That is e absurdity of both-sidesism. With such categorical reasoning we could find every human to be equally as bad or good as Hitler or Jesus.

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No, of course not, don't be silly. Warren isn't as bad as Trump.

Despite which, you've expended an awful lot of effort trying to convince me that although she's racist it's OK because (unlike Trump) it's just the normal American racism against Native Americans, instead of Trump's nasty racism.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

No, of course not, don't be silly. Warren isn't as bad as Trump.

Despite which, you've expended an awful lot of effort trying to convince me that although she's racist it's OK because (unlike Trump) it's just the normal American racism against Native Americans, instead of Trump's nasty racism.

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So what's the basis for your complaint? I'm not so radical as to presumptively hold that white people should not be represented in government (which at some point would mean the racial power structures inverting anyway).

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

The reverse is also true - that which disqualifies Trump in your eyes, racism, self-delusition, falsehood, incompetence, etc.... should also disqualify Warren.

Like IA you simply ignore the parts of your candidate you don't like.

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It depends on how prevalent these characteristics are. All humans lie to a greater and lesser extent. Politicians by the nature of their position lie more than most. But, at least until the advent of the alt-right, few lie as a matter of course, and those that do gained certain reputations. Does Warren lie occasionally? We know that Trump lies practically all the time. Does the telling of one, or even a few, lies, equate one with someone who lies all the time?

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

Does the telling of one, or even a few, lies, equate one with someone who lies all the time?

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Yes, if you are a religious fanatic who believes in predestination.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

It depends on how prevalent these characteristics are. All humans lie to a greater and lesser extent. Politicians by the nature of their position lie more than most. But, at least until the advent of the alt-right, few lie as a matter of course, and those that do gained certain reputations. Does Warren lie occasionally? We know that Trump lies practically all the time. Does the telling of one, or even a few, lies, equate one with someone who lies all the time?

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I take your point, but my point is that the nature of the lies she has told to/about herself show she's not fit to be president.

Monty's argument is what you might call "The Prince Philip Defence" that all she's guilty of is the sort of "benign" racism common to her class.