Trump Thread

[Montmorency]

But if it was Hilary or Obama, they would be rioting. They accused Obama of 'palling with terrorists' whilst he is the one who ordered the hit on Osama.

IMHO the bigger problem with this incident was Trump cancelling peace negotiations that were nearing finalization, out of pique. Not the decision to hold them or continue them or the location or time of formalization. Of course, once again Trump's handling makes America look stupid and hostile while conferring legitimacy to our adversaries.

Hopefully it's like his usual pattern of blowing up talks then coming back weeks later with concessions. Get it done.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm not joking about the pattern. It's not just North Korea or NAFTA. Trump is now at the stage of trying to buy back Iran's compliance with a pact Trump himself caused the United States to violate.

Is he literally just doing this for all our foreign policy, instigating a crisis and then walking it back having permanently weakened our diplomatic and economic position? Are there any counterexamples?

His 'base' love him for his tone-deaf, combative, 'I am the leader' attitude -- but even most of them would admit he isn't the most glib or sensitive of communicators.

One article suggested that Trump reneged after becoming upset that he wouldn't be perceived as having 'sealed the deal' (professional diplomats worked it out over months and years behind the scenes). But I haven't found confirmation so don't hold me to that.


Well beyond the Iraq War Bolton had a reputation as a wrecker. What are your reasons for disliking Bolton, Seamus? I doubt ours don't overlap significantly.

Other than that, in case anyone wants to give credit to Trump for once again being the foreign policy version of the man who killed Hitler, here is Trump's own perspective on Bolton's role:

In fact, my views on Venezuela, and especially Cuba, were far stronger than those of John Bolton. He was holding me back!

kek

[Seamus Fermanagh]

…One article suggested that Trump reneged after becoming upset that he wouldn't be perceived as having 'sealed the deal' (professional diplomats worked it out over months and years behind the scenes). But I haven't found confirmation so don't hold me to that.
Well beyond the Iraq War Bolton had a reputation as a wrecker. What are your reasons for disliking Bolton, Seamus? I doubt ours don't overlap significantly.

Other than that, in case anyone wants to give credit to Trump for once again being the foreign policy version of the man who killed Hitler, here is Trump's own perspective on Bolton's role: …

I don't hate Bolton but mostly disagree with him. His skepticism as to the efficacy of the UN, the role of diplomacy, and the value of the EU are a bit more strident than my own, but I trend in that direction. On the other hand, however, he pretty much always views US military intervention as the correct answer and very much takes a "smash it flat then leave them in their squalor" attitude towards such interventions. Bolton is considered one of the 'architects' of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and he was quite possible criminal (and certainly a negligent analyst) in his cavalier support for the evidence proffered regarding Iraqi WMDs. His attitude also helped create the simply deplorable lack of security/suppression of insurrection that characterized our involvement in Iraq following the toppling of the Saddam regime. Apparently, following Saddam's capture, his attitude was that we should have pulled out and handed them a copy of the Federalist Papers with a cheery 'good luck.' I am not opposed to intervention using military force, but the cavalier attitude for the aftermath Bolton exhibit' is, at best, poor long-term thinking about problem resolution.

If you want a better read on me over the course of the last few years, take a read of Max Boot's Wiki.

n general, Boot considers himself to be a "natural contrarian".[33] He identifies as a conservative, once joking that "I grew up in the 1980s, when conservatism was cool".[34] He is in favor of limited government at home and American leadership abroad. He strongly opposed Trump's presidential candidacy in 2016[35] and has been highly critical of the Republican Party.[36] Boot endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 U.S. presidential election.[37] Boot was critical of the nomination of Rex Tillerson to the position of Secretary of State, believing him to be problematically pro-Russian, and subsequently called on Tillerson to resign.[38] Boot said he would "sooner vote for Josef Stalin than he would vote for Donald Trump."[39]
In an opinion piece for Foreign Policy in September 2017, Max Boot outlines his political views as follows: "I am socially liberal: I am pro-LGBTQ rights, pro-abortion rights, pro-immigration. I am fiscally conservative: I think we need to reduce the deficit and get entitlement spending under control. I am pro-environment: I think that climate change is a major threat that we need to address. I am pro-free trade: I think we should be concluding new trade treaties rather than pulling out of old ones. I am strong on defense: I think we need to beef up our military to cope with multiple enemies. And I am very much in favor of America acting as a world leader: I believe it is in our own self-interest to promote and defend freedom and free markets as we have been doing in one form or another since at least 1898."[40]
In December 2017, also in Foreign Policy, Boot wrote that recent events—particularly since the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president—had caused him to rethink some of his previous views concerning the existence of white privilege and male privilege. "In the last few years, in particular, it has become impossible for me to deny the reality of discrimination, harassment, even violence that people of color and women continue to experience in modern-day America from a power structure that remains for the most part in the hands of straight, white males. People like me, in other words. Whether I realize it or not, I have benefited from my skin color and my gender—and those of a different gender or sexuality or skin color have suffered because of it."[41]
Damon Linker of the New York Times argued in a 2018 review of Boot's The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right that Boot never espoused pronounced conservative ideas, but rather followed "the expression of a particularly bellicose strand of Cold War liberalism that migrated from the center-left to the center-right in the aftermath of the Vietnam War... By the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, this brand of muscular, centrist liberalism was back."

Other than his endorsement of Hillary Clinton [I voted for my wife rather than supporting her or Trump], abortion [I view the unborn as living with the rights attached thereto, though the whole situation makes me sad], and trade treaties [one of my few areas of partial agreement with Trump. I DO believe that too many extant treaties are too lopsided against the USA and do not consider it our duty to subsidize Chinese development etc. when they don't respect intellectual property].

With those caveats, Boot's on shift in political thinking is very much in line with my own. Like Reagan once said about his break with the Democrats, "they left me."

[Montmorency]

I DO believe that too many extant treaties are too lopsided against the USA and do not consider it our duty to subsidize Chinese development etc. when they don't respect intellectual property].

More precisely, lopsided in favor of US corporations and against labor (everywhere). But if you used those terms with Sanders or Warren they would vehemently agree. Would you be able to vote for one of them next year?

With those caveats, Boot's on shift in political thinking is very much in line with my own. Like Reagan once said about his break with the Democrats, "they left me."

sigh

When the liberals were telling you what the Republican Party was, y'all should have listened.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Even into the summer of 2016, I was convinced that Trump was an aberration of the moment. Not so, his Trumpeteers had taken over the party from the inside using the TEA party as a framework. It is now Trump's creature.

[Montmorency]

Even into the summer of 2016, I was convinced that Trump was an aberration of the moment. Not so, his Trumpeteers had taken over the party from the inside using the TEA party as a framework. It is now Trump's creature.

I know this will feel like I'm picking on you, but from the world-historical perspective it is necessary to understand that Trump was the party's creature, not the other way around. The party made its bed with Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society and Jerry Falwell and the Southern Strategy. Degeneracy was overdetermined without even taking into account the party's already-hideous hundred-year history as the "Free labor" aristocracy (transitionally transmuted through Milton Friedman).

Here's a clip of Ronald Reagan campaigning for Truman in 1948. "In other words, higher prices have not been caused by higher wages, but by bigger and bigger profits." Sounds like Sanders. 'My party left me' because it became more conservative economically (than the historically unique New Deal heyday) and more socially liberal so there was no choice but to join the Republicans - is... a very telling transformation.

A Lovecraftian tale of dreadful genealogy.

[Montmorency]

Hilarious that the inciting event has been reported since ~April, but perhaps, it is finally beginning to begin in earnest.

Even Prof. Bowman comes out.

[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.