Donald Trump is the President Mark IV (Read Mod Warning in OP)

dr.fuzzenstein

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

And got a huge election boost the next time round when they said they would get rid of water charges.

But getting back to the US

It's not the horrible mess that people here think it is. People who probably never set foot in the place
The economy is doing well which is a huge factor

The average American doesn't give a toss about what is happening to the person of colour that they will never interact with and that lives on the other side of town that they will never have any business going to.

Just like the average Irish person does not give a toss what is happening to the traveller on the halthing site or the Syrian refugee in the direct provision centre.

Trump's policies are actually disasterous, he's spending wildly and cutting taxes in a booming market instead of taking advantage of the market to raise some taxes in order to curtail the galloping deficit and build up reserves for the inevitable downturn.
Imagine a train heading downhill into a sharp bend and the train driver stoking the fire and giving it max power instead of slowing the train down.
When the crash comes, sometimes in the next 2 years, he will have no reserves to increase spending and pump some cash into the economy to help it. Unless he wants to absolutely mushroom the deficit yet again and pile a few more trillions onto the debt. The US already owes more money than is in existence in the country, but hey, who's counting.
Of course the average voter in the US doesn't care, they just think it's partytime, there is no downside and just because it's gone wrong dozens of times before, doesn't mean it's gonne gone wrong the 101st time.
Trump is bying his own popularity on the backs of the future of generations of US citicens who will be utterly fücked. And you can be sure Trump won't care.
When he bankrupted his casinos in Atlanta, he made sure that everyone else got stuck with the bill and he made money:

“Atlantic City fueled a lot of growth for me,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in May, summing up his 25-year history here. “The money I took out of there was incredible.”

He doesn't give a sh*te about the people who were out of pocket and he is doing the same thing with the entire US right now.
He will bankrup the country, make billions, fcuk over every American and he will be happy that he made a killing on it.
You mark my words.

dr.fuzzenstein

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Trump's policies are actually disasterous, he's spending wildly and cutting taxes in a booming market instead of taking advantage of the market to raise some taxes in order to curtail the galloping deficit and build up reserves for the inevitable downturn.
Imagine a train heading downhill into a sharp bend and the train driver stoking the fire and giving it max power instead of slowing the train down.
When the crash comes, sometimes in the next 2 years, he will have no reserves to increase spending and pump some cash into the economy to help it. Unless he wants to absolutely mushroom the deficit yet again and pile a few more trillions onto the debt. The US already owes more money than is in existence in the country, but hey, who's counting.
Of course the average voter in the US doesn't care, they just think it's partytime, there is no downside and just because it's gone wrong dozens of times before, doesn't mean it's gonne gone wrong the 101st time.
Trump is bying his own popularity on the backs of the future of generations of US citicens who will be utterly fücked. And you can be sure Trump won't care.
When he bankrupted his casinos in Atlanta, he made sure that everyone else got stuck with the bill and he made money:



He doesn't give a sh*te about the people who were out of pocket and he is doing the same thing with the entire US right now.
He will bankrup the country, make billions, fcuk over every American and he will be happy that he made a killing on it.
You mark my words.

So wild unsustainable economic policies that are good in the short-term be bad in the long term ?

Exactly like we have done here.

Thanks for making my point.

dr.fuzzenstein

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

So wild unsustainable economic policies that are good in the short-term be bad in the long term ?

Exactly like we have done here.

Thanks for making my point.

Well, yes, that was my point, wasn't disagreeing. I meant to say Trump is buying popularity in the short term at the cost of the long term prospects of an entire country.

spacecoyote

prawnsambo wrote: »

You're kind of stating the obvious here. People vote for governments that give hand outs in tax breaks and other 'freebies'. The most famous example being the vote for Jack Lynch in 1977 that essentially killed local government. And they vote against governments that have to make the hard decsions and increase taxes and cut services.

On the other hand, the government you mention above that was re-elected and then presided over the crash that it had fuelled, were absolutely hounded out of the Dail in the next election. They still haven't recovered from that and may not until every last member of that government is gone from politics.

Its identical to around the last 10-15 years or so in the US. Rep President presides over deregulated financial markets, rampant lending & housing bubble. Crashes market

Dem president comes in, is forced to make a lot of tough decisions to try drag economy back out of a hole, and put regs in to try prevent it happening again.

Everyone slates the Dem guy for the weak US economy

Rep president comes back in. Picks up the reins from the Dem who got the economy back on its feet. Blames him for everything, introduces short term measures that give people a boost. Slashes the previously implemented regulations, and starts building things towards a massive crash

Its building to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBed9hZ4O5k

Outlaw Pete

B0jangles wrote: »

Eric, without even delving into the gun death stats, are you aware of just how recent 'historic' racism is in the US?

This is 2018.

Sure there was 'No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish' signs in England as recently as the 60's. Here's a classified from a New York publication:





Doesn't mean anything today though but it's not surprising that you would post such things as it's patently clear that is what is behind liberals' thinking today. We are all well aware of how poorly black people were once treated which is why something was done about it in many parts of the world. Not that blacks were alone of course, racism and prejudice has taken many forms in society down the years.

Liberals however utilize such reprehensible behavior of the past to try and emotionally manipulate people into doing what they want them to do. They use black people (and other minorities) to further their own agendas. Pandering to them at every turn. They see blacks as unable to think for themselves and treat them as perpetual victims when they are anything but.

If liberals respected black people, as they so desperately want people to believe, then they would treat them as equals, not as helpless victims. They wouldn't excuse poor whites for their crimes in America and so excusing poor blacks can only really be about pandering for gain.

The likes of Trayvon Martin was no Steve Biko and treating them as such won't make them so. Maybe a lot of young liberals today wish they were old enough to actually have done something for genuinely oppressed black people in the world and so exaggerate the circumstances in which black people in America live today so they can feel a bit better about themselves.

Either way, it's misplaced.

Here's an excellent clip of where a black guy and Asian guy speak about this kind of BS that they are discriminated against today and that white people have privilege over them (it's set to play at the specific point but it's 35mins in if it doesn't jump there):

Billy Mays

There won't be a financial crash cos Donnie will just get them to print more money :cool:

hill16bhoy

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

But the problem is that we are looking at it from across the Atlantic.

We have no idea

There were millions of fair minded Americans who voted this week for candidates from both parties.

There are millions of fair minded Americans who believe the country is doing just fine and are quiet happy.

We have a tendency here to lecture about what type of America we think America should be.

But at the same time we are a country that have in the last 20 years
Twice re-elected a government run by a corrupt PM that cut taxes and gave huge had outs.
Failed to re-elect a government that took hard decisions to try and fix the problems.
Flocked at the last minute to the party in point 1 above when they decided to be against water charges.
Give 20+% to a unknown candidate in a foregone conclusion of an election because said candidate touched a nerve about a marginalised group in society
And in 2004 voted by 80% to deny birthrigh citizenship.

We are no better or no worse than any Americans

In terms of having "no idea" of what happens in the US, I'd suggest that it's those in the US who have an "I'm alright, Jack" attitude who are the ones who know least about their own country, in the same way that those who were "alright, Jack" in the North of Ireland pre-1969 were the ones who knew least about their own country, and how "alright, Jack" southern Tories in the UK tend to know least about the other parts of England, and nothing about Scotland Wales or the North of Ireland.

Living in a country does not confer automatic knowledge of that country. In fact it can often mean the opposite. Those who observe at a distance are very often those who can see clearest what is happening.

I voted against the abolition of birthright citizenship in 2004 and I felt it was a stain on the country that it voted so comprehensively for it.

Ireland has loads of faults, and loads of bad politicians and bad policies and people who happily vote for bad politicians and bad policies.

But our politicians on the whole are generally pretty centrist and, on the whole, reasonably sensible. We have your Danny Healy-Raes and Mattie McGraths alright, and latterly Peter Casey, but these are very much fringe figures with no real power.

Our so called "extremists" in politics are the likes of Richard Boyd-Barrett, Clare Daly and Paul Murphy - ie. people who are demonstrably not extremists at all and promote a tolerant and inclusive society - people may not agree with their ideology for achieving that, but they are not dangerous extremists.

I'd never give Fine Gael or Fianna Fail a vote in a million years, but compared to the Tories in Britain and the Republicans in the US, they are very benign, and for that we should actually be thankful. Our "right-wing" isn't too bad compared to other countries.

The genuinely dangerous, US Republican-style wannabes of Renua got absolutely nowhere and may as well not exist.

The far right are pretty much non-existent here and long may it stay that way.

We have loads of problems with the way the country is run and there is piles of incompetence in state services and other services and so much more could be done, but Ireland is not the worst place in the world to be poor or unemployed or otherwise vulnerable, certainly not compared to the UK or US. It's not the worst place in the world to be sick either, though we clearly lack a genuine universal health system. But you won't be refused treatment if you present at a hospital.

I don't think we have a mass problem with racism, or anti-semitism, or discrimination against people of minority ethnic background (with the significant exception of discrimination against Travellers), or minority sexual orientation (much as the infestation of sad case far-right posters on another section of this site and other Irish political forums would desperately like it to be otherwise in all these areas), though any such discrimination is too much.

Our Taoiseach is gay and of part-Indian family background, and while I don't support his politics, I am proud that his identity is a total non-issue and there has been no backlash whatsoever against his identity, bar Peter Casey's sad comments a couple of weeks back - unlike in the US, where a significant amount of the white population couldn't accept a black president.

We don't have a major problem with blatant propaganda and outright lies infesting our mainstream public discourse, certainly not to near the level you see in the US or UK - though our media is clearly not perfect by a long shot.

We don't disenfranchise people, we know how to run a genuine democracy and we have led the way for tolerant values in Europe through our democracy, as other countries threaten to move in the opposite direction.

We are, on the whole, a liberal people, and a reasonably caring and humble society, I think. We don't have outlandish notions about ourselves or pathetically hark back to an imagined golden era that never existed. We're generally a pretty positive people who tend to look outward and forward rather than inward and backward. But it's a genuine, deeper, quieter positivity, not the feigned positivity that masks so much hatred in America. Hubris and arrogance tend to be scorned here, and that's healthy. We're definitely not great, but we're pretty good.

America could learn a lot from us, whereas I don't think we have a huge amount to learn from America, and certainly not from the significant minority who have embraced Trump and his fascism.

borderlinemeath

borderlinemeath wrote: »

I actually posted yesterday that watching him speak is like listening to Father Ted accepting his Golden Cleric award. I was right.

Remember that scene in Father Ted where he wins the Golden Cleric award, and when he is writing is acceptance speech, he lists all the people who annoyed him over the years.

I said that last September at his last press conference. It's the same petulance every time he speaks, the sneering at those that he believes failed him or didn't kiss enough ass.


Aside from that, I don't think he looks well. He looks like the cholesterol is really starting to clog his arteries. His movements seem slow and deliberate, like he's trying to stave off a wobble and he seems even more orange than usual, as if he upped the tanning regime to counteract the pallor of illness. The stress of the presidency is starting to catch up on him along with the added stress of the Mueller investigation and actually having to do a bit of work for the midterms.

hill16bhoy

hill16bhoy wrote: »

In terms of having "no idea" of what happens in the US, I'd suggest that it's those in the US who have an "I'm alright, Jack" attitude who are the ones who know least about their own country, in the same way that those who were "alright, Jack" in the North of Ireland pre-1969 were the ones who knew least about their own country, and how "alright, Jack" southern Tories in the UK tend to know least about the other parts of England, and nothing about Scotland Wales or the North of Ireland.

Living in a country does not confer automatic knowledge of that country. In fact it can often mean the opposite. Those who observe at a distance are very often those who can see clearest what is happening.

I voted against the abolition of birthright citizenship in 2004 and I felt it was a stain on the country that it voted so comprehensively for it.

Ireland has loads of faults, and loads of bad politicians and bad policies and people who happily vote for bad politicians and bad policies.

But our politicians on the whole are generally pretty centrist and, on the whole, reasonably sensible. We have your Danny Healy-Raes and Mattie McGraths alright, and latterly Peter Casey, but these are very much fringe figures with no real power.

Our so called "extremists" in politics are the likes of Richard Boyd-Barrett, Clare Daly and Paul Murphy - ie. people who are demonstrably not extremists at all and promote a tolerant and inclusive society - people may not agree with their ideology for achieving that, but they are not dangerous extremists.

I'd never give Fine Gael or Fianna Fail a vote in a million years, but compared to the Tories in Britain and the Republicans in the US, they are very benign, and for that we should actually be thankful. Our "right-wing" isn't too bad compared to other countries.

The genuinely dangerous, US Republican-style wannabes of Renua got absolutely nowhere and may as well not exist.

The far right are pretty much non-existent here and long may it stay that way.

We have loads of problems with the way the country is run and there is piles of incompetence in state services and other services and so much more could be done, but Ireland is not the worst place in the world to be poor or unemployed or otherwise vulnerable, certainly not compared to the UK or US. It's not the worst place in the world to be sick either, though we clearly lack a genuine universal health system. But you won't be refused treatment if you present at a hospital.

I don't think we have a mass problem with racism, or anti-semitism, or discrimination against people of minority ethnic background (with the significant exception of discrimination against Travellers), or minority sexual orientation (much as the infestation of sad case far-right posters on another section of this site and other Irish political forums would desperately like it to be otherwise in all these areas), though any such discrimination is too much.

Our Taoiseach is gay and of part-Indian family background, and while I don't support his politics, I am proud that his identity is a total non-issue and there has been no backlash whatsoever against his identity, bar Peter Casey's sad comments a couple of weeks back - unlike in the US, where a significant amount of the white population couldn't accept a black president.

We don't have a major problem with blatant propaganda and outright lies infesting our mainstream public discourse, certainly not to near the level you see in the US or UK - though our media is clearly not perfect by a long shot.

We don't disenfranchise people, we know how to run a genuine democracy and we have led the way for tolerant values in Europe through our democracy, as other countries threaten to move in the opposite direction.

We are, on the whole, a liberal people, and a reasonably caring and humble society, I think. We don't have outlandish notions about ourselves or pathetically hark back to an imagined golden era that never existed. We're generally a pretty positive people who tend to look outward and forward rather than inward and backward. We're definitely not great, but we're pretty good.

America could learn a lot from us, whereas I don't think we have a huge amount to learn from America, and certainly not from the significant minority who have embraced Trump and his fascism.

We are not as developed as a multicultural society to have the problems with racism that the US, UK and other countries have.

Non white people are relatively new to this country, it's only about 20 years since people from outer countries started coming to Ireland to settle.

It could be a very differnt story in years to come

Up to that point the only ethnic or marginalised group in society was travellers, and look at the way they are viewed.

The left wingers you mentioned have only very local bases and have no national presence.

prawnsambo

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

The left wingers you mentioned have only very local bases and have no national presence.

They're not a new thing though. Remember Tony Gregory? Or Democratic Left? We've had lots of left wingers here. And DL were in one of those governments that rebuilt the country and got turfed out afterwards.

hill16bhoy

prawnsambo wrote: »

They're not a new thing though. Remember Tony Gregory? Or Democratic Left? We've had lots of left wingers here. And DL were in one of those governments that rebuilt the country and got turfed out afterwards.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that James Connolly and Jim Larkin were pretty left-wing.

oscarBravo

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

We are all well aware of how poorly black people were once treated...

Sure, but some of us aren't pretending that racism is over.

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

They're not a new thing though. Remember Tony Gregory? Or Democratic Left? We've had lots of left wingers here. And DL were in one of those governments that rebuilt the country and got turfed out afterwards.

Tony Gregory was noting other than a left wing version of Jackie Healy Rae.

Held a cash strapped government to ransome for his own constituency.

Yes there have been left wingers but their support is tiny in the grand scheme of things and as always they are very fractured.

SimonTemplar

One of the very first things Trump did when he got into power was to revoke an Obama-era gun check for people with mental health issues.

Water John

Outlaw Pete, an ad for, a Protestant cook. Is this as a rebuttal to Guy Fawkes night?
Voting in some US States, eg Florida and Georgia need serious reform. That is outside of any gerrymandering.

Jolly Red Giant

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

The left wingers you mentioned have only very local bases and have no national presence.

With all due respect - you are actually incorrect here. In fact the left-wing TDs have a far higher national profile than most opposition TDs and far more of a profile that government backbenchers.

Clare Daly played a major role in exposing corruption within the Gardai.

Ruth Coppinger played a major role in the repeal the 8th campaign - and was primarily responsible for highlighting the use of the abortion pill by Irish women.

Paul Murphy played a key role in defeating the water charges - highlighting the necessity of the boycott campaign. His profile was further increase by the blundering attempt by the government and the cops to stitch up Paul Murphy for kidnapping. After his acquittal and the acquittal of the other defendants more and 1,000 applied to join Solidarity. When Paul Murphy speaks at public meetings around the country he regularly attracts 200-300 people.

To suggest that left-wing TDs have very local bases with no national profile is false (and it is the same in other countries - even the USA where Marxist representatives regularly appear on a national platform.

dr.fuzzenstein

SimonTemplar wrote: »

One of the very first things Trump did when he got into power was to revoke an Obama-era gun check for people with mental health issues.

The only thing missing now is Trump blaming Obama for gun violence. And his supporters would buy it, any money.

Harika

https://twitter.com/DarkMatter2525/status/1061020464938672139

Facts don't matter anymore, what Trump said yesterday doesn't matter tomorrow when he says the opposite and his supporters won't call him accountable for that.

mcmoustache

Harika wrote: »

https://twitter.com/DarkMatter2525/status/1061020464938672139

Facts don't matter anymore, what Trump said yesterday doesn't matter tomorrow when he says the opposite and his supporters won't call him accountable for that.

It's been like this for two years. Trump supporters are all in now. He seemed like a good idea back then but now they don't want to be seen to have backed a terrible leader of a country so they have to commit to his reality, as hard as that may be.


The Acosta thing is a perfect example. The mic thing was a non-incident but trumpers are compelled to bend over backwards to pretent that this is normal.


It won't last. When he's gone, they'll just start new accounts.

jobbridge4life

Harika wrote: »

https://twitter.com/DarkMatter2525/status/1061020464938672139

Facts don't matter anymore, what Trump said yesterday doesn't matter tomorrow when he says the opposite and his supporters won't call him accountable for that.

They have never mattered with regard to Trump.

Personally I can't understand how the below video wasn't the end of Trump, how any individual could see this and decide this man believed with regard to *literally anything* is beyond me. Forget the comedy setting... just the absolute filth...

Christy42

jobbridge4life wrote: »

They have never mattered with regard to Trump.

Personally I can't understand how the below video wasn't the end of Trump, how any individual could see this and decide this man believed with regard to *literally anything* is beyond me. Forget the comedy setting... just the absolute filth...

All politicians have told lies, and this somehow justifies Trump lying more than pretty much any other politician out there. Plus he tells it like it is, while also lying.

everlast75

story breaking about Trump personally funding payments to McDougal and Daniels in WSJ and others.....

TomOnBoard

everlast75 wrote: »

story breaking about Trump personally funding payments to McDougal and Daniels in WSJ and others.....

I reckon the actual story is not so much about Trump personally funding the payments to Stormy, Karen and possibly others, which most ppl assumed had actually happened. Rather, the real story is that Mueller's team is, according to reports, pursuing this at all... As to what that suggests abt. whether Mueller considers that an illegality occurred, we must await that egg to be laid...

AFAIK, if its just a personal payment by Trump to the ladies, even if it is portrayed as having been focused on affecting the election outcome, there's no foul. Trump can use as much of his own money as he likes to do what he likes in his campaign. HOWEVER, if the payment was routed through the Trump Organisation, or the Trump Foundation, then different rules apply.

The fact that it is being mentioned at all at this stage is either a final acknowledgement by Mueller and his team that there was "no there there" in relation to Russian Collusion or anything else much, OR, Mueller has woven a prosecutorial web that will ensnare Trump's people ( but likely not Trump himself) from many different angles.

TomOnBoard

mcmoustache wrote: »

It's been like this for two years. Trump supporters are all in now. He seemed like a good idea back then but now they don't want to be seen to have backed a terrible leader of a country so they have to commit to his reality, as hard as that may be.


The Acosta thing is a perfect example. The mic thing was a non-incident but trumpers are compelled to bend over backwards to pretent that this is normal.


It won't last. When he's gone, they'll just start new accounts.

This is, I think, a crucial point!

IMHO, Trump has done something that has not been done for maybe a century: He has liberated the thought processes of a swathe of US Citizens who have toiled for generations to survive and have not really been represented, but have been totally taken for granted. These are working class stiffs, who have been slaving away for years in double- and triple- jobbing existences to make ends meet and do the best that they can for their families, after the careers of their apprenticeships in manufacturing and engineering went up in smoke in the noughties.

Racially, these ppl would have been the ones whose mostly white, high-school educated neighborhoods enjoyed the great blue- collar earnings from the 50s to the 90s, based on trickle-down benefits that came from heavy engineering such as coal and steel at the top, through military/industrial manufacturing to local consumer good production.

And, of course, that formula for personal success fell apart when wars fell out of favour (despite best efforts by the military-industrial complex), and when China found a way to make stuff for 10 cents a labour- hour that cost 4-6 bucks in Yankee- land for the same hour. when that low-labour cost formula was married to the twin-guns of stolen Intellectual Property married to lower quality raw materials, the $400 Microwave became available for $99.99. The $9,000 50 inch U.S.- made television in Los Angeles suddenly became available for less than 2 grand by a South Korean alternative that was, at first, buggy, but that improved massively in quality within 2- years, such that the U.S. made item was seen to be vastly inferior.

So, continents have shifted (figuratively) and the high-school educated, mostly blue-collar, generally white, American Citizens found themselves on the outside. In the early noughties, these folks were used as the fodder to feed ridiculous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When those wars fell out of fashion, the manufacturing was already gone by the time the boys came home, and lo and behold, America elected a Black President.

In the 16 years between the end of Clinton (Bill) and the end of Obama, the folks I'm referring to had ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE looking after them. And then, out of the blue comes Trump- an absolute earthquake within the political landscape, and what does he do? He recognised, for the 1st time in over a decade, that the (now much older) blue-collar (now mostly brown-collar) workers had absolutely nobody to talk to or to act for them. Yet these ppl were the backbone of the manually-productive (but already- failing) American economy. They had, since their return from Iraq and Afghanistan, been left to their own devices with absolutely no economic movement in their lives. Their old jobs were either roboticised or off-shored, or their roles were made completely redundant forever.

So when DJT came down the golden escalator and announced that he intended to run for POTUS, and when he focused on these folks who had been ignored for the best part of 2 decades, he struck his seam of electoral gold. Spare me the lazy Hillary characterization that these fols were 'deplorables'- imagine how that smug commentary on her part made these ppl. feel! Still able to saw lumber into Church furniture, and sew rags into Beverly Hills-valued quilts, these good people finally had a voice. That voice is Trump! It ain't pretty, and it surely don't follow the rules, but its a voice that these ppl. hear is actually being used, and appears (to them) to be used on their behalf. (Note here the huge emphasis on the part of the Trump team to appear to deliver on as many pre- election promises as possible, EVEN when that delivery make absolutely no sense: it's about delivering as promised!)

When you remember that the alternative to Trump was a billionaire dynastic and supremely entitled woman who was palpably hated for her disdain of these folks (made massively evident by her total non- attempts at stomping through the Rust- Belt in favour of visiting States where she already had a huge majority of the popular vote, which was an appalling strategic move on her part),who could blame these folks for supporting Trump.

Today's rhetoric is doubling-down on the 'deplorables' concept in relation to these folks. That is simply wrong! These are good people, let down by a system for decades, and now have a shining light for the first time in living memory. That's Trump's base! If you don't understand that, then you don't understand the dynamic of what is going on in America. Of course, there are lunatics on the fringes. Of course, the more invigorated supporters are the ones who make the effort to attend the rallies. But the narrative that is regularly trotted out here and elsewhere that these ppl are somehow blithering idiots or foaming retards is both obscenely insulting and crassly wrong.

These are real people. Get to know them!

Little of what Trump is doing is real. He is a creature of spin and lies. He is a charlatan of the highest order. However, because he identified a gap in the market and then made a market out of that gap, admire his chutzpah! And at the same time, recognise that he is the charlatan, and his supporters are basically his understandable victims. Don't decry them; decry him. But do it by arguing against him, and not by insulting his 'base'.
Going back to my first point, Trump has now awoken a whole slice of U.S. society, previously mostly ignored, who will never be silenced again. Therein lies the cataclysmic effect of Trump's Presidency- if it ended tomorrow, nothing will ever be the same again...

The trick for those both on the inside and on the outside is to navigate this whole new space.. But to do so, without losing our souls or our humanity..

vetinari

That's a nice story. Completely unrelated to any of the facts but nice nonetheless.
Trump has shown himself to be a racist xenophobe for years.
A big chunk of his supporters (deplorable) like that and support him for it.
It's a simple as that. You can still win national elections in the US by running up the white vote.
It's not economic, it's race based. Judge the 2016 election by race and it matches the exit polls.

dr.fuzzenstein

TomOnBoard wrote: »

This is, I think, a crucial point...

I do agree that Trump mobilised a large swathe of disenfranchised, white people whose entire world had vanished.
A few points however.
You complain Clinton is a billionaire and that Trump is, wait, WTF? Trump's also a sodding billionaire.
You mention that people vote for him with open eyes, knowing that he's a spoofer.
That validates my point that Trump is a troll candidate.
He will not bring back the golden years of the 1950's and turn America into a 21st century version of The Brady Bunch.
You say we should not blame the voters, but him.
We have said throughout this entire thread that Trump is the symptom. Hateful as he is, he only exists because his voters specifically want him to exist.
He was in plain view all along, the comments about Mexicans, Muslims, women, etc... That was just deliberate stoking of hatred and resentment. People who hate minorities and think that women and gays had enough rights already and should disappear back under their rock and shut the fcuk up.
He doesn't give a single sh*t about his voters or anyone else besides himself.
He bankrupted three casinos, left others to pay the debt and made a killing on the whole thing.
Just in case that isn't clear enough.
He will bankrupt America, make an absolute fortune and the people will pay for it. For generations.
Anyone who still wholeheartedly supports him right now is not a deplorable, they are borderline traitors.

Harika

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061104224090628097


Trump now confirms that he knows him and don't know him, depending on who asks. Great that he promoted someone he doesn't know

FingerDeKat

Harika wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061104224090628097

He's such a gobsh1te it's unbelievable....

everlast75

Harika wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1061104224090628097


Trump now confirms that he knows him and don't know him, depending on who asks. Great that he promoted someone he doesn't know

He said he never knew Whitaker - it is now proven he did

He said he knew nothing about the payments to his mistresses - it is now proven he did

He said he didn't collude with Russia - ........

B0jangles

vetinari wrote: »

That's a nice story. Completely unrelated to any of the facts but nice nonetheless.
Trump has shown himself to be a racist xenophobe for years.
A big chunk of his supporters (deplorable) like that and support him for it.
It's a simple as that. You can still win national elections in the US by running up the white vote.
It's not economic, it's race based. Judge the 2016 election by race and it matches the exit polls.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has been repeatedly found that statistically, Trump voters were wealthier than average, but less likely to have a college education, and more likely to be worried about the status of white people relative to minorities.

Was their vote some sort of cri de coeur about a changing economy that had left them behind? Or was the motivating sentiment something more complex and, frankly, something harder for policy makers to address?

After analyzing in-depth survey data from 2012 and 2016, the University of Pennsylvania political scientist Diana C. Mutz argues that it’s the latter.
In a new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, she added her conclusion to the growing body of evidence that the 2016 election was not about economic hardship. “Instead,” she writes, “it was about dominant groups that felt threatened by change and a candidate who took advantage of that trend.”

“For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country,” Mutz notes, “white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race.” When members of a historically dominant group feel threatened, she explains, they go through some interesting psychological twists and turns to make themselves feel okay again. First, they get nostalgic and try to protect the status quo however they can. They defend their own group (“all lives matter”), they start behaving in more traditional ways, and they start to feel more negatively toward other groups...


...Mutz examined voters whose incomes declined, or didn’t increase much, or who lost their jobs, or who were concerned about expenses, or who thought they had been personally hurt by trade. None of those things motivated people to switch from voting for Obama in 2012 to supporting Trump in 2016. Indeed, manufacturing employment in the United States has actually increased somewhat since 2010.


And as my colleague Adam Serwer has pointed out, “Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year.”


Meanwhile, a few things did correlate with support for Trump: a voter’s desire for their group to be dominant, as well as how much they disagreed with Clinton’s views on trade and China. Trump supporters were also more likely than Clinton voters to feel that “the American way of life is threatened,” and that high-status groups, like men, Christians, and whites, are discriminated against.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/existential-anxiety-not-poverty-motivates-trump-support/558674/