Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning added to OP 10/1/26

I really cannot see the jobs coming back in anything other than a notional amount by some companies. In order for them to do so the tariffs have to stay in place for ever. There's approximately 4.5% unemployment in the US, which most countries and economists accept as being full employment. Does Trump really expect the 95.5% + those that are retired will accept that the 'stuff' they will buy for the rest of eternity is going to be significantly more costly just to appease the, maybe at best, extra 2% that will be employed? It's never going to happen and once the public start to realise this, his whole MAGA 'bring the jobs back' will fall crashing around his ears.

Carney's response to Trump's suggestion of a remake of USMCA: a slight lip and head movement, no blinking. As of 3 months ago, the then Canadian Govt seemed to be considering a refreshing of it's Commonwealth military defence links, maybe even a CANZUK agreement.

One wonders what Carney's Govt might do where defence structure agreements are considered, given that Trump has Hegseth telling the Pentagon to reduce it's higher general staff rankers by 20% across the branches, pruning the US military as it were. A reduced number of Generals does not look good for the careers of Colonels etc down the promotion chain.

It doesn't matter to Trump if the jobs get brought back or not. If they don't, he can blame this on the globalists. If they do, he can take all the credit. It's win-win for him, but the important thing is to keep up that appeal to the past.

Whether or not it's even true, overall, it looks like a powerful perception that all those midwest states had their industry gutted in the back half of the 20th century and the promise to bring it all back has been a key rallying cry for Trump to conservative Americans throughout his political career.

I could see Carney telling Vance to get fcuked, I'm talking to the organ grinder, not the monkey. Trump would actually love that.

They don't have an existential war to hold over his head like they did Zelensky.

Trump just does stuff because in his mind it sounds good - "Reopen Alcatraz", "Tariff China", "Tariff Foreign Movies". But he hasn't a clue how the real world works and what it would take to implement those policies (and I'm being very generous with calling them actual policies).

Surely if his base were to decide that the emperor has no clothes, they would have done it by now. He promised a land of milk and honey with respect to the U.S. economy and now he's telling Americans that the cost of things is about to go up. He's telling his supporters and the world at large that the good aspects of the US economy are his doing and the bad bits are Biden's doing. If his supporters will accept all of this, you might as well consider them impervious to logic and reason. The penny will never drop in that way.

I don't think that it's what Trump says which is the essence of his appeal. If that were so, it would have been well and truly stamped out by contrary realities. I think the essence of his appeal lies in what he represents. He's a wrecking ball, a big lump of stinky cheese that makes the establishment hold their nose, he has no scruples in attaining power, he's vengeful, he's crass, bellicose , tacky and tasteless. He's the dark side of America summed up in one man, basically. He's like the political version of Captain Pollution from Captain Planet.

His opponents are still trying to defeat him with the rhetorical weapons that would have taken down a traditional politician in the 20th century and very early 21st, i.e. exposing his lies, even though his lies are so brazenly transparent they don't even need exposing. There has to be a serious evolution in thought to really get to the root of what drives MAGA in the first place and only then will they defeat Trump and/or Trumpism.

Trump has never sought to really pull the wool over anyone's eyes because he's never really needed to. His endless stream of nonsense has helped along the breakdown of public consensus in America to the point where a semi-anonymous Twitter account putting out half-baked conspiracy theories is taken to be as good as a major newspaper with actual journalistic accountability.

That's post-truth and once you have that, deception isn't really needed, as deception implies true/false, but post-truth destroys this concept.

Besides, given his antics at the 2020 election, we can be fairly sure that Trump won't be relying on the employment stats to get a successor (or even himself, depending) elected. Free and fair elections are anathema to the authoritarian.

On the US military front, The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump to implement his ban on transgender people serving in the military. The justices granted an emergency request from the Trump administration to lift a nationwide injunction blocking the policy while litigation continues. The court's brief order noted that the three liberal justices dissented. So the "kick them out" rule applies while the court has not come to a final decision on the trial issue of whether it's ok for transgender persons to serve in the US military has reached a conclusion. Like "Oh, it's ok, we [the SCOTUS] will order the Govt to admit you re-enter the military to serve your country".

Something tells me Trump has a different opinion to that of SCOTUS where the kneeling to it's judgements is concerned.

He was also spouting the same nonsense that America "subsidizes" Canada to the tun of 200 Billion.

Again, this is all in exchange for goods and products. He is either really stupid, or just trying to spin this for his base, who might be dumb enough to believe him.

I think your problem, there, is that you're assuming MAGA would make the logical connection between Trump's policies and a decline of the US economy and therefore turn on him.

My contention is that this logical connection will not occur. The cult mindset will not allow it. They will look for every other scapegoat, and the scapegoat would be chosen by Trump himself, most probably.

MAGA has shown no form for criticising Trump. If evangelical Christianity starts with the idea that God's judgement is always good, I think MAGA starts with the idea that Trump is never wrong.

No, I don't expect them to turn on him, I expect them not to turn out for him. That's what will make the difference.

Trump’s “tremendous” speech with Carney today.. nothing shocks any more with Trump. Whack-job