President Trump: Part II

[Bob001]

Did you ever look at Clinton's energy or jobs policy platforms? Of course you didn't.

As for Clinton not communicating her message effectively, re-read my posts.

There is a difference between saying she didn't give a rip about XYZ and she didn't communicate the message that she did give a rip.

I know she had policy papers on just about everything, and they were generally progressive and responsible. But when you need somebody's vote, a message uncommunicated may as well not exist. What was Clinton's message to voters who hadn't decided who to vote for, or who hadn't even decided to go to the polls at all? One sentence, please. And "Make America Great Again!" is taken.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I know she had policy papers on just about everything, and they were generally progressive and responsible. But when you need somebody's vote, a message uncommunicated may as well not exist. What was Clinton's message to voters who hadn't decided who to vote for, or who hadn't even decided to go to the polls at all? One sentence, please. And "Make America Great Again!" is taken.

I repeat, "As for Clinton not communicating her message effectively, re-read my posts."

 

[Civet]

I feel at a loss for a way to fight back against this lying, inept, autocratic whackjob. The notion of the entire sane (and semi-sane) world unifying to boycott all things Trump / Trump-related has certain appeal. The boycott would include Trump's businesses of course, Trump branded products, stores that sell Trump products, companies that advertise on Breitbart, etc.

#GrabYourWallet

These guys want to fully boycott stores that merely carry some Trump-related merch? Like not just avoid the Trump products but don't use Amazon at all just because they stock some of his family's stuff? I get not doing stuff that will put money in Trump's pocket, but that seems like overreach.

 

[Minoosh]

But whatever it is, there's no explanation for why a 70-year-old man wants to go out in the world looking like that.

Maybe Trump keeps it long so he can keep harvesting his own hair? I got a little lost with all the different techniques. Anyway for a few days he had a better look. I can't find a picture though.

 

[bruto]

The late lamented Gawker contended that Trump had a hair weave:
http://gawker.com/is-donald-trump-s-hair-a-60-000-weave-a-gawker-invest-1777581357

Someone else contended it might be a hair transplant:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/gawker-donald-trump-hair-not-weave-article-1.2650804

But whatever it is, there's no explanation for why a 70-year-old man wants to go out in the world looking like that.

I was under the impression that the spousal rape and assault that Ivana Trump initially alleged in her divorce (later disavowed) was in part due to the painfulness of a hair transplant operation. Ivana withdrew the accusation of the abuse, but I don't know if that included disavowing the hair transplant.

 

[Craig B]

And did he actually threaten to invade Mexico?

Or did he threaten to step in against criminals that are threatening the US, in a very similar fashion to the US entering Afghanistan to take action against Al Qaeda when the government of Afghanistan was either unable or unwilling to do so on their own? Is there a material difference in the potential for US intervention, other than the person in charge?

Yes, a "material difference". These bad hombres haven't bombed New York and killed thousands of people.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I think that's right, but it's so bizarre. Donald Trump was seen as understanding and sympathizing with their plight, but darned if I understand how he managed to pull it off. He strikes me as just the opposite.

I think it was "the enemy of my enemy" stuff. What he said didn't make any sense, but it was clear that he hated liberals, and so did they, so he won.

Yeah, I can't imagine how the public/private persona comments, the dismissive comment about ditching liberal votes to chase a pot of moderate conservative votes at the end of the electoral rainbow, advocating for secretly negotiated trade deals, and barely campaigning at all at some points could have gone so badly, but I guess that's the way the country is going these days.

Thank god they don't have to do any reflection or soul searching, though. Guilt successfully expunged and externalized onto a convenient enemy image so that they can feel like they...wait a second...



Oh crap.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Uh, I voted for Hilary.

Yes, I know. But did you vote for Hillary?

Or did you hold your nose and vote for the 'deeply flawed' candidate that only exists in your mind? And did you transmit that vibe to others - who perhaps didn't vote for her as a result? I bet you did, even if only subconsciously.

And that's all they needed. Just enough to curb your enthusiasm and turn you into another conduit for their lies. I don't blame you for being sucked in by it, since it's the nature of liberals to not blindly trust their leaders. But please, do some real research and find out the truth about Hillary - and be prepared for a shock as you discover how well they have played you.

The truth is, Hillary was by far the better candidate out of all those who dared to run, and certainly was no worse than any liberal before her. Think of others who tried and failed - Sanders, Gore, Kerry... and even the successes had their flaws. You could have vainly held out for the perfect candidate who was never going to materialize - but what if she had?

If the Virgin Mary was running on the Democrat ticket you can bet Republicans would have found plenty to throw at her. Did you know she wasn't actually a virgin? The hussy cheated on her husband with an illegal alien who got her pregnant, then told everyone that God did it. Apparently the baby wouldn't cry - a sure sign of child abuse if ever there was one. Which probably explains all the trouble it got into as an adult. That family ran a communist death cult whose followers murdered countless innocents!

 

[Darat]

And I cited a CNN interview where voters expressed the belief that Trump would do something for them, and Clinton wouldn't. I think a lot of Trump voters felt that way. And Clinton didn't give them a basis to counter that belief.





You can debate to what degree the Clintons have contributed to the narrative. Even if we stipulate no crimes were proven in the email business, the fact is that she went to great lengths to evade public records requirements, and then she lied about it on multiple occasions. That supported the narrative about her that she can't be trusted, and that's what hurt her. It doesn't matter what anybody else may or may not have done (about which there is dispute); she was the one running for President.

But once again, you're saying "It's all about her." What theme did she offer that compared to "Make America Great Again?" What hope did she offer to voters when the other guy was promising to bring back their jobs? What was Clinton's message to voters who didn't already support her? One sentence, please.

The Democrats made a big mistake when they anointed her, maybe as far back as 2008, driving other, stronger potential candidates from the field. Then Clinton made a bigger mistake when she thought she could float to the White House on the shoulders of her acolytes. The Democratic leadership gave us Clinton. And Clinton gave us Trump. And now here we are.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-campaign-neglect_us_582cacb0e4b058ce7aa8b861
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...2016/12/the_myth_of_the_rust_belt_revolt.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...voters_racism_with_economics_she_blew_it.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/why-hillary-clinton-lost/507704/

No the people who voted for Trump gave you Trump.

 

[Darat]

Yes.



Engaging in military operations in the territory of a sovereign nation without their permission is an invasion. We were OK with the invasion Afghanistan since the country was under control of the Taliban at the time. It was still an invasion regardless of how you try to dress it up.

That was just a joke, just like he will say he was only joking when he said nuke Australia and the military carried out his legal order!

 

[Darat]

I don't believe that Bob001 is attempting to exonerate Trump supporters. I believe that he is trying to explain what Clinton should have done differently in order to win this election - it's a lesson that democrats in general need to consider an apply prior to the next election cycle. I don't really want Trump to win again simply because democrats can't field an effective candidate who can build resonance with the citizenry.

Seriously folks. At the end of the day I still don't see this as Trump winning so much as Clinton losing.

The only lesson that can be learned is that truth and policy no longer matter.

 

[Darat]

100% true, and 100% irrelevant.

Clinton made a few completely disastrous verbal missteps that insulted and dismissed the people she needed to convince to vote for her.

Trump made an ass of himself over and over, but also spoke to the fears and worries that his voters had .

It's all about who felt the effect of those errors, and who perceived them as potentially being aimed at them as voters. It's about who was seen as understanding and sympathizing with their plight.

No he lied over and over.

 

[3point14]

Seriously folks. At the end of the day I still don't see this as Trump winning so much as Clinton losing.

I think that's a distinction without difference. Donald Trump is the president. He won.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Getting one Clinton to change their tune to resonate with the public is in an entirely different dimension of possibility away from getting the public to change what they are receptive to.

So yeah, the campaign team blew it. The sooner they own it and retool, the better.

I hope it happens soon, the clock is ticking.

Obviously cranking up partisanship to 11 (or 74?) gets results. Why do we keep falling for 'now, now, you should negotiate in good faith' and wondering why we lose?

I mean on some fundamental level we're still herd creatures. Do you roll with the herd that gets 5 berries and a handful of grain every day or do you roll with the herd that bags antelope by the dozen? If your herd keeps going 'we would get some antelope, but then the other herd would have less and we should be thinking of everyone!'

So when my herd says 'we're going on another berry-gathering expedition' I'm sitting here thinking 'screw your berries, I'm done.'

I'm probably not the only one.

 

[The Don]

There is a difference between saying she didn't give a rip about XYZ and she didn't communicate the message that she did give a rip.

There's also the issue that the message Clinton was communicating w.r.t. the rust belt was both complicated and not what the people in the rust belt wanted to hear. Her message that the industries that they grew up with had gone and that they would have to retrain and/or move in order to get employment and that the government would help them with the former, although true, was not the message they wanted to hear.

Trump OTOH had a simple message, he told them that he would get their old jobs back for them which although it was a lie, was what they wanted to hear.

 

[3point14]

There's also the issue that the message Clinton was communicating w.r.t. the rust belt was both complicated and not what the people in the rust belt wanted to hear. Her message that the industries that they grew up with had gone and that they would have to retrain and/or move in order to get employment and that the government would help them with the former, although true, was not the message they wanted to hear.

Trump OTOH had a simple message, he told them that he would get their old jobs back for them which although it was a lie, was what they wanted to hear.

Ah, so Clinton figured people were smart and well educated enough to understand nuance and Trump lied.

Hillary's mistake was respecting the electorate? Donald's genius was his disdain for the critical thinking skills of the electorate?

How anyone can blame the losing party in this mentalness is beyond me. "You didn't lie enough, you didn't dumb things down so far they're meaningless." Is this the objection?

 

[wareyin]

That makes no sense. If you're refering to Phiwum, I don't believe he said your side should only criticise itself. He specifically said that you have to criticise both.

Actually, he specifically said he criticizes his own side more readily. That's not criticizing both sides equally.

I thought this was obvious, but let me explain:
Conservatives criticize liberals (which is what started this conversation) but not conservatives.
Liberals criticize liberals "more readily" than they criticize conservatives.
Result: liberals are criticized more than conservatives, even though the conservatives are ones who do more of the name calling, with nastier names. There is no left wing version of Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh, or Bill O'Reilly, etc.

 

[wareyin]

I'm really not sure what your perspective is on this. I'm not seeing that nobody is calling out Trump's side. It has seemed to me that there's been an overzealous approach to calling out Trump, all of Trump's supporters, and the non-Trump supporters who didn't support Hillary. It's not like there's a lack of media coverage about Trump's shortcomings, nor is there a lack of discussion of them in this thread. And there's certainly not a lack of broad-brush blaming of huge swaths of people for the current situation.

The idea that virtually nobody is calling out Trump's side seems a bit blind.

Calling out Trump's side for the use of name calling. And just as you feel Sceptic Ginger defends Clinton blindly, it appears you are the other side of that coin with Trump. Of course one who is sympathetic to Trump would think that the too mild way the press handled Trump was overzealous.

 

[Puppycow]

Oh, my. This might deserve its own thread but I don't have time now.

How does this square with Trump's campaign rhetoric?

Trump to order regulatory rollback Friday for finance industry, Wall Street, top aide says

President Trump plans to order a rollback Friday of regulations governing the financial services industry and Wall Street under the Dodd-Frank law and beyond.

Gary Cohn, White House Economic Council director, told the Wall Street Journal the administration would also move against a regulation designed to force retirement advisers to work in the best interest of their clients, the “fiduciary rule,” set to take effect in April and designed to eliminate conflicts-of-interests among professionals dealing with those enrolled in qualified retirement plans and IRAs.

In an interview with the Journal, Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, said the order was a “table setter for a bunch of stuff that is coming.”

The move would be in line with Trump’s campaign pledge to “dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act and replace it with new policies to encourage economic growth and job creation.”

Trump’s administration is packed with Wall Street veterans. The actions Cohn described, which were also reported by Bloomberg quoting an unnamed White House official, represent Trump’s first and most forceful effort to unravel the regulatory legacy of the Obama administration.

(I mean, yeah, you could see this coming a mile away, but it's really happening, and do his supporters even really care? Probably not. "International banks" was just a weapon of convenience to bash Hillary with.)

Remember this speech for example?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-gives-his-most-extreme-speech-yet-florida

"Clinton meets in secret with international banks in order to plot the destruction of US sovereignty."

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Yes, a "material difference". These bad hombres haven't bombed New York and killed thousands of people.

In fairness nor did any Afghans or Iraqis.

But yes apparently we are now at the point where people will defend trump for threatening an ally and neighbour for no reason.