All things Trump + Russia Part 4

Venom said:
He is a skilled liar, but only insofar as knowledgeable questioners can't corner or at least cross examine him with a couple truth bombs about his past. The language barrier may also serve as a screen between him and Western journalists who may be less reluctant to call him out on his B.S. You can only ask so much.
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Unlike Trump he is not stupid.
 
How is Putin 'smart' and Trump 'stupid' ?

Trump wins the presidency against all odds, he gets labeled 'stupid'?

Are you sure the backlash against Trump isn't because his victory made the anti-Trumpers feel stupid? It would be a classic trigger for cognitive dissonance.
 
Drewbot said:
How is Putin 'smart' and Trump 'stupid' ?

Trump wins the presidency against all odds, he gets labeled 'stupid'?

Are you sure the backlash against Trump isn't because his victory made the anti-Trumpers feel stupid? It would be a classic trigger for cognitive dissonance.
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Putin is called "smart" because he seems to have a long-term strategy (undermining the West in general and the US in particular) and his actions seem to be consistent with this and effective.

President Trump is called stupid because he doesn't seem to have any strategy, his actions are clumsy and contradictory and he, or his people, seem to have to walk everything back. Despite having control of the House and the Senate, he's got remarkably little done that couldn't be done by executive order.

Additionally, Donald Trump seems to be remarkably ignorant about, well, pretty much everything and unwilling to learn anything. That goes towards giving an impression of stupidity - which could instead be a combination of laziness and disinterest.
 
Drewbot said:
Are you sure the backlash against Trump isn't because his victory made the anti-Trumpers feel stupid? It would be a classic trigger for cognitive dissonance.
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I've been disappointed for having my favorite candidate lose before. Anti-Trump is not a partisan issue, it is an issue of patriotism.
 
Drewbot said:
How is Putin 'smart' and Trump 'stupid' ?

Trump wins the presidency against all odds, he gets labeled 'stupid'?

Are you sure the backlash against Trump isn't because his victory made the anti-Trumpers feel stupid? It would be a classic trigger for cognitive dissonance.
Click to expand...

Warren G. Harding won the presidency also. It's no substitute for an IQ test, it's a popularity contest.
 
Drewbot said:
How is Putin 'smart' and Trump 'stupid' ?

Trump wins the presidency against all odds, he gets labeled 'stupid'?
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Trump is the Forrest Gump of presidents... not talented or intelligent, but manages to succeed based on luck and circumstance.

Had he not been born into a wealthy family (and had one of them not changed the family name from Drumph to Trump), he would not have been 'rich', nor would he have had any political success. Instead, he would have been working at McDonalds, asking people "would you like Large Fries with that? They're YUGE!"

Had the republicans not had a 'clown car' primary (i.e. primaries consisting of over a dozen potential candidates, most who had no chance and some that were outright jokes) Trump would not have had won the republican nomination. (In the early rounds, Trump was different enough from the other candidates that he could win a state despite not getting anywhere near 50%. If the republican primaries had only 2-3 other challengers, opposition to Trump would have coalesced much sooner.)

Had Trump not had the benefit of running against Hillary, a candidate who had been the target of Republican smear tactics (generally based on false information) for over a decade, he would not have won the presidency. (And at the end of the day he needed the support of the Russians, the Fox News propaganda machine, voter suppression and the electoral college to win.)

Nothing about Trump's success suggests it is due to talent, hard work, or intelligence. About the only "abilities" he has are abilities more in tune with a con man than a successful politician, statesman or businessman.
- His lack of morality, which means he is willing to lie unapologetically (which is usually a problem but works for him because of outlets like Fox News) and appeal to bigotry (which makes up a significant portion of the American Electorate, as well pretty much Trump's entire base.)
 
Without the Russians, Trump wouldn’t have won

Max Boot said:
While the intelligence agencies are silent on the impact of Russia’s attack, outside experts who have examined the Kremlin campaign — which included stealing and sharing Democratic Party emails, spreading propaganda online and hacking state voter rolls — have concluded that it did affect an extremely close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, writes in his recent book, “Messing with the Enemy,” that “Russia absolutely influenced the U.S. presidential election,” especially in Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump’s winning margin was less than 1 percent in each state.
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Drewbot said:
How is Putin 'smart' and Trump 'stupid' ?

Trump wins the presidency against all odds, he gets labeled 'stupid'?

Are you sure the backlash against Trump isn't because his victory made the anti-Trumpers feel stupid? It would be a classic trigger for cognitive dissonance.
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:rolleyes:

The Don and Segnosaur already answered this a bit more seriously, Upchurch responded with something irrelevant to Trump's intelligence and wisdom, but very relevant to the backlash against him, and Segnosaur, WilliamSeger, and LSSBB added pertinent information regarding how Trump won the Presidency.

So, I'm not going to cover those things. Instead, I'm going to ask you whether you're really so... suckered, gullible, and ignorant that you were honestly asking those questions or if that was nothing more than trolling?
 
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Drewbot said:
How is Putin 'smart' and Trump 'stupid' ?
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Trump is labelled stupid because he's a frickin' moron, always has been, always will be. He stumbled into the Presidency courtesy of the Electoral College and a dumbass electorate.


In contrast, Putin gained power in a strongly contested field and has held it for a very long time because he is smart.
 
CapelDodger said:
In contrast, Putin gained power in a strongly contested field and has held it for a very long time because he is smart.
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Well that, plus being willing to commit a few murders - though maybe the whole field did that.
 
Segnosaur said:
Trump is the Forrest Gump of presidents... not talented or intelligent, but manages to succeed based on luck and circumstance.

Had he not been born into a wealthy family (and had one of them not changed the family name from Drumph to Trump), he would not have been 'rich', nor would he have had any political success. Instead, he would have been working at McDonalds, asking people "would you like Large Fries with that? They're YUGE!"

Had the republicans not had a 'clown car' primary (i.e. primaries consisting of over a dozen potential candidates, most who had no chance and some that were outright jokes) Trump would not have had won the republican nomination. (In the early rounds, Trump was different enough from the other candidates that he could win a state despite not getting anywhere near 50%. If the republican primaries had only 2-3 other challengers, opposition to Trump would have coalesced much sooner.)

Had Trump not had the benefit of running against Hillary, a candidate who had been the target of Republican smear tactics (generally based on false information) for over a decade, he would not have won the presidency. (And at the end of the day he needed the support of the Russians, the Fox News propaganda machine, voter suppression and the electoral college to win.)

Nothing about Trump's success suggests it is due to talent, hard work, or intelligence. About the only "abilities" he has are abilities more in tune with a con man than a successful politician, statesman or businessman.
- His lack of morality, which means he is willing to lie unapologetically (which is usually a problem but works for him because of outlets like Fox News) and appeal to bigotry (which makes up a significant portion of the American Electorate, as well pretty much Trump's entire base.)
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Well said.
 
Minoosh said:
Well that, plus being willing to commit a few murders - though maybe the whole field did that.
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I assumed that was what CapelDogder meant by "strongly contested" - I'd go for "vigorously contested"
 
Drewbot said:
Are you sure the backlash against Trump isn't because his victory made the anti-Trumpers feel stupid? It would be a classic trigger for cognitive dissonance.
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It was shock, not stupidity. Maybe it shouldn't have been such of a shock, though.

Here's what I've learned about myself: I care about leadership. In the past, even if I didn't like a president, I saw that they had some leadership skills, even George W. Bush. We've had weak leaders, but we have not had in my memory anti-leaders - someone whose behavior is the opposite of leadership, someone who cynically exploits fear to divide people.

You might think he's a good leader but he's not. He's incapable of bringing people together, he changes his mind constantly, he's full of threats and bluster but little action, he always blames other people for his own mistakes, he's actually incapable of admitting a mistake (even to himself) which means he can't learn from mistakes. He hires and fires arbitrarily, he has no coherent policy (MAGA is a slogan, not a policy), and I could go on. Leaving politics out of it, Imagine if he were your boss. Would he have your back?

Putin has a high approval rating because he is a leader. Maybe an unsavory one, but he has real leadership skills.

In 2000 Trump knew damn well that cozying up with white supremacists was a bad idea. He said so, calmly. But then he found out that stirring up fearful white people would win him a solid block of the electorate. Wholesale bigotry didn't used to work (in America). George W. Bush strongly emphasized that the war on terror was not a war on Islam. But the mood changed and he got good response to his crusade to prove Obama was born in Kenya. He learned to expertly leverage the anxieties of fearful white people. They're thrilled; Trump is their salvation. In some cases perhaps literally - they want Armageddon. They want the world to end.

That's not particularly reassuring to the majority of voters.
 
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Minoosh said:
Putin has a high approval rating because he is a leader. Maybe an unsavory one, but he has real leadership skills.
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Putin's rivals for power were just as well-versed in Leninism, so his rise was due either to luck (the longevity of his rule argues against that) or personal talent. I go with the latter.
 
CapelDodger said:
Trump is labelled stupid because he's a frickin' moron, always has been, always will be. He stumbled into the Presidency courtesy of the Electoral College and a dumbass electorate.

In contrast, Putin gained power in a strongly contested field and has held it for a very long time because he is smart.
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A stroke of criminal genius, or at least criminal instinct, that rigged the election in his favor, as the apartment bombing-Second Chechen War theory suggests.
 
Minoosh said:
You might think he's a good leader but he's not. He's incapable of bringing people together, he changes his mind constantly, he's full of threats and bluster but little action, he always blames other people for his own mistakes, he's actually incapable of admitting a mistake (even to himself) which means he can't learn from mistakes. He hires and fires arbitrarily, he has no coherent policy (MAGA is a slogan, not a policy), and I could go on. Leaving politics out of it, Imagine if he were your boss. Would he have your back?
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You could be describing King Edward II there. Him what came to a nasty end in Berkely Castle on the orders of his wife and her lover.
Too much to hope that history will rhyme this time, I guess. A nice thought, though.
 
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