The Trump Presidency 14

[The Don]

It can't happen though, Obama was centrist as they come but that didn't stop any Republican from refusing to work with the radical leftist. He's still thought of as that commie muslim kenyan by the Alex Jones crowd.

Or the the centre ground of the GOP as they are now known.

IMO the GOP has shifted so far to the right and has sold its soul to both religious and political fundamentalists that any centreist politician (by current global, or historical US standards) would be viewed as a dangerously radical leftist.

 

[Aridas]

I think the thing that annoys me more than the lies is the meaningless superlatives.
Not defending ICE is the ultimate act of moral cowardice? WTF?

That not loudly endorsing -

ICE detention centers had 'unusable toilets' and rotting food, 2018 inspections found

The bathrooms at Adelanto and Essex were particularly problematic: The inspector general “observed detainee bathrooms that were in poor condition, including mold and peeling paint on walls, floors, and showers, and unusable toilets.” All four facilities had serious food service problems, but “At Essex, the food handling in general was so substandard that ICE and facility leadership had the kitchen manager replaced during our inspection” after finding raw chicken leaking blood into refrigerators, spoiled lunch meat, and moldy bread.

ICE detainees, according to the report, “are held in civil, not criminal, custody, which is not supposed to be punitive,” in marked contrast to the brutal conditions the inspections found. (And, psst, guys: Criminal detainees shouldn’t be fed rotten lunch meat either.)

Much more recently, inspectors found 900 detainees crammed into a Border Patrol facility meant for 125 in El Paso. It’s almost like the Trump administration isn’t trying to make things better, even as federal watchdogs call it out again and again.

On top of the long, long list of outright illegal actions that ICE and border patrol officers have done recently?

- is the ultimate act of moral cowardice, eh? That comment, alone, would be enough to demonstrate that Trump is reprehensible and should be submitted for serious consideration to be forever banned from holding any government position related to such.

Bernie is offering reasonable alternatives that are framed as extreme. Look at the way Obama’s health care plan were framed by lies. Republicans will continue to lie and push the idols of capitalism which the masses will continue to buy against their own interests. The contempt from the left is as understandable as Trump supporters reactions to it.

As long as those on the right keep being satisfied by Trump and the Republicans' brazen lies and their wanton cruelty that makes things worse for everyone, contempt is to be expected.

It can happen. The Alex Jones crowd is hopeless but the GOP in Congress may be willing to be more sensible

McConnell was sensible before Trump?

once the threat of Trump is gone and they've seen the country tire of him. Going extreme far left is not the answer.

Sure. How about... Denmark left, though? Denmark, happiest country in the world. Denmark, which just happens to be dominated by Democratic Socialism, roughly the same Democratic Socialism pushed by AOC, one of the people that far too much media propaganda has been pushing as extreme far left and scaremongering about (GOP propaganda outlets, of course... but even MSM like CNN).

 

[Ladewig]

Or the the centre ground of the GOP as they are now known.

IMO the GOP has shifted so far to the right and has sold its soul to both religious and political fundamentalists that any centreist politician (by current global, or historical US standards) would be viewed as a dangerously radical leftist.

I think I have to agree.

We are talking about people who describe left-wing proposals not as “alternatives that are incomplete,” or “flawed,” or “poorly-thought-out,” but rather as “ OMG!11 They are trying to destroy AMERICA.”

There really isn’t much room for negotiations there.

The president recently admitted he would break a federal campaign law, mocked the idea of adhering to that campaign law, and actually denied the very existence of this specific campaign law. Sitting and former congressfolk came to his defense! No one stepped up and told him to walk it back.

ETA
If a party shifts so much that it has to go back more than 100 years to find a previous President that it can respect, can anyone rationally negotiate with it?

 

[Aridas]

He's not the only one, the UK is doing much the same, and they have troops on the ground helping said child soldiers. According to this Long Read in The Guardian on the deep involvement, the Saudis essentially has the UK government by the balls, threatening to drop the al-Yamamah arms deal, which would be devastating to the UK arms industry. Makes one wonder what MBS is using to keep the US in line as well...

Friends in high places. He was caught saying that Kushner was in his pocket, for example, IIRC. With that said, even if Pompeo had added them to the list, likely he fairly certainly should have, all it would have taken for it to have little effect would have been a waiver signed by Trump, which would fairly certain to be nearly immediate.

(Course, many white people immediately, and correctly, identified Cheeto Benito as a white supremacist back when he was pushing birtherism back in 2011, so it's not like it's a lack of melanin that causes people to miss all this. If you didn't pick up on it right then and there, you may want to consider why you missed such an obvious sign.)

To be fair... I didn't. I was ignoring birtherism as much as possible, though, because it was freakin' stupid, so I only later learned that Trump was one of the major pushers of it. Trump, if I had to think of him (which was rare, thankfully), I tended to think of him as a scumbag celebrity and left it at that.

 

[Aridas]

I think I have to agree.

We are talking about people who describe left-wing proposals not as “alternatives that are incomplete,” or “flawed,” or “poorly-thought-out,” but rather as “ OMG!11 They are trying to destroy AMERICA.”

There really isn’t much room for negotiations there.

The president recently admitted he would break a federal campaign law, mocked the idea of adhering to that campaign law, and actually denied the very existence of this specific campaign law. Sitting and former congressfolk came to his defense! No one stepped up and told him to walk it back.

Mmm. I saw some refutations of him and his claims from Republicans. I didn't see much in the way for demands to walk it back, though, I suppose, so I can't counter that. The sickening part was how much of the GOP sought to defend such, though, yes.

 

[Ladewig]

I am almost completely positive that what I am saying is not possible, but I just want someone to tell me that it is absolutely not possible.

Could (A) the Saudis approach President Trump and say, “we want to give you $1,000,000,000 of prime real estate so you can build your world-famous skyscrapers on it, but obviously we cannot do that while you are president. So, we’ll just earmark the land for you and then give it to you after you leave office. How does that sound? Also we will give you the title of prince”
and (B) the president fall for it?

 

[Aridas]

I am almost completely positive that what I am saying is not possible, but I just want someone to tell me that it is absolutely not possible.

Could (A) the Saudis approach President Trump and say, “we want to give you $1,000,000,000 of prime real estate so you can build your world-famous skyscrapers on it, but obviously we cannot do that while you are president. So, we’ll just earmark the land for you and then give it to you after you leave office. How does that sound? Also we will give you the title of prince”
and (B) the president fall for it?

Fairly certainly possible. Highly unlikely, though. Why would the Saudis give that much in the way of assets? A million or two, presented right, would likely be more than enough to get Trump to do just about anything they wanted, by the look of it.

 

[Juniversal]

Bernie will lose. A lot of voters will just stay home if it comes between Bernie and Donald.
I think that some "Progressives" are living in as much of a fantasy land as the Trump supporters.

Question is how do you thwse things, and I think a approach that basically does not like private businesses very much and seems to regard success as a crime is never going to sell in the US. His whole "a thing called capitalism got in the way" comment turned me off to no end.
I strongly support UHC, but am skeptical about the other four as giving way too much power to the government then I would like to see.

Yes, I am strongly opposed to radicalism on both sides of the political spectrum and refuse to believe the only choices are between two different but both bad ideas.

Yeah, Hard line government controls everything Socialism has been such a huge success wherever it has been tried.
I just don't like extremes, and thing the idea that the only way to fix one extreme is to go to another has generally proven disasterous.And I a think, outside a few of the most"progressive" districts in the country, Amercans, though they might want specific things like UHC, are not ready to go the Social Democracy route. And a lot of what Bernie advocates goes a lot further then the European Social Deomcracies want.

I'm late to this discussion but there's so little polarity in this country that i'd embrace a party who's policy platform is actually on a separate pole from the opposition. The current Democratic party is centrist at best and center-right at worst. I find it refreshing that's it's starting to depart from the center. For eternity Democrats have essentially amounted to milquetoast Republicans. I wouldn't call departing the center and ACTUALLY moving left extreme.

Extreme would be advocating for pure socialism, communism or anarchy. What most progressives advocate for is capitalism bracketed with a substantial social safety net. The same type of economic systems you see in many of the countries with the highest standard of living and lowest degrees of social stratification. Nothing radical about it...

 

[Juniversal]

I'd agree with that. This country has divided into extremes and neither will work alone. What we need is moderation...a centrist who can give something to both sides. Extremists from either side will NOT work with others. Compromise, people, compromise.

Ok I completely disagree with this. Problem is this is exactly the approach that Democrats have taken for decades now and the only thing it's netted us is neutered, center-right, war mongering corporatist shills that serve the same corporate interest that Republicans do. Just to a slightly lesser degree.


This style of moderation is exactly why we lost the public option in the ACA, why mainstream Democrats supported civil unions before they "evolved" into fully supporting gay marriage and why the best candidates the Democratic establishment could whip up is shill supreme Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden. And we all know as centrist as he was, Obama's attempts to reach across the aisle just resulted in him spinning his wheels. Moderation doesn't work in our current political environment.


The gravitational pull from the Republicans far-right conservatism is so strong that our moderates/centrist are center right. I'm all for the Democrats ACTUALLY moving to the left and becoming LESS compromising and spineless. Assuming some degree of progressive beliefs and policies will become mainstream the Republican party would be pulled closer to the center. This would in time help moderate the Republican party.

 

[Juniversal]

and the open contempt that lot of progressives have for the American people for not being as far to the left as they would like is also playing right into's Trump's hands.
Give the American people a reasonable alternative to Trump's idiocy and they will take it. Give them a choice of extremes, many will sit it out.

This is where things go weird. If you want to count the distinctly MOR governments of countries like UK, Canada and Australia as "radical left socialist" then you need to adjust your sights. Last seen, these countries have not succumbed to tyrant dictators, running gun-battles in the streets, and rampant inflation, etc. (Brexit aside - that's actually a far-right wet dream gone badly wrong). Australia just re-elected a distinctly right-wing government (by our standards) and yet even they would be considered no further right than Bernie or maybe the Democrats.

Because nothing Bernie is advocating is any further "left" than has already been implemented in these countries for some time. We have UHC, wage control, a staggered tax system, etc. To us, Bernie is a run-of-the-mill centrist pollie with nothing new to tell us. Ho hum, really.

Or to put it another way, Bernie is actually advocating that the USA deserves what we have already.

This 100%... The so-called "progressive politics" Bernie pushes would be mainstream and non-controversial in many (if not most) other developed nations. Only in America is this considered extreme or radical. These systems work.

 

[Ladewig]

Fairly certainly possible. Highly unlikely, though. Why would the Saudis give that much in the way of assets? A million or two, presented right, would likely be more than enough to get Trump to do just about anything they wanted, by the look of it.

I should have been more clear.
They would offer him a huge amount of land, but not give him any.

He obviously can’t sign a contract.
If they promise him a gift and then never deliver, he can’t go public and complain (unless he is the stupidest elected official in the history of the country).

But yes, the value could be any number President Trump finds tempting.


eta
or.
They put the land in Baron Trump’s name and convince Donald Trump that it is not illegal because (a) it is not in Donald’s name and (b) therefore there would be no quid pro quo.

Although that route would require more time because they would have to explain what quid pro quo means.

 

[TofuFighter]

It certainly would be poetic if MBS* stiffed trump on the payment, post-presidency.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I should have been more clear.
They would offer him a huge amount of land, but not give him any.

He obviously can’t sign a contract.
If they promise him a gift and then never deliver, he can’t go public and complain (unless he is the stupidest elected official in the history of the country).

But yes, the value could be any number President Trump finds tempting.


eta
or.
They put the land in Baron Trump’s name and convince Donald Trump that it is not illegal because (a) it is not in Donald’s name and (b) therefore there would be no quid pro quo.

Although that route would require more time because they would have to explain what quid pro quo means.

Aren't we past this discussion? It's public knowledge that all it takes to get a private meeting with Trump is to book a month's stay at his golf course. We don't need to talk in hypotheticals when it's already happening.

 

[Sideroxylon]

When does his strike on Iran happen? Next 24 hours? Next 72? Seems upset about his drone.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Iran made a very big mistake!

 

[Sideroxylon]

Trump Tweets

Iran made a very big mistake!

Yeah, load up those cruise missiles, wild weasel missions and lg bombs away.

 

[Belz...]

Trump Tweets

Iran made a very big mistake!

They'll be met with fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen!

 

[Paul2]

Because universal healthcare, living minimum wages, quality education for all, holding corporations accountable and pulling back on the obscene wealth divide is radical.

. . . and I think a approach that basically does not like private businesses very much

holding corporations accountable ≠ not liking private business very much

. . . and seems to regard success as a crime

pulling back on the obscene wealth divide ≠ regarding success as a crime

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump just had a meeting with Justin Trudeau at the White House.
Justin coughed. Do you think he did it deliberately?

 

[Aridas]

holding corporations accountable ≠ not liking private business very much
pulling back on the obscene wealth divide ≠ regarding success as a crime

As I tend to say... There's a phrase that should be familiar to every adult in the US. Something along the lines of "Government Of the People, By the People, For the People." If any of those "People" get replaced with "Corporations/Big Business/Super Rich," that's a horrible perversion of our government. Yet, it's exactly what said groups have been steadily working to accomplish. Pushing back against, for example, businesses getting all or nearly all of their expenses paid with taxpayer dollars while taking all the income generated for themselves is certainly not hating private business or being spiteful. Pushing back against businesses acting to save, say, $10,000 in costs by doing things that end up costing everyone else, say, $20,000,000, is not a matter of burying businesses under onerous, job-killing regulations.