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The most frightening thing is how much he sounds like Trump.
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@JC said in US Politics:
I don’t think he’s achieved much at all. I also don’t think he put the USA first and foremost, he put Donald J Trump first and foremost. I don’t think he put the United States of America’s second either, because he missed out the “United” bit. He lacks statecraft and dresses the lack up as some kind of virtue, everything boiled down to brinksmanship and confrontation. Of course that may get you a lot of what you want in the short term, but people and states have memories. Even then I’d argue that most of his face offs against other nations haven’t been so much about what’s best for the US either, the pattern is of a thin-skinned man who can’t put perceived personal slights behind him and uses the weight of his state to punish those who have criticised him or, worse, made fun of him.
The overarching point in the above seems to be that he's not "Presidential". Which I won't argue. I would argue that he put himself first though. Ultimately he identified what he viewed as bad deals for the USA and took them on head on. The way he did was pretty immature, but the key economic numbers in the US continued in the right trajectory. Non farm payrolls, unemployment rate, manufacturing data ... up until start of this year were flying along. Lets not forget the S and P rise is known as the Trump trade.
I accept that he probably puts the US before other countries, but so did every other president before him. But if you lined up him and Ronnie Reagan and had to pick the patriot it wouldn’t be hard.
Yes they do. So why doesn’t he try some?
Because there millions of voters in the US that agreed with his style. He went after middle America / fly over states and he got them. Like it or not, they responded to his leadership.
Trump took a lot of disheartened yanks and picked them up.
And took a whole lot of other disheartened yanks and said “fuck you” to them. Leadership is about making the right choices, not the easy ones.
You can't please everybody, you only need to please a certain percentage of the voting base. Those that he said fuck-you too, had largely enjoyed life under Obama whilst his voter base had seen no improvement in their life.
That’s just the obverse of what I said: he can’t expect not to take the blame for what’s happened since Covid and take the credit for the low unemployment in the good times. But in fact the truth is he’s not responsible for either. Taking credit for a boom is something all governments do but usually it’s just the good fortune of being there that is closer to the truth. I think you can discount it unless you can show me some policies that made something happen that wouldn’t have happened anyway. Take that away and what’s left?
Are you prepared to give him any credit? You are now basically saying everything that happened was going to happen regardless. If that's your view, I'm not sure what we are debating, if anything at all.
Maybe. But IMO blind loyalty is all he’s got left.
Perhaps. When he was voted in, I was pretty concerned about what would happen and the first few months as all his negatives came to the forefront (xenophobia, thin skin, twitter usage etc), I was very much so in the anti-Trump brigade. However, having gained a new brother-in-law from Wyoming and spent considerable time with him, listening to how things have changed for his state, I softened somewhat. Additionally, a good buddy of mine (Aussie) who lives in New Jersey, is massively on the Trump train. His points are also pretty valid. Last time I visited him was mid 2017, and I couldn't believe the state of the infrastructure - roads with massive potholes, road signage completely fucked etc. Shocking. His views make some sense when you are on the ground.
I tend to avoid debates on other countries politics (ish) as Ive observed too many times that people who don't live in the UK don't have a real grasp of what's going on here. Hence I do listen quite intently to what my friends / counterparts in the US have to say. Of course it's very mixed, but not all on the Trump train are blind loyalists.
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@Duluth said in US Politics:
That's a good video. The crime bill was one of the things I was referring to yesterday when I called his senate legacy gross
I would add to that his involvement in various 'war on drugs' bills in the 80's, an earlier crime bill that helped create the asset forfeiture racket and he drafted an awful anti-terrorism bill in the 90's. That bill was the template for the Patriot Act.. when that shitty law passed he did a victory dance and told people that was "my bill"
He is running on experience and not being Trump. That sort of experience should be a negative
I do wonder what would have happened in 2016 if it was Biden vs Trump for the white house. For a start, I think Biden may have actually looked at the electoral college and had a think about what he needed to do to win. I swear Hilary thought she was going to walk it by not being Trump.
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@barbarian said in US Politics:
@MajorRage said in US Politics:
I believe he just put the US first and foremost.
It's an interesting debate. Obama put US first as well, but just had a different way of going about it.
Trump's strength was his ability to stick to his (at times outlandish) election promises, and actually achieve a measure of success by doing this. Despite people thinking he'd moderate once he won the election, he actually went ahead and pulled out of the TPP and implemented a number of tariffs on foreign imports.
He withdrew the US from a position of global leadership, and focussed time, energy and policy on his own citizens. A bold strategy that you could argue hasn't been broadly adopted since WWII.
The problem is he has done very little to fix the systemic social and economic issues that plague US society. Say what you want about Obamacare, but at least Barry had a crack at it.
So after four years of Trump, America has worsened relationships with pretty much every nation (with the exception of North Korea), widespread social unrest and thanks to the pandemic widespread unemployment.
In a pre-2010 world, Trump loses the election to a mop with a hat on. But that world is long gone, so who the hell knows what is going to happen.
Excellent post, agree with every word.
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@MajorRage said in US Politics:
@Duluth said in US Politics:
That's a good video. The crime bill was one of the things I was referring to yesterday when I called his senate legacy gross
I would add to that his involvement in various 'war on drugs' bills in the 80's, an earlier crime bill that helped create the asset forfeiture racket and he drafted an awful anti-terrorism bill in the 90's. That bill was the template for the Patriot Act.. when that shitty law passed he did a victory dance and told people that was "my bill"
He is running on experience and not being Trump. That sort of experience should be a negative
I do wonder what would have happened in 2016 if it was Biden vs Trump for the white house. For a start, I think Biden may have actually looked at the electoral college and had a think about what he needed to do to win. I swear Hilary thought she was going to walk it by not being Trump.
Absolutely, she ran one of the worst campaigns ever. Lazy, entitled, lacking energy and message . So, so bad.
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@Winger said in US Politics:
@JC said in US Politics:
Trump is a myth-builder and an autocrat. He confuses power with leadership, doesn’t tolerate dissent and sees compromise as a weakness. And so he courts sycophants. He’s been telling people how smart he is (and I’ve seen no evidence of him being any better than average) for so long he believes it himself, and why wouldn’t he, because he’s surrounded himself with people who feed his ego
Any competent leader will not allow public dissent.
And he hasn't done badly if he's unable to lead with only weak agreeable yes men and women in his team. And also doing this all by himself when he's not smart.Hitler, Mao and Stalin were very competent in that regard
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@MajorRage said in US Politics:
@JC to be honest, as much as I disagree with @Winger, I can’t sit here and nod along with you most recent post either.
Trump has achieved a lot in a small time. He put USA first and foremost. The Dems were pretty heavy on foreign policy, not so on domestic. Obama talked a lot, achieved not a lot.
People always respond to leadership. Trump took a lot of disheartened yanks and picked them up. The stats are there. He can’t be given no credit for the record unemployment then expect to absorb full blame for what’s happened since Covid. That’s not fair.
Trump has been a catastrophe the last few months, no question. But he does still have a fair bit of goodwill from many sections, and not just because of blind loyalty.
He needs to find a way out of the current quagmire though, because recency bias suggests that a lot of that goodwill may well evaporate at the polling booth if COVID and recent protests / riots is still front of mind.
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@MajorRage said in US Politics:
@reprobate fair post but not one I agree with entirely.
You could pick up two rags and read them from front to back and paint a completely different picture of the US in your mind. He’s such a polarizing leader.
I believe he just put the US first and foremost. Looked at everything from a business point of view and went for the deals best for his country and openly critiqued those that didn’t. And that worked out for a shit load of people. The s snd p has soared.
I don’t like the guy, never have and never will, but he’s a world leader with arguably the biggest hand to play. He deserves a lot of the criticism he gets, but not all. The same in the opposite direction.
For his dance on China alone he deserves a great deal of praise. Unfortunately, because of who he is, he hasn't been able to bring along other worlds leaders with him.
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@MajorRage said in US Politics:
@JC said in US Politics:
I don’t think he’s achieved much at all. I also don’t think he put the USA first and foremost, he put Donald J Trump first and foremost. I don’t think he put the United States of America’s second either, because he missed out the “United” bit. He lacks statecraft and dresses the lack up as some kind of virtue, everything boiled down to brinksmanship and confrontation. Of course that may get you a lot of what you want in the short term, but people and states have memories. Even then I’d argue that most of his face offs against other nations haven’t been so much about what’s best for the US either, the pattern is of a thin-skinned man who can’t put perceived personal slights behind him and uses the weight of his state to punish those who have criticised him or, worse, made fun of him.
The overarching point in the above seems to be that he's not "Presidential". Which I won't argue. I would argue that he put himself first though. Ultimately he identified what he viewed as bad deals for the USA and took them on head on. The way he did was pretty immature, but the key economic numbers in the US continued in the right trajectory. Non farm payrolls, unemployment rate, manufacturing data ... up until start of this year were flying along. Lets not forget the S and P rise is known as the Trump trade.
I don’t care if he’s Presidential. LBJ wasn’t, and he passed the Civil Rights Act.
As for the economic data, I’m sure you can explain it to me.I accept that he probably puts the US before other countries, but so did every other president before him. But if you lined up him and Ronnie Reagan and had to pick the patriot it wouldn’t be hard.
Yes they do. So why doesn’t he try some?
Because there millions of voters in the US that agreed with his style. He went after middle America / fly over states and he got them. Like it or not, they responded to his leadership.
Sure they do, no argument. But sometimes events happen that need someone to lead everybody, and he can’t do that.
Trump took a lot of disheartened yanks and picked them up.
And took a whole lot of other disheartened yanks and said “fuck you” to them. Leadership is about making the right choices, not the easy ones.
You can't please everybody, you only need to please a certain percentage of the voting base. Those that he said fuck-you too, had largely enjoyed life under Obama whilst his voter base had seen no improvement in their life.
You see that’s where you and I diverge. His job is to lead the country, not his voters. He can get away with being partisan (BTW I’m not suggesting for a moment that the Democrats are any better) until a crisis comes along that needs everybody to buy in, not just your base. When the shit hit the fan Trump signally failed to do that. And his personality is such that he can’t admit to any error or misjudgement, he doubles down and attacks the messengers. It’s incredibly immature.
In any event, what’s the endgame? A continual ping pong match of one half of the country screwing over the other half? That kind of self-destructiveness isn’t something a leader should encourage, but it’s as natural as breathing to Trump.
That’s just the obverse of what I said: he can’t expect not to take the blame for what’s happened since Covid and take the credit for the low unemployment in the good times. But in fact the truth is he’s not responsible for either. Taking credit for a boom is something all governments do but usually it’s just the good fortune of being there that is closer to the truth. I think you can discount it unless you can show me some policies that made something happen that wouldn’t have happened anyway. Take that away and what’s left?
Are you prepared to give him any credit? You are now basically saying everything that happened was going to happen regardless. If that's your view, I'm not sure what we are debating, if anything at all.
Not much, no. I’ve said that.
Maybe. But IMO blind loyalty is all he’s got left.
Perhaps. When he was voted in, I was pretty concerned about what would happen and the first few months as all his negatives came to the forefront (xenophobia, thin skin, twitter usage etc), I was very much so in the anti-Trump brigade. However, having gained a new brother-in-law from Wyoming and spent considerable time with him, listening to how things have changed for his state, I softened somewhat. Additionally, a good buddy of mine (Aussie) who lives in New Jersey, is massively on the Trump train. His points are also pretty valid. Last time I visited him was mid 2017, and I couldn't believe the state of the infrastructure - roads with massive potholes, road signage completely fucked etc. Shocking. His views make some sense when you are on the ground.
But all of those things are city, county or state level responsibilities. How were any of them Obama’s fault, or the remedying of them Trump’s achievement?
I tend to avoid debates on other countries politics (ish) as Ive observed too many times that people who don't live in the UK don't have a real grasp of what's going on here. Hence I do listen quite intently to what my friends / counterparts in the US have to say. Of course it's very mixed, but not all on the Trump train are blind loyalists.
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@junior said in US Politics:
@MajorRage said in US Politics:
@reprobate fair post but not one I agree with entirely.
You could pick up two rags and read them from front to back and paint a completely different picture of the US in your mind. He’s such a polarizing leader.
I believe he just put the US first and foremost. Looked at everything from a business point of view and went for the deals best for his country and openly critiqued those that didn’t. And that worked out for a shit load of people. The s snd p has soared.
I don’t like the guy, never have and never will, but he’s a world leader with arguably the biggest hand to play. He deserves a lot of the criticism he gets, but not all. The same in the opposite direction.
For his dance on China alone he deserves a great deal of praise. Unfortunately, because of who he is, he hasn't been able to bring along other worlds leaders with him.
This I don't get. Open praise of China early in the pandemic. Not able to wait for / get collective condemnation of China for Hong Kong. Removed the US from a position of global leadership because 'us first', alienating allies, allowing China to step in. If I were China, I would be absolutely loving this fucking idiot. In future we may be looking at china leading the UN, with the US on the outer. That's quite the legacy.
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@reprobate said in US Politics:
@junior said in US Politics:
@MajorRage said in US Politics:
@reprobate fair post but not one I agree with entirely.
You could pick up two rags and read them from front to back and paint a completely different picture of the US in your mind. He’s such a polarizing leader.
I believe he just put the US first and foremost. Looked at everything from a business point of view and went for the deals best for his country and openly critiqued those that didn’t. And that worked out for a shit load of people. The s snd p has soared.
I don’t like the guy, never have and never will, but he’s a world leader with arguably the biggest hand to play. He deserves a lot of the criticism he gets, but not all. The same in the opposite direction.
For his dance on China alone he deserves a great deal of praise. Unfortunately, because of who he is, he hasn't been able to bring along other worlds leaders with him.
This I don't get. Open praise of China early in the pandemic. Not able to wait for / get collective condemnation of China for Hong Kong. Removed the US from a position of global leadership because 'us first', alienating allies, allowing China to step in. If I were China, I would be absolutely loving this fucking idiot. In future we may be looking at china leading the UN, with the US on the outer. That's quite the legacy.
I mean his trade stance on China. In my view, he (indeed anyone) is to be applauded for openly taking that stance. I'm not saying it's worked out perfectly. As I said above, for the reason of who he is, he has been unable to unite world leaders behind him on the China issue (I don't doubt that a lot of world leaders also want to keep China sweet for the economic benefits the few powerful people in their countries get from China). If Barry O was in Donny's shoes now, there'd be a lot more international consensus on the China issue.
As a matter of principle, though, I think Trump should be given credit.
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@JC said in US Politics:
I don’t care if he’s Presidential. LBJ wasn’t, and he passed the Civil Rights Act.
As for the economic data, I’m sure you can explain it to me.You and I both know that you don't need anything explained. You also know that one person see's, another sees differently. Lost count of the times we'd receive back to back viewpoints the morning after economic data from banking economists which were completely opposite. It became a running joke.
You see that’s where you and I diverge. His job is to lead the country, not his voters. He can get away with being partisan (BTW I’m not suggesting for a moment that the Democrats are any better) until a crisis comes along that needs everybody to buy in, not just your base. When the shit hit the fan Trump signally failed to do that. And his personality is such that he can’t admit to any error or misjudgement, he doubles down and attacks the messengers. It’s incredibly immature.
In any event, what’s the endgame? A continual ping pong match of one half of the country screwing over the other half? That kind of self-destructiveness isn’t something a leader should encourage, but it’s as natural as breathing to Trump.
Not sure we diverge that much. Granted, it's not great country leadership to only serve the people who vote for you, but to an extent, politics has been going down that path for a while. It's one of the reasons a few observers (who I respecT) are seriously questioning democracy. Left & Right are currently too far apart.
Totally agree he's been sadly lacking in many areas the last few months when a style of bring it all together leadership was required.
Not much, no. I’ve said that.
Well at least you also acknowledge that the climate of recent months wasn't his fault ... a few don't.
But all of those things are city, county or state level responsibilities. How were any of them Obama’s fault, or the remedying of them Trump’s achievement?
Both of them put the reasoning firmly at Trump's feet. It's up to me whether or not I buy into that or not - I don't really know enough about Lander, Wyoming or Madison, NJ to defend/argue. I would suggest these guys do tho.
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@junior said in US Politics:
If Barry O was in Donny's shoes now, there'd be a lot more international consensus on the China issue.
But what consensus? Its different now to what it was even 1 year back. And there are few that would be brave, smart or principled enough to take on China.
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This is a great discussion thanks everyone, best we've had in here for years. Might be due to a certain dummy spitter leaving.
@JC your point about there being a time to play politics and a time to actually stand up and lead and unify the nation is bang on. Trump has been proven to be utterly unable to bring the nation together under a crisis, be that Covid or this civil unrest. He just continues to play politics, pitching people against each other for his own (perceived) benefit.
I get that it's a near impossible task, but the fact that he is not even trying, and in fact actively doing the exact opposite has shown how unfit he is for the job.
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@No-Quarter If he tried to act more presidential, encouraging unity, encouraging people to listen to covid19 advice from the authorities, showing a little compassion, not focussing on himself, it would be a good thing. Politically it would give his enemies less to focus on too, and if they continued to rail against him they would risk looking petty and small
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@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
This is a great discussion thanks everyone, best we've had in here for years. Might be due to a certain dummy spitter leaving.
@JC your point about there being a time to play politics and a time to actually stand up and lead and unify the nation is bang on. Trump has been proven to be utterly unable to bring the nation together under a crisis, be that Covid or this civil unrest. He just continues to play politics, pitching people against each other for his own (perceived) benefit.
I get that it's a near impossible task, but the fact that he is not even trying, and in fact actively doing the exact opposite has shown how unfit he is for the job.
The non stop attack on him including by the fake news mainstream media might have a big part to play for this
In fact I would say that in these circumstances Trump has performed remarkable well. He has made himself accessible but has fought back.
I like Trump. He once said there should be free speech and just let everyone make their own minds up. This bumps up against the nanny state leaders and their supporters (where people are treated like stupid vulnerable children where only a wise elite know best) but its a direction I prefer to go. Trump lives this.
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@Winger said in US Politics:
The non stop attack on him including by the fake news mainstream media might have a big part to play for this
Sounds like my kids always deflecting blame away from them for thier behaviour.
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