The Trump Presidency

joepistole said:

A few famous narcissists:

Adolph Hitler
Joseph Stalin
Napoleon Bonaparte
Vladimir Putin
Donald Trump

What a group of distinguished individuals.

Below is a link to an interesting article on Vlad's narcissism:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/vladimir-putin-narcissist/360544/

Although Trump grew up in a wealthy home and Putin grew up in poverty, they have much in common.

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My comment on the above was as to what they had in common - They grew up?

joepistole said:

Did they? That's not readily apparent. The both appear to have the EQ of a 6 year old. The both suffered and still suffer from a deep seated inferiority fear. If you are interested I suggest you read their bios and their lives as children.

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Ir your question is - Did they? - you have stated they did

If you are contradicting yourself - Did they? and asking me for confirmation yes they did

If you are now referring to mental age growth giving both 6 year old level OK

If you are making a diagnosis of some sort provide evidence

If I am interested in reading their bios I should read them I am not and won't

joepistole said:

Where is your evidence there was any calculation involved, much less "impressive display of electoral calculation"? The guy got lucky.

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So you think it was luck that Trump put extra late campaign effort into - say - Wisconsin and Michigan, earning ridicule at the time. http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-is-donald-trump-in-michigan-and-wisconsin.

joepistole said:

Well then you are not looking or deliberately ignoring reality. As previously explained to you, the roll of his recent executive order was an unmitigated disaster. He has only been POTUS for one week and in that week, through his own negligence and incompetence, has managed to single single-handedly split his party, alienate or allies, and cause mass demonstrations against his administration across country and the globe.

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As noted, you seem to be operating under the assumption that the Trump administration values good government highly and wants to govern the US well according to traditional measures.

joepistole said:

Yeah, you will. If you hire enough people you will eventually hire some smart people.

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But you won't know which ones they are. Quickly recognizing unusual ability and competence and benefit - and even more significantly lack of ability and incompetence and deficit - in a newly hired employee, is not at all easy even under familiar circumstances, when managing a well understood project. Trump was doing something he'd never done before, under extreme pressure, and he made essentially no mistakes in hiring or firing key personnel. His team of rookies and newbies was crackerjack, his polling and data crunching and scheduling and media manipulation outmaneuvered and outperformed seasoned professionals in the business. They got that conman clown, that rolling public display of undesirability, elected .

joepistole said:

And the fact remains, Trump's campaign was far from well managed. He replaced this campaign staff three times in as many months.

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And Clinton did not - and paid the price. Remember how the air went out of her campaign when the news hit that she was keeping Wasserman-Schultz on her high level staff, fresh off the forced resignation? She couldn't even see the need to dump a deficit when it was a headline in the news. That's not really a slam on her - that kind of decision is really difficult - but if you are wondering why Clinton's TV ad buys in the rust belt were 4/1 attacks on Trumps personality and character instead of promotions of her economic proposals, that's where you look for an explanation.

iceaura said:

So you think it was luck that Trump put extra late campaign effort into - say - Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, earning ridicule at the time. http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-is-donald-trump-in-michigan-and-wisconsin.

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Yeah, I think it was luck. There certainly is no evidence to suggest that any political mastery was involved as you have alleged.

iceaura said:

As noted, you seem to be operating under the assumption that the Trump administration values good government highly and wants to govern the US well according to traditional measures.

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And what would lead you to that conclusion? I believe Trump values his image, and the last thing he wants to do is to damage is image. Trump is nothing if not a narcissist. It's all about image with "The Donald". It always has been and unfortunately will always be.

Chaos in the streets, a falling stock market, impotence on Capital Hill, just aren't consistent with the image Trump wants to maintain and promote.

iceaura said:

But you won't know which ones they are. Quickly recognizing unusual ability and competence and benefit - and even more significantly lack of ability and incompetence and deficit - in a newly hired employee, is not at all easy even under familiar circumstances, when managing a well understood project. Trump was doing something he'd never done before, under extreme pressure, and he made essentially no mistakes in hiring or firing key personnel. His team of rookies and newbies was crackerjack, his polling and data crunching and scheduling and media manipulation outmaneuvered and outperformed seasoned professionals in the business. They got that conman clown, that rolling public display of undesirability, elected .

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Does it matter? No, it doesn't. But you should be able to know them by their results. The fact remains, Trump has a horrible record. He went through 3 different campaign staffs in as many months. That's not a demonstration of the careful thoughtful vetting you attributed to Trump, nor is his release of executive orders a demonstration of clear thoughtful thinking and action. It's the exact opposite.

iceaura said:

And Clinton did not - and paid the price. Remember how the air went out of her campaign when the news hit that she was keeping Wasserman-Schultz on her high level staff, fresh off the forced resignation? She couldn't even see the need to dump a deficit when it was a headline in the news. And that's not really a slam on her - that kind of decision is really difficult.

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What does that have to to with Trump's competence? It has nothing to do with Trump's competence or lack thereof.

iceaura said:

No, you do that. You invented "stupid" in the first place, it's your bs, you fix it.

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I don't plan to. I have explained what I mean. It is simply a word used for classification of your personal attacks. If they refer to some claimed inabilities to understand your truths, be it simply because I don't know what you know, or because I make the wrong decisions of which sources are reliable or which not, they all belong into the same bag. What matters is not how you name it, or how you justify it. The reason for classification is

1.) You believe that some statement A is correct. I don't believe A is correct.
2.) Arguments that A is wrong are not proposed. Instead, the situation is presented as if A is a "fact".
3.) Some explanation is given why I do not recognize that "fact" A. This explanation is about my inferior (in comparison with your) abilities to identify the truth of A.

If I identify them all, the argument is considered to be a "you are stupid" argument. For example, this:

iceaura said:

You don't recognize the evidence, because you refuse to follow the argument - it would require you to accept information you have to deny, to maintain your propaganda addled preconceptions. Clinton is not an insane warmonger who dreams of killing people and pushes for war with Russia, for example. That's bizarre agitprop from the American authoritarian right.

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(1) is fulfilled, we disagree about the dangerousness of Clinton as a warmonger. (2) is fulfilled too, because, even if you may have presented some arguments in the past, here you are not presenting any new arguments. (3) is fulfilled too, quite obviously. A person full of "propaganda addled preconceptions" is, clearly, inferior in his abilities to recognize truth in comparison with you. So it is a clear case of a "you are stupid" argument. Instead, the following contains arguments about the content of our disagreement, thus, is not classified as a "you are stupid" argument, even if it contains a similar "you make a serious mistake" phrase:

iceaura said:

You are making a serious mistake, if you think a fascist regime in the US will favor a multipolar world. Look at Trump's cabinet - oil industry, billionaire capitalists, tax cuts and other US governmental support for American based and American military "defended" multinational companies - where do you think the push for American imperial military force projection is coming from? Who do you think, in the US, pushed for the invasion of Iraq?

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I know at that time, 2003, there was not yet any split between the globalists and the pro-Americans. Above supported the Empire. The split is new. And I know that the US-based industry is, in a large and important part, production of weapons.

But even this part does not profit much from war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and bases in Kosovo or Poland. Economically, the US pays for bases, the locals like it, and if they get US-made weapons, then only because the US taxpayer pays for it. And, ok, some new weapons will be tested out in all these wars. But Russia is doing this too. And actually the potential customers are not that impressed by American weapons. And as the Ukraine war, as the Syrian war has been good for the Eastern European NATO members allowing them to sell all the old Soviet time weapons, but not that much for the American arms sellers. Even if the CIA buys weapons for terrorists, it is far from clear that they buy American weapons if cheaper Kalashnikows do that much better.

I have also wondered when I have heard that Ron Paul - with his quite radical pacifistic proposals - was said to have a lot of support from the Army. But it makes sense. All the army going home, even if you simply deploy them there with the same costs, the economic support will be for America. And if others want American defense, let them pay.

iceaura said:

You are trying to evaluate the US without information, and it doesn't work. You don't know what "variant" you're dealing with. You think Trump's fascist administration is isolationist, for example.

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Again speculation about what I think. You cannot do without it? I hope it is isolationist. The TPP cancellation I consider to be an indication, it makes no sense for a globalist, but a lot for an isolationist. But there are also a lot of aggressive claims against Iran and China which indicate that he is far from being a real isolationist.

iceaura said:

I simply warn you that it will not likely be an implosion in the US, as it was with the much weaker Soviets. It will more likely project - from your point of view, an explosion rather than an implosion.

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That there is a big danger of explosion - no doubt. There was a big danger in Soviet time too. But I don't understand the point of weakness here. They were strong enough to destroy the world, so, in the most important question not weak at all. They were weak if one looks at the living standard, but, sorry, this is weak in the sense of nothing to loose, which makes the whole situation even more dangerous.

iceaura said:

Trump's reactionary and fascistic administration will see opportunity in the disintegration of Western civilization, and have the means to take advantage.

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Indeed. This is what I expect.

iceaura said:

This is dangerous, and more dangerous for you than for me.

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Maybe. But I'm not afraid.

Kittamaru said:

Is it torch and pitchfork time yet...

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Donald Trump received nearly sixty-three million votes; this is #WhatTheyVotedFor.

Torches and pitchforks will bring a war.

The biggest danger is that the American people eventually buckle. Meanwhile, the proverbial field is shaping up; the morning fog will burn away, and then the fog of open political warfare will pretty quickly obscure everything again until the real shooting begins.

On the best of days, even if Americans walk the line perfectly and properly depose this president, someone on his side will start shooting.

It's our job―that is to say, the rest of us, everybody else―to avoid their narrative. These people want flaming chaos. They want insurrection. But they pretend patriotism, so they need to imagine their revolt against ’Mer’kuh was forced on them by evil tyranny. Remember how many times Republicans and their supporters reached into the insurrectionist well about the Kenyan born president, the tyranny of health care, or the idea that any among a diverse spectrum of people―including but not limited to women, homosexuals, transgender, people of color, and non-Christians―have human rights. Remember, this is also the, "They're comin' right for us!" crowd; it is almost impossible, it seems, to not be comin' right for 'em.

Something about whose stupid idea this was comes to mind, but that's the thing. Sure, we got sixty-five eight-five, but he got sixty-two nine-eight, and that's a huge effing number. Give it a little bit of time; one thing I've noticed is that among the people I know in the living world, the people I see face to face, the few who openly advocated for Donald Trump now specifically and repeatedly disclaim that they most certainly did not vote for him.

The dramatic proposition is the difference between overthrowing the president starting a war, to the one, or just nasty spasms of riots and armed occupations of soft targets, to the other. The real #trumpswindle isn't Donald Trump himself, or his lulzaholic base. It's everyone else who fell in line and voted for him: Either the voter is some manner of supremacist, or is okay with the lot of it.

You and I, for instance, are aware that a significant number of people who fall in line with supremacist ideas end up resenting the supremacist label. And perhaps in the virtual world it feels like regress outpaces progress, but in real practice the more Donald Trump and his core support reiterate and reinforce the supremacism, the more these other voters will feel obliged to face the choice. And for some we'll see it in their neurotic evasions, but the longer this goes on, the more Trump's support will dwindle. To wit, I foresee this continuing at least until the midterm. Settle in, go shoe shopping. Get some swim goggles and, you know, Vaseline works well to keep the gas off your face, but it's hell cleaning up afterward. My daughter's fourteen; I told her she should be fully prepared to get hit with tear gas before she graduates high school. We let her down. We let all our daughters and sisters and wives and mothers down. And now we all must go to the line together.

Americans failed the human species; we have some work to do.

The important thing is to keep Congress itching, and keep the courts sweltering, and keep the streets loud.

Okay, among the important things ....

But colloquially speaking, there will come a day when it's hard to find someone willing to admit they voted for Donald Trump.

And that is when it's time to storm the castle.

Democrats '18: Help us, American Voter: You're our only hope.

But when it comes to that time, the thing is that President Trump can accelerate the timetable. Only President Trump can convince Congressional Republicans to approve articles of impeachment, or sufficient agency within the government to enact XXV.4.

How much fear of proverbial torch and pitchfork can the People put into Congressional Republicans? Imagine the promises Pence would have to make McConnell, especially, for XXV.4.

Can the people apply enough pressure? Certainly, if the president keeps it up.

The dumbed-down USA deserves Trump.

Schmelzer said:

It is simply a word used for classification of your personal attacks

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It's the wrong word, and mischaracterizes my posting so completely as to completely confuse you - you can no longer make sense of my posts, when replying.

Schmelzer said:

A person full of "propaganda addled preconceptions" is, clearly, inferior in his abilities to recognize truth in comparison with you

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What I keep telling you is going wrong is not your "ability to recognize truth", but your comprehension of my posts - including your actual recognition of information. Like that right there. Not some "ability", but your actual behavior.
You don't lack ability, you lack information and good faith. You aren't stupid, you're ignorant - and, key observation, willfully so.

Schmelzer said:

If I identify them all, the argument is considered to be a "you are stupid" argument.

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Well, I tried. You can't get yourself unstuck, apparently, from this self-reinforcing loop of "identification" - not my fault.

Schmelzer said:

I know at that time, 2003, there was not yet any split between the globalists and the pro-Americans. Above supported the Empire. The split is new.

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There has been no split. The Republican Party has been significantly what you see now in power since 1980, consolidated into its present nature since about 1992.

Schmelzer said:

But even this part does not profit much from war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and bases in Kosovo or Poland.

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Nonsense.
The corporate powers involved certainly intended to profit, and largely succeeded - Exxon, for example (Tillerson's company) made enormous profits from the Iraq invasion even without the complete conquest and client State they hoped for, and avoided incoming losses via Afghanistan (pipeline issues), and finds the bases in Poland and Kosovo useful in negotiations. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/02/iraq.oil http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/15/536107/-

Schmelzer said:

Again speculation about what I think. You cannot do without it?

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I just read what you post. You posted repeatedly that you favored Trump because of his supposed isolationist leanings, especially compared with Clinton. You were wrong about that.

Schmelzer said:

But I don't understand the point of weakness here. They were strong enough to destroy the world, so, in the most important question not weak at all. They were weak if one looks at the living standard, but, sorry, this is weak in the sense of nothing to loose, which makes the whole situation even more dangerous.

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(It's "lose")
They were (and are) comparatively weak economically and militarily. The ability to destroy the world via nuclear explosions is almost worthless in force projection (it's sole value is in protection from severe military retaliation), which depends on conventional economic and military capability (and diplomatic skill, in which Russia had and has some local advantages - but not enough to overcome the lack of raw power).

"Trump's reactionary and fascistic administration will see opportunity in the disintegration of Western civilization, and have the means to take advantage."
Indeed. This is what I expect.

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But not in your back yard, you think. You think - at least, you posted - that Trump's fascism will be mostly an internal problem for the US, and should allow a multipolar world outside the US.

You've been warned otherwise, by people much better informed about Trump and American politics than you are, and much less vulnerable to the standard, familiar, American rightwing propaganda feeds. Take it or leave it.

Trump, the idol of the everyday American -- all want to be like him. All worship him.

Oystein said:

Trump, the idol of the everyday American -- all want to be like him. All worship him.

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Now you are just being mean!
It was less than half of the voting public that voted him in.

origin said:

Now you are just being mean!
It was less than half of the voting public that voted him in.

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The rest are just jealous of his marvelously small hands, his orange hair, his pursed lips, his bulbous body, his lack of oratory skills, his tiny penis.

Having thought on it for a while, it appears Trump has made a huge strategic error.
He played the "In the interests of National Security " card in a way that is unconvincing, unsupported and flatly opposed by leading members of the government.
He has ordered something that is not proportional to the need.

Why is this a key mistake?

When playing on the fears of the community as Trump has continuously and routinely done the use of "In the interests of National security" if played well can get just about any law passed, even a temporary ( to become permanent) compromise on the constitution. He played it badly and opposition to his use of "emergency provisioning" has been immediate and significant. This is important because any future use of the term "In the interest of National Security" will be met with skepticism and suspicion.

There is a down side which is demonstrated by the old story of the "Boy who cried wolf" but

Trump wants to supplant He-Man as Master of the Universe. Let's see. Skeletor or Trump? I'll take Skeletor.

iceaura said:

It's the wrong word, and mischaracterizes my posting so completely as to completely confuse you - you can no longer make sense of my posts, when replying.

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Feel free to suggest another word how to name this waste basket. I have defined the criteria what will be thrown into it, and I think the "you are stupid" is a nice characterization.

iceaura said:

What I keep telling you is going wrong is not your "ability to recognize truth", but your comprehension of my posts - including your actual recognition of information. Like that right there. Not some "ability", but your actual behavior.

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It makes no difference. If my error is my incorrect comprehension of your posts, it means that there is some better, correct comprehension of your posts, and I fail to recognize this.

iceaura said:

You don't lack ability, you lack information and good faith. You aren't stupid, you're ignorant - and, key observation, willfully so.

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I know that there are many other possibilities to express that I'm wrong, and I recognize and value their poetic value. And what you speculate about the cause - willfull ignorance or stupidity or childishness or whatever - does not matter too. What matters is that
1.) There is a difference in our positions,
2.) You presuppose that I'm wrong, without justifying this claim by presenting new arguments about the content,
3.) Some explanation is given why I do not accept this. This explanation presents me as inferior to you. You are able to recognize the correct position, I'm not. With some explanation, which is clearly not in my favor.
Even if one cannot completely and forever exclude the possibility that one or another of your speculations about what I think and why may appear, by accident, true, up to now they were complete nonsense, so that all this deserves to be thrown into a (however named) wastebasket.

iceaura said:

There has been no split. The Republican Party has been significantly what you see now in power since 1980, consolidated into its present nature since about 1992.

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Ok, in this case I see no base for argumentation about this with you. Simply accept it as a fact that I believe in a split inside the American elite, along the globalist vs. pro-American (isolationist) line. And I accept that you don't think so.

iceaura said:

I just read what you post.

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No, you wrote something about this. And what you wrote was a speculation about what I think, and this speculation was, as usually, wrong. I suggest you not to speculate about what I think, but simply to present arguments in favor of what you think.

iceaura said:

You posted repeatedly that you favored Trump because of his supposed isolationist leanings, especially compared with Clinton. You were wrong about that.

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Maybe, but if you want to present arguments that Clinton is much more isolationist than Trump, why don't you do it simply, without speculating about my thoughts?

iceaura said:

They were (and are) comparatively weak economically and militarily. The ability to destroy the world via nuclear explosions is almost worthless in force projection (it's sole value is in protection from severe military retaliation), which depends on conventional economic and military capability (and diplomatic skill, in which Russia had and has some local advantages - but not enough to overcome the lack of raw power).

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Sorry, they had a lot of troops in other countries, and have been able to project force in their domain of influence, the Warschauer Pakt, and some other countries they supported like Vietnam or Cuba or Ethiopia and many others. In Afghanistan there was also a "force projection", and this war was not lost militarily, but given up politically. With the Afghan government surviving three more years without any Soviet/Russian support.

iceaura said:

But not in your back yard, you think. You think - at least, you posted - that Trump's fascism will be mostly an internal problem for the US, and should allow a multipolar world outside the US.

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Again, no. You exaggerate. My point is that an isolationist in power in the US would be good for the world. Even this optimal solution would cause a lot of problems, related with the idea of a power vacuum to be filled and so on. But it would be certainly better than a globalist in power, who continues all this regime change and terror support all over the world.

The question if Trump will do some isolationist politics or how much is another one. It is quite clear that, given the many contradictions in his claims, one cannot say much before he is actually doing something. What he has done up to now gives some hope for at least a little bit of isolationism. The TPP resignation was an isolationist move. The Mexican wall too. The muslim or so ban too.

That the situation remains highly dangerous is something I know too. There are guys in his team which are not at all in favor of isolationism, they can do a lot of horrible things, no doubt. So I do not have to be warned.

And what I personally know for sure is that if the US stops to support jihadists and starts to fight Daesh seriously, this will be very good for me.

Quantum Quack said:

When playing on the fears of the community as Trump has continuously and routinely done the use of "In the interests of National security" if played well can get just about any law passed, even a temporary ( to become permanent) compromise on the constitution. He played it badly and opposition to his use of "emergency provisioning" has been immediate and significant. This is important because any future use of the term "In the interest of National Security" will be met with skepticism and suspicion.

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I doubt this matters. If, say, Jeb Bush would have won the elections, then your consideration would make a lot of sense. But it seems to me Trump plays another game.

Schmelzer,

Schmelzer said:

And what I personally know for sure is that if the US stops to support jihadists and starts to fight Daesh seriously, this will be very good for me.

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There are other radicalized cults to consider in your fear of terrorist... Radical Islamic Fundamentalists are only one.
As seen in Canada recently, other cults can launch significant terrorist activities especially if sanctioned by a Leader of major world power such as the USA
Whilst the success of the recent SEAL raid in Yemen is dubious the success of the reported Trump "inspired" raid in Canada was fairly obvious.

Do you feel "supreme" enough to avoid the consequences of the rise of fascism in Europe?
Are you blonde and blue eyed!
Do you have any Yiddish, Gypsy or Russian background?

Is Steve Bannon Donald Trump's Death Star?

This xenophobic, woman-hating piece of shit is now at the head of the NSC. Bannon is Trump's chief advisor; Trump listens to this man, if not to anyone else except for perhaps his daughter who, being a woman, has some work to do if she sees herself at all as some kind of voice of reason.


Will the hostile takeover of the NSC mean something like the defection of a lot of the military, will they join the Rebel Alliance, and is there a military coup in America's future? Will the tanks roll down Pennsylvania Ave?

Trump is running government like he ran his many failed businesses.

There is no subtlety or surprise in the way Trump does anything. The only hope to curb him is by changing the majorities in Congress either through election or by persuasion on a particular issue. At the moment neither look too promising but time will tell with how motivated the electorate becomes by the next election or how individual Senators and Congressmen respond to pressure by the public.

You would think a least a few of them would try to bog Trump's agenda down even if only for personal political gain.

David Brooks, a popular conservative writer, thinks Trump's presidency will not last the full term. He thinks Trump will either be impeached or removed with the 25th Amendment. This might be a reason for Trump's tightening his inner circle. He's not using his cabinet secretaries in the customary fashion. All the decisions are made, not in consultation with his cabinet, but with his closest advisers, e.g. Bannon. That's damn scary.

I'm with Brooks on this one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/opinion/the-republican-fausts.html?_r=0

Seattle said:

There is no subtlety or surprise in the way Trump does anything. The only hope to curb him is by changing the majorities in Congress either through election or by persuasion on a particular issue. At the moment neither look too promising but time will tell with how motivated the electorate becomes by the next election or how individual Senators and Congressmen respond to pressure by the public.

You would think a least a few of them would try to bog Trump's agenda down even if only for personal political gain.

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There is a certain "paralysis" involved here. One mainly caused by being overwhelmed by the outrageous-ness of his actions. People can not believe that the White House could be so ....uhm... incompetent and Un-American.

The confusion, shock, tears and heart ache will eventually transform into action as the reality of what they are facing is realized. IMO