Donald Trump
Comments
-
The cult of Trump won't win an election. He also needs a lot of normal republican voters to hold their noses. hard to say at this point if that's going to happen.
0 -
-
They've held their nose twice already (yes not to a sufficient degree to win a second term, but his vote didn't totally collapse), what's a third time.
0 -
Kind of. I don't think 2016 had quite descended to cult status, just populism. And bar some boundary changes and political interference by the FBI, he'd have lost that one as well as losing the popular vote.
I keep telling people that most people are born Republican or Democrat, and stay that way for life regardless of policy or personality. There are low numbers of floating voters and they and overall turn out decides every US election.
So all polls will be close and all elections will be close. And polls don't tell you who is actually going to vote.
This isn't a done deal by any means, but you have to accept that both candidates will get somewhere in the high 40s or low 50s of the popular vote. That's just how it is.
0 -
There's undoubtedly a cult of Trump, including a lot of stupids. You won't shift them, even if he's in prison. But there must be enough people on the fringes who can still be persuaded not to vote for Trump, and that's why it's worth plugging away, and not ignoring his many lunacies and how dangerous he is to the US as a concept (flawed democracy v. demagoguery) and to world order in general (NATO, Russian expansionism etc)
0 -
By 2016 he'd said some really incendiary things that should really have wrecked his chances with the religious right.
0 -
Yes, but they are Republicans who either vote Republicans or don't vote.
He got elected because Clinton was the wrong candidate, based largely on her husband, but even then it needed her honesty to be impugned by the FBIs approach to the emails, for him to get over the line.
Trump was far far less radical then, and there was an instilled and misplaced belief that the checks and balances of the worlds greatest democracy would allow the US to tolerate his idiocy whilst benefitting from his braver policies. He now lacks the element of surprise and has spent 8 years showing how fragile their democracy actually is. I don't know what the outcome will be, but it's a totally different election.
1 -
He was elected to President with no prior experience of public office, after winning an election against possibly the most qualified Presidential candidate ever. It was very radical. I'd agree that its a more radical choice this time, but I don't think it's a real step change
I'm not sure on the checks and balances point. I think it was oft repeated by people to provide a bit of comfort. I think internally, checks, balances and bureaucracy meant he couldn't be as radical as he'd necessarily want. His foreign and immigration policies did achieve some of his aims, but even then much of his presidency was taken up by utter incompetence and COVID.
0 -
I was referring to his rhetoric, not how left field his candidacy was.
0 -
this time around the right wing groups that want him (but that he doesn't control) have been making lists of people to be replaced with chosen loyalists
at the last election, the one he lost, he was clear that he was going convert tens of thousands of career civil service positions into political appointee ones, allowing him to dismiss loyalists to the constitution and the rule of law, and replace them with loyalists to trump and whatever he wants
his only real 'success' last time was to pack the system with right-wing judges wherever he could, and deliver a supreme court with a hard-right/originalist bias, including at least one judge who appears to be deeply corrupt, this supreme court is not going to stop trump
so last time he wasn't ready/able to fundamentally change government itself before he was kicked out, this time there's a plan and preparation/willingness to do it and eviscerate democratic controls from the start
aside from that, rule-making by government agencies like the epa, fda, sec etc, is already under direct attack with the help of the supreme court, see the “major questions doctrine”, if successful it'll further gut the system, rolling back decades of protections for citizens, business and the environment
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
Although a tad long winded, that ^ is an interesting read.
4000 is not a lot of 'civil servants' in a country of 250+m. I don't suppose that we can compare this with Whitehall given each state will have their own set of civil servants but still.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
This is the right evidence but the wrong conclusion.
It's not especially floating voters who tend to decide elections, as much as it is about getting your base to turn out.
That is Biden's problem.
0 -
Wrong conclusion? I'd say both are true. Which leaves 3 conclusions which can all be correct.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
i think the 4,000 are essentially hordes of junior misters, advisors and managers, political appointees rather than career civil servants
the schedule f measure targets 50,000 actual civil servants, all the sir humphreys and their departments - last time around these were seen as disobedient/uncooperative/disruptive because they insisted on acting lawfully/within the established rules
it seems the right really do want to tear down the federal government, it's the endgame of what reagan and the tea party crazies started
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
-
I used to just think that Truss was an incompetent politician who loved a photo opportunity and had got promoted way beyond her ability (getting elected as an MP probably took her past that point). It's only since she got elected as PM that I've started to realise she is all those things and also a raving lunatic.
0 -
It is both, but there are a lot more declared independents this time around, because neither of the candidates are appealing.
Trump's problem is that his efforts to mobilize his base will also mobilize Biden's. Because Biden is the not-Trump candidate. Bit like Starmer.
0 -
Knicked this from somewhere else regarding Trump's fine payment.
"You gotta pay your bills or I’ll encourage them to come for you! I mean…. You gotta pay up. Sound familiar?"
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
It's really hard to stress how dangerous and costly Trump f*cking about with NATO Article 5 is.
It is actually a rather cheap way to secure America's interests in Europe - they don't need to commit much material. Just by being rock solid in mutual defence no-one will try anything.
As soon as you say you might not come to help - the incentive is there to try that out, and then you do have an expensive decision to make.
He may well be more preoccupied by Asia, but what on earth do you think the Koreans and Japanese will think if America does not show it is a reliable security guarantor - do we think they do not have the capability to nuke up pretty sharpish?
He was right to identify the free-rider problem, but he is undermining the fundamental premise of stability; deterrence.
Putin probably won't invade Estonia, but he may well do some grey attacks to test the alliance now. Mega cyber attacks, nabbing bits of land here and there.
Madness. Really worrying.
What's weird is that it seems to be born out of some kind of jealousy - the idea that they spend on actual security rather than social security and that those European lefists need to learn that actual security is a higher order priority, and they basically want to punish people who don't agree - hence saying "i would encourage putin to invade countries that don't pay up".
0 -
I just think a quasar star six hundred trillion times brighter than the sun brings all this election, NATO, Taylor Swift malarkey into context.
Like, what is Trump compared to a six hundred and trillion times brighter sun?
0 -
I mean he's pretty insignificant compared to the sun and that's 600,000,000,000,000 less bright than this Quasar swagger.
0 -
And it's a grain of sand compared to the universe.
0 -
Yep, like no match.
0 -
Can see the hair similarity though! 🤣🤣🤣
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
the US Supreme Court has agreed to consider his claim of presidential immunity, meaning the 6 Jan case is looking less and less likely to get done before the November election. Looks like Trump's stooges on the SC are doing what he put them there to do.
0 -
-
Yup. His previous episode as POTUS was just seeing what he could get away with. And the answer seems to be anything. Scary.
0 -
There is remarkably little point in following the criminal or legal proceedings.
Either he wins and it's all irrelevant or he doesn't and he is irrelevant anyway.
0 -
Maybe he has been standing out in that star's radiation and that is why his skin is that colour.
0 -
should the supreme court find that presidents have absolute immunity, i'd be hilarious if biden had trump rubbed out for the good of the constitution
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0
