Donald trump. what is your take on him?

[mattiasNYC]

So, way back during the summer when he got the crowd to answer his chant "Who's gonna pay for that wall???"    Had he given any serious thought as to how it was going to actually be done I wonder.


I think America is headed for a hard lesson on the matter of becoming this insular, non-dependent nation he rallies towards.  We can't live in a bubble.  We have to get along with the rest of the world.  He's pissing off diplomats right and left.

Like I've said too many times already: Trump doesn't care about the truth.

"Does it sound good to say that Mexico will pay for the wall? Yes? Ok, I'll say it." Truth has nothing to do with it. He'll spin American's paying more for Mexican goods as it being Mexico's fault, and all the simpletons who do zero thinking will believe him.

While we wait though, I'm curious as to just who is going to build the wall. After all, this amounts to a mandated funneling of money from the people to a private corporation, unless the government is doing it (which I doubt, because government's are completely inept and can't create even walls.... it everything has to be done on the capitalist market).

 

[mattiasNYC]

Trump's claim on VOTER FRAUD.

(I used all-caps so that ADD-riddled simpletons that are used to Twitter pay attention (nobody of us probably, but you never know))


Anyone care to guess just what the purpose of this is? I think we're left with only a couple of options here, and none of them are good I'm afraid:

1: There was massive VOTER FRAUD. Obviously that would be terrible. But I have a hard time seeing that that would be more likely on such a scale than tweaking computers used in the election. We're talking millions of votes here. So if this was the case, the US "democracy" would be essentially non-existent. And, what if it's found that Hillary actually got more votes and enough to change the outcome? Would Trump resign? Probably not, right?

2: There was no VOTER FRAUD, and;

- Trump doesn't believe there was VOTER FRAUD. In that case, we must wonder just why he would engage in something that would show that he was wrong about such an important issue. He'd look like a fool. So, since that's the case, the only way to get around that is to make sure he gets the result he wants. And that means tweaking the results of the investigation to his liking. Now, ask yourself what the consequence would be of an investigation that shows VOTER FRAUD. Clearly action must be taken to ensure the elections run smoothly. But since this case is based on the notion that Trump doesn't really think there was VOTER FRAUD the only reasonable guess is that the goal is to NOT make the elections in the future run smoothly and accurately, but to institutionalize VOTER FRAUD by those in power.

- Trump does believe there was VOTER FRAUD. But in this case you're left with exactly what I keep telling you; a narcissistic megalomaniac man-child with some sort of OCD.... with the finger on the trigger to enough nukes to destroy the planet. Well done! That's the kind of moron we're going to have for four years?

So, the VOTER FRAUD investigation to me is really troubling, because it either just validates the worst suspicions about his personality, or as far as I can see pushes the US much further and faster towards authoritarianism than I would have thought.

Though I'm sure some here will say "Oh, we just have to wait and see and give him the benefit of the doubt" while he continues perpetuating his lies.

 

[Rocinante]

Distractions. He's not stupid, he's exactly like you said; narcisistic. In a sense sociopathic as well.
He did the math; well his people and him did. They just had enough numbers; if he played his cards well.
And so he went around and lit the fires of every neo-nazi, or nationalists or conspiracy group, or 'merica' luvin loud mouth bigot and said "follow me and I'll get you what you want".

For most of those groups of people it was to not have an African American as president whose gonna force his socialism on them and take away their guns.  They really hated that a black guy was they're president.
For many it was to vote the party line regsrdless of the vile junk that came out his mouth.
For others he supposedly represented the anti-establishment. Many neo-nazi groups consider themselves to be anti-establishment as well. . Funny who he has chosen for his staff. The inherrited owners of the establishment?
Everything else is disarm and control 101.
Black out the media with a barrage of lies. Russia did this in Ukraine.
Trump has never once said where gets his info other than mentioning alt-right affiliates of  Breibart. Nearly every statistic he has mentioned was either made up by his group and him or created by various alt-right groups all of which are considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Most of it is just made up.
And so the draconian era begins.
In my observations his supporters will continue to stand by him even when he's acting against core beliefs they once held.

Think about it:

He's claiming that nearly every journalist in every major newspaper is on a mission to discredit him and attack our very foundation of democracy by spreading lies.
Do you guys really think that?
So is he lying?
Are you comfortable with that? Really?
How many lies is too many?
Ive heard the whole 'just give him a chance' bit.
No.
I don't need to give him a chance. I have a brain, a conscience, and am a good man. I know this in my core.  The list of really lousy and unethical things he has done is long.  His actions and speeches during his campaign were enough, for example; his failures to denounce the grand wizard of the kkk. To myself and many others it is obvious just how awful of a person Trump is.

I also will never ever ever ever stand behind any person the kkk endorces and whom neo-nazi groups consider to be their new leader.  I think its crazy people are indifferent to that.

They'll be no coming back for so many.  Too many people have shown their cards and are defending such a vile and vulgar little man.  Our children are watching.  As they're parents pray to Jesus one moment claiming to love all of gods creatures, then spitting at a young immigrant the next, cursing under their breath as they shove their way to the front of the line, smiling as their vulgar leader mocks the handicapped, alienates the world, hires hate group leaders, attacks minorities, dissolves environmental protections, silences the media, gags scientists and begins rewriting history to better his image.

 

[DaveP]

Look you guys, don't get bitter, just laugh:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-xxis7hDOE

DaveP

 

[lassoharp]

While we wait though, I'm curious as to just who is going to build the wall.

Well maybe he should just hire all Mexican construction companies and just not pay them.  He seems to have a consistent record so far for non payment.    Or maybe he'll try and get away with hiring some American firms that have an all Mexican work force (that effectively won't get paid). 

 

[DaveP]

I heard he was going to tax the remittances they send back home to Mexico?

DaveP

 

[tands]

The simplest thing to do would be to put a surtax on American goods exported to Mexico.

 

[tands]

Distractions:

For most of those groups of people it was to not have an African American as president whose gonna force his socialism on them and take away their guns.  They really hated that a black guy was they're president.

Except not. Many of the people you're smearing voted for Obama against Romney in 2012. Huh.

"In some places, the changes were more concentrated. Just three counties flipped from Obama to Trump in the Keystone State — Erie County along the Ohio border, Northampton County in the Allentown suburbs and Luzerne County, where the Wilkes-Barre suburbs. Luzerne saw a 25-point swing from Obama to Trump. Traditionally red counties in Pennsylvania, in particular, saw a massive shift in the margins toward Trump, as well.

But in Wisconsin — the state that ended up putting Trump over the top in the electoral vote early Wednesday morning — 22 counties that had once voted for Obama switched to Trump. Some of those counties — such as Sawyer, Forest and Adams — have some of the highest unemployment rates in the state.

Michigan had 12 counties that went from blue to red, including critical Macomb in the Detroit suburbs and the swing counties of Calhoun and Monroe.

Iowa had a whopping 31 of its 99 counties that went from the Obama column to Trump's. The bellwether county of Cedar, which has picked the winner of every presidential race since 1992, again got it right. Even though Obama carried it by 4 points in 2012, Trump won it by 18 this year."

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/15/502032052/lots-of-people-voted-for-obama-and-trump-heres-where-in-3-charts

 

[nielsk]

Trump getting every "deplorable" to crawl out of the woodwork and vote was not what allowed him to become the "president", it was the effective suppression of the millennial vote, which was gradually ground down and then worn away, first by Bernie, because he did not have the guts to run as in independent (which is what he is), then his endless whining about the Democratic party not playing fair (when he failed to actually win) then the Russian / Trump constant dis-information campaign, with the final blow scored by the tool Comey in his violations of the Hatch Act.
Even with the co-opting of every soul-less and ethic-lees Republican voter who lowered themselves to actually vote for Trump, he still only received barely 25% of the vote.
Add to this the complete break down of every mechanism of representative democracy in the USA all the way to the failure of the electoral college to preform it's primary function of preventing a demagogue from becoming president and you get to where we are today.

Just the number of  Bernie supporter who opted out of voting would have tilted the electoral results by being practical and voting for Clinton.
If the millennials only cared more about the way the world really works instead of their short sighted  idealism, or deciding X-Box time was more important, we would not be spiraling head first into this hell hole. 
Oh, well, it is their future that they threw away.

 

[living sounds]

Another great newspaper article about Trump voters:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/27/why-donald-trump-win-walt-disney

 

[dmp]

Trump has never once said where gets his info other than mentioning alt-right affiliates of  Breibart.

Lately he's been tweeting right after something was mentioned on Fox news. Think about that for a minute.  Even if Fox news had better journalistic standards, the PRESIDENT is getting his issue of the moment by watching TV???

+1 for Nielsk's point. The divisions and idealism of Democrats led to the downfall. Hilary was poor candidate but Bernie would have destroyed once the propaganda started going after him. Nobody was voting for Obama in 2016 obviously so that's a moot point. I do think Biden could have won the general easily if he could have won the primary - but I'm not sure he could have. It's all speculation  at this point though.
Wisconsin was tipped through voter suppression by Republican lawmakers. Purged people from the Polls in Democratic areas, ID laws - just enough % to to make a difference. Unlike Trump's claims of voter fraud, these things are provable and easily researched.
Not to say that there weren't a lot of people looking for change and against Hilary.

 

[DaveP]

Yes, +1 for Nielsk's point from me too.

DaveP

 

[dmp]

I think the Mexico tariff idea is that a 20% tax on imports would level the playing field since companies that produce in the US have to pay a 20% corporate tax.
American consumers would be seeing the tax and it would motivate them to shop elsewhere. There would be a great deflation of investment / imports from Mexico I expect as imports from China etc became more favorable.
First Trump needs to exit NAFTA which needs a 6 month warning. I'm wondering when he'll pull the trigger on that.
I haven't heard any talk of a tax on exports to Mexico since  it would just kill exports and punish companies that actually produce in the US.

 

[nielsk]

Adding tariffs on imports from Mexico results in consumers in the USA being the ones who actually are paying for it (myself among them, as I am a regular consumer of fine tequila, the being only available from Mexico!)  as the result will be increased prices...

The whole "wall" thing is just another boondoggle designed to thrill the uninformed.
No one in the know thinks it will do anything to stem illegal immigration.
The only ones who benefit from it are corrupt immigration officials (it will make it easier to funnel pay-offs) and government contractors (at a cost of $1B+ per mile).

 

[JohnRoberts]

So an import tax was proposed to pay for that wall.

75% of my daily diet are fresh fruits and vegetables and a big chunk of those come from Mexico

Great, we'll pay 10 bucks apiece for watermelons and avocados this summer and our grocery and clothes bills will double.

So, way back during the summer when he got the crowd to answer his chant "Who's gonna pay for that wall???"    Had he given any serious thought as to how it was going to actually be done I wonder.


I think America is headed for a hard lesson on the matter of becoming this insular, non-dependent nation he rallies towards.  We can't live in a bubble.  We have to get along with the rest of the world.  He's pissing off diplomats right and left.

I am not smart enough to predict the future but this looks like yet another negotiation that will evolve over time.

Since NAFTA trade in both directions has increased to hundreds of billions, this will not be decided flippantly.

As so often Trump's campaign characterizations were hyperbolic. There is a trade deficit of some $60B out of a roughly $200-300B trade level in both directions.

Right now media is focussed on the face saving exercises for both sides. Trump made campaign promises he does not want to publicly back down from, President Nieto risks losing face at home with his voters. If I had to guess, some fraction of the wall cost could be incorporated into trade adjustments.  For just one example, we buy over $10B of Mexican oil, that they can deliver it to us way cheaper than to any other customer, so that commodity could support an incremental adder.

For those with short memory or who don't pay attention to trade, we had a trade dispute with Mexico and Canada about a year ago over country of origin labelling (COOL) for imported beef. They both proposed counter tariffs to offset the expected lost sales when customers could see where their meat was actually coming from (they have a worse record of "mad cow" incidents than domestic beef). Congress repealed the COOL legislation to protect midwestern farm state exporters who would be hurt by the counter tariffs.

So our trade partners can play hardball too. Mexico would benefit from a secure border too and has their hands full dealing with  internal criminal drug operations and compromised police. They blame us for buying the drugs coming from there and they have a point. I can easily imagine a win-win deal involving multiple concerns, but not this week.  Trump does not even have his full cabinet in place so it is a bit early for serious trade negotiations. (By EU contract I don't think May can make any other trade deals either until actually withdrawing from the EU, so this meeting with her is mostly window dressing).

JR

PS: One smart proposal about border security suggested years ago, was to engage the Mexican military to police their side of the border. For that to work, they would need to be compensated higher than the coyotes and drug trade pay them for looking the other way. Mexico actually issues short term transit permission at their southern border for the flow of central and south American immigrants just passing through. We just need to pay them more to control that human trade.

 

[DaveP]

No one in the know thinks it will do anything to stem illegal immigration.

I will make a prediction:
After the wall is built there will be a criminal trade of shipping illegals across the gulf of mexico or up the pacific coast.
This is what happened in the Mediterranean these last few years.  They won't be able to swim or have life jackets or be able to keep a boat's bow into the wave or avoid all sitting on one side and so capsizing.  You will have heartrending stories of tragic loss to make Trump look bad for enforcing the law, very little blame will be apportioned to the actual people involved, they will have been "forced" into it by the wicked wall.

DaveP

 

[lassoharp]

I am not smart enough to predict the future but this looks like yet another negotiation that will evolve over time.

It feels like a scattered attempt to pick up the pieces in the midst of chaos right now.  Maybe he will find a believable (to his true believers) agent to blame failure on and just put the project on hold indefinitely . 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I will make a prediction:
After the wall is built there will be a criminal trade of shipping illegals across the gulf of mexico or up the pacific coast.
This is what happened in the Mediterranean these last few years.  They won't be able to swim or have life jackets or be able to keep a boat's bow into the wave or avoid all sitting on one side and so capsizing.  You will have heartrending stories of tragic loss to make Trump look bad for enforcing the law, very little blame will be apportioned to the actual people involved, they will have been "forced" into it by the wicked wall.

DaveP

The physical barrier is only one leg of the stool.

We need to change what happens after Illegal immigrants arrive.  If the law was enforced that prevents them from working here many (most?) would stop coming. The number tapered off when the economy contracted back after 2008.

The other elephant in the room is the presumption of amnesty and citizenship for those here. We saw this movie before the last time they reformed immigration years ago with a "one-time" amnesty and legislation to seal the border, that they did not follow through on.  So a new group of illegal immigrants came in hoping for that history to repeat.

It matters less what we say than what we do.  A complete comprehensive solution is needed, not just a single (wall) imagery. Keeping illegal workers out of the job pool seems consistent with Trump trying to create more job openings for American workers, but another factor is how many American workers are unwilling to work such jobs.  (thus the increasing automation in sectors like harvesting crops).

JR 

PS: Europe will have to deal with the unintended consequences of chaotic immigration. In hindsight it would have been in the west's interest to create "safe zones" in the middle east so people did not have to literally escape to save their lives. In the context of illegal immigration to US, we could benefit from helping violence prone nations in South America. Many of these immigrants come from a handful of nations with significant internal problems. A good neighbor would help them clean up their homelands, a win-win. The past administration was a little too friendly to some of these less than democratic nations IMO, while my suggestion is a little simplistic. The world is a complex place.

@lassoharp: I have been wrong about predicting the future before while I am less pessimistic about the future than several here.

 

[Matador]

Perhaps we have it all wrong?

More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries.

Maybe the wall is to keep cheap labor from leaving, so we have people available to implement this infrastructure project? 

 

[tands]

Just the number of  Bernie supporter who opted out of voting would have tilted the electoral results by being practical and voting for Clinton.

I did everything I could to keep Hillary OUT of the WH. Her loss is delicious. Obama would have signed TPP in the lame duck were she elected, so I'm way ahead at this point. It'll take a lot to bring me down.

NSFW, language, start around 10:00-12:00

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-58-we-live-in-the-zone-now-111216