The policy and politics of Trumpism

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selmaborntidefan

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It's possible because the other side is no less of a goat rodeo.
Well, yes and no.

The POTENTIAL problem for the Left is for them to commit McGovern-Mondale fratricide by nominating a "true believer Socialist" while at the same time the GOP cuts Trump loose and finds a way to NOT renominate him. The nominating wing of both parties is dominated by the extremists in both directions. In 2020, no Democrat starts out with the high name recognition that Hillary had as far back as 2000, Edwards and Obama had in 2008 with the exception of three folks in their 70s (in 2020) who aren't running: Warren, Biden, and Sanders. The REAL danger for the Democrats is that you might have the Republican problem of 2016 - if too many people think beating Trump is going to be an easy mark ("after all, he only won by 70,000 votes in three states" will be the mantra) then you might have 10-12 candidates, none of them well-known, who split the vote early on and default the nomination to someone who has gained big name recognition for the wrong reasons. The Democrats, of course, have the built-in super delegate votes so they're by no means bound by the primary results as the GOP is. I'm not even predicting - what I'm saying is that it wouldn't surprise me if they made the mistake of thinking: a) Obama got elected BECAUSE he was a liberal (not true); and b) HRC lost because she wasn't liberal enough (also untrue) - and wind up firing up the modern version of McGovern-Mondale, the candidate of special interests. Of course, they won't lose quite so badly as those times because some states have shifted and there is no Ronald Reagan out there for the GOP, either.

There's no telling how big - or how small - a disaster Trump can be seen as. The right was grumbling so much about Reagan that two days before he was shot, he brought down the house at the Gridiron Club dinner by giving the one-liner, "Sometimes our right hand doesn't know what our far right-hand is doing." At that point Reagan had only been in office about ten weeks and it was the right mad because he wasn't dismantling the government (e.g. "draining the swamp"). Of course, Reagan had also been governor of a large state for eight years and knew there was no reason to propose politically risky stuff that had no chance of passing (though this didn't stop him from bungling Social Security reform that May). Bill Clinton was angering everyone by this stage of his Presidency: liberals, conservatives, AND moderates, plummeting 33 points in the polls from January to May. By March 18, 1993, Clinton had abandoned "gays in the military", abandoned his tax cut, had the Coast Guard rounding up Haitian migrants after saying it was okay for them to come here, presided over the first WTC bombing, and had a standoff going on in Waco at the Branch Davidian compound. (And no, folks, I'm not BLAMING Clinton for the last two things, they were crises he had to manage).

Both were goners by January starting the third year (1983 and 1995). And both won easy re-election. Of course, Trump is not like either man. Both were long-term governors who knew that when you threw red meat to the base of your party, you barely acted upon it save for what would be easy and not damage you. And both had manners in how they treated folks (I've said before that I knew one of Bill's limo drivers and a guy on the White House physician staff in 1998 during the Lewinsky scandal. BOTH had much negative to say about HRC's manners towards those serving her but both were completely positive about how kind Bill was to those who worked for him, particularly when you'd think the pending impeachment would take the edge off him).

Trump is 70 and has never had to be polite to anyone, including folks loaning him money. What's funny is if you watch old 1980s videos of the guy, the look on his face and his willingness to play the PR game suggests a guy who actually might make a decent candidate - prior to his letting crassness loose on reality TV. And let's be honest: a good chunk of his vote would have gone to another Democrat if that Democrat wasn't named Hillary.

My point, which I've gone too far around, is that both Reagan and Clinton had been playing the game a long time and had made adjustments as necessary to make their messages more appealing. Trump ran one election and literally didn't change anything at all. It's one thing to have a single election-year exercise in crass behavior but it's also the thing that wears out VERY quickly on TV nightly.

The other two showed they could change and be flexible - Trump never did that, not with the USFL, not with how he spent money, not with how he changed wives, and not with how he ran for President. Hence, I have no reason to think he will change now.


Btw - on a related note - shouldn't these Presidential candidates be picking VP mates that can carry on after them? It used to be the norm but you're not going to tell me that Bush thought Quayle could be President in 1988, that Bush 43 thought Cheney would actually run to replace him, that McCain actually thought Palin could run in 2016, or that Obama REALLY thought Biden was going to run in 2016. Picking Cheney made some sense in trying to establish rapport with the press corps in DC (he had been Ford's chief of staff, a rep, and SECDEF and had high marks from the press before being chosen) and Biden was chosen mostly because he wasn't Hillary and did have a decent TV presence......the other two were disasters but you cannot tell me that any of those choices were made with the thought of "this person will succeed me in eight years." Pence was chosen more as a sop to the Religious Right than anything else...and who knows how many besides Kasich turned Trump down? Pence showed in the debate he has the potential to be a formidable candidate (and a governor's background once again), but he was chosen more by POE than anything else.

And does anyone think for a second that dull as dishwater Kaine is going to make a splash in 2020? I mean, come on.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Not a dodge at all - I'm simply asking for you to show me anyone who wants to vote but cannot. I'm not going to chase your pretzel logic when I've not heard of anyone who cannot vote. You're suggesting the current voting times are onerous so it's you're job to show that it really is.

Also wondering how you somehow think someone working two jobs but not working weekends.
Just remember that are two straw men in the game:

a) Voter fraud - it happens but it isn't enough to change an election outcome regardless

b) Voter intimidation/disenfranchisement - see a.

It gives both sides an easy out when they lose. They only lost because of (depending on side) "a" or "b". Sure, they might have lost 78% to 15% with 7% going for other candidates, but they lost because of "a" or "b" depending on the side.

The simple fact of the matter is that it isn't that difficult to vote. However, I have no problem with early voting, either. Here's a dirty little secret: we had early voting this past year many places. And it's been known for at least 50 years that at least 90% of the electorate has already decided BEFORE Labor Day who they're voting for (Pat Caddell made this point in one of his memos to Jimmy Carter that was later made public).

So why wait? On the flip side, I get the whole community thing, but I just think it's massively overrated in this day and age.
 

rolltide_21

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Not a dodge at all - I'm simply asking for you to show me anyone who wants to vote but cannot. I'm not going to chase your pretzel logic when I've not heard of anyone who cannot vote. You're suggesting the current voting times are onerous so it's you're job to show that it really is.

Also wondering how you somehow think someone working two jobs but not working weekends.
Best response on this issue. I'm with you 100%. Like Selma said it's a straw man. Could there be some changes? Sure but it most likely won't tilt an election.


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rolltide_21

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But these things could happen to the hypothetical surgeon on a Saturday as well. No one is arguing about whether or not we could make it easier. We are simply saying it's easy enough already. And I'm claiming our poor turnout in America has nothing to do with Election Day being on a Tuesday and everything to do with civic apathy.
Amen.


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92tide

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link to forbes

In an exclusive interview with FORBES, Emin Agalarov—a Russian pop singer, real estate mogul and son of one of the country’s richest people—described an ongoing relationship with the Trump family, including post-election contact with the president himself.

Among Agalarov’s most striking claims: that he and his billionaire developer father, Aras, had plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia that would now likely be under construction had Trump not run for office; that he has maintained contact with the Trump family since the election, and has exchanged messages with Donald Trump Jr. as recently as January; and that President Trump himself sent a handwritten note to the Agalarovs in November after they congratulated him on his victory.
 

Bamaro

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From the failing New York Times:
The ninth week of Donald Trump’s presidency began with the F.B.I. director calling him a liar.

The director, the very complicated James Comey, didn’t use the L-word in his congressional testimony Monday. Comey serves at the pleasure of the president, after all. But his meaning was clear as could be. Trump has repeatedly accused Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones, and Comey explained there is “no information that supports” the claim.

I’ve previously argued that not every untruth deserves to be branded with the L-word, because it implies intent and somebody can state an untruth without doing so knowingly. George W. Bush didn’t lie when he said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and Obama didn’t lie when he said people who liked their current health insurance could keep it. They made careless statements that proved false (and they deserved much of the criticism they got).

But the current president of the United States lies. He lies in ways that no American politician ever has before. He has lied about — among many other things — Obama’s birthplace, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Sept. 11, the Iraq War, ISIS, NATO, military veterans, Mexican immigrants, Muslim immigrants, anti-Semitic attacks, the unemployment rate, the murder rate, the Electoral College, voter fraud and his groping of women.

. . . his press secretary, Sean Spicer, went before the cameras and lied about the closeness between Trump and various aides who have documented Russian ties. Do you remember Paul Manafort, the chairman of Trump’s campaign, who ran the crucial delegate-counting operation? Spicer said Manafort had a “very limited role” in said campaign.

Our president is a liar, and we need to find out how serious his latest lies are.
You can read the whole piece here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/opinion/all-the-presidents-lies.html
 

92tide

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well, this is encouraging

“Great president. Most people don’t even know he was a Republican,” Trump said while addressing attendees at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner. “Does anyone know? Lot of people don’t know that.”

Trump then said Republicans need to spread the word that Lincoln was a Republican, appearing to be unaware of the fact that the GOP is commonly referred to as the “party of Lincoln.”

“Let’s take an ad, let’s use one of those PACs,” he said.
 

CharminTide

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WaPo: The [GOP] just voted to undo landmark rules covering your Internet privacy

Senate lawmakers voted Thursday to repeal a historic set of rules aimed at protecting consumers' online data from their own Internet providers, in a move that could make it easier for broadband companies to sell and share their customers' usage information for advertising purposes.

The rules, which prohibit providers from abusing the data they gather on their customers as they browse the Web on cellphones and computers, were approved last year over objections from Republicans who argued the regulations went too far.

U.S. senators voted 50 to 48 to approve a joint resolution from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would prevent the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules from going into effect. The resolution also would bar the FCC from ever enacting similar consumer protections. It now heads to the House.
 
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