Donald Trump & 2016 Election

[PermissionToLand]

Who here is convinced that if a democrat had won the election, the USA would now be like Venezuela? 




/jarmo

I'm sure you're being sarcastic (although without an /s tag, Poe's Law applies), but for anybody that doesn't understand why Venezuela's collapse was not due to Socialism, here:

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-venezuela-in-crisis/

[PermissionToLand]

The base will start to move away from Trump if  his actions lead to actual issues which negatively affect their everyday lives. ( ie economy, threat of or involvement in a new war, etc)

No, they won't. They've already proven this.

Exactly.

Things like tariffs, for example, are directly hurting Trumps base. Farmers, steelworkers...literally the heartland where trades are more common than college educations.

Theres a bunch of examples of this....of Trump taking positions, or not following through on campaign promises, or issuing EOs that are literally contrary to his base's interests.

They dont care.  They make excuses and rah rah with their maga hats on.

Trump has been right about precisely one thing: he could shoot someone in the middle of fifth ave and not lose one vote.

Think about that for a second, and what it means about his base.

Who is it that has Trump Derangement Syndrome, again?

He also screwed over Harley Davidson. The venn diagram of Harley riders and Trump supporters is a circle. Even before taking office, he promised veterans a large donation which he never delivered on. And of course the corporate tax cuts hurt his base, but they certainly don't understand how. The willful delusion is astounding.

[jarmo]

Who here is convinced that if a democrat had won the election, the USA would now be like Venezuela? 




/jarmo

I'm sure you're being sarcastic (although without an /s tag, Poe's Law applies), but for anybody that doesn't understand why Venezuela's collapse was not due to Socialism, here:

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-venezuela-in-crisis/

I'm actually serious because I see it being brought up as a scary example by people.

Apparently by the president himself.





/jarmo

[pilferk]

Who here is convinced that if a democrat had won the election, the USA would now be like Venezuela? 




/jarmo

About 30% of the US population.

Because Trump said it, so it must be true. 

[jarmo]

I don't remember even during the cold war anyone claiming that if you vote for a democrat, the country will turn into East Germany or anything like that. It seems like it was never even considered a valid point...

Until now.

Venezuela is in the news, and suddenly there's a real danger that the USA will be turned into a new Venezuela if a certain party wins an election?

To an outsider it just looks like the usual unfounded fearmongering. I mean, if someone said "Don't vote for X, they'll want to turn this country into Canada", maybe that'd be a better option.... Or not....




/jarmo

[sandman]

Who here is convinced that if a democrat had won the election, the USA would now be like Venezuela? 




/jarmo

No one. Zero.

But read this. This is from a hard core liberal activist. He is concerned about dems pursuing socialist ideas.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1106307002

Also, we have rising stars is the dem party running on socialist ideals and promising free stuff. When Jake Tapper (CNN) asked ocasio-cortez how she would pay for all the free stuff, she of course had no answer. Jake aptly pointed out that nonpartisan and left-leaning studies friendly to her cause put the cost of her programs at $40 trillion.

So yes, many americans have some concerns.

[jarmo]

"In the direction"....

Canada exists more in the direction of Cuba. But you don't see people saying "what if we moved the USA more towards Canada?"...

It's always extremes.

I live in a country that's got plenty of history of this scary democratic socialism.

Yet I don't see the government owning all industries etc. that these people are so afraid of!






/jarmo

[sandman]

So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Probably has alot to do with how corrupt the govt is. So i’ll ask you this...do u think the US government overall is honest, ethical, honorable?

[jarmo]

So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Probably has alot to do with how corrupt the govt is. So i’ll ask you this...do u think the US government overall is honest, ethical, honorable?

I don't really know who's in your current government or their background. Historically speaking, sometimes. But often not.

I think it all depends on your point of view. I happen to be from a part of the world that is considered less corrupt than the USA.
Also I guess if you voted for this government, you think it's ethical to lie, alienate allies and start trade wars.... America first and all that.


As an outsider, your country has a responsibility. I don't think part of that responsibility is to always put yourselves first. Do you want to work together with your allies or do you want to alienate them? At the end of the day, we're not the ones you should worry about....
If you're the sheriff in a city, you can't always put your own needs first....


Edited to add: Do you think it's a dangerous thing to have the president of your country label the media enemies of the people? Doesn't that remind you of how certain dictatorships work?
And I do get being annoyed by the media writing something that you don't agree with, and even sometimes just bullshit. But then again, the guy himself isn't exactly a truth speaker....




/jarmo

[tim_m]

Not exactly a truth teller is sure putting it mildly. I suspect here's never come into contact with truth.

[PermissionToLand]

Who here is convinced that if a democrat had won the election, the USA would now be like Venezuela? 




/jarmo

No one. Zero.

But read this. This is from a hard core liberal activist. He is concerned about dems pursuing socialist ideas.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1106307002

Also, we have rising stars is the dem party running on socialist ideals and promising free stuff. When Jake Tapper (CNN) asked ocasio-cortez how she would pay for all the free stuff, she of course had no answer. Jake aptly pointed out that nonpartisan and left-leaning studies friendly to her cause put the cost of her programs at $40 trillion.

So yes, many americans have some concerns.

What the writer of that article doesn't understand is that despite what they call themselves, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are not Democratic Socialists, they are Social Democrats. The key difference there is that they do not advocate for nationalizing all industry.

And you want to talk about promising free stuff with no plan to pay for it? Let's talk about Trump's border wall. Because Cortez proposed the same medicare-for-all bill that Sanders introduced to the senate, which was not only fully funded, it was endorsed by many economists and healthcare professionals:

https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/economists-and-health-care-experts-in-support-of-bernie-sanders-medicare

Not only that, nearly 200 economists endorsed his wall street reform plan:

https://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/14/170-economists-bernie-sanders-plan-reform-wall-st-rein-greed.html

And a more readable breakdown of why his plans are actually very economically sound for someone who is not an economist:

https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-will-make-the-economy-great-again/

And if you actually care about the facts, you should watch this, which explains why Jake Tapper's "gotcha" was bullshit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkbmYvAQzHw

I eagerly await your reasoned counterpoints.

[Dr. Blutarsky]

What those 2 do advocate is higher taxes and more government control over people's lives in general.  Ever known the government to run anything efficiently?

"We are the richest country in the world so I deserve to have ( insert entitlement here)".   

[sandman]

So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Probably has alot to do with how corrupt the govt is. So i’ll ask you this...do u think the US government overall is honest, ethical, honorable?

I don't really know who's in your current government or their background. Historically speaking, sometimes. But often not.

I think it all depends on your point of view. I happen to be from a part of the world that is considered less corrupt than the USA.
Also I guess if you voted for this government, you think it's ethical to lie, alienate allies and start trade wars.... America first and all that.


As an outsider, your country has a responsibility. I don't think part of that responsibility is to always put yourselves first. Do you want to work together with your allies or do you want to alienate them? At the end of the day, we're not the ones you should worry about....
If you're the sheriff in a city, you can't always put your own needs first....


Edited to add: Do you think it's a dangerous thing to have the president of your country label the media enemies of the people? Doesn't that remind you of how certain dictatorships work?
And I do get being annoyed by the media writing something that you don't agree with, and even sometimes just bullshit. But then again, the guy himself isn't exactly a truth speaker....




/jarmo

i'm assuming the comment I bolded above is sarcasm; therefore, I will not respond to that comment. is this a correct assumption?

obviously, we want to work with our allies. As Trump has proven, he even wants to work with those that are not considered allies. he has at least made an effort with NK. he has been credited by many in that region. I think he has worked well with many foreign leaders. stating his view that certain situations are not favorable to the US does not alienate us. we continue to work with leaders around the globe.

I think Trump's comments about the media were a little too strong. however, most of our journalists have become extremely partisan. it is difficult to find truly non-partisan coverage. we used to be able to count on the media to investigate politicians and bring us the truth. but they have been exposed. and many have gone all in for their side and will never provide insights that make their side look bad.

a good example is all the journalists that refused to report on children being separated at the border under Obama. they did not want bad press for their golden child. so they didn't make a big deal about it. as a result, it continued for years. if they had raised the issue, it could have been fixed in 2014. then it would have stopped and not occurred since then. but their partisanship took precedence over their responsibilities as journalists. as a result, children continued to be put in cages and suffer for several more years. does that make some in the press enemies of the people? maybe that language is too harsh for you, but I think we all can admit there is a serious problem.  

[jarmo]

i'm assuming the comment I bolded above is sarcasm; therefore, I will not respond to that comment. is this a correct assumption?

obviously, we want to work with our allies. As Trump has proven, he even wants to work with those that are not considered allies. he has at least made an effort with NK. he has been credited by many in that region. I think he has worked well with many foreign leaders. stating his view that certain situations are not favorable to the US does not alienate us. we continue to work with leaders around the globe.

No, not sarcasm. But I see people defend his behavior all the time. I don't get it.

So many things have happened in the last two to three years that would've been unbelievable when I was a kid.

I see people quoting RT articles as if they were the absolute truth. They don't seem to realize that if you had posted and quoted Soviet news in the 1980s, people would've laughed at you!

I think Trump's comments about the media were a little too strong.

Little too strong would be something like "They write a lot of things that I don'a agree with and therefore I don't support those outlets".

Do you know what the enemies of the people are? For example ultra right wing fanatics who want to remove democracy. That's a real enemy. Or someone who's prepared to kill innocent people because they don't share their beliefs.

however, most of our journalists have become extremely partisan. it is difficult to find truly non-partisan coverage. we used to be able to count on the media to investigate politicians and bring us the truth. but they have been exposed. and many have gone all in for their side and will never provide insights that make their side look bad.

a good example is all the journalists that refused to report on children being separated at the border under Obama. they did not want bad press for their golden child. so they didn't make a big deal about it. as a result, it continued for years. if they had raised the issue, it could have been fixed in 2014. then it would have stopped and not occurred since then. but their partisanship took precedence over their responsibilities as journalists. as a result, children continued to be put in cages and suffer for several more years. does that make some in the press enemies of the people? maybe that language is too harsh for you, but I think we all can admit there is a serious problem.  

Media has always been that way.

You're saying that Fox News were huge Obama supporters? Not really....

There's nothing new in this. There's always been left, liberal, conservative etc media.

But now we have all these web sites which give voices to people who, in the past, no one would've paid attention to. Now they're suddenly the standard of truth.




Also, why is Trump still doing these appearances? Is there a presidential campaign that's been going on since 2016 that I'm not aware of? 






/jarmo

[pilferk]

Media has always been that way.

You're saying that Fox News were huge Obama supporters? Not really....

There's nothing new in this. There's always been left, liberal, conservative etc media.

But now we have all these web sites which give voices to people who, in the past, no one would've paid attention to. Now they're suddenly the standard of truth.

Also, why is Trump still dong these appearances? Is there a presidential campaign that's been going on since 2016 that I'm not aware of? 


/jarmo

So, jarmo...just something you should be aware of (we've had this discussion with sandman and the Senator so I'm not going to rehash it with him/them).

sandman's good example? It's actually a pretty terrible one.

There were actually SEVERAL pieces on the Obama/kids at the border issue from a number of high profile media outlets (including the Washington Post, the NY Times, MSNBC, CNN, and others.

Here's a couple of them, on different aspects:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexican-kids-held-for-months-as-punishment-for-border-crossing/2015/03/10/311d319a-b2f2-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/us/detained-immigrant-children-judge-dolly-gee-ruling.html  (note: In this case, the Obama administration lost a case where they were actually keeping kids WITH their parent/mother)

Couple other things about this.
1) There are some pretty notable differences with the Trump policy, here, and those differences (applying it to asylum seekers, removing them from their parents, a total lack of transparency) which make the Trump policy much more newsworthy

2) When the press held this up to the American people, the Obama Administration took immediate (and transparent) actions to correct it.

First off, the bulk of the Obama "detentions" occurred because there was a sudden explosion of unaccompanied minors crossing the border.  They didn't have parents with them. They saw something like a 500% increase, year over year, and the 60+  appropriate shelters were overwhelmed.  So they stuck the kids in the only places they could find, and searched for other places to house them.  Granted, a poor decision given the facilities available (unused detention wings).  But nobody was instituting a policy that included ripping kids away from parents, and INTENTIONALLY putting them in less than ideal conditions.  With Trumps policy, which they intentionally rolled out...that was their logistical PLAN.  With Obama's situation, it was simply fallout from need overwhelming capacity.

When this was observed, and reported on, the Obama administration issued a mea culpa, took responsibility, and contracted with anyone (and everyone) that would take these kids into better conditions.  The problem was, they were trying to act so fast, they really didn't do due dilligence on some of those facilities, and they were mistreating kids, or putting them in terrible conditions. AGAIN, the press reported on this.  And AGAIN, the Obama administration issued a mea culpa, outlined where they screwed up, and launched a bunch of investigations that held the contractors running those shelters accountable (and forced them to pay back the federal funds as part of their punishment).  I'm sure that's small satisfaction to the kids who were mistreated or left to live in squalor, but at least it was a measure of accountability.  AND, the Obama administration did all this transparently...providing Congress AND the press with any information they wanted on the process.

In addition to that policy, Obama had a policy that allowed kids to stay with their parents/mother, when they were caught crossing the border illegally (note: NOT seeking asylum) in a family detention center.  These weren't great places.  But the choice was to either rip the kid away from their parents, and place them in foster care where they would have a hard time replacing them with their parent once their legal proceedings were over or house them with their parents.  The Obama administration actually viewed this choice as more humane, since at least they were with their parents.  The legal challenge they lost (you can see it in the NY times article) wasn't anything to do with conditions...it was over duration.  Because the parents legal wrangling could take 30 to 90 days to process and determine the best course of action....there was legal precedent that said kids can't be detained more than 20 days.  The courts found that precedent still held, even if they were kept with their parents.

Obama didn't complain about the ruling.  He didn't try to fight the courts.  He just complied and they made other logistic plans (including child tracking, foster care, and fast tracking parents legal wrangling as much as possible)...which they rolled out when they were completely fleshed out and ensured the well being of the child.

The thing is: The conservative media, today, ignores all that. And what sandman is parroting is their talking points, verbatim. They ignore what ACTUALLY happened. They, instead, try to draw lines to say Trump is being treated unfairly, based on examples like this.  The actual facts of the two situations prove that to NOT be the case. They were both treated pretty similarly, at the outset (and the court rulings are VERY similar, in both cases).

The difference is Trumps reactions (and in his administrations lack of forethought and planning in their policy).  One administration treated the media like what it is....the fourth estate and a watchdog, and held itself accountable, and was transparent.  The other administration treats the media as an enemy of the people, refuses to hold itself accountable (to the media OR the courts), and refuses to engage in transparency.  Their policy was overly cruel (separating them from parents) and their PLAN was to hold those kids in less than ideal conditions.  And their constituency doesn't care, and doesn't hold them accountable, either.

The Trump administration refused to change course even AFTER the courts ordered them to...and even when they finally had no choice (because the judge told them he was going to start holding people in contempt...starting with the lawyers presenting the case and working their way up til they got  to the DHS secretary)  they couldn't/wouldn't fully comply with the courts orders.

So....the reason that policy received a higher level of press coverage was because it DESERVED a higher level of press coverage.  Because the Trump administration escalated it.

Anyway, since I know you're not in the US, I thought you might want a heads up on this example, in case you weren't aware of the specifics!

Good luck with sandman!  We've pretty much determined he's just an anarchist troll around these parts....he randomly runs in, shouts some talking points. Ends with a #MAGA, and takes off to watch the effect his pot stirring has had.  We just don't feed him anymore.

[jarmo]

I'm curious to hear the whole explanation to the scare of the USA being turned into Venezuela.


Meanwhile the super capitalist president starts trade wars, it hurts the farmers, so they need to be bailed out by the government..... Government owned farming?! The USA is turning into Venezuela!

Obama saved the US car industry. Remember how that was met?




/jarmo

[tim_m]

So who wasn't completely horrified by Trump's presser at the UN?

[tim_m]

https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/409104-trump-kim-jong-un-and-i-fell-in-love yes he actually said he's in love.

[chineseblues]

Congrats America on your first openly gay president!

[jarmo]

Hopefully the first lady won't get jealous of this new found love....


Trump seemed worried about what the media would say about it. Yes, it's definitely a source for some jokes when the leader of the free world says he fell in love with a dictator.... Too much info!

Did Reagan fall in love with Gorbachev? 




/jarmo