The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated

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Member 5225 said:
So stupid that he has his own plane, a sane family, a multi billion $ business and.....spent half the money of his main rival to not only win the nomination of a major political party, but to win the Presidency of the free world!
Riiiiiight
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It helps when you start with $100 million.

As for spending less money, he was given unprecedented levels of media attention due to the lunatic shit was spouting.
 
sincher said:
Being smart enough to get in (selling skills) does not make him smart enough to run anything properly, which requires different levels of inspection, careful thought, diplomacy and vision. I don't see much evidence of that. We had better hope he appoints some smart people and becomes little more than a mouthpiece. And that he learns some responsibility for what he says.
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Reminder: Obama was a very junior inexperienced senator when he got in to much fanfare.
Can't be both ways.
 
Abizzz said:
The fact that he is an unknown quantity is currently a positive
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But he isn't? Just because he doesn't have a background in politics doesn't mean he's some random no-mark picked from the street to run for the elections. Or some random celebrity for that matter.

He has a degree in Economics and years of experience spearheading a massive corporation, dealing in financial matters, management and everything else that comes under running a business of that scale. Obviously there are a lot of question marks on how good he actually was at that job but that still counts as experience, loads of it. Do you think Clinton would have a better understanding of the intricacies of economics just because she has been a part of a politics for years as opposed to someone who was actually running a massive business?

There's plenty of information on how he operates and what we can expect based on that, something that is far more indicative than the rhetoric he ran for his campaign.
 
Rado_N said:
It helps when you start with $100 million.

As for spending less money, he was given unprecedented levels of media attention due to the lunatic shit was spouting.
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Isn't the only one on the planet that inherited a truck load of money (if that is true at all).
 
Danillaco said:
What are the actual charges to those acusations? I get that the mysoginist chorus are because of the recording of him in a gathering with friends talking shit, and accusations of groping and kissing models. That I understand.

Why fascist? Why racist? Why bad businessman?

And don't say because he is, or look at his campaing. Give me some exacts, please.
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For fascist and racist I think it comes down to the immigrant bashing, seeming to label swathes of immigrants as rapists, conceding "some of them" are hard working people. Suggesting the families of terrorists be murdered and increasing the use of torture. You hear the story of the black Trump fan who was kicked out of one of his rallies because it was assumed he was heckling?

Bad businessman because he has a string of bankruptcies behind him and people suspect he isnt anywhere near as rich as he says he is. Most of his wealth is built on debt, which was backed by collateral his very rich father handed him. He presents himself as largely self made - self made with a little bit of a head start, like he grew an oak tree out of an acorn - but if that was true he would be happy to show his tax returns. He isnt hiding the fact he doesnt pay his taxes, he admitted that much already, he's hiding the fact that he is nowhere near as rich as he says he - nowhere near as successful as he says he is. He takes out loans and defaults on them or gets other people to pay for his ventures, and there are a whole load of suppliers, like building contractors who have worked on his real estate projects, that say he never paid them.
 
Member 5225 said:
Isn't the only one on the planet that inherited a truck load of money (if that is true at all).
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What's your point?

Aldo said:
Which in other words is hook, line and sinker. He played the media exactly like he wanted to by deliberately making one controversial statement after another.
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So being a racist sexist asshole is a stroke of genius now?
 
Aldo said:
Which in other words is hook, line and sinker. He played the media exactly like he wanted to by deliberately making one controversial statement after another.
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I think there's a real danger of assuming that because Trump won it therefore it shows he was a genius.

His vote share will be comparable to his previous Republican candidates. I don't think there's the need for any over arching narratives. He won in a two party system where no matter how bad he was nearly 50% of the population feel they have to vote for him.
 
Sigma said:
I've never understood why people have so much hatred in them towards other people they have never met
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Because whilst being born into an institutionally racist country that tilts favour toward them, they (people who'd write/think this way) aren't intelligent enough to utilize that advantage and thus at their core they feel powerless and helpless in a world that is galloping away from where they want it to stay.

They don't have the smarts or the perspective to connect with anything culturally beyond the colour of the skin they were born into, and so that's what comes to define them in their own mind.

They hate other Americans more than they hate enemies of America - which says a lot about how far entrenched this mindset is.

And it's worth remembering that this behaviour is them celebrating something good happening for them - imagine behaving this way, with this much anger, when you're happy...

In short, their lives are shit and they're thick (only talking about anyone who would write stuff like that).
 
Eboue said:
the electoral college violates the one person one vote principle
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Can I ask you why is this showing up right now?

I mean, I get that people think that it's unfair, because you don't get vote, you get the number of votes of the college. But this method is being used since 1780s and the outrage is huge, seems that things were changed to screw the Democrats.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I think there's a real danger of assuming that because Trump won it therefore it shows he was a genius.
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It isn't genius or anything and he said all such things even before he ran for president and there's no denying that he's a complete ass-hole, this campaign aside.

I'm talking about the things he said during his actual campaign, catering to a certain section of the society. Not only did he say things that you would have never expected from someone in his position, but he fearlessly kept repeating things that are nowhere near PC, stuff mainly revolving around building a wall, mass deportations and muslim ban, among others. Even in the official debate he started an argument with deporting all the 'bad people who sell drugs in US' and finished it with 'bad hombres' which is openly racist. It was all pretty deliberate and it worked, simple as that.
 
Aldo said:
It isn't genius or anything and he said all such things even before he ran for president and there's no denying that he's a complete ass-hole, this campaign aside.

I'm talking about the things he said during his actual campaign, catering to a certain section of the society. Not only did he say things that you would have never expected from someone in his position, but he fearlessly kept repeating things that are nowhere near PC, stuff mainly revolving around building a wall, mass deportations and muslim ban, among others. Even in the official debate he started an argument with deporting all the 'bad people who sell drugs in US' and finished it with 'bad hombres' which is openly racist. It was all pretty deliberate and it worked, simple as that.
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It worked if his end goal was simply to 'be president'.

If his end goal goes any further than that, you might say that promising a bunch of stuff to a fanatical, hysterical section of society and then backtracking the moment you're in the door isn't the smartest thing to do.

Openly harnessing literal hatred within the public and then using it to lever personal gain has rarely worked in the long term through out history.
 
Aldo said:
But he isn't? Just because he doesn't have a background in politics doesn't mean he's some random no-mark picked from the street to run for the elections. Or some random celebrity for that matter.

He has a degree in Economics and years of experience spearheading a massive corporation, dealing in financial matters, management and everything else that comes under running a business of that scale. Obviously there are a lot of question marks on how good he actually was at that job but that still counts as experience, loads of it. Do you think Clinton would have a better understanding of the intricacies of economics just because she has been a part of a politics for years as opposed to someone who was actually running a massive business?

There's plenty of information on how he operates and what we can expect based on that, something that is far more indicative than the rhetoric he ran for his campaign.
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No, actually I don't, but that isn't the problem. He does have a history in politics now... he just ran an 18 month election... If we judge him by that political history the outlook is bleak. The hope is that he just said it all to become president... and now will act totally different (For which we have no indication that it will happen), and thus he's an unknown quantity.

And forget about Clinton. She ran a terrible campaign, she lost to the Donald of all people, she has very clearly shown that she is not capable of leading the free world, and I'm more than happy to see the back of her. That doesn't change anything about him though.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
If his end goal goes any further than that, you might say that promising a bunch of stuff to a fanatical, hysterical section of society and then backtracking the moment you're in the door isn't the smartest thing to do.
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Yep, agreed. That's gonna be one of his biggest 'challenges' during his term and I predict one of his biggest missions will be trying to bring all the people he antagonised and alienated to his side - which would then obviously make most of his 'promises' pretty much a joke so it's upto him on how he manages that. It isn't impossible, especially for someone with the power of POTUS.
 
Aldo said:
It isn't genius or anything and he said all such things even before he ran for president and there's no denying that he's a complete ass-hole, this campaign aside.

I'm talking about the things he said during his actual campaign, catering to a certain section of the society. Not only did he say things that you would have never expected from someone in his position, but he fearlessly kept repeating things that are nowhere near PC, stuff mainly revolving around building a wall, mass deportations and muslim ban, among others. Even in the official debate he started an argument with deporting all the 'bad people who sell drugs in US' and finished it with 'bad hombres' which is openly racist. It was all pretty deliberate and it worked, simple as that.
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We'll have to see how it bears out when over all numbers exist but this all assumes that he did galvanise people to vote for him. All I've seen recently suggests that the people that would always vote Republican voted for him and Hillary failed to enthuse those in the swing states to vote for her. Which suggests more that Hillary ran a poor campaign in terms of where she spent her money and held her rallies and so on.
 
Abizzz said:
To me the main reason I fear that he is a fascist is that he takes the populist notions from both the left and right without any consideration for the ideology that underpins him. He takes these populist notions (Left = Free trade sucks, right=Immigrants suck) and simply says them to bask in the glory of having said them... without offering any thought as to why he supports one or the other, how he would change things etc.

The fact that he is an unknown quantity is currently a positive. Think about it...
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Not imigrants. To my knowledge he always said ilegal immigrants are a problem. I don't think those 10 steps are racist or illegalhttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/nov/09/politifact-sheet-donald-trumps-immigration-plan/

The agreements about Free Trade is not that it sucks, is that those agreements should benefit everyone. And I say that from a country that built oil exploration platforms in other countries to have them stolen by the goverment and as an answer we also started paying them more for the same thing the offered. The agreements for Free trade should create lower prices and stimulus for consumption and trade for all partners.

Universal healthcare and wellfare can be considered populist ideas, but is how you manage them that can turn it to disasters. The fascism, by definition, comes from using nation and/or race concepts to subdue personal liberty and freedom. I don't think any of this is on his campaign, or would happen in the US even if he was willing to do it.
 
Abizzz said:
No, actually I don't, but that isn't the problem. He does have a history in politics now... he just ran an 18 month election... If we judge him by that political history the outlook is bleak. The hope is that he just said it all to become president... and now will act totally different (For which we have no indication that it will happen), and thus he's an unknown quantity.
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Well yes, in terms of a lot of policies he is pretty much an unknown quantity, things he never would have dealt with during his time running his business, but again there are a lot of executive decisions to be made which won't be completely alien to him. And we can judge him a fair bit for those decisions, especially ones related to economic issues, based on his history before the campaign. He wouldn't be where he is right now without knowing how to handle a lot of such situations. I don't think it will be 'totally different'.
 
NinjaFletch said:
We'll have to see how it bears out when over all numbers exist but this all assumes that he did galvanise people to vote for him. All I've seen recently suggests that the people that would always vote Republican voted for him and Hillary failed to enthuse those in the swing states to vote for her. Which suggests more that Hillary ran a poor campaign in terms of where she spent her money and held her rallies and so on.
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That's all completely correct, I never meant to say that saying those vile things he said was the primary catalyst for his win, what my point was that they were all deliberate, not 'lunatic shit' or anything else that was suggested.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don't even think you need to be cunning to make money the way he did. Starting out with enormous capital during an era when capital growth was the surest way to get rich. He just needed to be surrounded by a few clued in advisers.
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Well, good point. He's no rags-to-riches tale, that's for sure.
 
Adebesi said:
For fascist and racist I think it comes down to the immigrant bashing, seeming to label swathes of immigrants as rapists, conceding "some of them" are hard working people. Suggesting the families of terrorists be murdered and increasing the use of torture. You hear the story of the black Trump fan who was kicked out of one of his rallies because it was assumed he was heckling?

Bad businessman because he has a string of bankruptcies behind him and people suspect he isnt anywhere near as rich as he says he is. Most of his wealth is built on debt, which was backed by collateral his very rich father handed him. He presents himself as largely self made - self made with a little bit of a head start, like he grew an oak tree out of an acorn - but if that was true he would be happy to show his tax returns. He isnt hiding the fact he doesnt pay his taxes, he admitted that much already, he's hiding the fact that he is nowhere near as rich as he says he - nowhere near as successful as he says he is. He takes out loans and defaults on them or gets other people to pay for his ventures, and there are a whole load of suppliers, like building contractors who have worked on his real estate projects, that say he never paid them.
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I keep reading about the immigrant bashing, but wasn't that about ilegal immigrants?

And I might be wrong but the thing about muslim were controlling their entrance was about bettering the screening and avoid terrorist or false refugees, like we're seeing in Europe?

Yeah, I saw that story. It was at salon, if I'm not mistaken. But I think it was clarified, no? Even the guy said it was a mistake and he still supported Trump?

About bad businessman, failures are very common at business. A lot of successful companies took deep falls, but came back. Apple is one. I mean Forbes rates the guy as over 3 billion dollars, and he had four billionaire bankruptcies, and came back. If it was another person he would be considered an example of a person that never gives up.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don't even think you need to be cunning to make money the way he did. Starting out with enormous capital during an era when capital growth was the surest way to get rich. He just needed to be surrounded by a few clued in advisers.
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He definitely got a head start, no doubt on that. I did ask in this thread previously on his entrepreneurial history if someone was well versed with it and the one response I got was saying he's been an aggressive self imposing leader rather than someone who's just the face of the company and leaving the decisions to his advisers. Which would probably point towards his own strategies and decision making rather than just signing documents and going home. Again, though, it would be great if someone who has closely followed his time at his corporation or has some documents that they can share with some actual facts and events that took place and led him to this position.
 
Danillaco said:
I keep reading about the immigrant bashing, but wasn't that about ilegal immigrants?

And I might be wrong but the thing about muslim were controlling their entrance was about bettering the screening and avoid terrorist or false refugees, like we're seeing in Europe?

Yeah, I saw that story. It was at salon, if I'm not mistaken. But I think it was clarified, no? Even the guy said it was a mistake and he still supported Trump?

About bad businessman, failures are very common at business. A lot of successful companies took deep falls, but came back. Apple is one. I mean Forbes rates the guy as over 3 billion dollars, and he had four billionaire bankruptcies, and came back. If it was another person he would be considered an example of a person that never gives up.
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That's certainly another interpretation.

Anyway, we're going to see in due course. I fear the worst, I think it is fair that people have listened to what he said, taken it literally and are shitting themselves right now. But I can also see why some people are choosing to assume he didnt really mean any of it, things wont be as bad as people think, he wont actually forcibly throw illegal immigrants, who may have children who are citizens, out of the country, or ban all Muslims from entering the country. The problem with that of course is that it means the people who voted for him because he said those things will still be angry and will be looking for someone who will actually deliver at the next election. Hopefully the economy will be improving by then and people will be less angry, but that will require Trump handle complex economic problems incredibly skillfully. So we'll see.
 
Danillaco said:
I mean Forbes rates the guy as over 3 billion dollars, and he had four billionaire bankruptcies, and came back. If it was another person he would be considered an example of a person that never gives up.
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Yep, that's what I was getting at as well. If he was such a poor businessman and as incompetent as some here think he wouldn't be anywhere near the position he is in right now, let alone running for president. It's one thing disliking his personality but credit where it's due.
 
Okay, find another example of someone being praised for repeatedly driving companies into bankruptcy.
 
Trump puts his name to anything he can. Trump steaks,Trump University,Trump Casino ,Go Trump .com, Trump Vodka , Trump Mortgage, Trump Magazine. ect ect. All failures. And his golf courses are losing millions
 
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Adebesi said:
That's certainly another interpretation.

Anyway, we're going to see in due course. I fear the worst, I think it is fair that people have listened to what he said, taken it literally and are shitting themselves right now. But I can also see why some people are choosing to assume he didnt really mean any of it, things wont be as bad as people think, he wont actually forcibly throw illegal immigrants, who may have children who are citizens, out of the country, or ban all Muslims from entering the country. The problem with that of course is that it means the people who voted for him because he said those things will still be angry and will be looking for someone who will actually deliver at the next election. Hopefully the economy will be improving by then and people will be less angry, but that will require Trump handle complex economic problems incredibly skillfully. So we'll see.
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This man speaks the truth.

It would take an infinitely more skilled leader than Donald fecking Trump to steer America through the tricky waters ahead, even if we're only considering keeping the economy afloat. Unlike his many failed companies, he can't just declare the country bankrupt, write off all their debts and start again (well he can, technically, but that would be a Very. Bad. Thing. for everyone on this planet)

Obviously, the incompetence he demonstrated very clearly during his campaign when it comes to diplomacy, tact and forming/expressing a coherent and consistent argument will also be a disaster when it comes to trying to get other world leaders to buy into whatever hair-brained schemes he tries to cobble as a foreign policy. And this is all without even considering the way his electorate will react if/when he fails to deliver on the many batshit crazy things he promised them in return for their vote. Plus we have the very likely eventuality he surrounds himself with climate change denying, creationist gobshites who will all have their own directly negative impact on the world we live in. Regressive, idiotic dinosaurs, the lot of them. The vice president once tried to argue that smoking doesn't kill, ffs.

There's no plausible way his tenure will be anything other than a humiliating (and potentially devastating) cluster-feck for the US, from start to finish. All that remains to be seen is how much of a cluster-feck.
 
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Aldo said:
That's all completely correct, I never meant to say that saying those vile things he said was the primary catalyst for his win, what my point was that they were all deliberate, not 'lunatic shit' or anything else that was suggested.
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It's definitely lunatic shit, that's why he's put a vocal climate change denier in charge of the fecking EPA.
 
Aldo said:
That's definitely lunatic shit, but isn't what was being talked about.
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You have argued that his comments were deliberate and used to manipulate the media into reporting on him, and then on that basis asserted that the things he said were not looney tunes. He's so far taking actions that fly in the face of that argument.

If it talks like a lunatic and walks like a lunatic...
 
Rado_N said:
You have argued that his comments were deliberate and used to manipulate the media into reporting on him, and then on that basis asserted that the things he said were not looney tunes. He's so far taking actions that fly in the face of that argument.

If it talks like a lunatic and walks like a lunatic...
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I also said that there's no denying he's a complete asshole because he does these kind of things all the time. However the things said during the campaign were pretty specific and clearly provocative and aimed at a certain audience, and don't fall under the his general shitty personality.
 
Aldo said:
I also said that there's no denying he's a complete asshole because he does these kind of things all the time. However the things said during the campaign were pretty specific and clearly provocative and aimed at a certain audience, and don't fall under the his general shitty personality.
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So again, you're arguing that adopting these positions is a stroke of genius to get free media?
 
Rado_N said:
So again, you're arguing that adopting these positions is a stroke of genius to get free media?
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I've never said anything like that and I've repeated this a few times now.
Assertion 1 : He's just a lunatic and spouts random vile shit all the time because he's an asshole and that's all the reason behind the crap he said while he was campaigning.
Assertion 2 : He's a lunatic and spouts random vile shit all the time but his controversial statements during the campaign were absolutely planned and deliberate and worked positively towards his success. He knew what he was doing.

I'm going with 2. And that's that.
 
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