Donald Trump

[Ten oz]

I thought the idea was that,confronted with the realities of the job his positions would shift from rhetoric(if they deserve that characterization) to more practical stances (both regarding policies and re -election ,which he may come to devoutly not wish for)

 

I doubt he will change as a person but he will surely have to adapt to changed circumstances.

Do you have an example of this happening?

 

Bush's Admin ignored many realities. Torture is outlawed in the Constitution, warrantless wire taps is outlawed in the Constitution, detaining people without a Trail is outlawed in the Constitution, and etc. The Bush administration still did those things.

 

After the primary the standard line was that Trump would have to change. That the "realities" of being the nominee were different than being a primary candidate. That the lies, inconsistentcies, vagueness on policy, and etc wouldn't work in a general election. Well it did work. Why should Trump ignore success and shift. He has already nominated climate denier for the EPA, a anti public education and evolution denier for the Dept of Education, a known bigot for the DOJ, and a Goldman Sachs wallstreet snake for the Treasury. I see no evidence of any shift.

[geordief]

Do you have an example of this happening?

 

 

You mean with Trump?(or predecessors?)

Trump has yet to have an administration that carries out his policies and so there is no actual example on those lines.

 

If you mean examples of what he said he would do as opposed to what he said later there are many examples (but I don't think you mean that)

 

If you mean predecessors ,well doesn't it happen all the time? ( eg Guantanamo)

 

So I am not sure quite what you are asking .

 

I would be a bad person to ask anyway as I am not a details man when it comes to American politics-although I know I have to back up my posts when asked.

 

It doesn't look good regarding Trump's appointees and I think any change in his plans will be slow coming (but that is just an uneducated guess).

 

I hate to say we will have to wait and see (it makes me feel sick to acknowledge he will be the President Clown for the next 4 years)

 

Flattery, complements and suggestions are going to be the only effective tool for getting him to listen to you. Yelling at him is going to do fuck all.

You don't think he is sensitive as to how he is perceived by people he looks up to?

 

He has a very demanding job now . You don't see any insecurities?

 

You don't think the idea of him being President is as absurd to himself as it is to others?

[Ten oz]

You mean with Trump?(or predecessors?)

Trump has yet to have an administration that carries out his policies and so there is no actual example on those lines.

 

If you mean examples of what he said he would do as opposed to what he said later there are many examples (but I don't think you mean that)

 

If you mean predecessors ,well doesn't it happen all the time? ( eg Guantanamo)

 

So I am not sure quite what you are asking .

 

I would be a bad person to ask anyway as I am not a details man when it comes to American politics-although I know I have to back up my posts when asked.

 

It doesn't look good regarding Trump's appointees and I think any change in his plans will be slow coming (but that is just an uneducated guess).

 

I hate to say we will have to wait and see (it makes me feel sick to acknowledge he will be the President Clown for the next 4 years)

You don't think he is sensitive as to how he is perceived by people he looks up to?

 

He has a very demanding job now . You don't see any insecurities?

 

You don't think the idea of him being President is as absurd to himself as it is to others?

Do you have an example of someone he rose to power by lying, bullying, and strawman positions who changed course once the were faced with the realities of power?

 

I can think of many who failed to keep power do to their refusal to change and/or general incompetence. I am not familiar with any who shifted. Looking at politics specifically extremists stay extremist is what I have seen. Sometimes moderates are push towards more extreme positions. McCain, Romney, Rubio, Powell, and etc come to mind as otherwise moderator politicians who were pushed by polical realities to take on more fringe position. However no examples come to mind of the opposite, a fringe politician shifting towards moderate positions.

[geordief]

Do you have an example of someone he rose to power by lying, bullying, and strawman positions who changed course once the were faced with the realities of power?

 

I can think of many who failed to keep power do to their refusal to change and/or general incompetence. I am not familiar with any who shifted. Looking at politics specifically extremists stay extremist is what I have seen. Sometimes moderates are push towards more extreme positions. McCain, Romney, Rubio, Powell, and etc come to mind as otherwise moderator politicians who were pushed by polical realities to take on more fringe position. However no examples come to mind of the opposite, a fringe politician shifting towards moderate positions.

Maybe not but on a practical level people get away with what they can (especially children).

 

I hope that Trump's ability to do as he pleases will be trimmed by the US system overall. The best would be if his supporters peel away (or his opponents are galvanized) but that may be wishful thinking. .

[Ten oz]

Maybe not but on a practical level people get away with what they can (especially children).

 

I hope that Trump's ability to do as he pleases will be trimmed by the US system overall. The best would be if his supporters peel away (or his opponents are galvanized) but that may be wishful thinking. .

We all hope that.

[DrmDoc]

Power does not uncorrupt corrupt people. I keep seeing pundits and media figures saying that the weight, pressure, responsibility,or whatever of the Oval office will make Trump shift and become more reasonable. It is a dangerous notion in my opinion. I cannot think of a single example of a corrupt politician/leader who was so humbled by the success of their lies and fear mongering that they became honest and trustworthy.

 

Well said!

[swansont]

Trump may receive phone calls from important public figures, such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Angela Merkel, or someone Trump actually respects who will say to him, "Hello Donald, WTF are you doing?!! Are you fxxxing mad? Climate change is here and it is real!!" Donald may only understand blunt talk from someone he respects.

 

His history has been to treat anybody not sucking up to him as an enemy. Someone critical of him doubly so. Why would that change?

[Delta1212]

His history has been to treat anybody not sucking up to him as an enemy. Someone critical of him doubly so. Why would that change?

It's not just that. He seems to follow very strict Tit for Tat rules in his interpersonal interactions.

 

Say something negative about him, and he attacks you. Say something nice about him, and he's your best friend. And past history doesn't seem to play a significant role in either direction. He reacts to whatever the most recent interaction he had with a person was.

[John Cuthber]

Just checking: is he 70 years old, or 70 weeks?

[CharonY]

Yes.

[geordief]

.

 

What "red meat" has he to offer them really?

Is this the kind of thing?

 

"Trump pledges 'consequences' for firms moving offshore after $7 million tax deal with Carrier"

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-trump-carrier-jobs-subsidies-20161201-story.html

 

Short term "benefit" which allows him to make it look as if he is doing something?

 

This will have no substantial impact on keeping jobs ** in America will it?

 

 

**assuming that is a worthy aim in the first place.

Edited December 2, 2016 by geordief

[iNow]

It's clearly symbolism. It also helps distract the masses from all of his broken campaign promises (his cabinet, cozy with Wall Street, lobbyists involved throughout, no prosecution of Clinton, softening on the wall with Mexico and repeal of Obamacare, etc.).

 

Self-evidently helpful to those 800-1,000 workers in VP-elect Pence's home state of Indiana, but badly ignores the broader need. It misses the forest for the trees. It's just a bright shiny object they can point to when folks rightly criticize the other 95+% of bad choices and decisions he and his team have made.

 

He's going to be president, yet instead of working on policies that will achieve measurable improvements for the middle class as a whole or on national GDP, he's choosing instead to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. He's arrived to a gun fight and chosen to toss pebbles.

 

Manufacturing has changed. Automation and cheaper labor elsewhere represent better business decisions and what's coming next. The same is happening in other sectors like transportation and trucking where self-driving technology is ramping up as safer alternatives to the humans who are being driven out.

 

He's not going to be able to replicate what he did at Carrier for all others. This type of transactional small potatoes effect just doesn't scale, but the optics are good. Most people in the country will barely notice this is about little more than marketing (except for those ~1,000 employees affected).

 

The other hundreds of millions of workers in our country will still need smart, strategic, presidential decisions to be made to help them, and that doesn't appear to happening. It's as if he negotiated for workers on one end of the factory floor to get jobs at the other end, all the while forgetting that the economy is much bigger than that one single factory. Worse still, he's running around hands in the air claiming victory for doing so.

 

These are interesting times.

[Ten oz]

@ iNow, Trump is a provable liar and even his own supporters do not take things he says at face value. His supports know Mexico won't pay for a wall, Trump can't lock up crooked Hillary, Trump doesn't have a secret plan for defeating ISIS, and etc. They don't care about his campaign promises. They just want to see those who they consider to be their rivals (Muslims, immigrants, BLM supporters, Educated youth, etc) hurt.

 

The GOP will use the Carrier deal as a token symbol that cutting taxes and deregulating industry is an economic golden goose. Environmental, Banking, Labor, and a laundry list of other regulations will go on the chopping block and the GOP will just claim to be saving jobs. Under Obama the GOP repeated denied jobs numbers. Repeatedly claimed that unemployment was actually up not down. Now that will flip. They will give weekly press breifings noting every new job created and conflating that with jobs they claim were on the verge of being lost. I serious would not be surprise if Trump holds a press conference tomorrow and reads out loud the names of every employee at Carrier who he claims to have helped. The media would play along.

 

These are interesting times indeed.

[Phi for All]

And as usual, the US ends up paying far more than anyone else in the world for the same or lesser quality of service. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's roads, healthcare, or politics.

 

In four years, when Trump is worth $20B, we'll really understand why he didn't want us to know what he's worth.

[MonDie]

Follow the redirects within the quote boxes for a catch-up on how the the Republican party seems to get more electoral college votes per popular vote percentage. I've come up with a new hypothesis, but first I want to review the math from the latter, Nov 18 post, where I over-complicated the math. The problem is analogous to boxes (states) full of red and blue marbles (votes). If you want to adjust the situation such that all boxes hold the same number of marbles, or such that that all boxes have the same proprotion of marbles, that proportion being the average proportion across boxes, either way you are essentially taking an average across all the boxes (states) and you will get the same result either way. This means you can use the output of the first step, the average "margin of victory" across all states, and ignore my second step. The reason your result will be slightly, slightly different is because my method separated the blue boxes from the red boxes and performed a separate calculation for each. Anyway, the links:

The equations are for lines in slope intercept form, with x indicating popular vote and y indicating electoral college vote. The first line is Democrat and the second is Republican. [...]

That is an interesting point. The average Democrat held state has about 10.5 delegates compared to about 10.166 for Republican held states. However, my math so far suggests that this won't account for the discrepancy of Democratic presidential candidates receiving fewer electoral votes per percentage of popular vote. [...]

 

Given that the average population of Republican-held vs Democrat-held states did very little to explain the discrepancy in electoral college votes per popular vote percentage in the 2016 presidential election, my hypothesis is the stronger influence of conservative interest groups, the effect of which will tend to be seen in the swing states.

 

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

 

The researchers set out to test competing theories of who has the most influence in USA democracy: voters, wealthy citizens (elites), or interest groups. While they actually take the views of wealthy people at the ninetieth percentile of income, this is actually a proxy for being "elite", a group of people whoa re thought to have more political influence thanks to their social status. They also talk about interest groups. Interest groups exert political force via both their monetary resources and their human resources, consisting of individuals functioning as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Interest groups are thought to bribe politicians with campaign contributions (although McChesney suggested that it's actually the politicians extorting the interest groups), and they engage in other political activities.

 

As to empirical evidence concerning interest groups, it is well established that organized groups regularly lobby and fraternize with public officials, move through revolving doors between public and private employment, provide self-serving information to officials, draft legislation, and spend a great deal of money on election campaigns.(Gilens, Page, 2014)

 

Mark Smith examined 2,364 “business unity” issues—over a period of four decades—on which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (arguably a reasonable proxy for business groups as a whole, on this particular set of issues where most businesses agreed) took a public stand for or against. He then calculated six measures of the Chamber’s annual rate of "success" at getting the acitno or inaction it favored from Congress.26 The Chamber's average success rate in terms of proportion of bills enacted or defeated appears to have been fairly high,27 but Smith did not argue that such success necessarily demonstrates influence. (Gilens, Page, 2014)

 

Fortune magazine puts out an authoritative list of what are supposedly the most powerful interest groups, a list called the Power 25. For some reason the highest scoring groups tend to be conservative groups, e.g. "the National Rifle Association (No. 6); the Christian Coalition (No. 7); and the National Right to Life Committee (No. 10)." Their liberal counter-parts didn't even make the top 25, indicating less political influence. I personally speculate that this stronger influence of conservative interest groups could have some relationship to the fact that Republican-held states tend to lean more strongly than Democratic-held states. Regardless, as the researchers' Table 2 shows, the views espoused by these interest groups have no correlation with the views of average citizens. In fact, it was actually the wealthy elites whose views correlated with the views of ordinary (median income) citizens, and through whom, the researchers conclude, the ordinary citizens have any political influence at all. However, the wealthy are largely a constituency of the Republican party, as reflected by their tendency to vote Republican. When interest groups are separated into "mass-based interest groups" and "business and professional groups", the views of the wealthy are still uncorrelated with either, whereas ordinary citizens' views correlated +.12 with those of mass-based groups and -.10 with those of business groups. I think this suggests that these business groups are tendentially even more conservative than mass-based interest groups. As it turns out, the business groups are more numerous and exert more influence.

The influence coefficients for both mass-based and business-oriented interest groups are positively and highly significant statistically, but the coefficient for business groups is nearly twice as large as that for the mass groups. (Gilens, Page, 2014)

 

Using this rescaled measure, a parallel analysis to that in Table 4 shows that on a group-for-group basis the average individual business group and the average mass-oriented group appears to be about equally influential. The greater total influence of business groups in our analysis results chiefly from the fact that more of them are generally engaged on each issue (roughly twice as many, on average), not that a single bussiness-oriented group has more clout on average than a single mass-based group. (Gilens, Page, 2014)

 

 

Given the powerful influence of the wealthy, who tend conservative, and of interest groups, which may be even more conservative, it would seem that there is more political action toward conservative ends than political action toward liberal ends. When this political action is influence the outcome of elections, its influence will tend to show in the swing states, where it matters, rather than the Republican-held states that lean so strongly as to be of no concern to political action groups and interest groups.

Edited December 7, 2016 by MonDie

[swansont]

By not divesting his businesses, come the latter part of January Trump will likely be in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution (just as soon as he's sworn an oath to uphold it), and perhaps more directly, he will be violating the Post office lease for his DC hotel, which forbids anyone involved being an elected government official.

 

“No … elected official of the Government of the United States … shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom[.]”

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/trump-is-facing-major-dc-hotel-issues.html

http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/11/gsas-trump-hotel-lease-debacle/133424/

[Ten oz]

By not divesting his businesses, come the latter part of January Trump will likely be in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution (just as soon as he's sworn an oath to uphold it), and perhaps more directly, he will be violating the Post office lease for his DC hotel, which forbids anyone involved being an elected government official.

 

“No … elected official of the Government of the United States … shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom[.]”

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/trump-is-facing-major-dc-hotel-issues.html

http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/11/gsas-trump-hotel-lease-debacle/133424/

And whom will enforce the law?

 

Trump was briefed that Russia was responsible for the cyber attacks against Clinton and then he continued to accuse China. After being breifed continued to "joke" at rallies that he hoped more hacks would come. Continued to cite information from the hacks. We can't even get an investigation whether or not his campaign was involved in the cyber attacks going. Not one person from his campaign in under investigation.

 

Sadly with both the House and Senate being controlled by the GOP I don't see Trump's violations of the Constitution going anywhere. And there is precendence for this dismal of law. Torture, imprisonment without trial, warrantless wiretaps, and etc are against the Constitution but Bush was able to do them and just claim he was all good and nothing happen. The law only matters if it is enforced and those who enforce it have the power to do so.

[swansont]

And whom will enforce the law?

 

Trump was briefed that Russia was responsible for the cyber attacks against Clinton and then he continued to accuse China. After being breifed continued to "joke" at rallies that he hoped more hacks would come. Continued to cite information from the hacks. We can't even get an investigation whether or not his campaign was involved in the cyber attacks going. Not one person from his campaign in under investigation.

 

Sadly with both the House and Senate being controlled by the GOP I don't see Trump's violations of the Constitution going anywhere. And there is precendence for this dismal of law. Torture, imprisonment without trial, warrantless wiretaps, and etc are against the Constitution but Bush was able to do them and just claim he was all good and nothing happen. The law only matters if it is enforced and those who enforce it have the power to do so.

 

 

The lease issue does not rely on congress. There are some hoops to jump through, but the GSA can terminate the lease.

[Airbrush]

​"According to Alan Downs, corporate narcissism occurs when a narcissist becomes the chief executive officer or other leadership roles within the senior management team and gathers an adequate mix of codependents around him (or her) to support the narcissistic behavior. Narcissists profess company loyalty but are only really committed to their own agendas, thus organizational decisions are founded on the narcissist's own interests rather than the interests of the organization as a whole, the various stakeholders, or the society in which the organization operates. As a result, "a certain kind of charismatic leader can run a financially successful company on thoroughly unhealthy principles for a time...."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_leadership

 

Michael Moore called Trump a "malignant narcissist" but that seems a bit extreme to me. He is however, a textbook example of narcissistic personality disorder.

 

"Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, aggression, and sadism. Often grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate...."

 

​​Trump systematically dehumanizes anyone who criticizes him by calling them "a disaster!" starting with Rosie O'Donnell, to my knowledge. In an interview with one of the Trump sons, the son laughed telling about how hard his dad was on him to perform better at his job, or be "fired like a dog!" About Mitt Romney, "he got down on his knees before me!" Note the exclamation points are no exaggeration. Again dehumanizing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malignant_narcissism

Edited December 9, 2016 by Airbrush

[Alfred001]

 

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to apply for admission as a refugee. I'd love to flee fascism in the US by moving to Germany.

 

Lol, you are fleeing fascism by going from US to a country where people get arrested for criticizing the immigration policy?

[CharonY]

 

Lol, you are fleeing fascism by going from US to a country where people get arrested for criticizing the immigration policy?

 

Except that it doesn't happen. Unless you think that firebombing is counted as criticizing. Actually, that comment was so mind-numbingly stupid that it warrants further comments. Germany never wanted to have immigrants per se and compared to US or Canada there are very limited options to immigrate (as a non-EU citizen) to begin with. For the longest time there was Byzantine system and basically only "guest workers" could get in to fill the labourer shortage after WWII. People coming were allowed to stay but could not get citizenship (initially). The latter part was changed for their descendants.

De facto there was no obvious way from someone from the outside getting into the US without having extensive contacts that are able navigate the system. And even then it was pretty random who was allowed to get in. The background is that until around 2004 Germany considered itself not a country for immigration. I.e. immigration was considered to be a special case and not part of regular policies. That did leave those that came in as e.g. guest workers kind of stranded as legal in-betweens.

 

The system was revamped in 2004, but with a specific view of actually limiting and regulating immigration. I.e. only then did the politicians officially acknowledge that people coming in will eventually become part of the population. Before that it was political suicide to say anything positive about immigration and there was always the sense that immigrants are something apart from proper Germans.

 

The only other route has been asylum, which is entirely different. The right for protection is enshrined in the constitution and often due to an official route for immigration, many opted to claim asylum as an alternative.

 

Bottom line, few Germans want immigration and almost everyone criticizes the policies, mostly because they are stupid. If all that criticize it were imprisoned, there would be more people in prisons than outside.

Edited December 9, 2016 by CharonY

[Ten oz]

In a statement, Trump suggested that the CIA had discredited itself over faulty intelligence assessments about Iraq’s weapons stockpile more than a dozen years ago.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

The belittling response alarmed people in the intelligence community, which already had questioned Trump’s temperament and lack of national security experience.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-cia-on-collision-course-over-russias-role-in-us-election/2016/12/10/ad01556c-bf01-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?utm_term=.a0b4606075bc

 

The Intelligence community believes Russia worked to help Trump win. That doesn't mean Trump was in on it. However, in attacking the intelligence community is Trump willfully or perhaps just ignorantly trying to help conceal it? Is there a point when the facts of this in combination with his behavior become seriousness that our intel community have an obligation to make moves against Trump to protect the nation? Or is Trump right and our intel community simply isn't to be trusted? Either way it seems we have a brewing constitutional crisis.

 

How badly do the GOP want this win. How badly do anger white conservatives want this win. Trump is not in office yet and has already heightened tensions with China, already bullied U.S. defense contractors (Boeing & United Technologies), has ignored Intel briefings, and is now openly antagonizing the CIA for doing their job. Trump is revealing himself to be the exact threat so many of us feared he would be. As a nation do we have the ability to correct this mistake. Does our constitution (inner and legal) allow for us to step back from the edge? We can not allow the cynicism, racism, and partisanship that got Trump elected allow this man to take office. We have a real crisis on our hands.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Ten oz

[swansont]

 

The Intelligence community believes Russia worked to help Trump win. That doesn't mean Trump was in on it. However, in attacking the intelligence community is Trump willfully or perhaps just ignorantly trying to help conceal it? Is there a point when the facts of this in combination with his behavior become seriousness that our intel community have an obligation to make moves against Trump to protect the nation? Or is Trump right and our intel community simply isn't to be trusted? Either way it seems we have a brewing constitutional crisis.

 

 

 

That he is unwilling to investigate doesn't bode well. Also that congress doesn't seem to be interested. So much for their oath to protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Hey, if their guy won, it's all good, right?

[Ten oz]

Today in an interview with Chris Wallace Trump said the following regarding the Hacks:

 

“It's just another excuse. I don't believe it,” Trump said. “… Every week it's another excuse. We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College.”

 

“Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting. Once they hack, if you don't catch them in the act you're not going to catch them,” he said. “They have no idea if it's Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place.”

 

“Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country.”

Trump said the efforts could be political, adding Democrats are “very embarrassed.”

 

Trump isn't merely dismissing the intel community here but promoting a self-aggrandizing narative which is rooted in fantasy. There are many prominent Republicans involved in the push for an investigation. Republicans like Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Richard Burr, and Bob Corker are playing a bigger role in calling for hearings than any Democrats are. The Republican party is in the majority and as such head the Armed Services Committee, Select Intelligence Committee, and the Foreign Relations Committee. Any investigation would be chaired by Republicans and not Democrats. Trump is wrong in claiming this is some type of partisan Democrat move. Also, Trumps victory was not a "massive landslide". It was one of the closest electoral wins in history and the biggest popular vote loss for a winning candidate in history. That Trump refuses that reality is very distasteful. That he would tie his exaggerated victory into such a sensitive matter so to trivialize and impune the very agencies he will soon be in charge of is terrible!

Edited December 11, 2016 by Ten oz

[Airbrush]

Trump is not in office yet and has already heightened tensions with China, already bullied U.S. defense contractors (Boeing & United Technologies), has ignored Intel briefings, and is now openly antagonizing the CIA for doing their job. Trump is revealing himself to be the exact threat so many of us feared he would be. As a nation do we have the ability to correct this mistake. Does our constitution (inner and legal) allow for us to step back from the edge? We can not allow the cynicism, racism, and partisanship that got Trump elected allow this man to take office. We have a real crisis on our hands.

 

He has more than "ignored intel briefings" he has consistently EVADED them. How can he claim to know things when he won't even listen to the intelligence available? He has his own secret sources?

 

When will the audit of his income taxes be done? He cleverly changes the subject and we forget about his taxes.

 

What will it take to impeach him?