What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Berkut]

I don't remember OvB ever being high on the Donald.

I never was. My political philosophy is closest to "Main Street Republicanism", a focus on a minimal welfare state, limited Federal government, respect for individual over social rights, a strong focus on good governance and a balancing act when it comes to business regulations to keep markets competitive and free but without stifling innovation or allow undesirable market failures. No President will ever meet anyone's preferences 100%, but H.W. Bush came pretty close for me. To be honest a lot of my support for the GOP since the H.W. days has been more oppositional than anything because the GOP basically doesn't represent any thing I just laid out any longer, but for a long time I at least felt they "weren't loony lefties" like the Dems. I still loathe the corrupt Southern Dem style of Clinton or the preachy peacenik styles of George W. Bush era Dems, and can't think of many politicians I'd like to punch in the face more than Bernie Sanders, but I haven't really been a vigorous RNC guy since at least 2012 because I think they just finally got to be so out of control corrupt and stupid that they were actively more of a threat to the country than the alternative.

I embraced Romney as a return to potential sanity, but it didn't work out.

About the one thing me and Trump do have in common is I have a deep hatred for Islam and Muslims, and the Muslim states--this isn't out of bigotry but a simple recognition that the West is objectively the best culture to ever develop. Superior to any in Africa or Asia, and the Muslim world represents essentially the worst developed or most ill-developed culture in the world today. I don't think Trump actually has effective policies for combating the scourge of Islam, though. He has some of the rhetoric right but none of the actions.

This is all pretty sane.

I will point out one thing though - part of the reason Romney did not work out was that he had to cater to that growing insanity/Tea Party bullshit in the Republican Party.

As time goes on, I become more and more convinced that pretty much all of the blame for what has become the Republican Party and US politics in general  (insofar as the radicalization of the right and consequent polarization across the right and left) can be laid right at the feet of Fox News and the people who have used it so effectively to destroy any sense of American unity across party lines.

[The Minsky Moment]

No one has done more to spread the most fundamentalist brand of Sunni Islam than Saudi Arabia, and Trump is in the Saudi pocket.  So Trump's anti-Islam talk is mostly just that, plus some gratuitous but useless attacks like the travel ban.  Otherwise he is pursuing the Obama policy, except with an out-of-balance pro-Saudi tilt.

[DGuller]

I think we're living through a case study of a previously unknown variation of mass psychology pathology.  I just hope we'll still be here when this case study makes it to textbooks.

[Solmyr]

the West is objectively the best culture to ever develop

Well, it's certainly killed the most people ever and damaged (likely irreparably) the most nature ever on its way to doing so. But hey, maybe Islam will follow suit eventually?

[Eddie Teach]

Sorry man, your feet betrayed you. West is best, you agree.

[The Brain]

the West is objectively the best culture to ever develop

Well, it's certainly killed the most people ever

Elaborate on your estimates.

[jimmy olsen]

Trump withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/us/politics/russia-nuclear-arms-treaty-trump-administration.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

[mongers]

This migrant 'convoy' from Honduras seems heaven* sent for Trump the GOP and the mid-term elections, presumable some of them will get rather near the US border within the last few days of electioneering. 




* where heaven may include, but not limited to Russian state influence, social media trolling and promotion of the convoy for non-humanitarian reasons.

[crazy canuck]

About the one thing me and Trump do have in common is I have a deep hatred for Islam and Muslims

Ah so you limit your hatred to those that don't purchase condos from you.  Nice to see your bigotry is principled.

Or perhaps the only thing you have in common with Trump is bigotry 

[Tonitrus]

Trump withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/us/politics/russia-nuclear-arms-treaty-trump-administration.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

It's ok, Putin is pretty level-headed on the nuclear war issue...

"An aggressor should know that vengeance is inevitable, that he will be annihilated, and we would be the victims of the aggression. We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will just drop dead. They will not even have time to repent for this," he said.

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/aggressors-will-be-annihilated-we-will-go-to-heaven-as-martyrs-putin-says-63235

[Tamas]

Well if it is true that the alleged new Russian cruise missile violates the terms of this treaty, then this is the right move. The Russians can ill afford another arms race, it was correct to call their bluff.

[Valmy]

the West is objectively the best culture to ever develop

Well, it's certainly killed the most people ever and damaged (likely irreparably) the most nature ever on its way to doing so. But hey, maybe Islam will follow suit eventually?

Huh? The damage to nature is being done from over-population and economic activity not mass murder. Maybe you do not understand how this works?

[grumbler]

the West is objectively the best culture to ever develop

Well, it's certainly killed the most people ever and damaged (likely irreparably) the most nature ever on its way to doing so. But hey, maybe Islam will follow suit eventually?

Huh? The damage to nature is being done from over-population and economic activity not mass murder. Maybe you do not understand how this works?

Trolls don't care how it works.  They are just setting the hook with bullshit, thinking they can bait people into paying attention to them.

Trollmyr is perfectly aware that Muslim countries are almost universally worse in terms of environmental damage than Western countries, but he doesn't care.  Syria and the Netherlands have about the same population.  Which "damaged (likely irreparably) the most nature ever"?

[PDH]

Syria and the Netherlands have about the same population.  Which "damaged (likely irreparably) the most nature ever"?

Actually, give the Dutch East Indies oil production, I think the Netherlands might win.

[Valmy]

Look considering how interconnected and related the world's economy is and has been for many decades which country has done slightly more hardly matters. We are all in at this point.

I just didn't get how the natural damage was done 'on its way' to mass murder. I mean the damage is being done by doing things that until fairly recently were considered good things (well...ok still are). Creating economic activity and helping humans not die from child birth and disease. But birth rates are going down and technological priorities are shifting. We will see how it turns out.