What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

I think VPs rarely matter, but Vance was a complete dud of an electoral pick. He is just a copy of Trump's base, does nothing to broaden appeal.

Tim Scott or Nikki Haley were easy lay up wins, Tim Scott I genuinely think would have given Trump a +2 durable polling boost. Haley I get they probably hate each other too much, but there's a few other non-Kristi Noem female prospects who also could have helped him out.

J.D. Vance doesn't broaden the appeal at all beyond the base of voters who were already Trump loyalists.

He will pull in the pro-beard vote.

[Caliga]

as well as the 'has a hot Indian wife' vote.

[The Minsky Moment]

Some excerpts from a Business Week interview of the candidate who is not being labeled as the old senile guy

Q. Do you think they should hold off on lowering interest rates until after the election?

A. Unless they cut other costs commensurate with interest, interest is a very big cost. So it's hard. But yeah, there is: I have a plan to make up for that with energy cutting. Energy. We can cut energy way down.

Q. What would you do if you're reelected to nudge the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates faster?

A. Well, you have to get other costs down, you cannot suffer inflation. Inflation, and it really and it really and it truly is ... [An aide brings out a red MAGA hat] ... This is just, somebody just sent this.

Q.Would you defend Taiwan against China?

A. Look, a couple of things. No. 1, Taiwan. I know the people very well, respect them greatly. They did take about 100% of our chip business1. I think, Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we're no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn't give us anything. Taiwan is 9,500 miles away. It's 68 miles away from China. A slight advantage, and China's a massive piece of land, they could just bombard it. They don't even need to—I mean, they can literally just send shells. Now they don't want to do that because they don't want to lose all those chip plants. You know, all those plants and they don't want to do that. But I will tell you, that's the apple of President Xi's eye, he was a very good friend of mine until Covid that I really, you know, I was, I didn't feel the same way. Same thing with Putin.

Putin and I got along very well, with our relationship. We were never in danger of a war. He would have never gotten into Ukraine. I said, don't ever, ever go into Ukraine.

The oil prices. It was so crazy. The oil price was so crazy and it was always the apple of his eye. Just like with China. It's the apple of China's eye. It was the apple. It's the apple of his eye. But the day I left they sent 28 bombers right over the top2 and they've been very aggressive ever since, they got ships all over the place. I wouldn't feel so secure right now, if I was them, but remember this: Taiwan took our chip business from us, I mean, how stupid are we? They took all of our chip business. They're immensely wealthy. And I don't think we're any different from an insurance policy. Why? Why are we doing this?

They took almost 100% of our chip industry, I give them credit. That's because stupid people were running the country. We should have never let that happen. Now we're giving them billions of dollars to build new chips in our country, and then they're going to take that too, in other words, they'll build it but then they'll bring it back to their country.

The PRC and Putin can't wait for this fool to get back into the White House.

[Syt]

We're all fucked.

[Tamas]

He sees the US military as a protection racket.

[Syt]

He sees the US military as a protection racket.

He was landlord in NYC. Of course he does. "Nice shop. Would be a shame if something happened to it."

[Tamas]

But hey, apparently an 81 years old with Parkinsons is the only politician left in the Democrats, so it's not like we have a choice.

[jimmy olsen]

as well as the 'has a hot Indian wife' vote.

All the Twitter racists are melting down over this and calling him a Manchurian candidate.

[Syt]

as well as the 'has a hot Indian wife' vote.

 

[The Minsky Moment]

Idiots can't even get their racist sham history right.

[The Minsky Moment]

We're all fucked.

With Trump, it's not that he is completely ignorant. It's that because he is profoundly intellectually lazy and has no reading comp, everything he thinks he knows is stuff people have said to him or that he's seen on TV. In the economics discussions, you can tell that he has some idea that Fed interest policy is connected to inflation, that inflation has different components, that interest is also paid on government debt.  But he doesn't understand any of the underlying mechanisms or how it all fits together.  When he talks about these subjects, it comes out as disjointed and incomprehensible.

Reading through the morass of verbal junk coming out of his mouth, it becomes apparent that his economic strategy is lowering the price of fossil fuel energy by increasing US production. He doesn't say that, because that pretty simple sentence is beyond his ability to articulate. He has no idea that the market for oil and gas is global.  Thus, for example, he doesn't understand that even if the US opened a new oil field that added 1 million barrels a day, that doesn't necessarily make the oil price go down in a 100 million barrel per day global market, where OPEC may react with offsetting cuts, or production may decline elsewhere, or the favorable cost structure of the new US field may cause other producers to close down marginal fields in the US. He doesn't understand that in the 2020s, solar and other renewables are cost competitive or even superior and thus discouraging them may worsen the overall cost of the full energy mix. He doesn't understand that global warming is real and that saving a few cents of gas may not be worth it if the ultimate consequences is trillion dollar increases in catastrophe costs from coastal flooding, more intense storms, droughts etc.

The man is truly the perfect Platonic form of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[Josquius]

We're all fucked.

With Trump, it's not that he is completely ignorant. It's that because he is profoundly intellectually lazy and has no reading comp, everything he thinks he knows is stuff people have said to him or that he's seen on TV. In the economics discussions, you can tell that he has some idea that Fed interest policy is connected to inflation, that inflation has different components, that interest is also paid on government debt.  But he doesn't understand any of the underlying mechanisms or how it all fits together.  When he talks about these subjects, it comes out as disjointed and incomprehensible.

Reading through the morass of verbal junk coming out of his mouth, it becomes apparent that his economic strategy is lowering the price of fossil fuel energy by increasing US production. He doesn't say that, because that pretty simple sentence is beyond his ability to articulate. He has no idea that the market for oil and gas is global.  Thus, for example, he doesn't understand that even if the US opened a new oil field that added 1 million barrels a day, that doesn't necessarily make the oil price go down in a 100 million barrel per day global market, where OPEC may react with offsetting cuts, or production may decline elsewhere, or the favorable cost structure of the new US field may cause other producers to close down marginal fields in the US. He doesn't understand that in the 2020s, solar and other renewables are cost competitive or even superior and thus discouraging them may worsen the overall cost of the full energy mix. He doesn't understand that global warming is real and that saving a few cents of gas may not be worth it if the ultimate consequences is trillion dollar increases in catastrophe costs from coastal flooding, more intense storms, droughts etc.

The man is truly the perfect Platonic form of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The trouble is, the majority of the population is even more lazy and ignorant than he is.
If he can give the surface appearance of having a clue then many people won't realise he's talking nonsense. And then there's those that would be knee jerk hostile to pointing this out...

[Legbiter]

But hey, apparently an 81 years old with Parkinsons is the only politician left in the Democrats, so it's not like we have a choice.

Most powerful dems just accept Biden will be a sacrificial lamb for this election and don't want to rock the boat. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Most powerful dems just accept Biden will be a sacrificial lamb for this election and don't want to rock the boat. 

It's absolutely nuts. Trump was, is and will continue to be one of the most consistently unpopular major politicians in American history, with a dismal electoral record.  He is beatable, easily beatable.

[CountDeMoney]

It's absolutely nuts. Trump was, is and will continue to be one of the most consistently unpopular major politicians in American history, with a dismal electoral record.  He is beatable, easily beatable.

Not for a woman. Or a black woman. Or a Jew. Or a homosexual.
Not in this country, and you fucking know that.