What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Neil]

shitlib-coded

I don't know what this means.

[Legbiter]

I don't know what this means.

Imagine 2 ancient memes, Pajama Boy plus Euphoric Fedora combined into one Reddit personality. No matter the subreddit.   

[crazy canuck]

I thought we agreed English should be used on this forum?

[Barrister]

This normalization of Trump strikes me as bizarre. Sure, Timmay, we can imagine all sorts of rationale for different geopolitical realities. But there's really no reason to do that for a US taking Gaza as such ideas are just repugnant.

I called the idea "quarter-baked" (as in not even half baked) but said there was "the kernel of a seed of an idea".

I really am going to push back against the idea that constitutes normalizing him.

But why are you taking that position? What's the reason to say this 99% terrible idea has 1% that isn't terrible?

I just find it more informative and interesting to engage with an idea honestly - even if it is terrible.

I mean - communism has killed tens of millions of people around the world.  But what draws communists to that ideology in the first place?  Or the same for any other number of stupid ideas?

So like I said - the US taking over Gaza has the kernel of a seed of an idea there.  It could I suppose be the kind of "bold new thinking" that could help to solve the Israel / Palestine question, which has been a major world issue for at least 100 years since the Balfour declaration.

The problem is that Trump hasn't engaged with the idea seriously - not that he (or Bibi) had the idea in the first place.  What would that actually mean?  What would it take for it to happen?  What would the Gaza Palestinians think?  What would Egypt or Jordan think?  Just because those countries do receive subsidies from the USA doesn't mean the USA can just dictate their policies.


To bring it closer to (my) home - tariffs on Canada.  I think it's a terrible idea for the US - but what exactly is Trump trying to accomplish?  The US trade deficit is real, so to that extent he's trying to deal with a real issue.  It's just that tariffs are hardly going to solve that issue other than by impoverishing Americans (and Canadians) such that they can't afford imports any longer.

Just dismissing something as "insane" isn't really helpful for anyone.  Even dealing with someone like Trump, who can probably be diagnosed under DSM-V with a disorder or three.

[viper37]

Yeah, Reddit seems to attract a very specific personality type no matter the subreddit. A kind of insufferable low-to-midwit type, frequently male and if from North America always kinda shitlib-coded in the most obnoxious way.

If you have a niche question it's very useful but I'd never want to regularly post on any subreddit because of the personality types that the updoot system seems to attract.

Ah, even if you try to help people with technical questions you encounter them.
"AMD is shite, bad drivers, get Nvidia for 2500$"

[viper37]

Or the same for any other number of stupid ideas?

I don't know...

Alberta doctors, scientists say COVID-19 response report should be dismissed

[mongers]

Trump - he just keeps coming up with these quarter-baked international diplomacy ideas.  Whether it's the US taking over Greenland, to Canada joining the US, to the US taking over Gaza - in each case there's the kernel of a seed of an idea. . . .

Like I said yesterday - you could kind-of squint and imagine Gaza becoming a US Territory or protectorate.

BB I hesitate because you get piled on here for engaging in the quixotic venture of calling balls and strikes on Trump - a venture to my mind akin to an actual baseball umpire trying to call balls and strikes in the middle of the running of the bulls at Pamplona.  But these lines are hardcore sanewashing.

Yesterday, the President of the United States gave a press conference openly proposing ethnic cleansing of a territory belonging to an authority recognized as a sovereign state by the UN and most of its members.  It's been a while and perhaps I've forgotten the details, but I don't recall even Milosevic openly declaring his intent to commit war crimes before the international press. I believe one would have to go back to 30s era fascist regimes for an analogue.  This is something we normalize or minimize at our peril.  The only possible response - outside AND inside the United States, is universal revulsion and the harshest condemnation.

Moreover, even in a bizarro fantasy world where the beleaguered citizenry of Gaza happily embrace American proconsular overlords, the proposal that Gaza become "a US Territory or protectorate" is an absurdity that ignores glaring political, economic and geographic realities.

What I saw yesterday was a man who even by the low standards of Trumpian conduct and mental acuity, is suffering from some severe mental deterioration. I don't think he understands that he is President. Specifically - I think he understands in some formal sense he holds an office of President of the US, but in his muddled mind, his role as President of the Trump Organization and President of the US are hopelessly confused together. His comments at the press conference make zero sense as an American President speaking about the real life Gaza.  But they make perfect sense if interpreted as the President of a large real estate firm talking about acquiring a troubled building site requiring heavy grading and remediation work but with good potential income once built.  I think he literally has no idea what he is talking about anymore.

Thanks JR, very eloquently spelt out.

Now we just have to hope that is mental collapse is so rapid, we're still not commenting on his ramblings two years down the line.

[The Minsky Moment]

Getting US Marines blown up in the Levant isn't new thinking on the I/P conflict. it's replaying the mistakes of 1983.

Just dismissing something as "insane" isn't really helpful for anyone.

I don't think it's helpful to live in denial about what is happening before our eyes.  The media keeps making this mistake over and over - treating every Trumpian Tourettes utterance -- invading Greenland, building an impenetrable wall through the Rio Grande, building a 5 star hotel golf resort on the ruins of Khan Younis -- as though it contains some core of a rational thought or strategic conception.  Anything can be rationalized but that misses what is really going on. Trump isn't a crude but canny tactician whose ideas are under-developed and need to be polished; he is an addled fool without a clue about what he is doing. 

[viper37]

The Tariffs Were Never Real


Interesting text from the Atlantic.

Basically, everything Trump has done on the tariffs side was to please his electorate.  Talk loudly, declare a win, gain votes.  Fuck the numbers, he said he won, his voters believe him, the skeptics too.

[Legbiter]

Basically, everything Trump has done on the tariffs side was to please his electorate.  Talk loudly, declare a win, gain votes.  Fuck the numbers, he said he won, his voters believe him, the skeptics too.

Many such cases. 

[Barrister]

Getting US Marines blown up in the Levant isn't new thinking on the I/P conflict. it's replaying the mistakes of 1983.

Just dismissing something as "insane" isn't really helpful for anyone.

I don't think it's helpful to live in denial about what is happening before our eyes.  The media keeps making this mistake over and over - treating every Trumpian Tourettes utterance -- invading Greenland, building an impenetrable wall through the Rio Grande, building a 5 star hotel golf resort on the ruins of Khan Younis -- as though it contains some core of a rational thought or strategic conception.  Anything can be rationalized but that misses what is really going on. Trump isn't a crude but canny tactician whose ideas are under-developed and need to be polished; he is an addled fool without a clue about what he is doing. 

You don't have to go back to Beirut in 1983 to understand the danger of the US getting involved first-hand in the middle east.  Fallujah in 2004 is a more recent memory.  Or Afghanistan.

The thing about Trump is he is neither "playing 4-D chess" nor "an addled fool".

He has an extremely basic understanding of the world.  It's not a hallucinogenic or addled one, just severely under-informed.  He seemingly never thinks about the second order effects of his decisions.

Yes - tariffs would in the long-term help to encourage businesses to relocate manufacturing to the US.  So Trump is correct about that.  He just misses all the other consequences - from retaliatory tariffs, to increased consumer costs, to overall market inefficiencies, to harming relations with other nations...