What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Syt]

All those flags look the same, don't they ...

[The Brain]

Real?

[jimmy olsen]

I've never heard the name before.

He was Secretary of Labor during Obama's 2nd term, July 23, 2013 – January 20, 2017.

[Zanza]

Did he do anything noteworthy?

[Eddie Teach]

Does any Secretary of Labor?

[CountDeMoney]

Did he do anything noteworthy?

He did his job.  I know competency isn't in vogue when it comes to government anymore, but the DNC is not going to allow itself to turn into the left version of what has happened to the Republicans--if you can call them that anymore.  There are still a few grown-ups left.

[DGuller]

I hope it won't be a choice between losing as adults and winning as clueless children.

[crazy canuck]

The Republicans have ceased to see these things as symbols, but rather see them as genuine problems, against which all the other, ordinary trappings of an authoritarian state, which they were supposed to despise and oppose, pale in comparison. Fighting ecologists in the name of, say, cost of opportunity, was not enough: now, nothing less than the active embrace of pollution, desecration of landscape, and repeal of environmental protection that has real effect on people's health will suffice.

Your head is firmly planted in the sand.

[Berkut]

The Republicans have ceased to see these things as symbols, but rather see them as genuine problems, against which all the other, ordinary trappings of an authoritarian state, which they were supposed to despise and oppose, pale in comparison. Fighting ecologists in the name of, say, cost of opportunity, was not enough: now, nothing less than the active embrace of pollution, desecration of landscape, and repeal of environmental protection that has real effect on people's health will suffice.

Your head is firmly planted in the sand.

Actually, I think Beebs head is not nearly as firmly planted as it used to be.

Another decade or so of Trump like rule, and he might start questioning his ultra conservative, anti-liberty views...

[grumbler]

The Republicans have ceased to see these things as symbols, but rather see them as genuine problems, against which all the other, ordinary trappings of an authoritarian state, which they were supposed to despise and oppose, pale in comparison. Fighting ecologists in the name of, say, cost of opportunity, was not enough: now, nothing less than the active embrace of pollution, desecration of landscape, and repeal of environmental protection that has real effect on people's health will suffice.

Your head is firmly planted in the sand.

Actually, I think Beebs head is not nearly as firmly planted as it used to be.

Another decade or so of Trump like rule, and he might start questioning his ultra conservative, anti-liberty views...

Yeah, if Beeb would just understand that the modern US government is full of cartoon villains with nifty evil uniforms and an eagerness for an "active embrace of pollution, desecration of landscape, and repeal of environmental protection that has real effect on people's health will suffice" he'd see the world more clearly.  Mere bureaucratic and ideological blinkers cannot explain anything.  Only active cartoon-villain evilness can explain it.

Or else Oex is going emo again. 

One or the other.

[Oexmelin]

Yeah, if Beeb would just understand that the modern US government is full of cartoon villains with nifty evil uniforms and an eagerness for an "active embrace of pollution, desecration of landscape, and repeal of environmental protection that has real effect on people's health will suffice" he'd see the world more clearly.  Mere bureaucratic and ideological blinkers cannot explain anything.  Only active cartoon-villain evilness can explain it.

Or else Oex is going emo again. 

One or the other.

As far as cartoonish villains go, this administration is making a damn good job at impersonating them. But if this is the only thing you got from my post, I suggest you may be actively avoiding reading between the lines. (I am pretty sure what your response will be to this...)

But who cares about what the Republicans in the House "truly" believe. A sizeable portion of their now-energized base has transformed anti-environmentalist into actual hatred against cyclists, pedestrians, ecologists. There are people out there who celebrate the fact that their cars and trucks are *more* polluting, and who have transformed their hatred of regulation, into the hatred of everything covered by regulation from National Parks, to Clean Air and Water Act. Hence Coal Rollers, Diesel Burners, libertarian think tanks and institutes asking people to waste electricity on Earth Day. If you haven't witnessed that shift in rhetoric, I suggest you haven't paying attention.

To take but one example: National Parks, which were the subject of broad bipartisan consensus, were suddenly, from 2010 on, the object of obstruction by about twenty house members who answered to Tea Party constituent, who advocated for drilling, mining, selling, and altogether erasing them. I call that the active desecration of the landscape - because National Parks have been set up *precisely for this reason*.

[viper37]

To take but one example: National Parks, which were the subject of broad bipartisan consensus, were suddenly, from 2010 on, the object of obstruction by about twenty house members who answered to Tea Party constituent, who advocated for drilling, mining, selling, and altogether erasing them. I call that the active desecration of the landscape - because National Parks have been set up *precisely for this reason*.

you're exagerating.  And spreading fake news.  Grumbler told us before there is nothing to worry about, Trump is not that eager to govern, and he will let others do the real governing form him.
Whatever we are seeing is an illusion at worst.  We can all go back to sleep and trust in the great american political institutions of checks&balances.  It worked before, no President ever defied a court order, so why would it happen now?   It's not like the muslim ban at the border is enforced at all, given the court order suspending the executive order, after all.

Everything will be allright.

[PDH]

I think that just the existence of Coal Rollers (which were active in Laramie when I was there, several with F*CK OBAMA placards on the tailgate) shows that Oex is not just spouting hyperbole.  Rather, there is an active movement of hatred of regulation to the point of blatant harm in order to show disdain. 

This is rather in line with James Watt and his desire to undue federal regulations.  When he spoke to at the History Dept when I was a grad student he pointedly said that people should be able to despoil the environment as they see fit - God put it here for that reason.  Regulations are just taking away the right to be a douchebag and ruin stuff (which oddly enough, it really is in part).

[grumbler]

As far as cartoonish villains go, this administration is making a damn good job at impersonating them. But if this is the only thing you got from my post, I suggest you may be actively avoiding reading between the lines. (I am pretty sure what your response will be to this...)

But who cares about what the Republicans in the House "truly" believe. A sizeable portion of their now-energized base has transformed anti-environmentalist into actual hatred against cyclists, pedestrians, ecologists. There are people out there who celebrate the fact that their cars and trucks are *more* polluting, and who have transformed their hatred of regulation, into the hatred of everything covered by regulation from National Parks, to Clean Air and Water Act. Hence Coal Rollers, Diesel Burners, libertarian think tanks and institutes asking people to waste electricity on Earth Day. If you haven't witnessed that shift in rhetoric, I suggest you haven't paying attention.

To take but one example: National Parks, which were the subject of broad bipartisan consensus, were suddenly, from 2010 on, the object of obstruction by about twenty house members who answered to Tea Party constituent, who advocated for drilling, mining, selling, and altogether erasing them. I call that the active desecration of the landscape - because National Parks have been set up *precisely for this reason*.

It is true that you are in a better position to see such a historic shift in "rhetoric" than I, having spent more time in the US...

The voices in favor of drilling in national lands (including parks) isn't new since 2010, though it may be new to you.  Yes, I read the same article at Center for American Progress that you did, but the article does a disservice by failing to distinguish clearly between public lands in general and National Parks in particular; by claiming that actions taken to open federal lands to increased commercial exploitation are being taken against national parks, the article merely feeds the false narrative that has you so worked up.  Indeed, the deliberate misuse of the term "caucus" in the CAP-created title of "the Congressional Anti-Parks Caucus" seems designed to work up the less discerning reader.  There is no such caucus, of course; the so-called "caucus" does not, in fact, caucus nor call itself a caucus.

As for this horde of frenzied bicycle haters and whatnot, it has hidden itself well.  Not well enough to hide from you, of course, but well enough to leave no impact on the rest of us.

[grumbler]

I think that just the existence of Coal Rollers (which were active in Laramie when I was there, several with F*CK OBAMA placards on the tailgate) shows that Oex is not just spouting hyperbole.  Rather, there is an active movement of hatred of regulation to the point of blatant harm in order to show disdain. 

This is rather in line with James Watt and his desire to undue federal regulations.  When he spoke to at the History Dept when I was a grad student he pointedly said that people should be able to despoil the environment as they see fit - God put it here for that reason.  Regulations are just taking away the right to be a douchebag and ruin stuff (which oddly enough, it really is in part).

How many "coal rollers" are there, though?  There have always been fringe kooks who try to gain attention to their cause by acts of symbolic law-breaking, and the country has generally managed to survive them without the hysteria of proclaiming them or their cause "evil."   Oex's and Viper's attitude is an excellent example of the sorts of attitudes that lead to the very over-reaction that coal-rollers represent.  Coal Rollers see them and people like them as evil; Oex and Viper sees those who disagree with them as evil.  I just see two sides of stupid.