What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[garbon]

He said that same-sex marriage is settle but will try to overturn Roe v Wade.

Marti also apparently missed the paragraph that he didn't put in bold.

Besides, of course, the fact that Donald Trump can't actually control what decisions his Supreme Court selections will make.

[The Minsky Moment]

In theory, if you move 1,000 jobs to China that pay $100,000 each, so that Apple can gain $200,000,000, that's a win.  You can always make Apple pay $150,000,000 to the fired workers, and everyone's happy.  In practice, Apple will just hoard $190,000,000 of its cash, and spent the other $10,000,000 paying Congress to make sure they don't have to pay up to the American workers.

The reality is more complicated.  Something like a car or an airplane or an iphone is the product of an extremely complex supply chain that if you tried to draw a geogrpahical schematic would have arrows going everywhere.  A recent article about Brexit traced a single auto component and found that it crossed the Channel back and forth about 10 times before being sold as part of the car.  Tossing in a fat tariff on a single country in a system like this is like trying to conduct a targeted assassination by lobbying a hand grenade into a crowded dinner party.  You'll probably hurt your target, but it will get messy.

What is true is that the most significant world economic development of the last 25 years is that close on a half a billion people entered the global middle class - i.e. made the transition from various kinds of subsistence or other marginal activities to becoming literate, urbanized workers connected to global circuits of manufacturing and distribution.  Regardless of what trade policy exists - short of pure autarky - there is no way that development would no impact on the pre-existing Western middle class, particularly on the lower end of the skill chain.

[CountDeMoney]

He said that same-sex marriage is settle but will try to overturn Roe v Wade.

You forget where he comes from.

1) He has a lot of gay friends, acquaintances, business partners and government people in NYC.
2) All women are whores.

[derspiess]

[Martinus]

I don't understand why one's view on gay marriage should inform one's view on abortion. The former is about a "victimless" behaviour between consenting adults, the latter isn't.

Expecting such correlation is as idiotic as expecting a correlation between one's views on gun control and one's views about climate change.

[The Minsky Moment]

Friends don't let Martinus do analogies.

[viper37]

People are faced with a choice:
- a candidate who is not racist but does not care about their jobs and
- a candidate who uses racist rhetoric but seems to care about their jobs.

Only an idiot would think Trump really cares about his job.  Trump cares about Trump.  End of story.

That isn't the point though.

I get this - I don't agree with it of course, but I get it.

There are a lot of people who think they had a choice between someone who certainly doesn't care about them (because Clinton is part and parcel of an establishment that has shown how little it cares about them consistently) and someone who claims to care about them and keeps telling them what they want to hear about how this is all the fault of the "other" and he can fix it.

Yeah, it is transparently obvious he cannot fix it, and probably doesn't even care to fix it if he could. But why not roll the dice on the guy who at least *claims* to care rather than the one who has shown she doesn't care as part of an establishment that clearly doesn't care?

This isn't really defendable from a "let's have a moderated debate about this and see who wins" standpoint. But it is very *understandable* from an emotional and economic standpoint.

the problem I have, is when you look at the situation rationally, Trump isn't any better than Clinton on the "caring part".

Ok, Trump wants to subsidize or at least give a preferential treatment to industries threatened by technological changes instead of looking at the future.  That certainly has an appean for conservatives.  They'd rather blame everyone else than their own failures, it's a understandable human fault.

However, if you look more closely at Trump, you'll see that he surrounds himself with former bankers, the same type he likes to call corrupt.  His first act as President was to surround himself and invite lobbyists to visit him.  His past actions have demonstrated he doesn't care for people's suffering, he doesn't care fro free speech, he doesn't care for a lot of people.  But suddenly, we should believe him when he tells us exactly want we want to hear.  Even when that goes contrary to the principles we like to tell ourselves we stand for: freedom of speech, freedom of choice, free market.

Doesn't seem understandable from an economic standpoint unless you are claiming 'economic' as some sort of closely correlated item with emotional.

Simple really.

1. My economic position sucks.
2. If I choose Hillary, it won't get any better, and her and her mega rich friends will get even more mega rich.
3 If I choose Trump and he really does smash everything up, then either:
              A. Things get better as promised!, or
              B. The economy gets worse, and all those rich assholes won't be quite as rich, but my economic position still sucks, just like it does now.
4. Therefore, I should choose Trump. I will enjoy the potential rewards, while things are bad enough that I don't seem exposed to the potential risks.

except, as witnessed before, 3B doesn't really happen.  The government will step in to protect the rich.  Be it a Republican govt or a Democratic govt, they will do it.  Republicans will put the country into recession, Democrats will try to fix it, usually with better success than the Republicans, but let's vote for Republicans anyway.

[viper37]

Populists identify a real problem - usually one that the establishment either doesn't care about or doesn't even acknowledge - and offer a simple solution. The solution is usually bogus but to an average unprivileged person, it is still better than the alternative.

What real problem did Trump identify?  Black protesters are destroying American society?  Mexicans illegally immigrate by the fuckton in the US, steal jobs, rape women and kill peaceful whites?  Canadians are evil?  Europeans are evil, except for those in the Front National and UKIP?

[Berkut]

Populists identify a real problem - usually one that the establishment either doesn't care about or doesn't even acknowledge - and offer a simple solution. The solution is usually bogus but to an average unprivileged person, it is still better than the alternative.

What real problem did Trump identify?  Black protesters are destroying American society?  Mexicans illegally immigrate by the fuckton in the US, steal jobs, rape women and kill peaceful whites?  Canadians are evil?  Europeans are evil, except for those in the Front National and UKIP?

The problem that white middle class and lower class Americans think exists:

WTF happened to our awesome middle class jobs???

The problem that actually exists:

Middle class jobs are a relatively shrinking pool of ways that people can support their families through technology advances and globalization.

The even bigger problem that exists, and most people are at least "gut feeling" aware of:

The political class in the US no longer represents that interests of the vast majority of US citizens in any meaningful manner.

[garbon]

The even bigger problem that exists, and most people are at least "gut feeling" aware of:

The political class in the US no longer represents that interests of the vast majority of US citizens in any meaningful manner.

I'm less certain about this one. Was there a mythical time when they did? Only thing I can easily think of, is perhaps FDR's turn at the helm.

[Berkut]

No, I don't think there was a mythical time when they did.

Of course, that is because by definition if the time was in fact mythical, then it never existed. So it is kind of a moot point.

But I am too tired to argue this one again. If you believe everything is just fine, and we should just truck along with business as usual, then I don't have the energy to try to convince you otherwise. I certainly don't possess any data that isn't available through a simple google search on the topic.

[garbon]

No, I don't think there was a mythical time when they did.

Of course, that is because by definition if the time was in fact mythical, then it never existed. So it is kind of a moot point.

But I am too tired to argue this one again. If you believe everything is just fine, and we should just truck along with business as usual, then I don't have the energy to try to convince you otherwise. I certainly don't possess any data that isn't available through a simple google search on the topic.

I don't believe everything is just fine but at the same time, I'm not convinced it is because our government has become so distanced from the people. Hell for my kind of people, the gov't has very rarely ever represented us during the history of the US.

[viper37]

The problem that actually exists:

Middle class jobs are a relatively shrinking pool of ways that people can support their families through technology advances and globalization.

The even bigger problem that exists, and most people are at least "gut feeling" aware of:

The political class in the US no longer represents that interests of the vast majority of US citizens in any meaningful manner.

yeah, and at the same time these people are wondering that, they vote for:
- less funding to education
- tax cuts to the rich
- no subsidized healthcare
- more religion and less science
- no cap on political financing

At some point, people should realize that when you try something once or twice and it didn't work, trying it a 3rd, 4th and 5th time isn't gonna work either.  It's like communisme.  It didn't work in the USSR.  Didn't work for East Europe.  Didn't work for China.  Didn't work for North Korea.  Didn't work for Vietnam.  Didn't work for Cuba.  Didn't work for Venezuela.  But hey, let's try it once more, it's only been misapplied before!

And I remain unconvinced that there are 3 million hardened criminals in the USA that also happen to be illegal immigrants.  And I know for a fact it won't change anything to the economic problems of pro-Trump voters.

[viper37]

Hell for my kind of people, the gov't has very rarely ever represented us during the history of the US.

Now, now, don't go spreading lies like that.  Your kind of people exerted their free choice:
Slavery was a choice

[garbon]

The problem that actually exists:

Middle class jobs are a relatively shrinking pool of ways that people can support their families through technology advances and globalization.

The even bigger problem that exists, and most people are at least "gut feeling" aware of:

The political class in the US no longer represents that interests of the vast majority of US citizens in any meaningful manner.

yeah, and at the same time these people are wondering that, they vote for:
- less funding to education
- tax cuts to the rich
- no subsidized healthcare
- more religion and less science
- no cap on political financing

Don't forget they also voted back in their incumbent congressmen and senators. Nothing says we want change like keeping the same lawmakers in power.