What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Barrister]

Personally I think Trump will be an awful president; but I'll admit I was wrong and that he was at least a mediocre president if:

1.)  He isn't impeached.
2.)  No member of his cabinet is charged with a crime.
3.)  The deficit remains under $500,000,000,000 (it's projected level for FY 2017.)
4.)  There isn't a new humanitarian crisis on the scale of Syria anywhere in the world.
5.)  The US doesn't engage in a military intervention that results in a worse crisis than our intervention in Libya did.
6.)  A tariff war does not emerge.

While #5 is fair, on #4 Trump has made it clear he simply doesn't care about humanitarian crises in other countries.

[Jacob]

Personally I think Trump will be an awful president; but I'll admit I was wrong and that he was at least a mediocre president if:

1.)  He isn't impeached.
2.)  No member of his cabinet is charged with a crime.
3.)  The deficit remains under $500,000,000,000 (it's projected level for FY 2017.)
4.)  There isn't a new humanitarian crisis on the scale of Syria anywhere in the world.
5.)  The US doesn't engage in a military intervention that results in a worse crisis than our intervention in Libya did.
6.)  A tariff war does not emerge.

While #5 is fair, on #4 Trump has made it clear he simply doesn't care about humanitarian crises in other countries.

So? Saying that he doesn't care about something does not mean he can't be judged on it.

[MadImmortalMan]

Trump is the sort of guy that just had a summit with Kanye West.

I thought Kanye just showed up on his own and Trump talked to him to calm him down and diffuse the situation. Kanye just got out of psychiatric care.

[dps]

FWIW, I think it's possible to both believe that Trump will be a terrible President, and still think that a lot of the hand-wringing is overwrought.

[MadImmortalMan]

I think it's fair to say it's not worth panicking when he's not even taken office yet. 

Also, I personally found it impossible to predict what would happen during the campaign, and my news sources haven't changed since then. So it's a good bet I don't know what he's going to do in office either. Maybe after we see him actually being in charge for a while.

[Berkut]

I think it's fair to say it's not worth panicking when he's not even taken office yet. 

I think that is fair to say, but not fair to call anyone talking about what a disaster he has been even before taking office "panicking".

Also, I personally found it impossible to predict what would happen during the campaign, and my news sources haven't changed since then. So it's a good bet I don't know what he's going to do in office either. Maybe after we see him actually being in charge for a while.

That is not an unreasonable position to take for someone who was largely neutral before the election. Kind of grossly optimistic, but ok.

It is a bullshit position to take for people who have been cheerleading him for months, and are now demanding that those of us who have completely accurately predicted what a disaster he is "give him a chance" or "support the President".

[Valmy]

5.)  The US doesn't engage in a military intervention that results in a worse crisis than our intervention in Libya did.

We barely did anything in Libya and the place was already a fucking trainwreck, filled with tribal based civil war against a collapsing dictatorship. So I don't see how any crisis resulted that was not already underway.

But whatever. We are already being held responsible for Aleppo for not doing enough to stop it, or we did too much to cause it depending upon how exactly we are responsible for a situation we have barely anything to do with.

So based on the already existing standard us just standing around breathing oxygen will result in a crisis someplace.

[citizen k]

So based on the already existing standard us just standing around breathing oxygen will result in a crisis someplace.

That's the Ugly American Butterfly Effect.

[11B4V]

So based on the already existing standard us just standing around breathing oxygen will result in a crisis someplace.

That's the Ugly American Butterfly Effect.

Price of being #1. Even come January when we change our head coach. Even then, we won't turn into the Browns.

[Ed Anger]

We should do like the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Boycott the big game.

[grumbler]

Gentlemen how can we sit here and bicker amongst ourselves when we should be uniting against the common enemy?

The Judean People's Front?

Splitter!

[Jacob]

But whatever. We are already being held responsible for Aleppo for not doing enough to stop it, or we did too much to cause it depending upon how exactly we are responsible for a situation we have barely anything to do with.

Who is holding you responsible for Aleppo?

This is not a rhetorical question - I haven't been following the coverage that closely. I assume that American media to the degree that it's engaging with the situation in Aleppo is focusing the coverage on what the US has, could, and hasn't done? But other than (this assumed) American media navel gazing, is anyone else acting like the US is responsible?

[Eddie Teach]

Americans who want to take shots at Obama.

[CountDeMoney]

This is not a rhetorical question - I haven't been following the coverage that closely. I assume that American media to the degree that it's engaging with the situation in Aleppo is focusing the coverage on what the US has, could, and hasn't done? But other than (this assumed) American media navel gazing, is anyone else acting like the US is responsible?

It's coverage of a humanitarian crisis, being covered like a lot of other humanitarian crises, more so as it involves one of the most volatile regions in the world, and one of specific relevance to the United States.

[Syt]

The Chinese will give the drone back.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/17/politics/china-drone-donald-trump/index.html

China says it will transfer US drone; Trump slams Beijing over incident

Washington (CNN)China's defense ministry said Saturday that Chinese authorities have decided to return a US underwater drone it seized in international waters earlier in the week, saying the US had "hyped up" the issue.

Beijing's statement comes soon after President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on the matter, calling China's action "unprecedented."

"Upon confirming that the device was a US underwater drone, the Chinese side decided to transfer it to the US side in an appropriate manner," Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Sr. Col. Yang Yujun said. "China and the United States have been communicating about this process. It is inappropriate -- and unhelpful for a resolution -- that the US has unilaterally hyped up the issue. We express our regret over that."

The statement added that the US "has been frequently deploying ships and aircraft to conduct close-in surveillance and military surveys in waters facing China. China firmly opposes such acts and demands the US cease such activities. China will stay alert over relevant US activities and will take necessary measures to counter them."
Messages left with the Pentagon and State Department were not immediately returned Saturday morning.

The incident, the latest encounter in international waters in the South China Sea region, occurred earlier this week about 100 miles off the Philippine port at Subic Bay.

The USNS Bowditch had stopped in the water to pick up two underwater drones. At that point, a Chinese naval ship that had been shadowing the Bowditch put a small boat into the water. That small boat came up alongside and the Chinese crew took one of the drones.

The US got no answer from the Chinese on the radio when it said the drone was American property, a US defense official told CNN.

As they turned away, the Chinese did come up on the radio and indicated they were returning to their own operations.

US oceanographic research vessels are often followed in the water under the assumption they are spying. In this case, however, the drone was simply measuring ocean conditions, the official said.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said China had "unlawfully seized" the drone, calling for its immediate return. Saturday morning, Trump tweeted, "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act."

Trump initially tweeted that it was an "unpresidented" act, leading him to delete the message and retweet it with the correct spelling. 

Although it's unclear what the motivation was for the Chinese, the seizing of the drone comes on the heels of other provocative incidents that have happened since Trump received a congratulatory call from Taiwan's President, a violation of the US's agreement with China's "One China policy." China publicly voiced its disapproval of that incident and contacted the White House at the time.

"Unpresidented - The Trump Years"