What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[HVC]

So some affordable medication bill failed because of dems voting against it? Your politics are weird down there.

[CountDeMoney]

"Russia will have much greater respect when I am president than when others were president. We are run by people who didn't know what they were doing."

Simon Says
Would we rather elect a 'whacko' than a woman?
By Roger Simon
POLITICO
01/11/17 05:51 PM EST

The anecdote is so perfect, so polished, so delicious that it doesn't matter if it is precisely true.

John F. Kennedy has been shot and killed, a moment that America can barely grasp. For months the stories in the media have one theme: What is wrong with America? How has democracy failed?

Though she could be tough as nails in print, the brilliant columnist Mary McGrory was personally shattered. Probably at some small, private, elegant, candlelit dinner, she turned to Kennedy aide Daniel Patrick Moynihan and said: "We'll never laugh again."

"Heavens, Mary, we'll laugh again," Moynihan replied. "It's just that we will never be young again."

It turned out to be true. Appalling acts of violence became everyday occurrences, and in that sense America was robbed of its youth and innocence.

But we still had our democracy. We still had our nation. We still had our laughter.

Anybody feel like laughing these days?

Donald Trump has been elected president not by a majority of American voters, but by the Electoral College. How much secret influence was used by foreign governments to sway American voters remains a mystery.

Racism, bigotry, sexism and intolerance all played major roles in the campaign. And we are now told Trump spoke to people's "anger" and the feeling that cultural elites had stolen the nation from them.

At his farewell address to the nation Tuesday night, President Barack Obama delivered one of his classic "we are all one country" speeches. It was solid, but it did not soar. We have heard it too many times.

"We remain the wealthiest, most powerful and most respected nation on Earth. Our youth, our drive, our diversity and openness, our boundless capacity for risk and reinvention mean that the future should be ours," Obama said to a crowd of 18,000 in Chicago's McCormick Place.

The future "should" be ours. He didn't say it will be. Our founders, Obama said, "knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity."

But do we? Does Trump's America feel that it rises and falls with Hillary and Bill's America? Or does it feel separate and abused, the object of jokes and derision?

And there are those on the left, especially women, who feel robbed once again. They believe Trump did not obtain his office honestly and yet there is no relief, no law, no remedy. He got almost 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, and yet he gets the Oval Office and she gets the ash heap of history.

As one Clinton stalwart said: "And yes, I learned a lesson — one of several out there — that America would rather elect a male whacko, bigot, serial groper who knows virtually nothing about matters domestic or foreign than elect a highly qualified woman."

On Wednesday, Trump had his first news conference in months. Its main takeaway is that he is unchanged. His news conferences are duplicates of his speeches: the jumbles of thought, streams of unconnected nouns and verbs, word salads.

"So, there's a great spirit going on right now. A spirit that many people have told me they've never seen before, ever," Trump said to the assembled reporters. "I said that I will be the greatest jobs producer that God ever created. ... And I've heard some of these bands over the years, they're incredible. We're going to have a very, very elegant day."

(He has switched midthought to his inaugural celebration. Transitions are not Trump's strong points. And he also wants to make sure to point out that those key states that gave him a victory in the Electoral College will be rewarded for it.)

"They are going to have lots of jobs and a lot of good news coming in," he says. "This election is something that with time — with time — will straighten things out."

Maybe, says Obama. "We are all in this together," he said Tuesday night. "We rise or fall as one."

But with one big condition: "Without some common baseline of facts; without a willingness to admit new information, and concede that your opponent is making a fair point, and that science and reason matter, we'll keep talking past each other, making common ground and compromise impossible."

Unfortunately, the America of talking past each other is the America that Trump is ushering in.

The Trump followers nurture their grievances. The progressives laugh up their sleeves at how crude they are.

In 2002, early on in the administration of President George W. Bush, radical professor and political scientist Michael Parenti said: "They're not stupid. You're stupid if you think they're stupid. You're stupid if you think your enemies are stupid.

"In the U.S., I can tell you, everybody is making jokes about how stupid George Bush is. I tell my fellow countrymen and women, I say, you know, we keep electing these stupid leaders, does this have any reflection on our intelligence?

"Ladies and gentleman, it's time we give less emphasis to how stupid these people supposedly are, and give more attention to how vicious and relentless and uncompromising they are."

Donald Trump said Wednesday: "Russia will have much greater respect when I am president than when others were president. We are run by people who didn't know what they were doing."

And as to allegations he engaged in bizarre sexual acts, he denies it. As proof, he reminds the press, almost casually, "I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way."

And soon the president of the United States, by the way.

We will, eventually, laugh again. But it may take a long time. And we will never be this young again.

Roger Simon is Politico's chief political columnist.

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/14/donald-trump-john-lewis-mlk-day-civil-rights

Donald Trump starts MLK weekend by attacking civil rights hero John Lewis

And he doubles down, of course:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/820425770925338624

Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!

[grumbler]

So some affordable medication bill failed because of dems voting against it? Your politics are weird down there.

Could you possibly be more vague?  Your comment almost reaches the threshold where someone could craft an intellectual response, and I know you'd prefer not to see that.

[Maladict]

[/quote]I can use all the help I can get![/quote]

That much is true, at least.

[Josephus]

Russia's greatest coup

http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/russias-american-coup/

[CountDeMoney]

So some affordable medication bill failed because of dems voting against it? Your politics are weird down there.

Could you possibly be more vague?  Your comment almost reaches the threshold where someone could craft an intellectual response, and I know you'd prefer not to see that.

He could be referring to Dubya's unfunded Medicare Prescription Act and its $500 billion price tag passed on to the seniors, which pretty much went down party lines. 

[viper37]

The good thing with a Trump presidency are all those SNL sketches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juF4VA1Imx0

[Admiral Yi]

The good thing with a Trump presidency are all those SNL sketches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juF4VA1Imx0

He's also a windfall for political cartoonists.

[DGuller]

Maybe the liberals should sketch less.  I've been wondering for a long time about the effect of liberal political comedy on politics.  To me it seems like political comedy releases the pressure that would've been better released on actually getting something done politically.  It also seems to make people generally more cynical in general, which is a very bad outcome in a democracy.

[garbon]

Maybe the liberals should sketch less.  I've been wondering for a long time about the effect of liberal political comedy on politics.  To me it seems like political comedy releases the pressure that would've been better released on actually getting something done politically.  It also seems to make people generally more cynical in general, which is a very bad outcome in a democracy.

So comedians should find new careers?

[CountDeMoney]

Maybe the liberals should sketch less.  I've been wondering for a long time about the effect of liberal political comedy on politics.  To me it seems like political comedy releases the pressure that would've been better released on actually getting something done politically.  It also seems to make people generally more cynical in general, which is a very bad outcome in a democracy.

American political comedy is a cherished national tradition going back to the Revolution.  So STFU, cossack lover.

[LaCroix]

American political comedy is a cherished national tradition going back to the Revolution.  So STFU, cossack lover.

I don't see how him wanting politics to be deathly serious makes him a cossack lover

[CountDeMoney]

American political comedy is a cherished national tradition going back to the Revolution.  So STFU, cossack lover.

I don't see how him wanting politics to be deathly serious makes him a cossack lover

You STFU too, Frenchie antisemite.

[LaCroix]

You STFU too, Frenchie antisemite.