What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

If we have to admit that Trump successfully used Putin, thus getting one over on the KGB mastermind...that's a big score for The Donald, and reenforce the "Centipede" meme.

[Jacob]

Turns out Trump doesn't think NATO is obsolete right now.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that NATO is not obsolete, as he had declared on the campaign trail last year, but said NATO members still need to pay their fair share for the European security umbrella.

At a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump thanked NATO members for their support of his decision last Thursday to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack on civilians and said it was time to end Syria's civil war.

"I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said, adding that the Transatlantic alliance was adapting to the broader mission against Islamic militants that he had urged.

Stoltenberg said he had an excellent and productive meeting in the Oval Office with Trump.

That's a relief (for now). Let's hope it lasts.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-nato-not-obsolete-reversing-campaign-stance-202140818.html

[HVC]

So now that he endorses it it's going to fail right? Like everything else he endorses.

[Valmy]

Maybe Trump is learning a bit about how to be President. The news recently has not been completely embarrassing.

[jimmy olsen]

Two special elections so far.

Compared to the 2016 election
CA-34 was Dem +19
K-4 was Dem +22

You realize these elections mean jack shit for 2018, right?

2006 and 2010 waves were preceeded by special elections that pointed in the direction the electorate would take.

[jimmy olsen]

Longish article, but I thought it was pretty good.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/magazine/i-thought-i-understood-the-american-right-trump-proved-me-wrong.html?_r=0

I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong.

A historian of conservatism looks back at how he and his peers failed to anticipate the rise of the president.

...

[CountDeMoney]

Any theories as to what's going on with Trump and Russia now?  I see many possibilities:

1)  Trump realized that Putin isn't just a murderer, but also a bad guy.
2)  This is a complex KGB game to throw people off the trail.
3)  Trump used Putin and now dumped him.
4)  Trump realized that buddying up to Putin will require more political capital than he's willing or able to spend, and decided to give up on the idea.
5)  CIA has a pee pee tape featuring Trump and underage male prostitutes.

lol, oh please. Trump is incapable of possessing the self-awareness and cognitive skills necessary to "use" Putin.  Putin has already planned out the next dozen moves.  It's like watching Gary Kasparov playing a neonatal food disposal victim.

He has had months--MONTHS--to say something, anything negative about Putin and Russia, and he has refused; he has been the last holdout.   And now?  Because Ivanka doesn't like to see dead babies, do something about the dead babies, Daddy. 

His pathological inability to not only never admit when he is wrong but to dig in and double down on indefensible positions is exceeded only by the length of his FTL attention span.  Trump's irked with Russia this week.  Next week it will be different, depending on who tells him how to feel about it.

[CountDeMoney]

Maybe Trump is learning a bit about how to be President. The news recently has not been completely embarrassing.

I want you to get up from the computer, go over to the sofa, sit down, and think a bit about what you just typed. Then come back.

[Razgovory]

I'm with Seedy here.  Trump probably only had a vague idea that Putin supported him.  I imagine that Trump now resents Putin because it makes it look like his victory was undeserved.

[jimmy olsen]

We can only hope

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/852264083881680896

Dems outperformed prez lean by 18 or more in CA-34 & KS-04. Last two such overperformances in same cycle? 2006.

This would be the 2nd biggest landslide of all time

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/if-every-house-election-went-like-last-nights-dems-would-win-a-314-seat-house-majority-in-2018/article/2620082

If every House election went like last night's, Dems would win a 314-seat House majority in 2018


By David Freddoso (@freddoso) • 4/12/17 10:59 AM

There's a lot of talk today about what last night's Kansas special election means for the parties. Republican Ron Estes won comfortably in the race to replace former Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., but Democrats are taking heart in the fact that it really shouldn't have been a seven-point race. It gives them optimism for 2018, and rightly so.

There were all kinds of local factors involved in this race that probably make it different from the other ones coming up. For example, Estes is currently the incumbent State Treasurer in a state where a deeply unpopular Republican governor is blamed for ruining the state's finances. Republicans generally agree that Estes ran a miserable low-energy campaign. President Trump's election, whatever his approval rating is in that district, has definitely shifted all of the energy and enthusiasm toward his opponents. All of this suggests that in a low-turnout race, Democrats are going to do better here than usual, and also better than they might in other parts of the nation.

By the same token, it wouldn't have been sensible to expect Estes to win by 30 points, roughly the margin by which both Trump and Pompeo won the district in November. An open seat is different from an incumbent re-election, and the electorate that shows up in a special election is simply different from that of a general election.

However, in many instances since Trump won, partisan Democrats have demonstrated a level of enthusiasm above and beyond that of Republican partisans. This includes not just every special election, but also all of those town halls that left-wing activists keep packing so that they can shriek at their members of congress (in deep red districts, often) about "patriarchal privilege" and other concerns that perfectly normal people in Utah's third congressional district think about every day.

In special elections, and in midterms, the most active party tends to win, because turnout is simply lower than in presidential general elections. So Republicans have every reason to be alarmed by last night's outcome. They should be thinking about better ways to reach and mobilize their own voters more effectively.

Here's why: There will be a drop-off between the turnout in 2016 and the turnout in the coming (I think now three) competitive 2017 special House elections and the 2018 midterms. In last night's election, Republican turnout in Kansas-4 dropped off by 61 percent — which is to say, the number who voted for Estes was only 39 percent of the number who had voted for Pompeo in November. The Democrats, on the other hand, turned out a number of voters just over 70 percent of those who had voted for Daniel Giroux, Pompeo's opponent.

I ran a crude simulation with these numbers using Dave Wasserman's publicly available spreadsheet of the 2016 results. If turnout across all 435 districts followed this same pattern of partisan participation, then Democrats would win a 314-seat majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives next year.

Is that a realistic outcome? No, of course it isn't. But Democrats only need 218 seats to win the House majority, a pickup of 24. If Republicans keep doing what they've been doing, (fumbling on healthcare reform is a good example of what they've been doing) and fail to give their regular voters a reason to turn out and support them, then they're going to get a big enough shellacking that we might see a return to Speaker Pelosi in 2019.

[CountDeMoney]

What did The Federalist Papers say about electing a President, a man whose virtue transcends our own?  YOU NEVER GO FULL RETARD THAT'S WHAT IT FUCKING SAID

U.S. dollar drops sharply after Trump calls it 'too strong'

President Trump caused the U.S. dollar to slump Wednesday.

The dollar dropped 0.7%, a major move, after Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the dollar is "getting too strong."

"I think our dollar is getting too strong, and partially that's my fault because people have confidence in me," Trump said. "But that's hurting -- that will hurt ultimately."

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/12/news/economy/us-dollar-donald-trump-wsj/

Fucking asschimp.  Oh yeah, he's playing Putin alright.

[grumbler]

Maybe Trump is learning a bit about how to be President. The news recently has not been completely embarrassing.

I want you to get up from the computer, go over to the sofa, sit down, and think a bit about what you just typed. Then come back.

"What will historians call that era that started early in the Trump administration, when he realized that he had over-simplified America's problems and then carried out wise policies?"

"We will call that:  'Tuesday.'"

[FunkMonk]

God fucking damnit Donald don't fuck up my European vacation

[Josquius]

So Trump is backtracking on NATO being obsolete.

A case of him actually learning the facts now that he is in office and realising he was wrong?

[Tamas]

lol "its not obsolete now" I guess that's the closest we will ever get to him saying "I was wrong"