What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[PJL]

Trump first time round was a tragedy. Trump second time round will be a farce.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

So TikTok is available again and when you get on it greets you with message crediting Trump for its restoration. 

Not even inaugurated and already presenting his butt-cheeks to Xi...

[Maladict]

Trump first time round was a tragedy. Trump second time round will be a farce.

Let's hope so. Farces typically don't start WW3.

[HVC]

Trump first time round was a tragedy. Trump second time round will be a farce.

Let's hope so. Farces typically don't start WW3.

I mean a Serbian starting WWI because of a web of alliances was pretty farcical.

[PRC]

He's realised his fans want to keep giving him money well beyond the constraints of normal campaigns. I quite liked one journalist saying it's Taylor Swift pumping out new versions and editions and physical artifacts of her music because her fans want to keep spending on her.

Kind of backs up all of the "it's a cult" label thrown at Trump supporters.  Maybe more akin to brand evangelism... I'll only buy Apple or drink coca-cola vibe.

Another conspiratorial take.  Memecoin rug pulls could be a way to move money from one party to another without any oversight at all.  Need to bribe Trump or his insiders?   Make the deal with them, drop the money into a memecoin before the pull, the insiders conduct the rug pull and take their money out.

[Tamas]

Best comment I have seen on Trump's morning church visit:

[Sheilbh]

Kind of backs up all of the "it's a cult" label thrown at Trump supporters.  Maybe more akin to brand evangelism... I'll only buy Apple or drink coca-cola vibe.

Yeah I think it's interesting that "cult" language has been used around, particularly poop fandoms as well and I think there's something in that and in the brand identity - Apple and Jobs, or Coke, or, for that matter, Musk.

Because I think, in part, that's what it's about: identity. There's something expressive and libidinal in supporting Trump, in going to a Trump rally, in buying the merch, getting the memecoin. I think the language of grift and con doesn't quite get it because I think people know exactly what they're getting - just like Swifties or fanatics for x team. And they know what they're not getting but it's expressing something that is "theirs". I think it's possibly why other politicians on the right have not been able to harness the same forces whether you look at Desantis or Masters or other Trumpy candidates - I suspect what matters, when it comes to it, will be annointment of a successor (and then dissatisfaction with them etc) not a challenge. There's a double consciousness of both knowing you're being exploited in some way and expressing yourself through that (I think there's a wider point that this is the trick of social media which we sort of know: that it is the tool for expressing "ourselves" but it is simultaneously monetising that - the way to be "ourselves" is exactly the same way to earn Meta billions).

And I'm not sure it's just Trump. A lot of this maps onto my experience of Corbyn fans who were not interested in the institutional, old politics party structures but in their backing for one man - his critics call this the "magic grandpa" stuff. That Corbyn represented the one good man In British and Labour politics (I don't think it's a surprise that there's been some clips of former Corbyn supports now backing Reform) who would, to nick a phrase, drain the swamp. I think it's there in Melenchon, perhaps Sanders - I think the centrist version was (perhaps is) Macron. All, in one way or another, outsiders who will through their own personality and support smash the constraints of the old (however dignosed). I think you even see signs of this in the US among Democrats with the weird cargo cults around, say, RBG or, I think, Clinton as if the politics is not aiming at producing politics but career arcs for individuals that end in redemption. (Edit: And the thing that is missing from that narrative is collective politics - the work of organising and campaigning and canvassing.)

I think Trump is riding the wave (and is masterful at it) to an extent but we're moving from politics as an organised collective through contested democratic structures with an agenda to something that is more personalist, more expressive, more about an attachment from who you are to who someone else is.

[Richard Hakluyt]

BTW I see that bloody fool Musk is now in a feud with the WoW ypoutuber Asmongold 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/01/16/elon-musk-vs-asmongold-the-gaming-feud-explained/

Will Trump get pissed off at Musk getting too much attention and dump him? Or is he cunning enough to retain Musk as Musk's ridiculous antics make Trump look more statesmanlike?

[Syt]

The whole thing is ridiculous (I posted a video in the POE2 thread). Though I see comments along the lines of, "If he's lying about this, what else is he lying about?" It also seems to prove once more that on subjects where he sees himself as expert he seems to have little clue about the topic once actual experts talk to him.

This video has a decent high level summary of Musk's "Gaming Lies" going back to his old claims of having been a "world class Quake player."

https://youtu.be/Y44I6dwm1XE

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Can't imagine asmongold reaching internation press like that was on his bingocard for 2025

[Barrister]

So Trump is NOT ordering tariffs on Day One - rather is telling agencies to investigate how to deal with trade imbalances.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-tariffs-canada-first-day-1.7435957

So - good?

[Syt]

@crazy_ivan80

What I've seen on video of him over the past years made him look like a not very smart person, though not sure how much of that is an act. Though I did see a video where he gave some other streamers a tour of his absolute filth pit he calls "home."

[Grey Fox]

Hopefully, this only last 4 years.

[Admiral Yi]

So Trump is NOT ordering tariffs on Day One - rather is telling agencies to investigate how to deal with trade imbalances.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-tariffs-canada-first-day-1.7435957

So - good?

I think a good way to frame the crazy policy proposals that come out of Trump's mouth is as a perverted version of the standard political practice of running it up the flagpole and seeing if everyone salutes. If everyone salutes it's policy,  if they don't it was just a joke and we can laugh at the librul tears. That's why I'm confident we're not going to invade Greenland.

[The Brain]

"Gulf of America"

Sorry Americans, your country is made of stupid.