What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[crazy canuck]

People still care what Niall Ferguson has to say?  I suppose it makes sense for Sam Harris to interview him.  They seem made for each other.

[frunk]

I think intelligence is the wrong angle to go about it.  I don't think he's particularly smart, but the problem isn't how intelligent he is.  The problem is Trump doesn't care about the country or the world for that matter.  He cares about his personal image, getting even with people he's felt have wronged him, his wealth, and getting to strut about like a dictator, roughly in that order.

[The Minsky Moment]

Theres a whole legion of pundits, writers and would be thinkers on the right doing this, sort of explaining Trump like hes not what he is, but what they imagine he could be or might be. It just seems shatteringly obvious that Trump is kind of an idiot, at best hes kind of an idiot.

Is it just me? Is my sense that Trumps a moron just wholly wrong? How are these people who have hitched their reputation to Trump going to look in four years or eight years?

For a certain kind of right-wing intellectual, Trump has become a kind of vessel of Hegelian world-spirit, that all sorts of ideas can be projected on.  They imagine complex schemes for diplomatic revolutions and domestic political refoundations and fashion an imaginary idiot savant 5D chess player as their partially witting architect.

The funny thing is that Trump does sort of incarnate Hegelian world-spirit, just that of the go-go materialist 1980s in which he publicly came of age.  The content of his ideas is always the same: "How can I personally benefit from this situation?"

[The Minsky Moment]

Separately,

How to respond to MAGA bullying: https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/hr3dgynlcuacm23qqm1zv12s2jf00gt0

(The repugnant thuggish letter to which it responded): https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/3pwl7cnnyfppu4mdzhqjzi7lf421hot0

How not to respond - the disgraceful silence of the top American law firms in response to Trump's bid to enforce executive attainders against two of their number (Covington and Perkins Coie) for the offense of representing Trump's political adversaries.

[Tamas]

What else is left on the right than Trump? Either he and his nihilistic destruction works or the Right of politics of the last decade or two will have been proven as a highly damaging dead end.

[Jacob]

On the topic of Trump-interpreters, I think the priesthood comparison is reasonably apt. The larger system needs a (semi-) coherent theory and narrative to function. Their role is to translate the incoherent stupidity and venal self-interest and construct a rational narrative so other members of the system can use it to relate to one and other while signaling ideological belonging (and maintaining their own narratives of reasonability and virtue).

Whether that narrative is consistent over time or coherent in detail is not important; what is important is that it is mutually understood by members of the system as they plan, communicate, and transact.

[Admiral Yi]

Sort of like the defund the police and from the river to the sea explainers.

[Jacob]

Sort of like the defund the police and from the river to the sea explainers.

There are some similarities, but some differences also IMO.

All groupings have a need for narratives and mechanisms for showing and maintaining alignment, so that's a similarity. And typically there'll be those who set themselves up as having special insight into explaining what's actually happening and why.

In terms of differences, in the Trump case, there is one singular yet inconsistent source of correctness that has to be continually aligned against; whereas in the two movements you mention there was no such individual source and the direction of the movements was more openly contested.

I'd also say that the contest over interpretation was more vicious when it came to being the interpreter for BLM and/or Defund the Police, because that role would start carrying authority of its own; this, I think, requires the explanations to be a little more consistent over time and internally coherent (though still subject to change). Conversely being the foremost Trump-Explainer doesn't carry any authority of its own, the Trump-Explainer needs to be ready to spin on a dime any moment Trump does something weird and different.

[mongers]

On the topic of Trump-interpreters, I think the priesthood comparison is reasonably apt. The larger system needs a (semi-) coherent theory and narrative to function. Their role is to translate the incoherent stupidity and venal self-interest and construct a rational narrative so other members of the system can use it to relate to one and other while signaling ideological belonging (and maintaining their own narratives of reasonability and virtue).

Whether that narrative is consistent over time or coherent in detail is not important; what is important is that it is mutually understood by members of the system as they plan, communicate, and transact.

Yes, that's a good viewpoint and makes me wonder if the best way to deal with Trump it to hear what he's doing in the news, and then entirely ignore any 'rationalisation' talking head BS that you've described.

[Zoupa]

Sort of like the defund the police and from the river to the sea explainers.

Sort of, except those 2 movements got nowhere near any sort of power and trump is POTUS.

So sort of like both a table and a horse have four legs.

[Admiral Yi]

Sort of, except those 2 movements got nowhere near any sort of power and trump is POTUS.

So sort of like both a table and a horse have four legs.

Except there is no moral or intellectual judgement applied to having four legs.

[Zoupa]

Sort of, except those 2 movements got nowhere near any sort of power and trump is POTUS.

So sort of like both a table and a horse have four legs.

Except there is no moral or intellectual judgement applied to having four legs.

Agreed, there isn't. I was just commenting on the weird (to me) juxtaposition. Sorry, I think I was being kind of an asshole.

[Barrister]

None of that applies to Canada.The very first thing you would see if Trump ordered an invasion would be a mass resignation on the part of officers who had no obligated service left, and the second would be a refusal of many soldiers to leave the barracks.  Yeah, the most MAGA of the MAGAts might be gun ho, but even they would think twice before risking their lives on a such a stupid mission.  The number of excuses for non-action would clog the communications channels.

In addition - as servile as the GOP Congress is, I don't think Trump can get a proper declaration of war.  That wouldn't stop him for issuing orders to generals, but it would fuel the mass of resignations and lower morale further.  The US would also be hit by sanctions from the EU.

If the political goal is to incorporate Canada into the United States, it's not enough to simply roll the Rangers into Toronto and Montreal.  Proper administrations would need to be set up with lots of civil servant types to do the bureaucratic work.  Assuming only a limited number of native quislings are available to cooperate in that work, it's a real problem (Trump and MAGA are not extremely popular now with the kinds of people with experience in running a proper US style civil administration). 

A Canadian government in exile or operating from the interior could continue to issue administrative orders and direct tax payments etc. and the invading forces would need a strong civil and miliary presence throughout the country to counteract that.  It would require a massive, continuing and ruinously expensive deployment with no natural base of domestic support.  Because occupying forces would need to be spread out, they would be vulnerable to hit and run tactics, insurgent efforts, and simple civil disobedience.  It would be a shit show.

So look - as much as it warms the cockles of my Canuckistani heart to imagine a Red Dawn-style insurgency of hockey players taking to the mountains to fight the American invaders...

Iraq or Afghanistan barely had functioning governments prior to the US invasion.  As such most of the inhabitants had very little positive interactions with their own government, and could thus survive almost entirely outside of the official public sphere.

Canada is not Iraq or Afghanistan.  We have a highly advanced government sector.  People rely on schools, hospitals almost daily.

The US could occupy Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary within 24 hours.  If they walked in and said "look, all government salaries will be paid, things will continue as normal" - I kind of think Canadians will go along with that.

There may well be civil disobedience and low grade resistance.  Maybe there's a Canadian Government-in-exile in London or Paris, but the idea of some massive Iraqi-level insurgency seems unfortunately fanciful.

[Syt]

https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations

Trump's FBI Moves to Criminally Charge Major Climate Groups
The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.

The FBI is moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration.

Citibank revealed in a court filing Wednesday that it was told to freeze the groups' bank accounts at the FBI's request. The reason? The FBI alleges that the groups are involved in "possible criminal violations," including "conspiracy to defraud the United States."

"The FBI has told Citibank that recipients of EPA climate grants are being considered as potentially liable for fraud. That is, the Trump administration wants to criminalize work on climate science and impacts," the @capitolhunters account wrote Wednesday on X. "An incoming administration not only cancels federal grants but declares recipients as criminals. All these grantees applied under government calls FOR ENVIRONMENTAL WORK, were reviewed and accepted. Trump wants to jail them."

The Appalachian Community Capital Corporation, the Coalition for Green Capital, and the DC Green Bank are just some of the nonprofits being targeted.

"This is not fraud. This is targeted harassment," @capitolhunters continued. "The idea of criminalizing community climate work wouldn't have originated at the FBI—it likely comes from EPA director Lee Zeldin, who today cut all EPA's environmental justice offices, which try to reduce pollution in poor and minority communities."

Zeldin's order eliminates 10 EPA regional offices as well as the headquarters in Washington, D.C.

[Jacob]

So look - as much as it warms the cockles of my Canuckistani heart to imagine a Red Dawn-style insurgency of hockey players taking to the mountains to fight the American invaders...

Iraq or Afghanistan barely had functioning governments prior to the US invasion.  As such most of the inhabitants had very little positive interactions with their own government, and could thus survive almost entirely outside of the official public sphere.

Canada is not Iraq or Afghanistan.  We have a highly advanced government sector.  People rely on schools, hospitals almost daily.

The US could occupy Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary within 24 hours.  If they walked in and said "look, all government salaries will be paid, things will continue as normal" - I kind of think Canadians will go along with that.

There may well be civil disobedience and low grade resistance.  Maybe there's a Canadian Government-in-exile in London or Paris, but the idea of some massive Iraqi-level insurgency seems unfortunately fanciful.

I think the more apt comparisons are going to be European nations under Nazi occupation (which varied a fair bit), and Fenian and IRA resistance to British rule.