President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

Bobeagleburger

Trump is out of his depth and he's only 4 months in the job.

Wanderer78

BlinkingLights wrote:

The GOP needs to wake up and impeach him.

Ah they'll 'get' him eventually, it's clear he's not wanted, disturbing to watch though

Akrasia

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

This is what you could label as a tipping point, all coming to an end now one would assume. Below is probably the most accurate and believable story concerning the leaks and something I feared for a long time both about the leaks and his own mental health. The way he talks in 3rd person, the way he says things like "I'm like a smart person" and so on. In recent months it's become more and more evident. The writer below isn't some unknown, he's been on the networks all day and the media attacks, in the end, are proving too big a burden and creating too much pressure to overcome and hide his mistakes and personality traits.

http://theresurgent.com/i-know-one-of-the-sources/

Trump has proven to be insecure and desperately reliant on ratings and public perception, so much so he refuses to accept criticism from people who want him to succeed and his own unrelenting drive to look good and feed his insecurity is destroying his Presidency. The pressure has gotten so much he can no longer coherently speak clearly and his interviews have become embarrassing even for Trump supporters. This wasn't always the case, he was solid in the second and third debate etc but I fear coaching ala Farage may have been the reason for that.

I still believe the whole Russia collusion angle is for the most part fabricated, but it's a tactic that has worked well for the Democrats, and in my eyes questions remain over who provided Wikileaks the emails, but at this point that's almost a totally separate topic and it seems no longer needed to bring a sinking ship down. Defiant defenders of his like Gingrich tones have changed, no longer is it joking and laughing at the media but a very sombre tone as in he needs to keep his mouth shut.

I do think he has good intentions for the US but he's unable to execute them due to his own flaws. I hope he gets past this and can get over his own need for attention and approval,but it's hard to see that happening now. Whatever happens it's going to be one hell of a ride and everything is going to come out on both sides, love him or hate him it's been thoroughly entertaining.

I'm glad you've finally realised how unstable the man is, but realise, there isn't anything new. He's been acting this way from the very start.

You should use this experience as an opportunity to reevaluate your trusted sources of news and the way you assess information.

Trump's shortcomings weren't discrete, they were out in the open. It took a lot more mental gymnastics to overlook them than to just take him on face value.

Itssoeasy

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

In fairness, the media have been gunning at him for a long time, long before he won. It's not hard to look around and find daily examples of sheer animosity towards him, they're all in at this point. They want nothing more than to take him down, it's been that way since he won the nomination, just lately its gone way up in hatred, Trump hasn't done himself any favours.

I say that interaction on CNN live. Kate bouldaun wasn't just going to sit there and let the guy **** all over the sources that broke the story. The guy made a tit of himself.

Akrasia

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Ah they'll 'get' him eventually, it's clear he's not wanted, disturbing to watch though

Impeachment is an increasingly likely outcome now.
Assuming it starts, two really important questions remain.

How much more damage will he do before the impeachment process is completed,

And how many people in the GOP will he drag down with him?

Hank Scorpio

Akrasia wrote: »

You should use this experience as an opportunity to reevaluate your trusted sources of news and the way you assess information.

more mental gymnastics to overlook them than to just take him on face value.

That's not entirely fair and I see it more as a personal insult criticising my ability to differentiate between two individual candidates and what they represented at the time, both of which were heavily flawed, I never claimed him to be perfect. The last 2 months it's clear to me there's been a shift in how he carries himself, the interviews recently on NBC and Fox were flat out embarrassing and it's gotten to a point I can no longer defend him. I gave him a fair chance but he's destroying himself.

Firing Comey knowing he had massive dirt is incredibly wreckless and for someone of Trump's supposed intellect allowing him to stay one step ahead and outsmart people, he's likely just put the final nail in his presidency.

Leroy42

Maybe instead of looking at it as some loving HC media bias, maybe the MSM, with its years of experience of reporting on the WH and celebrities could see exactly what kind of person Trump was and that he wasn't even remotely fit for the office.

The media tried to warn the US people, but many chose to see this as bias and used this as an excuse for everything that was wrong about Trump.

In a race between two, one which is totally unqualified and unfit for office is it not correct that the media try to highlight these flaws?

And I don't agree that there has been a shift in how he carries himself. As Prof mentioned, maybe the thread title should be renamed to "unsurprising". All that has happened is that the flaws have been thrown into focus. His inability to understand things, his lack of trust in others, his inability to accept criticism, his need to attack others as a form of defense, his lack of tact, his lack of desire to get the facts, his casualness with the truth, his lack of humility, his inability to accept that others have anything to offer.

The signs were all there, you needed to ignore them or at least hope that he would change in order to believe he would be anything other than a disaster. Of course there is always the possibility to it will come good, but all the evidence suggested that it was a long shot bet.

And where do you get this 'supposed intellect' from? I have seen nothing that would lead me to think that this man is anything above average. This is the type of nonsense that is trotted as as some form of excuse. Like Ivanka is some sort of business genius when in fact they have been given every possible advantage and still managed to make a mess of things. The cards were stacked in their favour, and even when things went wrong, the deck was reshuffled for them.

Wanderer78

Hank Scorpio wrote:

Firing Comey knowing he had massive dirt is incredibly wreckless and for someone of Trump's supposed intellect allowing him to stay one step ahead and outsmart people, he's likely just put the final nail in his presidency.

He's actually not very intelligent at all, that's been evident for many years now. I'm amazed of the amount of people that have been fooled by him. The American political system is in serious trouble now

listermint

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

That's not entirely fair and I see it more as a personal insult criticising my ability to differentiate between two individual candidates and what they represented at the time, both of which were heavily flawed, I never claimed him to be perfect. The last 2 months it's clear to me there's been a shift in how he carries himself, the interviews recently on NBC and Fox were flat out embarrassing and it's gotten to a point I can no longer defend him. I gave him a fair chance but he's destroying himself.

Firing Comey knowing he had massive dirt is incredibly wreckless and for someone of Trump's supposed intellect allowing him to stay one step ahead and outsmart people, he's likely just put the final nail in his presidency.

Sorry Hank, It is entirely fair to question someones ability to differentiate between 2 starkly different candidates. I think its fair to ask where you are getting your source information from and also the level of trust you put into it.

The fact you put in 'intellect' in relation to Trump into your response above is a footer in this lesson. Having followed this man for nearly the last decade, with his escapade in Scotland with a very personal and vindictive battle with a local Farmer over again ' a wall' and seeing his live inteviews at the time about the matter it is evidently clear that the man is a narcissist and came across as a bumbling fool most of the time.

So please, if someone questions the ability to differentiate between him and clinton its very apt to as where you are getting your source information from.

It coming home to roost. Most of us could see it all along, Some of us have seen it for years. Some chose to ignore it via some vendetta against the mainstream media and tagging some liberal nonsense onto it for good measure.

Hank Scorpio

Leroy42 wrote: »

In a race between two, one which is totally unqualified and unfit for office is it not correct that the media try to highlight these flaws?

Both were unqualified or unfit for different reasons. I'm just trying to give my point of view and as I've mentioned before with the media, they were working with the DNC to get HRC elected. I uploaded the PDF below directly from Podesta email #5953 as an example.

https://www.scribd.com/document/348604524/Event-Memo-Benensons-OTR-1

This is neither here or there since it doesn't matter anymore, my opinion on the media and the Russia collusion narrative won't change. What matters is Trump and that's he's in big trouble which I think now has gotten to the point that it's unrecoverable. This week is going to be very telling, if his foreign trip gets postponed we'll know the proverbial shít is hitting the fan.

johnnyskeleton

Kitsunegari wrote: »

Not only reading the post but understand it too. That might be the difficulty.

Mod note:

Less sarky comments like this please.

ThisRegard

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Firing Comey knowing he had massive dirt is incredibly wreckless and for someone of Trump's supposed intellect allowing him to stay one step ahead and outsmart people, he's likely just put the final nail in his presidency.

I don't think his intellect or ability to outsmart has ever been seen as skills he possesses.

BabyCheeses

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

That's not entirely fair and I see it more as a personal insult criticising my ability to differentiate between two individual candidates and what they represented at the time, both of which were heavily flawed, I never claimed him to be perfect. The last 2 months it's clear to me there's been a shift in how he carries himself, the interviews recently on NBC and Fox were flat out embarrassing and it's gotten to a point I can no longer defend him. I gave him a fair chance but he's destroying himself.

Firing Comey knowing he had massive dirt is incredibly wreckless and for someone of Trump's supposed intellect allowing him to stay one step ahead and outsmart people, he's likely just put the final nail in his presidency.

There has been no shift. Trump has always acted like this, it has just become more difficult to claim people are only negative about him due to some media conspiracy.

Nobody who has been paying attention is surprised.

Christy42

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

I am curious as to how low he can go without the GOP completely rebelling. Note this is an average of polls weighted over time so it is a little slow to react to news but is good at avoiding outliers. You can see the steady decrease from the Comey firing to his lowest point which is right now at -14.2% net approval. (You can also see the slight bump from Syria a while back).


With the current news cycles it seems likely to drop further.

As for Hank, I have disagreed with that poster plenty on these board over Trump but it takes something to admit that things did not work out as you expected or someone was not the person you thought. It is absolutely something that should be respected and I feel continuing the argument after they have admitted it has not worked out seems petty.

Hank Scorpio

listermint wrote: »

It coming home to roost. Most of us could see it all along, Some of us have seen it for years. Some chose to ignore it via some vendetta against the mainstream media and tagging some liberal nonsense onto it for good measure.

The mainstream media also predicted he had no chance to win, I don't take their word as gospel because for the most part it's agenda driven. When a political party can phone up the heads of major news networks in America complaining about unfriendly stories that signifies a massive problem.

Off topic now so I'm not going to talk about the media anymore, he's given them enough fuel to work with lately and the heat is fully deserved.

Wanderer78

Christy42 wrote:

As for Hank, I have disagreed with that poster plenty on these board over Trump but it takes something to admit that things did not work out as you expected or someone was not the person you thought. It is absolutely something that should be respected and I feel continuing the argument after they have admitted it has not worked out seems petty.

Another note to hanks posts, I'm also glad you're coming around, I certainly won't criticise you for supporting trump to date, in the words of noam chomsky, trump is a conman, and has done exactly that to get to the white house. The Vail is slipping, let's hope the American people don't react violently to this realisation

Hank Scorpio

BabyCheeses wrote: »

There has been no shift. Trump has always acted like this, it has just become more difficult to claim people are only negative about him due to some media conspiracy.

Nobody who has been paying attention is surprised.

There has been, compare his interviews during the campaign to now, there's a massive difference in his demeanour. He looks like a broken man and sounds like an incoherent fool. Any confidence he had is gone.

jooksavage

It will be interesting to see how this thing starts up again when the east coast wakes up. I find it hard to believe that Trump is in danger of impeachment with wimps like Paul Ryan in the house.

However it certainly seems like the best worst option for the republicans now - they'll still have President Pence for the next 3&1/2 years. By all indications he'll be more than happy to push the Ryan-McConnell agenda. They would lose the alt-right/Breitbart/Infowars contingent but it's not like those guys are going to swing to Dems so they probably don't care.

Wanderer78

jooksavage wrote:

However it certainly seems like the best worst option for the republicans now - they'll still have President Pence for the next 3&1/2 years. By all indications he'll be more than happy to push the Ryan-McConnell agenda. They would lose the alt-right/Breitbart/Infowars contingent but it's not like those guys are going to swing to Dems so they probably don't care.

Sadly it sounds like he could be worse

Peregrinus

jooksavage wrote: »

It will be interesting to see how this thing starts up again when the east coast wakes up.

They'll have another story to get their teeth into. Reportedly, in between asking Comey for a declaration of personal loyalty and suggesting that he supress the investigation of Flynn, Trump asked Comey to consider jailing journalists who publish classified information.

Hank Scorpio

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Another note to hanks posts, I'm also glad you're coming around, I certainly won't criticise you for supporting trump to date, in the words of noam chomsky, trump is a conman, and has done exactly that to get to the white house. The Vail is slipping, let's hope the American people don't react violently to this realisation

I think it's fair to say most politicians are conmen, he's just not as good or smooth enough at hiding the lies as the others. His policies on ISIS and his general anti PC approach were things I found appealing. That isn't an excuse, major mistakes were his attacks on the media and Intel agencies during and after the election, it's come back to bite him on the arse. Firing Comey at the time he did is perhaps the most idiotic and self damaging of the lot.

Leroy42

Yes Hank, no doubt his confidence is gone, but therein lies the truth. it was all bravado. No substance. A few buzzwords, a bit of racial hatred, the hatred of HC and the MSM. He utilised all of these to cover over the fact that he was not only unprepared for the role, but clearly not even particularly interested in getting prepared.

As has been mentioned, even a cursory review at the many biographies of past presidents would have given him some training, but there is not evidence that he did that (and you can bet if he did read a few he would have told everyone).

Its not about having a go at you or anybody else but being taken in and certainly it is rare that anybody on these forums ever even starts to acknowledge that their starting view point may need to change, but it is also important that one is honest as to how it happened.

Things have changed, the two candidates were equally unqualified etc. Clearly not true. HC had plenty of flaws, but by any measure she was far more qualified to be president. Whether she should have been is another matter of course.

Hank Scorpio

Peregrinus wrote: »

They'll have another story to get their teeth into. Reportedly, in between asking Comey for a declaration of personal loyalty and suggesting that he supress the investigation of Flynn, Trump asked Comey to consider jailing journalists who publish classified information.

They've already started proceedings for warrants to get Julian Assange. Whilst most here might disagree on the comparison between Wikileaks and "standard" news organisations, it still sets a damaging precedent that people publishing information they receive from sources can be prosecuted.

BabyCheeses

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

There has been, compare his interviews during the campaign to now, there's a massive difference in his demeanour. He looks like a broken man and sounds like an incoherent fool. Any confidence he had is gone.

Again, he has always sounded like an incoherent fool. I will give you broken, the reality of the situation has been hard on him but not surprising. Turns out inheriting money doesn't make a man smart, who would have thought.

What I don't get is people thinking that former Trump supporters have seen the light. You people still liked what Trump was saying, always defended him, and have only lost interest because he was an incompetent idiot who failed to follow through. The next person to propose the same will have you all lining up again while everyone else prepares for the same.

Hank Scorpio

BabyCheeses wrote: »

The next person to propose the same will have you all lining up again while everyone else prepares for the same.

Personal insults to point score are a revealing insight of a persons character. If you want a list of pros and cons for each candidate ( Trump + HRC ) it might take a while and end up being counter productive. The Clinton cash book is a decent place to start.

The Clinton's have been involved in dozens of scandals over the last couple of decades. Trump was new and worth a shot for some. So far it hasn't worked out, I'm ok with that.

ThisRegard

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

The Clinton's have been involved in dozens of scandals over the last couple of decades.

But so was Trump.

Call me Al

These personality faults have always been there. He has never displayed the correct temperament for this job. There is nothing new here other than the sheer scale of the mess he has created by himself.
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, in some respects, that he was largely ignorant of what he was doing. But his request for Sessions and Pence to leave the room for this private chat belies a large amount of premeditation on his part.
And possibly on the part of Sessions/Pence.
This conversation wasn't conjured out of thin air. He has to have been informed from someone/where as to what was obstruction and what wasn't.
How aware were they as to what was going to happen.

Akrasia

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Personal insults to point score are a revealing insight of a persons character. If you want a list of pros and cons for each candidate ( Trump + HRC ) it might take a while and end up being counter productive. The Clinton cash book is a decent place to start.

The Clinton's have been involved in dozens of scandals over the last couple of decades. Trump was new and worth a shot for some. So far it hasn't worked out, I'm ok with that.

Clnton was the establishment, Trump was a hand grenade. Hand grenade's tend to explode.

I was a huge sanders supporter but when that ship sailed, Clinton was infinitely better than Trump

Hank Scorpio

ThisRegard wrote: »

But so was Trump.

Not in a political sense. Don't get me wrong it's clear he's no choirboy either.

demfad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Both were unqualified or unfit for different reasons. I'm just trying to give my point of view and as I've mentioned before with the media, they were working with the DNC to get HRC elected. I uploaded the PDF below directly from Podesta email #5953 as an example.

https://www.scribd.com/document/348604524/Event-Memo-Benensons-OTR-1

This is neither here or there since it doesn't matter anymore, my opinion on the media and the Russia collusion narrative won't change. What matters is Trump and that's he's in big trouble which I think now has gotten to the point that it's unrecoverable. This week is going to be very telling, if his foreign trip gets postponed we'll know the proverbial shít is hitting the fan.

This is a campaign inviting media to a briefing about their launch, all campaigns do this.

The media spent 5 times more covering nothing emails like the above than Trumps extensive potentially criminal activities in money laundering involving various mafia, his and his teams clear ties to Russia and his history of sexual assault.
In coverage the media was massively pro-Trump. Most coverage of Trump was negative but that was ineviable given his despicable character and history.
Any decent investigative outfit could have easily taken him down. The claim that the media went hard on him is beyond ludicrous.