Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VI

rossie1977

Grant Shaggy Self-confidence wrote: »

so trump gets no credit for the upturn in the economy but should get blame if it goes bust?

Economy has been on up-turn since 2010, at least if you look at three metrics ie stock market, gdp growth and unemployment. So far Trump hasn't done anything or not enough to alter the upward effects of any of three metrics. Trump should take credit for not messing things up.

And yes the blame would entirely fall on him were it to go bust. Would be akin to a pilot taking over from another half way through a 12 hour flight and crashing 3-4 hours into his shift.

George Bush inherited a booming economy in 2001. The economy stayed strong despite 9/11 right though to 2006 when Dow hit record numbers and unemployment remained low. Then economic crash happened...Bush took blame

Itssoeasy

TomOnBoard wrote: »

everlast75 wrote: »

You'd wonder why there weren't any further charges

Based on articles over the past week or so, I suspect that Barr has shut down some of the ongoing investigations, and the campaign finance one in the Trump Organisation was one of them

Surely that's not on the level ?

FartyBlartFast

FartyBlartFast wrote: »

I'll go out on a limb here and take a guess that the reason he thought you wanted him to start a new thread when posting about Trumps clear racism is the part where you said "Go start a Trump Racism thread if you need your Trump is a racist fix."

Could you clarify what you meant by that maybe? It could clear up the whole misunderstanding you two are having.

It's already been cleared up. I explained later on that I didn't mean it was off-topic here, just that if he's annoyed that the conversation diverged from racism, then he should start a thread specifically about it. Pretty basic.

He seems to still want the thread to focus on it. I don't really understand how you can discuss Trump's foreign policy and racism at the same time, but I gather that's generally what he wants.

everlast75

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Based on articles over the past week or so, I suspect that Barr has shut down some of the ongoing investigations, and the campaign finance one in the Trump Organisation was one of them

Trump did ask the temp AG to get someone in to control the SDNY before Barr's appointment.

Barr was then appointed around the time those investigations tapered off.

Stop moaning ffs

A pal of mine said it better

This is a good representation of data that I had encountered in disparate pieces, seen a trend in, and wanted to bring up here but was too lazy to collate for myself.

https://twitter.com/donnyferguson/status/1151591648796848129

The idea that “Trump was a dick before and he won, so being a dick now doesn’t matter” is so wildly incomplete a picture. He barely won against one of the most disliked candidates in modern history, after months of articles reassuring people that he’d never be as bad as his words suggested, after the FBI announced an investigation into his opponent, at a time when his unfavorability score with independents was 15 points higher than it’s been at any point in his presidency, and was almost 30 points higher than it is now.

TomOnBoard

everlast75 wrote: »

Trump did ask the temp AG to get someone in to control the SDNY before Barr's appointment.

Barr was then appointed around the time those investigations tapered off.

Prosecutors requested interviews with key Trump Organisation officials in January. Never followed up. No contact between them and Trump officials since. Case no longer being pursued as of now, hence court ordered documents released.

hill16bhoy

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Based on articles over the past week or so, I suspect that Barr has shut down some of the ongoing investigations, and the campaign finance one in the Trump Organisation was one of them

Barr is a highly corrupt individual, he could barely be more corrupt and brazen about what he does, I mean he completely lied about the Mueller report.

That he's going around just shutting down investigations, and I've absoutely no doubt he is, just how the US's institutions have proved totally inadequate to deal with the threat of Trump-style fascism.

everlast75

hill16bhoy wrote: »

Barr is a highly corrupt individual, he could barely be more corrupt and brazen about what he does, I mean he completely lied about the Mueller report.

That he's going around just shutting down investigations, and I've absoutely no doubt he is, just how the US's institutions have proved totally inadequate to deal with the threat of Trump-style fascism.

Makes you wonder about the ending of the Mueller probe

everlast75

https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1151901343826743296?s=19

Feedback must be that the chanting went too far, so Trump lies to try clean it up.

Stop moaning ffs

So there is actually someone controlling the Donald or at least making him listen
That’s kinds more worrying than anything. The hard reverse from calling the crowd ‘great people’ on twitter into ‘I don’t agree with them’ is neckbreaking
This
https://twitter.com/mzanona/status/1151887463251623937


Turned into this. Mere hours after he called the crowd ‘great people’

https://twitter.com/stevenportnoy/status/1151897646799495168

Christy42

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It's already been cleared up. I explained later on that I didn't mean it was off-topic here, just that if he's annoyed that the conversation diverged from racism, then he should start a thread specifically about it. Pretty basic.

He seems to still want the thread to focus on it. I don't really understand how you can discuss Trump's foreign policy and racism at the same time, but I gather that's generally what he wants.

You can't see how racism and dealing with people (not all of whom are white) from foreign countries might be linked?

I would I would prefer it not to be ignored by one side entirely as opposed to requiring the debate to focus on it.

hill16bhoy

DreamsBurnDown wrote: »

What's being lost a little in all of this is that Trump is now unwittingly helping Democrats chances in 2020. To win the national election you must not alone get your own vote out but also appeal to enough Independents, obviously in particular in swing states. This weeks events has turned off a lot of Independents, and mobilized Democrats. Trump's base simply isn't enough to win an election.

It also exposes that Trump is unable to execute tactically on what could have been a winning strategy in a good economy. Painting the progressive wing of the Democrats as extreme and endangering the economy may well have worked, if executed by someone with nuance, but Trump doesn't do nuance.

Make no mistake, this has seriously damaged his chances in 2020, Democrats need to unite and take advantage. The sooner the field of 20 candidates is whittled down to single digits the better.

And the longer Pelosi sits around on her ass and ridicules people calling for the impeachment of Trump, and appears to reserve more of her ire for the Democratic congresswomen of colour than she does for Trump, the more she alienates the Democratic base, who are far more likely to be alienated and not campaign or turn out to vote than the Republican base, who resemble a flock of rabid sheep in their reliability to go to the polls.

If Pelosi carries on this strategy, she is driving people away from the Democratic party.

To win swing states the grass roots needs to be energised to its fullest. Trump will do some of that work for the Democrats, but they can't just rely on that.

A decent presidential candidate would clearly help in that regard - Warren in my view would be clearly the best choice not just on policy but in terms of having broad appeal and energising the whole of the party the most - and also because she's not playing to a cowardly Pelosi-style "4D chess strategy" that merely hands the initiative to Trump. She's setting her own agenda and has driven the debates on the Democratic side so far in a way no other candidate has, even Bernie.

Biden would be the worst choice in that regard and alienate a lot of the progressive grass roots who are vital. He's a foot in mouth merchant and some of the things he's come out with lately nearly make you think he's in the wrong party - but irrespective of the candidate, the party in Congress needs to be seen to be doing its bit and currently it simply isn't doing that - the leadership threatens to drive away the very same progressive grass roots that made the 2018 mid-term landslide a possibility.

If you get power and do nothing with it and do nothing to stand up to Trump, it will likely have a very disspiriting, energy sapping effect.

In the mid-terms, several Democratic senators in swing states rejected the progressive grass roots - the very people who win campaigns on the ground - and ran terrible low energy campaigns, and unsurprisingly lost heavily. McCaskill in Missouri, Donnelly in Indiana, Bredesen a non-incumbent going for a vacant seat in Tennessee was another. There's a big lesson there. Deliberately alienate progressives, and you will lose.

Very few, if any people are going to be driven away from Trump by this latest vile, racist outburst, because in reality it's very little different to the many that have gone before.

The question here is how many people will actually drift over to him because they're prepared to put up with all that abhorrent stuff, because hey, the economy, the same economy that is heading for a popped bubble and a crash sooner or later due to the Republicans repeating the same proven terrible artificial sugar high policies that caused the last crash.

There is in my view a good posssibility of a significant shy Trump effect, and then there's the voter suppression and the possible vote rigging to think of.

hill16bhoy

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

So there is actually someone controlling the Donald or at least making him listen
That’s kinds more worrying than anything. The hard reverse from calling the crowd ‘great people’ on twitter into ‘I don’t agree with them’ is neckbreaking

He'll doubtless double back harder again in no time, the same as he did with the neo-Nazis being "very fine people", the way he does with everything else.

nw5iytvs0lf1uz

rossie1977 wrote: »

Economy has been on up-turn since 2010, at least if you look at three metrics ie stock market, gdp growth and unemployment. So far Trump hasn't done anything or not enough to alter the upward effects of any of three metrics. Trump should take credit for not messing things up.

And yes the blame would entirely fall on him were it to go bust. Would be akin to a pilot taking over from another half way through a 12 hour flight and crashing 3-4 hours into his shift.

George Bush inherited a booming economy in 2001. The economy stayed strong despite 9/11 right though to 2006 when Dow hit record numbers and unemployment remained low. Then economic crash happened...Bush took blame

The Dow is nearing 27000. In 2010 it wasn’t even 12000 and in 2007 just over 14000
At its lowest in 2009 it was just over 6000
You explain to me how that metric proves your point and not mine

hill16bhoy

everlast75 wrote: »

Makes you wonder about the ending of the Mueller probe

These things are rarely coincidences.

For me Mueller is too institutionalised and proceduralised to speak out in a meaningful way about what likely went on.

The thing is, Mueller actually knows his onions and knows the nature of what is going on regarding the criminal enterprises that are currently running the US and Russian regimes, as his 2011 "Iron Triangle" speech shows.

https://millennialpolitics.co/robert-muellers-iron-triangle-speech-in-full/

I think that institutional and procedural nature of his was a big weakness when it came his lack of speaking out about his report.

Let's not speak too soon, but I wouldn't expect him to come out with any blockbusters presuming his Congress testimony goes ahead next week.

But for all that, his report was still a clear referral for impeachment, and Pelosi still does nothing, in fact she goads and ridicules those who are rightly calling for impeachment, a truly terrible strategy and basically an insult to democracy and the job of holding corruption of power to real account.

Danzy

hill16bhoy wrote: »

And the longer Pelosi sits around on her ass and ridicules people calling for the impeachment of Trump, and appears to reserve more of her ire for the Democratic congresswomen of colour than she does for Trump, the more she alienates the Democratic base, who are far more likely to be alienated and not campaign or turn out to vote than the Republican base, who resemble a flock of rabid sheep in their reliability to go to the polls.

If Pelosi carries on this strategy, she is driving people away from the Democratic party.

To win swing states the grass roots needs to be energised to its fullest. Trump will do some of that work for the Democrats, but they can't just rely on that.

A decent presidential candidate would clearly help in that regard - Warren in my view would be clearly the best choice not just on policy but in terms of having broad appeal and energising the whole of the party the most - and also because she's not playing to a cowardly Pelosi-style "4D chess strategy" that merely hands the initiative to Trump. She's setting her own agenda and has driven the debates on the Democratic side so far in a way no other candidate has, even Bernie.

Biden would be the worst choice in that regard and alienate a lot of the progressive grass roots who are vital. He's a foot in mouth merchant and some of the things he's come out with lately nearly make you think he's in the wrong party - but irrespective of the candidate, the party in Congress needs to be seen to be doing its bit and currently it simply isn't doing that - the leadership threatens to drive away the very same progressive grass roots that made the 2018 mid-term landslide a possibility.

If you get power and do nothing with it and do nothing to stand up to Trump, it will likely have a very disspiriting, energy sapping effect.

In the mid-terms, several Democratic senators in swing states rejected the progressive grass roots - the very people who win campaigns on the ground - and ran terrible low energy campaigns, and unsurprisingly lost heavily. McCaskill in Missouri, Donnelly in Indiana, Bredesen a non-incumbent going for a vacant seat in Tennessee was another. There's a big lesson there. Deliberately alienate progressives, and you will lose.

Very few, if any people are going to be driven away from Trump by this latest vile, racist outburst, because in reality it's very little different to the many that have gone before.

The question here is how many people will actually drift over to him because they're prepared to put up with all that abhorrent stuff, because hey, the economy, the same economy that is heading for a popped bubble and a crash sooner or later due to the Republicans repeating the same proven terrible artificial sugar high policies that caused the last crash.

There is in my view a good posssibility of a significant shy Trump effect, and then there's the voter suppression and the possible vote rigging to think of.

Biden does well with working class America. He can close the class divide between the progressives and the working class blue collar Dems.

Don't make the mistake in thinking the party activist and the voter base are always near enough the same.

Pelosi knows impeachment is a waste of time and ensure Trumps re-election. Pelosi only cares about putting a Dem in the White House.

BonnieSituation

Grant Shaggy Self-confidence wrote: »

The Dow is nearing 27000. In 2010 it wasn’t even 12000 and in 2007 just over 14000
At its lowest in 2009 it was just over 6000
You explain to me how that metric proves your point and not mine

And you tell me why that is the only metric that seems to prove that "TRump is winning the economy"?

Stock markets rise over time. Always. This is why pensions are in them.

Trump supporters going on about the stock market and their record highs are as bad as brexiters going on about trade deals and trade policy. And with as much coherence

Danzy

BonnieSituation wrote: »

And you tell me why that is the only metric that seems to prove that "TRump is winning the economy"?

Stock markets rise over time. Always. This is why pensions are in them.

Trump supporters going on about the stock market and their record highs are as bad as brexiters going on about trade deals and trade policy. And with as much coherence

Look by any metric the US economy is doing great.

Is it perfect, no.

relax carry on

Just another day at the office for this Presidency.

Trump directly involved in talks that led to Stormy Daniels payment, FBI says.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/18/trump-hope-hicks-stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-fbi


It really doesn't matter anymore what he does as there so many scandals, you just don't know what to focus on. Each one of these should damage him but his hard core supporters just shrug it off. That's the biggest problem for me. His supporters will still be there after he's gone. What happened to them to make them the way they are and what impact will Trump's presidency have on them and the US into the future?

aloyisious

It seems, according to media reports [RTE] that Don Trump has distanced himself from the send her back chants made in reference to a congresswoman at his rally last night "I am not happy with them" or words to that effect. If true, he [or some-one else] has realised the harm that such chanting can do and is going into disavowal mode.

Cody montana

Grant Shaggy Self-confidence wrote: »

The Dow is nearing 27000. In 2010 it wasn’t even 12000 and in 2007 just over 14000
At its lowest in 2009 it was just over 6000
You explain to me how that metric proves your point and not mine

Why didn’t you say what it was in 2016?

Leroy42

aloyisious wrote: »

It seems, according to media reports [RTE] that Don Trump has distanced himself from the send her back chants made in reference to a congresswoman at his rally last night "I am not happy with them" or words to that effect. If true, he [or some-one else] has realised the harm that such chanting can do and is going into disavowal mode.

Yeah, well let's see if he actually does anything next time it starts.

Or even better, does a John McCann and actually explains why it is not only unacceptable but wrong.

Igotadose

aloyisious wrote: »

It seems, according to media reports [RTE] that Don Trump has distanced himself from the send her back chants made in reference to a congresswoman at his rally last night "I am not happy with them" or words to that effect. If true, he [or some-one else] has realised the harm that such chanting can do and is going into disavowal mode.

Ehh. He'll just do something like it, again. Wait till the next rally. His current claim is 'he began speaking quickly' in order to defuse it. But, he never actually did say 'stop saying that ' or 'we're better than that' or anything at all that might've been construed as against the echo of his twitter statement by the crowd. Nope. Just drink it in then begin yammering about the economy or whatever he talks about at his Nuremberg rallies.

In other news, Trump's new anti-immigration front man, Ken Cuccinelli, is getting tighter and tighter with POTUS45: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/18/cuccinelli-immigration-trump-1598325

What's interesting is it's likely he'll end up another "acting" cabinet officer. Trump likes acting officers - can bypass that pesky Senate confirmation. Cuccinelli's got too many enemies in the Senate (on the GOP side) to get confirmed. What a swamp!

hill16bhoy

Danzy wrote: »

Biden does well with working class America. He can close the class divide between the progressives and the working class blue collar Dems.

Don't make the mistake in thinking the party activist and the voter base are always near enough the same.

Pelosi knows impeachment is a waste of time and ensure Trumps re-election. Pelosi only cares about putting a Dem in the White House.

Party activists are who win elections.

They tend to be young, they tend to be progressive.

If you think an election can be won without an energised ground force to get the vote out, fine, but that's the exact thing the Hillary Clinton campaign thought, and that's what will likely be the case should Biden be the candidate - there will not be an energised ground force.

Biden is a "safe" candidate in the manner of Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Those candidates all ran lacklustre, low energy campaigns, with poor grass roots organisation, because the grass roots were not energised by those candidates.

The Republicans' "safe candidates" according to convetional wisdom in recent elections have fared equally badly. Bush senior lost re-election, Bob Dole was crushed, John McCain looked dull as dishwater compared to Barack Obama, Mitt Romney's campaign was a damp squib.

Whereas the candidates seen as exciting or maverick were the ones to win - Bill Clinton, Obama, Trump. Even Bush junior looked slightly more "maverick" than Al Gore.

Dull candidates don't win.

Impeachment hearings would be easily the best thing the Democrats can do - that and picking Warren as candidate.

It would force into the open all the corruption, criminality and shamelessness of Trump and the Republican party through public hearings.

Were you the arbiter of what should have been done in Nixon's time, you'd have called impeachment hearings against Nixon a waste of time too, because there was not huge public support for that process at the start.

It grew and grew and grew as the **** gradually came out.

It shouldn't be forgotten that for all the ridiculousness of the Clinton impeachment hearings, the Republicans got the White House the election afterwards.

And the other reason you do it is simple - because it's the right thing to do. You know, standing up for democracy and the country against an existential threat to its democracy. Priniciple. Morals atheir most basic. The very reasons most politicians claim they are involved in politics for. They seem to be an alien concept to you, to all Trump supporters and to corporate Democrats.

And far from Trump wanting the Democrats to try and impeach him as some claim, the reality is that it is the very last thing he wants.

Trump cares about money, power and immunity from prosecution. And impeachment hearings threaten all three.

If they don't launch impeachment proceedings, he can simply spin the narrative that the Democrats say he did nothing wrong because they refused to impeach.

That plays right into his hands. When the Democrats try avoid playing into his hands, that's exactly what they do because they're playing to his rules, not theirs.

Setting your own agenda, being bold - and not playing to somebody else's in a cowardly manner - is how you win elections.

Danzy

hill16bhoy wrote: »

Party activists are who win elections.

They tend to be young, they tend to be progressive.

If you think an election can be won without an energised ground force to get the vote out, fine, but that's the exact thing the Hillary Clinton campaign thought, and that's what will likely be the case should Biden be the candidate - there will not be an energised ground force.

Biden is a "safe" candidate in the manner of Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Those candidates all ran lacklustre, low energy campaigns, with poor grass roots organisation, because the grass roots were not energised by those candidates.

The Republicans' "safe candidates" according to convetional wisdom in recent elections have fared equally badly. Bush senior lost re-election, Bob Dole was crushed, John McCain looked dull as dishwater compared to Barack Obama, Mitt Romney's campaign was a damp squib.

Whereas the candidates seen as exciting or maverick were the ones to win - Bill Clinton, Obama, Trump. Even Bush junior looked slightly more "maverick" than Al Gore.

Dull candidates don't win.

Impeachment hearings would be easily the best thing the Democrats can do - that and picking Warren as candidate.

It would force into the open all the corruption, criminality and shamelessness of Trump and the Republican party through public hearings.

Were you the arbiter of what should have been done in Nixon's time, you'd have called impeachment hearings against Nixon a waste of time too, because there was not huge public support for that process at the start.

It grew and grew and grew as the **** gradually came out.

It shouldn't be forgotten that for all the ridiculousness of the Clinton impeachment hearings, the Republicans got the White House the election afterwards.

And the other reason you do it is simple - because it's the right thing to do. You know, standing up for democracy and the country against an existential threat to its democracy. Priniciple. Morals atheir most basic. The very reasons most politicians claim they are involved in politics for. They seem to be an alien concept to you, to all Trump supporters and to corporate Democrats.

And far from Trump wanting the Democrats to try and impeach him as some claim, the reality is that it is the very last thing he wants.

Trump cares about money, power and immunity from prosecution. And impeachment hearings threaten all three.

If they don't launch impeachment proceedings, he can simply spin the narrative that the Democrats say he did nothing wrong because they refused to impeach.

That plays right into his hands. When the Democrats try avoid playing into his hands, that's exactly what they do because they're playing to his rules, not theirs.

Setting your own agenda, being bold - and not playing to somebody else's in a cowardly manner - is how you win elections.

A highly motivated party activist base is important but votes win elections.

Clinton didn't bother with the mid West and it cost her.

Itssoeasy

aloyisious wrote: »

It seems, according to media reports [RTE] that Don Trump has distanced himself from the send her back chants made in reference to a congresswoman at his rally last night "I am not happy with them" or words to that effect. If true, he [or some-one else] has realised the harm that such chanting can do and is going into disavowal mode.

I direct you to the Charlottesville sequence of events. He's distanced himself from the comments, and tomorrow and over the weekend he'll be talked to be the head bottle washers of racism in America and by Monday he'll go off script and make an already bad situation even worse.

DreamsBurnDown

hill16bhoy wrote: »

In the mid-terms, several Democratic senators in swing states rejected the progressive grass roots - the very people who win campaigns on the ground - and ran terrible low energy campaigns, and unsurprisingly lost heavily. McCaskill in Missouri, Donnelly in Indiana, Bredesen a non-incumbent going for a vacant seat in Tennessee was another. There's a big lesson there. Deliberately alienate progressives, and you will lose.

Where are you getting the idea that the three states you mention are swing states? Tennessee is solidly red, Trump won by 60.7% / 30.7%, in Missouri Trump won by 56.4% to 37.9%, and in Indiana by 56.5% to 37.5%. These are three exceptionally hard states for Democrats to win in. It's hard enough to win in purple states let alone red states, and pushing an overly progressive agenda makes it harder.

Calling Pelosi a coward and a racist for attacking women of color in her own party is exactly what Trump wants and plays right into his hands. It feeds into his narrative of look at the crazy Democrats calling everyone a racist, including their own party members. As House majority or minority leader Pelosi has helped accomplish two presidential wins and has won back the house in 2018. The House win was due to moderates winning in actual swing states, the 28 seats flipped were mostly moderates, and yes accomplished by moderate and progressives working together. Progressives lost in swing states, Kara Eastman in Nebraska, Scott Wallace in PA, and Leslie Cockburn in Virginia.

The biggest risk to Democrats in 2020, not just the presidency, but failing to win the Senate and potentially losing the House, is the party splitting on ideological lines. Trump and Republicans will do everything possible to fuel such a divide, it is up to Democrats to not fall for the bait. So far most Democrats are holding firm, but it wouldn't be unprecedented for the party to self destruct.

Given the current climate, with the caveat that a lot can change in 16 months, 2020 should be an easy win unless Democrats screw it up.

Danzy

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/opinion/trump-2020.amp.html

A good read on what the Dems need to consider by Thomas Friedman.

He might as well be howling at the moon.

Itssoeasy

Just going through the search warrants for Michael cohen that were released today and so far it's a very unredacted document. I'm trying to get to the Trump part but it's 269 pages and I'm on page 10.

Leroy42

So court docs released today show that Trump, Cohen and Hicks among others discussed the hush payments to Daniel's on the weeks leading to the election.

So how many outright lies about the affair did Trump actually make? He then let Cohen take the fall.