Donald Trump Presidency discussion Thread VIII (threadbanned users listed in OP)

Tell me how

StringerBell wrote: »

It's a sad indictment though of the society to think that staying on script for 4 days is enough to bump your numbers isn't it. The serious short term memory of the US population is astounding.

It's even more disconnected than that with some people in my experience.

Was speaking to someone here who based their support for Trump 100% on what the economy was doing, no analysis or curiosity about cause and effect, just, if the economy was doing well, the President was doing well. As far as he is concerned, until Covid, economy was fine and therefore Trump was doing fine. I'm not sure if he would have expressed the same view if it was a democrat President but that's his position now.

Very revealing to see the psyche. A lot of us who are interested in current affairs maybe subconsciously presume that others are analyzing events in the same way and then deciding to support one party or the other. What I'm seeing here is that there is a huge disconnect between many and their elected officials or the concept that they can influence what is happening with them.

Ireland, by comparison, seems to have a much more widely engaged population. (although looking at our current government you wouldn't think so)

Quin_Dub

abff wrote: »

I'm not sure it's fair to criticise the media in that situation as they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't". If they fail to comment on the change, he will whinge about how the fake news media are out to get him.

But it's how they do it that matters.

They keep calling it "A change in tone" as if there has been some damascene conversion in his behaviour and underlying thought process when in reality it's just him trying to fool people.

Call it what it is - "Today the president stayed on script" or "Today the President said XXX , but almost everyone else said YYY"

He has never changed and never will - Repeatedly saying in the media that he maybe, might have changed is just pointless.

abff

Quin_Dub wrote: »

But it's how they do it that matters.

They keep calling it "A change in tone" as if there has been some damascene conversion in his behaviour and underlying thought process when in reality it's just him trying to fool people.

Call it what it is - "Today the president stayed on script" or "Today the President said XXX , but almost everyone else said YYY"

He has never changed and never will - Repeatedly saying in the media that he maybe, might have changed is just pointless.

I don't recall seeing anything in print from the regular media claiming that "a change in tone" by Trump represented a conversion of some sort.

We all know that everything he does and says is motivated by self interest and this will never change.

abff

looksee wrote: »

So there are two women that Trump approves of - possibly three if you count Melania - but the other two are a woman who claims that illnesses can be caused by sex with demons, and the other enables demons to have sex with children.

Melania? Surely you mean Ivanka?

Water John

Yeah think Melania will be strolling off once Barron reaches 18.

Penn

Water John wrote: »

Yeah think Melania will be strolling off once Barron reaches 18.

I'd say sooner than that. As soon as his Presidency is over I'd say she's gone.

VinLieger

Penn wrote: »

I'd say sooner than that. As soon as his Presidency is over I'd say she's gone.

Yup she spent the first 6 months of the presidency renegotiating the prenup, thats why she stayed in NY for so long as leverage and you can only imagine what shes managed to get him to agree to....

Id say shes set and ready to go the second the clock strikes 12 on January 20th 2021.

aloyisious

abff wrote: »

I don't recall seeing anything in print from the regular media claiming that "a change in tone" by Trump represented a conversion of some sort.

We all know that everything he does and says is motivated by self interest and this will never change.

It's probably more so that he, for a few days, works with the new face in the office [the new campaign manager in this case] then gets bored again and reverts to his normal behaviour. The person now in the job is in for more of the same as Trump's poll figures drop.

Leroy42

I think that the Axios interview is actually going to be quite damaging for Trump.

He has basically said he doesn't care about it. He could claim in the past that he was never told, although that was disputed, but the real question was that now that he did know what would he do about it.

The answer is nothing. And he had no intention of ever doing anything about it.

When asked what he thought about Russia supplying weapons to the Taliban, which was asked since he said he didn't believe the bounties story, he simply said that the US had supplied weapons to enemies of Russia in the past so, I guess, fair is fair!

Itssoeasy

Leroy42 wrote: »

I think that the Axios interview is actually going to be quite damaging for Trump.

He has basically said he doesn't care about it. He could claim in the past that he was never told, although that was disputed, but the real question was that now that he did know what would he do about it.

The answer is nothing.

What axios interview ? I have to say that part of the briefing last night when he was complaining about his approval rating being so low compared to Dr Fauci and then said "it must be my personality" may have been the most honest moment of his presidency.

Overheal

Itssoeasy wrote: »

What axios interview ? I have to say that part of the briefing last night when he was complaining about his approval rating being so low compared to Dr Fauci and then said "it must be my personality" may have been the most honest moment of his presidency.

This one where he finally admits he has never broached the subject with Putin and has adopted Kremlin talking points to gloss over it.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/shocked-journalists-react-to-deeply-disturbing-trump-putin-bounty-revelation-what-does-he-have-on-you/

He needs to do damage control on this immediately.

Leroy42

Itssoeasy wrote: »

What axios interview ? I have to say that part of the briefing last night when he was complaining about his approval rating being so low compared to Dr Fauci and then said "it must be my personality" may have been the most honest moment of his presidency.

Sorry, forgot to add the link, my bad.

Here it is.

https://www.axios.com/trump-russia-bounties-taliban-putin-call-4a0f6110-ab58-41c0-96fc-57b507462af1.html

listermint

Overheal wrote: »

This one where he finally admits he has never broached the subject with Putin and has adopted Kremlin talking points to gloss over it.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/shocked-journalists-react-to-deeply-disturbing-trump-putin-bounty-revelation-what-does-he-have-on-you/

He needs to do damage control on this immediately.

He also takes a both side approach, We did that too. So its ok they did it.

That will go down well with the forces. ...

Overheal

Rep. Gohmert tests positive for Covid-19 one day after attending the Barr hearing in-person, where chairman Nadler has to admonish Republicans for violating committee rules on mask wearing.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/just-in-rep-louie-gohmert-reportedly-tests-positive-for-covid-day-after-barr-hearing/

listermint

Overheal wrote: »

Rep. Gohmert tests positive for Covid-19 one day after attending the Barr hearing in-person, where chairman Nadler has to admonish Republicans for violating committee rules on mask wearing.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/just-in-rep-louie-gohmert-reportedly-tests-positive-for-covid-day-after-barr-hearing/

was watching that live and i was like, these showboaters are just taking the piss. They are only doing it to act like billy big balls

Quin_Dub

Overheal wrote: »

Rep. Gohmert tests positive for Covid-19 one day after attending the Barr hearing in-person, where chairman Nadler has to admonish Republicans for violating committee rules on mask wearing.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/just-in-rep-louie-gohmert-reportedly-tests-positive-for-covid-day-after-barr-hearing/

listermint wrote: »

was watching that live and i was like, these showboaters are just taking the piss. They are only doing it to act like billy big balls

He was supposed to be travelling with Trump today which is probably how/why he was tested.

Muahahaha

pixelburp wrote: »

I don't disagree there would be those giving him the side eye, but just from an optics point of view it'd dispel a huge chunk of claims that Trump was a racist if he just turned up to the funeral of one of America's leading black figures. It would have astounded but also been seen as a conciliatory action, well. I think so anyway, ha. Instead, whether intended or not, this is a brazen and overt snub by Trump. Especially at a time when the African American community is already feeling pretty raw. So who knows, aside from hating funerals for not allowing focus on him, maybe he's just afraid of being surrounded by a lot of black people.

Initially I had thought he was getting buried in Selma, Alabama and Trump just wasnt bothered getting on a plane but then I saw Lewis was lying in state in Capitol Hill which is what, a 5 minute drive from the White House? And Trump didnt bother himself. He is clearly pandering to his base and his base alone.

Itssoeasy wrote: »

That new tone didn’t last very long.

yeah it didnt take long for him to revert to type. It was Kellyanne Conways idea to re-establish the daily briefings in a gambit to improve his polling numbers. But that was predicated on him sticking to the script and maintaining his new conciliatory tone. He threw that out the window last night and is now embroiled back into the cures for Covid mess with wacky doctors. Had he stuck to the script as Kellyanne ordered then he might have had a chance of arresting the slide in his numbers. But instead he has just gone back to reminding everyone what an idiot he truly is. If someone could just take his phone off him and take control of his Twitter then he might stand some chance but thats not going to happen, its his oxygen and he is obsessed with it..

I think the only thing that can save him now is either a vaccine (which he will practically claim he invented himself) or else some astounding economic comeback which looks very unlikely when cities are having to lockdown again. Just 96 days to go now and he is looking completely boxed in.

Overheal

Never underestimate the October surprise. It’s not over until it’s over.

Dillonb3

listermint wrote: »

was watching that live and i was like, these showboaters are just taking the piss. They are only doing it to act like billy big balls

Not the first time with Gohmert, he was disrupting another hearing recently where he kept banging his gavel stopping another person who was testifying

Quin_Dub

Overheal wrote: »

Never underestimate the October surprise. It’s not over until it’s over.

This one is all going to be wrapped up in the Durham report.

Barr will release a precis of the report which will make it sound like Obama and Biden murdered children. I also suspect that he will try to not release the actual report until after the election.

The actual report will have found nine tenths of sod all , with absolutely zero evidence linking Obama or Biden with any illegal activity.

This is part of the reason the House committee had him in yesterday. They know that this is what he is likely to do so they want to highlight his behaviours as much as possible to dilute the impact of any stroke that Barr pulls.

I don't think it will land that hard - it may have some impact, but I suspect limited to driving increased voting likelihood among Trumps base rather than switching a whole lot of people away from Biden.

It will also only make an impactful difference if Trump is actually close to Biden in the polls.

hetuzozaho

The election is going to be fascinating, if he gets elected again it's going to blow my mind
He seems to be clearly worried about his ratings/polls etc. Will be interesting to see how he approaches the next few months.

I think he really is the worst:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288509568578777088

A president saying such a thing is baffling.
Please vote him out America.

Itssoeasy

That video of that axios interview is awful. As soon as the reporter mentions the PBD in a spin that would make Shane warne take notice he's on to china and that angle. At this stage we can disagree about many things but Russia has something on trump(what is it is we don't know) and he is going out of his way to avoid getting on its bad side.

Also, the Soviet Union didn't become Russia. Russia was the largest of the collective of countries which include Ukraine and Belarus and the Baltic countries and others that made up the Soviet Union. What happened was Russia, ukraine, and Belarus signed an accord dissolving the union. He really has no clue about history at even a basic level unless it squares with his world view and even then it's fairly patchy.

Sean.3516

Quin_Dub wrote: »

People like Cotton need to step up and own the mistakes of the past - He criticism of the 1619 project may have merit and he's entitled to have those views and to robustly defend them.

Unfortunately the people calling on Cotton to own the mistakes of the past know very little about the past. Cotton is owning a fact that none of his detractors want to own which is that slavery may never have been abolished in the South if anti-slavery factions had made this sticking point when the Constitution was originally written.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

But suggesting that Slavery was a necessary evil cannot ever be seen as a valid position to hold , not then and absolutely not now.

For the fifth time, Cotton saying that slavery was a "necessary evil" wasn't meant to be an endorsement of slavery or an excuse or a justification for it as I've explained in earlier posts which you are wilfully ignoring.

Here's Cotton's entire quote:
"We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction."

Which is exactly what I've been saying he meant and happens to be corroborated by the actual history.
Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, the four most influential founders (two of which owned slaves) all knew slavery would have to be phased out or abolished in the South but this could only be done if the South was kept in the Union. Therefore it had to be tolerated in the short term so that it could be abolished in the long term.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Two thirds of those same "founding fathers" were Slave owners themselves.

And most of the influential ones knew it was wrong and eventually freed their slaves. Jefferson couldn't as it was illegal given that he was in debt most of his life, but he wasn't a hypocrite on the issue. As President he oversaw the ban on importing slaves in 1808 and legislation banning slavery in new states in the north-west.

Point is that there wasn't an implementable solution to slavery at that point that wouldn't have split the country.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

This utterly ridiculous elevation of these men to positions of essentially deification is beyond madness.

Nobody's deifying them. I'm just saying the weren't the hypocrites they're made out to be and maybe we should give them more credit for building as good a system as they did.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

They made mistakes , lots and lots of mistakes . Some weren't perhaps mistakes per se , but decisions of their time and should be treated as such.

If they could have created a utopia of human rights they would have but they were constrained by the more bigoted opinions of most people at the time who were less enlightened on this issue than themselves.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

This absolutist view that every thing they did or put in the Constitution were things of undiluted perfection and that should never be updated with modern interpretation etc. has always baffled me.

Nobody has ever thought it was perfection. At the time, most people thought it would fail and since it was enacted it's been amended 27 times.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Slavery was not a necessary evil , It is, was and ever shall be a repugnant stain on humanity.
To suggest that it was necessary to keep a group of racist animals "onside" as part of some greater good is disgusting.
There is no "end" that justifies allowing other humans to be owned like livestock.
And anyone trying to defend that position is utterly unworthy of respect from any right thinking evolved human-being.

I know you're getting a dopamine kick out of all that righteous indignation but please try and understand this.

Tom Cotton did not say that it was necessary to keep slavery so that America could one day become a great country. I know you wish he said that, but he didn't. Read the entire quote above.
His point was that slavery had to be tolerated in order to preserve a system of government that would eventually abolish slavery.

"it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction."

Are we done here?

Quin_Dub

Sean.3516 wrote: »

I know you're getting a dopamine kick out of all that righteous indignation but please try and understand this.

Tom Cotton did not say that it was necessary to keep slavery so that America could one day become a great country. I know you wish he said that, but he didn't. Read the entire quote above.
His point was that slavery had to be tolerated in order to preserve a system of government that would eventually abolish slavery.

"it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction."

I completely and totally understand the point that Cotton was making , and his point was absolutely , categorically WRONG.

The ends NEVER justify the means.

Bottom line - They chose economic expediency over the fates of black people. They wanted the Souths money and resources to allow the nascent United States to grow.

Sean.3516 wrote: »

Are we done here?

Clearly.

Overheal

More live hearings going on, this time Tech Antitrust.

Jim “Gym” Jordan going on an apoplectic rant about private businesses right to not promote content they find objectionable. Claims google is banning books! But eh, they’re still in print my man

pixelburp

Itssoeasy wrote: »

That video of that axios interview is awful. As soon as the reporter mentions the PBD in a spin that would make Shane warne take notice he's on to china and that angle. At this stage we can disagree about many things but Russia has something on trump(what is it is we don't know) and he is going out of his way to avoid getting on its bad side.

Also, the Soviet Union didn't become Russia. Russia was the largest of the collective of countries which include Ukraine and Belarus and the Baltic countries and others that made up the Soviet Union. What happened was Russia, ukraine, and Belarus signed an accord dissolving the union. He really has no clue about history at even a basic level unless it squares with his world view and even then it's fairly patchy.

My guess? Trump's credit lines are as dodgy as hell, maybe even illegal; given his post 2008 issues with getting credit, his resorts rumoured to be money (laundering) pits and the reluctance to reveal his tax returns, I wonder if he knows he's in bed with grey area Russian money and it's best he doesn't shake that cage too much, lest leaks hit the press about his income sources.

Overheal

pixelburp wrote: »

My guess? Trump's credit lines are as dodgy as hell, maybe even illegal; given his post 2008 issues with getting credit, his resorts rumoured to be money (laundering) pits and the reluctance to reveal his tax returns, I wonder if he knows he's in bed with grey area Russian money and it's best he doesn't shake that cage too much, lest leaks hit the press about his income sources.

Which ties in directly with this breaking news: Kavanaugh tried to get the SCOTUS to steer clear of Trump financial records cases (unsuccessfully)

https://twitter.com/cnnpolitics/status/1288457003833135109?s=21

He was clearly installed as an agent

Sean.3516

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I completely and totally understand the point that Cotton was making , and his point was absolutely , categorically WRONG.

The ends NEVER justify the means.

Are you telling me it would have been better to make the ratification of the Constitution contingent on the abolition of slavery, thereby ensuring the South wouldn't ratify it and would form a separate Republic where slavery would be even more engrained? Where the South would have been free to import more slaves throughout the 19th century? And probably wouldn't have abolished it until at least beginning of the 20th?

Please explain to me how that scenario would have been better for black people. Because that is what would have happened had the South not joined the Union.

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Bottom line - They chose economic expediency over the fates of black people. They wanted the Souths money and resources to allow the nascent United States to grow.

Well, yes and no.
The North wanted the South to help pay off the debt from the Revolution (The South had already paid off its debt) but the North didn't "need" the South economically speaking.

Also, the moneyed interest at that time wasn't even in the South. It was in the North where the banks and manufacturing was taking place. Cotton and tobacco planting would account for a smaller and smaller share of the US economy as the 19th century progressed. You can see this reflected in the population statistics by the Civil War era. Nobody was immigrating to South Carolina in 1850, they were immigrating to New York where the jobs were.

Again, all of this eventually contributed the North having enough leverage to stamp out slavery in the 1860s.

moon2

Sean.3516 wrote: »

Please explain to me how that scenario would have been better for black people. Because that is what would have happened had the South not joined the Union.

You describe a hypothetical scenario, which is objectively worse, and then ask people to defend their support of this scenario.

This imagined scenario is not the problem being discussed.

Leroy42

Sean, you said yourself that the North needed the South to help pay off the debts. So in that, at least in part, they were taking into consideration more than just the ending of slavery.