What does the future hold for Donald Trump? - threadbans in OP
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You can post about it in the Joe Biden thread where it belongs? We're discussing the future of Donald Trump, and his associates, as well as their legacy.
Speaking of that legacy, and Afghanistan: Trump ordered the withdrawal. If we had followed his timetable we would have been out in March I think. In fact, after he squarely lost the election, he had tried to order the DOD to withdraw ALL US Military forces from pretty much everywhere:
Former President Donald Trump's last-minute bid to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan and swaths of the Middle East, Africa and even Europe ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration — and why he blinked.
John McEntee, one of Donald Trump's most-favored aides, handed retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor a piece of paper with a few notes scribbled on it. He explained: "This is what the president wants you to do."
1. Get us out of Afghanistan.
2. Get us out of Iraq and Syria.
3. Complete the withdrawal from Germany.
4. Get us out of Africa.
It was Nov. 9, 2020 — days after Trump lost his re-election bid, 10 weeks before the end of his presidency and just moments after Macgregor was offered a post as senior adviser to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
As head of the powerful Presidential Personnel Office, McEntee had Trump's ear. Even so, Macgregor was astonished. He told McEntee he doubted they could do all of these things before Jan. 20.
"Then do as much as you can," McEntee replied.
In Macgregor's opinion, Miller probably couldn't act on his own authority to execute a total withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan because he was serving in an acting capacity. If this was for real, Macgregor told McEntee, then it was going to need an order from the president.
The one-page memo was delivered by courier to Christopher Miller's office two days later, on the afternoon of Nov. 11. The order arrived seemingly out of nowhere, and its instructions, signed by Trump, were stunning: All U.S. military forces were to be withdrawn from Somalia by Dec. 31, 2020. All U.S. forces were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021.
What the **** is this? Miller wondered.
A former Green Beret, Miller had directed the National Counterterrorism Center and was accustomed to following process. Trump had tapped him to run the Pentagon after his unceremonious firing-by-tweet of Mark Esper. It was Miller's third day on the job.
News of the memo spread quickly throughout the Pentagon. Top military brass, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, were appalled. This was not the way to conduct policy — with no consultation, no input, no process for gaming out consequences or offering alternatives.
A call was quickly placed to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. In turn, Cipollone notified the national security adviser, Robert O'Brien. Neither Cipollone nor O'Brien had any idea what the order was or where it had come from.
Neither did the office of the staff secretary — whose job it was to vet all the paper that reached the president's desk. Yet the paper bore Trump's distinctive Sharpie signature.
The U.S. government's top national security leaders soon realized they were dealing with an off-the-books operation by the commander in chief himself.
Many would rally to push back — sometimes openly and in coordination, at other times so discreetly that top Trump administration officials had to turn to classified intercepts from the National Security Agency for clues.
Trump's instincts should have come as little surprise. He was frantically trying to salvage his own legacy while simultaneously trying to overturn the election results and block Biden's transition to power. The result was chaos.
And speaking of that legacy, and the border: as of last October, over 3 years after the end of the child separation boondoggle, Trumps administration had yet failed to reconnect 545 children with their parents, and many of them will probably be permanently separated at this point. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/21/trump-separation-policy-545-children-parents-still-not-found
And the wall only saw 80 new miles built, far from what was pledged.
On the economy though, you can see where it's taking off in several areas: 2 consecutive months of higher than average GDP. Between Q2 and Q3 last year, Trump's economy shrank 31.2%, after a quarter where it already shrank 5%, and it only bounced back to 33.8% - or about +2.6% between the 2 quarters. And that was even still behind several years under trump of flagging quarters, and nowhere near surpassing the 3% target they had campaigned for themselves as a foil to Obama saying 2-3% growth was the new norm (which it turned out to be).
And the Dow continues to set records, almost as if what we had been saying all along about how poorly correlated the presidency was with the market was right all along.
Trump was the only POTUS in living memory that left the job with net negative jobs growth
As for the current inflation - well hell, Trump even has a role in that, too. The Federal Reserve controls the interest rate, which has a direct impact on inflation. The Fed chair announced quite some time ago they would be shifting policy, and would not change the rate in response to spikes in inflation. That was announced in - oh, August 2020, and who nominated this clandestine figure? Donald Trump?
The Federal Reserve announced a major policy shift Thursday, saying that it is willing to allow inflation to run hotter than normal in order to support the labor market and broader economy.
In a move that Chairman Jerome Powell called a “robust updating” of Fed policy, the central bank formally agreed to a policy of “average inflation targeting.” That means it will allow inflation to run “moderately” above the Fed’s 2% goal “for some time” following periods when it has run below that objective.
The changes were codified in a policy blueprint called the “Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy,” first adopted in 2012, that has informed the Fed’s approach to interest rates and general economic growth.
As a practical matter, the move means the Fed will be less inclined to hike interest rates when the unemployment rate falls, so long as inflation does not creep up as well. Central bank officials traditionally have believed that low unemployment leads to dangerously higher levels of inflation, and they’ve moved preemptively to head it off.
However, a speech Powell delivered to a virtual gathering of the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium, and accompanying documents that codified the new policy, signaled a shift away from the old thinking. The policymaking Federal Open Market Commitee approved the changes unanimously.
“Many find it counterintuitive that the Fed would want to push up inflation,” Powell said in prepared remarks. “However, inflation that is persistently too low can pose serious risks to the economy.”
Jerome Powell's 4-year term to the Fed chair position expires in 2022.
So do you actually want to respond to any of that, or just deflect to Joe Biden in a thread about Donald Trump and his tenure and legacy?
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