Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Vader

The Next President

Recommended Posts

23 hours ago, Twig said:

Almost certainly, but I've never had the (dis)pleasure of interacting with the front page writers for WSJ or Fox News correspondents, whereas I spent a not insignificant amount of my own personal effort trying to etch out a single valid reason from these people for thinking Trump winning could possibly be anything but a complete and utter disaster. Now that we're witnessing disaster as it happens... Do they still really think "wait and see" is a valid response?

 

One of my Trumper co-workers said two days ago that he still wanted to wait six months before making up his mind. From what I can tell, he's one of those guys who is pretty much politically ignorant and just liked Trump for his "outsiderness". (He's also a UFO conspiracy theorist and refuses to use electronic banking because then "the government can come in and take your money" so there's that.)

 

Re: this stuff being unconstitutional -- I'm skeptical how much that matters when so many of the people in power are just rolling over for this guy or actively helping him. It's clear that the entire GOP has just been waiting a chance for this stuff to become acceptable and is now ready to run with it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Aw jeez, this is exactly what he said he'd do too...

 

I'v seen reports that the Director of National Intelligence and Joint Chiefs of Staff from National Security Council have been replaced by Steve Bannon?

I hope this is a rumour or i've overestimated its significance. :(

 

Also here's Rudy Giuliani stating in no uncertain terms the objective of the ban. 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, rohlfinator said:

 

Re: this stuff being unconstitutional -- I'm skeptical how much that matters when so many of the people in power are just rolling over for this guy or actively helping him. It's clear that the entire GOP has just been waiting a chance for this stuff to become acceptable and is now ready to run with it.

 

I think this is going to be a major theme of the next 4 years, where even if Trump does something that is an obvious conflict of interest or violates some law I don't think the political will is there to do anything about it.  Almost all of the anti trump senators have already fallen in line and generally put their personal fortunes and careers above the good of the country.  On the social front there are quite a few protests going against him, both in the US and internationally, I'm just not convinced of their effectiveness.  If the campaign showed us anything it's that there aren't enough pussy hats on the planet to affect Trump's opinion on anything--if you really want to affect his opinion the protest must take a form that affects him personally, or more pointedly his personal vanity and worth.  I've also heard from a few sources, but certainly not definitively, that the majority of these protests happened in places where Clinton enjoyed broad support, so I'm not yet convinced that these will amount to anything in the future.  It doesn't matter how many more latinos get registered to vote in California, they won't have any effect on the electoral college in 2020, and perhaps since Trump generally sucks all the oxygen out of the room people seemed to have missed the fact that in this election republicans won a majority in all branches of federal government, almost 2/3rds of state governorships and legislatures, and will likely have control of the gerrymandering process after the next census.

 

On the whole though, I'm not as pessimistic about his administration, at least on the federal level.  There is certainly the will to oppose his specific policies on the federal level, like with what just happened with the deportation order, and if he turns out to be serious about infrastructure projects he'll likely do some good during his administration provided congress even puts those bills up for a vote.  What scares me the most about the next election, including all the local, state and senatorial elections coming up in the next 4 years is that the democratic party doesn't appear to be interested in or even capable of being a strong opposition party given the electoral realities in the country today.  The upcoming leadership of the DNC seems even more intent on creating enemies where they don't need to exist, and generally playing into the narrative that Trump's campaign peddled throughout the election-- a narrative that will likely become more stark as the Trump administration soldiers on.

 

Also a side note, this last week I went back and did some research into federal elections since 2008, and I've come to the conclusion that Trump's election can be most easily blamed on the media's obsession with ratings finally catching up with them.  People tend to forget that Trump ran for the republican nomination both in 2008 and 2012, and was laughed off the stage both times.  If you look at the things he was suggesting back then, they weren't all that different than what he did in 2016--something changed in his ability to garner attention in that time.  In my estimation places like the Huffington post and CNN should be credited for Trump's success more so than fox or breitbart because in that period of time it was largely the liberal publications that conditioned the public to see a tweet as not only a new story, but a top of the banner/front page news story.  in order to live in a world where a tweet from Trump is an important news story, we must first live in a world where a tweet is an important news story, and I don't think Trump's rise to popularity would have been likely or even possible without that.  I'm not putting the blame on their shoulders entirely, but they certainly hold a significant amount of responsibility for creating the environment where someone like Trump  is possible.

 

TL:DR; Trump's a nut, might do some good, but at least I have whiskey.  Also call your congress person.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just went back and read that Idle Weekend post - fuck that was depressing. Congrats to Gorm, Jenn and Twig for putting up with that nonsense.

 

That 'wait and see' attitude and the 'we have different opinions' arguments were exhausting to read.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The media really fucked up on a bunch of levels -- giving Trump disproportionate coverage, reporting his statements uncritically ("Trump tweeted this" vs. "he is advocating war crimes"), disproportionate focus on spectacle over policies, huge focus on the Clinton email thing, etc., etc.

 

I'm not so optimistic about any infrastructure stuff happening; he will get pushback from the GOP legislature for that. The GOP donor base doesn't even slightly care about Muslims or civil rights, but they do care about public spending. Same with most of his administration. The only one there who wants to improve infrastructure is maybe Trump, and he may have only said it because it played well at his rallies.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That was a very interesting article, thanks for posting it.  I don't blame tweets necessarily, just that the emphasis on things like tweets created the environment where a candidate like trump was possible.  As an example, fake news has gotten a lot of attention in this past election, but gallop research indicates that what mostly affected people's opinions on the candidates were what mainstream media outlets covered most (detailed in video below) which tended to be focused on social media posts from one person or another.

 

 

I've seen a lot of discussion regarding old vs new media in this election, and while they are different perhaps in their delivery their mechanisms and structure are nearly identical.  Both of these styles of newsmedia end, or even begin their programs by soliciting the opinions of their viewers, in some cases making those solicitations prior to having done any reporting on the topic--effectively valuing uninformed opinion over their own reporting.  A service like twitter is a place where anyone can become a celebrity, if even for a short amount of time, for virtually any reason.  While there is virtue in this to some degree I find the extreme focus on it, to the detriment of nearly all other endeavors to be a profound and largely overlook phenomenon.  Like the Vox video states, places like the national enquirer have been around for decades at this point, they haven't been taken seriously.  On the other hand their new media counterparts, which are similar in content have come to be seen as authentic.  While this certainly isn't a scientific assessment, to me the emphasis of modern day yellow journalism betrays a distinct and recent trend in media, the origination of which must have come from somewhere.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If things go really bad, you're all welcome in Estonia! Almost everyone in Tallinn speaks English, and the extreme right party only has the support of about 10% of people (they briefly had 14% last year). But we have only about 4 parties more popular than them. There are some problems with racism & sexism, though. For example, we have the word "neeger", which a lot argue is not offensive to black people. I'm pretty sure it is, but it's very mainstream to still use this word defiantly in the sense that "our language is sacred and I will use this word dammit because it didn't have any negative connotation". Yeah right, then why do we also have the word "leheneeger", which basically has the meaning "slave-like journalist". Also we have a huuuuuuge wage gap, and I think most women in Estonia have pretty much internalized that they are treated as inferior in some ways and despite the wage gap they mostly seem to want to avoid appearing feminist and "gender quotes" are still the butt of jokes sometimes, although less and less, perhaps. I guess it's getting better, though. Gay people can't marry, but there's some civil union thing not exactly equivalent to marriage that was made into law recently, although there have been some problems implementing it. Another small issue is being right next door to Russia, who likes to attack their neighbours.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I was eyeing Romania as a possible destination but with Trump in the White House and Putin in his house eastern Europe doesn't necessarily sound like a safe bet. Plus they have their own problems of religious fundamentalism.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've had my little pleasure of the day browsing through the Rogue POTUS twitter account, secretly fuelled by White Hous aides and staff. It's a treasure trove if you need a pick-me-up. Apparently, Trump got so exasperated that he was heard shouting through a closed door 'Don't they know I'm the fucking president?!'

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It sounds like he at least isn't repealing Obama's LGBTQ protection order - I know it's like finding a nickel in a bucket of shit, but hey I'll take whatever good news i can get. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, Roderick said:

I've had my little pleasure of the day browsing through the Rogue POTUS twitter account, secretly fuelled by White Hous aides and staff. It's a treasure trove if you need a pick-me-up. Apparently, Trump got so exasperated that he was heard shouting through a closed door 'Don't they know I'm the fucking president?!'

That account is very probably not real though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I assume this is the Twitter account you're referring to?

https://twitter.com/roguepotusstaff

 

EDIT: Oops didn't see osmo's post. I'll just pipe in with I'm hearing similar things from a friend of mine who's been especially on top of these sorts of things.

It could be real, but it could just as (maybe more) easily be not real. /shrug

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, YoThatLimp said:

finally a nickel is a bucket of shit

 

Wow, his executive orders are getting really bizarre.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My wife is currently planning a trip back to China with our daughter to see her side of the family.  While I've told her that she shouldn't have any problem getting back into the US with her green card, I'm worried that won't be true in a few months because who the fuck knows at this point.  I don't think that Trump has said anything about non-Middle Eastern countries just yet but I've long since given up trying to apply reason when he's involved.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Who knows indeed.

 

I'm still a Mexican citizen and a permanent resident here. My wife and I are worried that if something shit goes down with Mexico and the wall, that there might be a ban or more lock downs on immigration from Mexico.  I also wonder how it's going affect the Mexican economy and my family who still lives there.

 

This has been a cluster fuck of a week.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yep, with my wife being from New Zelaand and not having her citizenship yet, seeing how easily they've refused and detained legal alien residents is freightening on a few levels.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My wife has been nervous about getting US citizenship since even before the rise of Trump.  At this point I can't blame her for not wanting it.  There are days I want to renounce my own.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Trump calling the media an enemy of the people is chilling. 

It makes me think the future of political cooperation is going to be so screwed. I mean a sizeable chunk of people buy into trumps reality, how is the toothpaste going back into the tube? It seems the alt right has found a foot hold in the American right and is here to stay.  

 

Depressing stuff, I hope I'm wrong. 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have no idea how to fix it aside from being extremely patient and trying to explain to 30% of the country that anyone critical of Trump isn't "fake news." It's ridiculous we have to do that while a large portion of them are actively shitting on anyone that isn't a straight white male but it's the only way I think it can be fixed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I feel like I've been living in Trumps presidency longer than a month. It feels like a fucking lifetime, and what a cluster fuck of a month it's been.

 

The impromptu press conference was something out of bizzaro world.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There are now people who believe Sweden is covering up "incidents".

 

Every time I see this thread I get mad all over again at those trump dick wads from that idle weekend thread. It ain't healthy. D:<

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've actually been spending more time reading right wing news/opinion and so forth recently, and to be honest the unity the right appears to have is a sham.  The only real unifying force is a vague sense of anger at political and media institutions that I don't think will be able to survive through any significant downturn in the country should one occur.  The cracks are already beginning to show, and how the administration plays fast and loose with the truth is already starting to come back to bite them.  There also seem to be growing liberal movements against trump (and more broadly the republican party) in areas that have been traditionally been republican, the only question is whether or not those movements and people will be as enthusiastic in local, state, and congressional elections.

 

The far more concerning aspects of Trump's administration for me are appointments like Betsy Devos and Steve Mnuchin who will affect policies that will go largely unnoticed and not have their impact felt for many years to come.  As bat shit as Trump's first month has been, I fear that his antics will ultimately blind people to the more mundane and far reaching harm done by such appointments.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×