US politics: Donny, you're out of your element

[Crazydog7]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

Spicer just said that Obama's guidance to schools on transgender students being able to use a bathroom that aligns with their gender identity will likely be rescinded and that Trump believes this is a states rights issue. As expected, we're going backwards.

 

This is bait and I hope the Democrats don't snap at it.  

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

But it's not like he was gonna run for a third term. He could have also shoved the idea of "states rights" into the Republicans faces.

Doing unpopular things has ramifications beyond your term, as the Democrats found out this year.

And he did, kind of, shove the states rights things into the Republican's faces. By...doing nothing. That was kind of Obama's style, which was to simply let things go if he wanted to make a stand but not get too much flak for it. He did the same thing with legalization of gay marriage. It was effective if not particularly brave.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, Maester Drew said:

Drunken Peasents has almost 140,000 subscribers on Youtube. Granted, that's not a "huge" channel, but that is far from being obscure.

All I can say was that this Milo blowup was the first I've ever heard of them, and I can kind of see why. Headache inducing format.

[Fez]

15 minutes ago, Crazydog7 said:

This is bait and I hope the Democrats don't snap at it.  

I dunno. Trans rights don't seem to have as much support as gay rights, but one of the few bright spots for Democrats last election was Roy Cooper beating Pat McCroy in the NC Governor's race; which happened even as Trump and Burr easily won statewide as well. And the issue most associated with McCroy was his opposition to letting transgendered people use the bathroom of their identified gender.

Much of that probably was due to the economic costs caused by businesses pulling out of the state, not principled opposition to what McCroy did, and its not possible to pull out of the US like it is to pull out of a state (and the felt effects are much smaller). But if businesses oppose this, and shun any states that follow North Carolina's path, it will be a blow to Republicans next election. Maybe not a huge one, but it'd be something; and therefore something worth Democrats making an issue of.

[Red Tiger]

38 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Doing unpopular things has ramifications beyond your term, as the Democrats found out this year.

And he did, kind of, shove the states rights things into the Republican's faces. By...doing nothing. That was kind of Obama's style, which was to simply let things go if he wanted to make a stand but not get too much flak for it. He did the same thing with legalization of gay marriage. It was effective if not particularly brave.

Scale of 1 to 10, what number would you give Obama? I get the feeling that you are not his biggest fan (which I would fully understand).

[Kalbear]

Just now, Red Tiger said:

Scale of 1 to 10, what number would you give Obama? I get the feeling that you are not his biggest fan (which I would fully understand).

I'll give some baselines first.

I'd rate FDR and Lincoln as 10.

Teddy Roosevelt as 9. (he's my personally favorite president, but he didn't deal with as much as FDR and Lincoln did)

Obama is a 7. He dealt with one of the biggest crises in modern presidential history and dealt with it decisively and well. He brought in the first medical reform in 50 years. He was entirely scandal-free, ethically very strong, very intelligent and had one of the best first families ever. And he was historic in his race. 

However, his foreign relations ranged from being adequate to hideous, he continued the expansion of presidential power at the expense of congress, he was never able to get congress to work with him and probably most importantly on his watch the entire Democratic party fell into the sea at local, state and federal levels. 

[Red Tiger]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'll give some baselines first.

I'd rate FDR and Lincoln as 10.

Teddy Roosevelt as 9. (he's my personally favorite president, but he didn't deal with as much as FDR and Lincoln did)

Obama is a 7. He dealt with one of the biggest crises in modern presidential history and dealt with it decisively and well. He brought in the first medical reform in 50 years. He was entirely scandal-free, ethically very strong, very intelligent and had one of the best first families ever. And he was historic in his race. 

However, his foreign relations ranged from being adequate to hideous, he continued the expansion of presidential power at the expense of congress, he was never able to get congress to work with him and probably most importantly on his watch the entire Democratic party fell into the sea at local, state and federal levels. 

Firs of all in regards to Teddy Roosevelt. https://media.giphy.com/media/Jcdcc5WxZYjkc/giphy.gif

He's my favourite too, though a very contradictory character.

I know under Obama the democratic seats were lost (more than any other president), but isn't this normal for every sitting president? Also, what could he have done to stop it?

[IheartIheartTesla]

For all of Trump's talk of being a businessman, when it comes to social issues he seems to be an outlier (based on his administrations actions). Many big companies these days tend to champion LGBT rights, and also have sustainability initiatives in place, two places where I see them at odds with the administration.

Oh, and immigration too; more the limiting of free travel between nations.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Red Tiger said:

Firs of all in regards to Teddy Roosevelt. https://media.giphy.com/media/Jcdcc5WxZYjkc/giphy.gif

He's my favourite too, though a very contradictory character.

I know under Obama the democratic seats were lost (more than any other president), but isn't this normal for every sitting president? Also, what could he have done to stop it?

I don't actually think that Roosevelt was particularly contradictory; he had a very clear ethos and was exceptionally good at articulating both it and the reasons for it. He was contradictory perhaps in his party affiliation, but he was one of the presidents that really went far beyond party affiliations towards what he felt was right. One of the things that's really interesting to me about Roosevelt is how much his views basically never changed from year to year, and certainly didn't because of political expediency. 

As to what Obama could have done - he was fine with DWS being the DNC chair, and under her watch Dems basically gave up major contests without any kind of strategy. State and local races were not organized well and were definitely not supported at the federal level. Obama also gave every 2010 race MASSIVE turnout because of the ACA - ramming that down everyone's throats hurt a lot of his capital, politically, and 2010 was a big counterattack to that.

The losses in the house and senate hurt a lot, don't get me wrong, but losing massive states and local levels has potentially crippled the Democratic party for a generation. There just aren't nearly as many people coming up. 

Obama needed to be a lot more active in the party encouraging what kinds of people he wanted, encouraging more participation and sponsoring races. He needed to be more hands-on and far more active, and as I said above his style was to let others do a lot of this. That worked for him exceptionally well but in this it failed. 

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

For all of Trump's talk of being a businessman, when it comes to social issues he seems to be an outlier (based on his administrations actions). Many big companies these days tend to champion LGBT rights, and also have sustainability initiatives in place, two places where I see them at odds with the administration.

Oh, and immigration too; more the limiting of free travel between nations.

Well, he doesn't really run a corporation - he runs a family business. And like a lot of family businesses his personal prejudices and animosities are very, VERY prevalent and influential. 

[Red Tiger]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't actually think that Roosevelt was particularly contradictory; he had a very clear ethos and was exceptionally good at articulating both it and the reasons for it. He was contradictory perhaps in his party affiliation, but he was one of the presidents that really went far beyond party affiliations towards what he felt was right. One of the things that's really interesting to me about Roosevelt is how much his views basically never changed from year to year, and certainly didn't because of political expediency.

Well I meant contradictory in this fashion.

He wasa ssunday school teacher, but he didn't take his oath on the bible.

He championed individualism, but worked to build what people today would call a wellfare state.

He got the nobel prize for his peace negotiations, but in many ways he started America's imperialism.

He was an environmental activist, but loved to hunt.

Was passive on civil rights, but invited a black man to the white house.

My favourite president, but I don't think he'd be embraced by either party in this day and age.

[Rippounet]

Washington Post's Worldview of the day:

Quote

 

Trump's safe space

President Trump’s speech over the weekend along Florida’s Space Coast — effectively a campaign rally staged just one month into his term — served, more than anything else, as an illustration of the extent of the political polarization now gripping the United States.

Trump had already declared open war on his country's media, describing the mainstream press as the "enemy" of the American people. The 9,000-strong crowd of supporters seemed to agree.

"It was hilarious to see him give it to the media," said Tony Lopez, 28, a car dealer from Orlando who spoke to my colleagues covering the event. "The media's problem is that they keep wanting to make up stories so that he looks bad. It doesn’t work. He’s talking right through you guys."

Since Trump entered the White House, he has lashed out at supposedly negative stories about his presidency as "fake news." Many of his supporters, who largely subscribe to a steady diet of right-wing talk radio, television and websites, share this assessment.

"If he hadn’t gotten into office, 70,000 miners would have been put out of work,” said Patricia Nana, a 42-year-old naturalized citizen from Cameroon. She was referring to a bill Trump approved on Thursday that scrapped an Obama-era regulation preventing mines from dumping debris in nearby streams. "I saw the ceremony where he signed that bill, giving them their jobs back, and he had miners with their hard hats and everything — you could see how happy they were."

Such was her view. Here was the reality: "The regulation actually would have cost relatively few mining jobs," my colleagues explained, "and would have created nearly as many new jobs on the regulatory side, according to a government report — an example of the frequent distance between Trump’s rhetoric, which many of his supporters wholeheartedly believe, and verifiable facts."

In other words, the rallygoers were the perfect audience for the president, who has continued his campaign habit of insisting his version of reality is the only one that exists or matters.

Behold some of the problematic falsehoods circulated by Trump just this weekend, from his fear-mongering over immigrant criminals in Sweden to his insistence that he inherited "a mess" in January. (A cursory glance at the numbers reveals that the Obama administration bequeathed Trump a far rosier picture than what it inherited eight years ago. On Sweden, read my colleague Rick Noack below.)

Some American conservatives mock their counterparts on the left, particularly student activists at the country's liberal colleges, for clinging to their "safe spaces" — that is, avoiding conflicting opinions and refusing to tolerate the views of those who don't share their outlook.

But Trump is now the one groping for a safe space. His incessant derision of journalists and his apparent desire to hide behind campaign theatrics are both symptoms of his divisive brand of ultra-nationalist populism. They are also possibly a coping mechanism for a president already buffeted by intrigue, scandal and allegations of incompetence just a month into his tenure.

As a result, Carl Bernstein, the veteran Washington Post reporter who helped break the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, sees the nation facing an unprecedented crisis.

"Trump's attacks on the American press as 'enemies of the American people' are more treacherous than Richard Nixon's attacks on the press," he told CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday. That's because the polarization of the present finds no real equivalent in Nixon's America.

“There is no civic consensus in this country like there was at the time of Watergate about acceptable presidential conduct," said Bernstein. "Trump is out there on his own, leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy. We are into terrible authoritarian tendencies."

Bernstein is hardly alone. On Monday, Ned Price, a former CIA officer who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, explained why he had recently quit his post: He sees Trump operating in a dangerous ideological bubble.

Trump's administration "has little need for intelligence professionals who, in speaking truth to power, might challenge the so-called 'America First' orthodoxy that sees Russia as an ally and Australia as a punching bag," Price wrote in The Washington Post. "That’s why the president’s trusted White House advisers, not career professionals, reportedly have final say over what intelligence reaches his desk."

Timothy Snyder, the acclaimed scholar of 20th century history at Yale University, offered a gloomy analysis last week of Trump's political style.

Trump "doesn’t seem to care about the institutions and the laws except insofar as they appear as barriers to the goal of permanent kleptocratic authoritarianism and immediate personal gratification," said Snyder in an interview with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. "It is all about him all of time, it is not about the citizens and our political traditions."

He ended with a stark warning: "We have at most a year to defend the Republic, perhaps less."

 

I kinda feel amused by the way the Post reverses the "safe space" rethoric here by pointing out that it's really Trump and his supports that are struggling to find a sace space... away from reality.

And at the same time it's really worrying... Because it means that there are many people who, faced with unconfortable truths, will simply ignore them and believe in whatever makes them feel confortable.

 

[Mexal]

I'm not sure if anyone is following this but an Austrian court just allowed the extradition of Dmytro Firtash to the United States. Firtash was an Ukranian oligarch who was close to the pro-Putin former President of Ukraine and worked closely with Paul Manafort. Should Firtash end up in the hands of the FBI, I suspect he'll sing like a canary and that could lead to some very interesting revelations about Manafort. Austrian police took Firtash into custody following the extradition ruling though it seems to be in connection to a Spanish warrant so not really sure which takes precedent. Either way, this is worth tracking.

[Altherion]

34 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

I know under Obama the democratic seats were lost (more than any other president), but isn't this normal for every sitting president? Also, what could he have done to stop it?

Almost every sitting President loses seats (the one exception I can think of is FDR), but Obama lost more of them and faster than most. Here's a FiveThirtyEight article about it with a bunch of charts and graphs. In very broad terms, what he should have done is prioritize Main Street over Wall Street and he did the exact opposite.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Almost every sitting President loses seats (the one exception I can think of is FDR), but Obama lost more of them and faster than most. Here's a FiveThirtyEight article about it with a bunch of charts and graphs.

Ooh, good article.

2 minutes ago, Altherion said:

In very broad terms, what he should have done is prioritize Main Street over Wall Street and he did the exact opposite.

Ooh, exceptionally bad interpretation of said good article.

[aceluby]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Ooh, good article.

Ooh, exceptionally bad interpretation of said good article.

But it's such a good bumper sticker!  In a post-fact world, bumper sticker slogans rule!

[Red Tiger]

15 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Almost every sitting President loses seats (the one exception I can think of is FDR), but Obama lost more of them and faster than most.

....Yeah, which the very first sentence in my post pointed out.

[Altherion]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Ooh, exceptionally bad interpretation of said good article.

To be clear, the statement is not an interpretation of the article -- the latter does not go into the reasons behind these losses.

On an unrelated note, here's a Washington Post article about Sweden:

Quote

Just two days after President Trump provoked widespread consternation by seeming to imply, incorrectly, that immigrants had perpetrated a recent spate of violence in Sweden, riots broke out in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in the northern suburbs of the country's capital, Stockholm.

The neighborhood, Rinkeby, was the scene of riots in 2010 and 2013, too. And in most ways, what happened Monday night was reminiscent of those earlier bouts of anger. Swedish police apparently made an arrest about 8 p.m. near the Rinkeby station. For reasons not yet disclosed by the police, word of the arrest prompted youths to gather.

Over four hours, the crowd burned about half a dozen cars, vandalized several shopfronts and threw rocks at police. Police spokesman Lars Bystrom confirmed to Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper that an officer fired shots at a rioter but missed. A photographer for the newspaper was attacked by more than a dozen men and his camera was stolen, but ultimately no one was hurt or even arrested.

I had to laugh when I read this: Trump wasn't wrong, he was just early.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I had to laugh when I read this: Trump wasn't wrong, he was just early.

No one arrested or hurt. Sounds like he was just wrong.

[Rippounet]

A bit OT, but since no-go zones were mentioned now and then:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mariekirschen/the-french-troll-this-american-and-her-no-go-zone?utm_term=.hc8j1y4Al#.taQav6n3d

As luck would have it, I happened to take a picture of the terrible "riot" in Nantes that Pamela Geller was alluding to.

Yeah, I barely escaped with my life there. Bwhahahahaha...