U.S. Politics: Despite Negative Press Covfefe, We Will Always Have Paris

[S John]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Counterpoint: Trump is going to do some major damage by being this much of an ignorant dumbass.

 

Point well taken, believe me.  My hope is in bringing some of the Trumpsters to the realization that this guy is NOT a good president and does not represent the direction we should be going as a country, which I think will happen naturally over the course of his term.  I think if Trump gets booted early, the conservative misinformation nodes are going to go nuts and people will be convinced that the deep state, the liberal elitists, and the media conspired together to take away THEIR candidate because he was a threat to the globalist agenda.  Trump himself will do everything in his power to promote this narrative and the last thing I want is to make a political martyr of Trump.  In the bargain we'd get Pence, a competent Republican who will be able to distance himself from Trump's buffoonish behavior while championing the same causes in a more palatable way.  

The only way to get rid of Trump early is if he steps in it so badly that even most of his supporters agree that he needs to go.  I am really not sure what that would take at this point.   As horrified as I am by the obvious bad decision that 63,000,000 people made in voting for Trump, I am not willing to write all of them off as a lost cause.  We need some of them back to function as a country and I'm afraid that impeaching Trump without a true home-run case could permanently fracture the democracy.

As to the Qatar thing - that absolutely crossed my mind the other day, that he possibly didn't actually know we had troops there.  

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well to be fair, if Trump said that it would sound more like, "I am not a crook. Not a crook. Believe me, I am not a crook." 

No crook, no crook. You're the crook.

[Kalbear]

Just now, S John said:

The only way to get rid of Trump early is if he steps in it so badly that even most of his supporters agree that he needs to go.  I am really not sure what that would take at this point.   As horrified as I am by the obvious bad decision that 63,000,000 people made in voting for Trump, I am not willing to write all of them off as a lost cause.  We need some of them back to function as a country and I'm afraid that impeaching Trump without a true home-run case could permanently fracture the democracy.

Yes, this, 100%. David Brin wrote an excellent summary of this - though he's a lot more optimistic about the US government being able to control Trump's excesses. Basically, anything that makes it all Democrats and a couple Republicans makes it a partisan issue. This has to be bipartisan, it has to come from Republicans, and anything else is both bad for the US in the general sense and bad for politics. 

My pessimism says that this will never, ever happen; there is literally nothing which Trump can do that will make him so onerous that Republicans will reject him, save if he actually starts making deals with Democrats to get things done. At that point he's useless to Republicans and they'll get rid of him.

[Jaxom 1974]

30 minutes ago, S John said:

 

Trump had no record to speak of when he ran against Clinton and that turned out to be to his advantage.  In 2020 he'll have to run on defending his record, and Americans will have to reflect on the 4 year circus and decide if that is something they want more of.  I really do not think that they will.  Trump has only been in office for 6 months, so sure, there are still many clinging to the SS Trump, but my guess is that many will be ready to disembark come 2020.  And maybe, just maybe, letting this all play out to its natural conclusion will teach the electorate a valuable lesson - though that may be a touch of optimism too far.  

Trump could resign tomorrow, the allegations and investigations won't be going away.  He's going to be an albatross around the necks of Republicans in 2018 and still in 2020.  Can Republicans overcome that? Never say never, otherwise we wouldn't be in the mess we are now, but he's still am albatross.

[Fragile Bird]

Trump's private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, is about to speak in response to Comey's testimony.

CNN is reporting that last night he was at the Trump hotel in Washington, bragging to everyone 'we won, we won' and buying everyone cigars.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Kalbear said:

My pessimism says that this will never, ever happen; there is literally nothing which Trump can do that will make him so onerous that Republicans will reject him, save if he actually starts making deals with Democrats to get things done. At that point he's useless to Republicans and they'll get rid of him.

Pretty much agree.

My pessimism is that I think the idea of the "Moderate Republican" is a laughable joke. I think the idea of "the principled conservative" is largely a laughable joke.

I don't think the Republican Party has the ability to look at itself and do the right thing. And plus you know, tax cuts above all else.

The only thing that will retrieve this situation is for the Republican Party to take a hard and repeated pounding.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Even if this hearing goes nowhere, I imagine progressives will use "Russia investigation" as a battle cry much like conservatives used "Benghazi!!!". There are so many things to choose from, there should be no problem to fire up the base in subsequent elections.

Possible, but more difficult. First, they'd need to come up with a pithier phrase ("Russia investigation" is just too long). Second, at the heart of "Benghazi!!!" was the murder of an American ambassador. There were a lot of things built on top of that, but everybody agreed on this one unfortunate and fact. At the heart the Russia investigation is... what? The hacking of the DNC or Podesta's emails? It doesn't have the same ring.

[Fragile Bird]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Possible, but more difficult. First, they'd need to come up with a pithier phrase ("Russia investigation" is just too long). Second, at the heart of "Benghazi!!!" was the murder of an American ambassador. There were a lot of things built on top of that, but everybody agreed on this one unfortunate and fact. At the heart the Russia investigation is... what? The hacking of the DNC or Podesta's emails? It doesn't have the same ring.

Yeah, reading your post is just like listening to the Republicans popping up on tv saying "no Republican wants to ever see this happen again" while man-on-the-street interviews show Trump supporters saying 'who cares, the important thing is we saw the emails!'

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Possible, but more difficult. First, they'd need to come up with a pithier phrase ("Russia investigation" is just too long). Second, at the heart of "Benghazi!!!" was the murder of an American ambassador. There were a lot of things built on top of that, but everybody agreed on this one unfortunate and fact. At the heart the Russia investigation is... what? The hacking of the DNC or Podesta's emails? It doesn't have the same ring.

For progressives it does. Benghazi dealt with a couple of nice narratives for conservatives - betrayal (which goes against their ingroup view) and some care/harm thrown in. 

Progressives don't care as much about ingroup stuff, but one of the two big things they care about is fairness. Fairness corresponds deeply to the emotion of anger, and it's one of the two best predictors for strong liberal viewpoints (the other is caring about harm). And Russiagate goes DEEPLY into the narrative of unfairness. It is unfair that another country interfered with our election in such a way that one candidate got a better shot, it's unfair what Comey did in October, it's unfair that Republicans are ignoring these things when they would scream bloody murder if Clinton had done it, it's unfair that we aren't punishing Russia for a massive, coordinated attack against the US at almost every single level you can think of.

So yeah, just like Benghazi was confusing to liberals as far as saying 'what's the deal', this is going to be very confusing to conservatives as to why they should care quite so much - and it will likely be VERY powerful in motivating liberals.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Trump could resign tomorrow, the allegations and investigations won't be going away.  He's going to be an albatross around the necks of Republicans in 2018 and still in 2020.  Can Republicans overcome that? Never say never, otherwise we wouldn't be in the mess we are now, but he's still am albatross.

Honestly if Trump continues on this trajectory for another 3 and a half years, it will hurt Republicans long past 2020. 

[Mexal]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Honestly if Trump continues on this trajectory for another 3 and a half years, it will hurt Republicans long past 2020. 

It will hurt America long past 2020.

[Jaxom 1974]

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Honestly if Trump continues on this trajectory for another 3 and a half years, it will hurt Republicans long past 2020. 

Granted.  But I was merely looking at the context of keeping 45 until the 2020 elections.  If this scandal does take 45 down, Pence as 46 won't make it out of 2020 either, due to his albatross...

22 minutes ago, Mexal said:

It will hurt America long past 2020.

It already has.  In less than 150 days, America gave up it's right to sit at the head of the world's table, and the world isn't giving the seat back any time soon.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Honestly if Trump continues on this trajectory for another 3 and a half years, it will hurt Republicans long past 2020. 

We hope. I had hoped that Dubya would long discredit the Republican Party and conservatism. Instead, what it did was double down and elect Trump.

The Republican Party has this amazing ability to create a mind bending and convoluted version of reality and then get just enough people to buy it. Who needs LSD when you can just listen to the Republican Party?

It would seem that the Republican Party is kind of like Michael Myers (and just as scary). No matter how many times you shoot it, stab it, burn it or whatever, it seems to come back scarier than ever.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Trump's private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, is about to speak in response to Comey's testimony.

CNN is reporting that last night he was at the Trump hotel in Washington, bragging to everyone 'we won, we won' and buying everyone cigars.

I think that means the cheque cleared.

[S John]

1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Granted.  But I was merely looking at the context of keeping 45 until the 2020 elections.  If this scandal does take 45 down, Pence as 46 won't make it out of 2020 either, due to his albatross...

This is all speculation, so who knows, you could certainly be right... but I am not confident that Trump would be much of an albatross for Pence in that scenario, especially if Trump were to get tossed out pre-2018 midterms.  That's a lot of time for Pence to settle things down and distance himself from Trump.  It won't take much at all to get most of Trump's followers on board.  

I'd go as far as to say it'll be easy to get them on board because I cannot think of anything that would galvanize Trump's base more than him getting thrown out of office.  I spend a lot of time in conservative-land, and a Trump impeachment would be validation for so many things that Trumpsters believe about who is really in charge of this country.  Elites, deep state, media, globalists, general swamp dwellers - but not them.  Not the voters.  

The dark tone of Trump's messaging struck home and his voters are absolutely not going to jump into the arms of the Democrats, after blaming them for booting their savior (which they will even if it is Trump's own fault), and especially not if Pence is standing right there relatively clean.  I do honestly believe the best chance for Dem's to end this nightmare is to let it run its course.  Have a good showing in 2018 to put a damper on the R agenda, and don't nominate someone terrible for President in 2020.  

I'd rather have a fresh face running against Trump and HIS record, than someone running against Pence, who will likely be given a clean slate by conservatives.  

I say all that assuming that there is no major catastrophe precipitated by Trump with irreversible consequences in the next 4 years.  Of course I would prefer Pence to that.  But as it stands today, I think leaving Trump in there is better for national unity and puts liberal policies in the best position moving forward.  Being able to say - "OK you guys got your guy, and now look at this God Damn mess."

[Rippounet]

I missed this from the previous thread:

On 03/06/2017 at 3:32 AM, Altherion said:

From the previous thread:

@Rippounet

But would this be a bad thing? To take your example, if in 2003 not just France, but every other country told the US that if it wants to invade Iraq, it can go it alone and as a result the US did not do it, would the world necessarily be a worse place?

I don't think it would be bad for the world, no. The US might still go at it alone though, but less people would be involved, one way or the other.

I just listened to the latest interview of Noam Chomsky:
http://radioopensource.org/american-socrates-life-mind-noam-chomsky/

Nothing new for anyone familiar with his work, but an interesting summary of his ideas for others, and a few nice quotes. I liked the "Trump is kicking his constituency in the face" line.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

For progressives it does. Benghazi dealt with a couple of nice narratives for conservatives - betrayal (which goes against their ingroup view) and some care/harm thrown in. 

Progressives don't care as much about ingroup stuff, but one of the two big things they care about is fairness. Fairness corresponds deeply to the emotion of anger, and it's one of the two best predictors for strong liberal viewpoints (the other is caring about harm). And Russiagate goes DEEPLY into the narrative of unfairness. It is unfair that another country interfered with our election in such a way that one candidate got a better shot, it's unfair what Comey did in October, it's unfair that Republicans are ignoring these things when they would scream bloody murder if Clinton had done it, it's unfair that we aren't punishing Russia for a massive, coordinated attack against the US at almost every single level you can think of.

So yeah, just like Benghazi was confusing to liberals as far as saying 'what's the deal', this is going to be very confusing to conservatives as to why they should care quite so much - and it will likely be VERY powerful in motivating liberals.

Maybe. You are right that it is difficult for an outsider to understand why certain people care so deeply about specific issues. However, if progressives really did care so much about fairness rather than in-group stuff, why didn't this help Sanders? What the Clinton camp and DNC did to him certainly wasn't fair.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

Maybe. You are right that it is difficult for an outsider to understand why certain people care so deeply about specific issues. However, if progressives really did care so much about fairness rather than in-group stuff, why didn't this help Sanders? What the Clinton camp and DNC did to him certainly wasn't fair.

I think you can make the argument that this bore out in the lack of support for Hillary in the General. Some of those folks voted 3rd party or didn't vote at all.

[TheKitttenGuard]

Quote

So yeah, just like Benghazi was confusing to liberals as far as saying 'what's the deal', this is going to be very confusing to conservatives as to why they should care quite so much - and it will likely be VERY powerful in motivating liberals.

Benghazi you had people stating Obama and Clinton saw it in real time and pleased on Fox News in short order.

There were problem with Bengazi but came so politicized in very short time that it gave appearance that was the real concern.

[TheKitttenGuard]

11 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Maybe. You are right that it is difficult for an outsider to understand why certain people care so deeply about specific issues. However, if progressives really did care so much about fairness rather than in-group stuff, why didn't this help Sanders? What the Clinton camp and DNC did to him certainly wasn't fair.

Hillary was in great shape in 2008 until Obama won Iowa and showed a black candidate can win in a White State. That dramatically shifted the upcoming Southern Primaries.

Can you give a specific example of what the DNC did that hurt Sander's with the South?

Why is there a definite yes that DNC interference was a overwhelming effect and a No on impact of possible actions from Russia.