Why I don't fear a Trump Presidency

POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 8, 2025 20:38
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SECOND

Monday, March 21, 2016 12:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You must think I like Trump, or something.

I don't. It's just that I hate Hillary more than I fear Trump.

. . .

I don't know what Trump will do. But, like I said, I know what Hillary will do, and I'd rather vote for an uncertain future than a certain disaster.

You could know what both Trump and Hillary will do, but you can't know using your feelings.
Trump: http://taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/2000560-an-analysis-of-donald-t
rumps-tax-plan.pdf
Hillary: http://taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/2000638-an-analysis-of-hillary-
clintons-tax-proposals.pdf

March 20 1:56 am
Trump Didn’t Put the Con in Conservatism
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/trump-didnt-put-the-con-in
-conservatism/

I wanted to note something about the reactions to the John Harwood interview with Paul Ryan, which are very relevant to understanding the Republican mess. www.cnbc.com/2016/03/17/another-dem-like-obama-our-best-days-are-behin
d-us-ryan.html

Liberals have been jumping, rightly, on Ryan’s extraordinary dismissal of any attempt to look at the distribution of tax cuts [mostly to the rich] as “ridiculous.” But conservative writers — even those who are relatively moderate, or at least try to seem that way — clearly still view Ryan as an almost saintly figure: serious, intellectually honest, and compassionate toward the poor.

He isn’t, of course. His various budgets all have the same basic outline: huge tax cuts for the rich combined with savage cuts in benefits for the poor, with the net effect being to increase, not reduce the budget deficit. But he pretends that they’re deficit-reduction proposals by claiming that he will raise trillions in revenue by closing unspecified loopholes and achieve trillions more in unspecified savings. In other words, Ryan has been playing a con game in which he uses magic asterisks to mask a reverse Robin Hood agenda — take from the poor, give to the rich — as deficit hawkery.

This isn’t hard to see, and it has been pointed out many times. Back in 2011, at the height of media Ryanolatry, the truth even became slightly mainstream, as reporters started to point out the absurdities of his assumptions.

But moderate Republican pundits can’t, won’t see the obvious. For them it’s all about affect — how he comes across — which is also why they saw tax-slashing, war-starting Marco Rubio as somehow a break from the failures of the Bush years.

So when these commentators lament the blindness of primary voters, their willingness to be taken in by an obvious con, they might want to take a look in the mirror. Is it really the con that bothers them, or just the vulgarity?

1KIKI

Monday, March 21, 2016 2:02 AM

Whether or not Trump means what he says, only time and circumstance will tell.

But I believe it's a tactical mistake to move forward without a Plan B, or at least Scenario B written about 'what if'. Second has written such a scenario that I think is believable, where we get not only a Trump WH on the take, but also a republican party rampaging in Congress.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Monday, March 21, 2016 2:15 AM

As of March 19, 2016

Yes, Clinton's Gotten The Most Votes, But GOP Has More Overall
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/19/471102628/yes-clintons-gotten-the-most-v
otes-but-gop-has-more-overall

Looking at Hillary v Bernie, Hillary has 59% of the democratic votes so far, which is not a blowout lead. OTOH due to the very UNdemocratic practices of 'winner-take-all' and 'superdelegates', along with 'proportional by DISTRICT' (and we know how gerrymandered they can be), I'd say the democratic process is already broken. Even if Bernie gets more than 50% of the popular vote, I suspect he'll end up with less than 50% of the delegates.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

THGRRI

Monday, March 21, 2016 2:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
As of March 19, 2016

Yes, Clinton's Gotten The Most Votes, But GOP Has More Overall
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/19/471102628/yes-clintons-gotten-the-most-v
otes-but-gop-has-more-overall

You both proved my point and missed my point. Go back and see if with all that reading you claim to do you can figure it out. I'll give you a clue. I am responding to what SIG says in the post.

As for the GOP having more people show up at the polls in the primaries it means nothing at this point.

1KIKI

Monday, March 21, 2016 2:26 AM

Troll, much?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

KPO

Monday, March 21, 2016 8:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm willing to turn the table over and vote for Trump, if that's my final ballot choice.

So Sig announces she's going to be voting for Trump. Is this the point where we are supposed to act surprised?

SIGNYM

Monday, March 21, 2016 11:08 PM

Quote:
Whether or not Trump means what he says, only time and circumstance will tell.

But I believe it's a tactical mistake to move forward without a Plan B, or at least Scenario B written about 'what if'. Second has written such a scenario that I think is believable, where we get not only a Trump WH on the take, but also a republican party rampaging in Congress. - KIKI

Hmmm... I didn't get this out of what SECOND wrote. Nothing even close. Can you explain your logic as to how you derived this conclusion?

Also, what do you mean by "a Plan B"? Where is this supposed to be implemented? During the primaries? At the general election? Afterwards? I can't even imagine what a Plan B would entail, please explain.

----------

As far as Trump is concerned, I've forced myself to sit through several of his speeches, from beginning to end. The media's portrayal of what Trump says is not what Trump says.

The media focuses on racism (by the way, being Mexican or Muslim is not a "race" so the term "racism" doesn't apply) but what The Donald talks about MOST .... after schmoozing the crowd for 10-15 minutes .... is TRADE DEALS. After that is ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

In other words: The flight of jobs and the gutting of the American economy on the altar of free trade.

I'm not the only one who noticed the disconnect between what the media says about Trump and what Trump says. In The Guardian:

Quote:
Last week, I decided to watch several hours of Trump speeches for myself. I saw the man ramble and boast and threaten and even seem to gloat when protesters were ejected from the arenas in which he spoke. I was disgusted by these things, as I have been disgusted by Trump for 20 years. But I also noticed something surprising. In each of the speeches I watched, Trump spent a good part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could even be called leftwing.

Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame. He did it again during the debate on 3 March: asked about his political excommunication by Mitt Romney, he chose to pivot and talk about … trade.

It seems to obsess him: the destructive free-trade deals our leaders have made, the many companies that have moved their production facilities to other lands, the phone calls he will make to those companies’ CEOs in order to threaten them with steep tariffs unless they move back to the US.

Trump embellished this vision with another favorite leftwing idea: under his leadership, the government would “start competitive bidding in the drug industry”. (“We don’t competitively bid!” he marveled – another true fact, a legendary boondoggle brought to you by the George W Bush administration.) Trump extended the critique to the military-industrial complex, describing how the government is forced to buy lousy but expensive airplanes thanks to the power of industry lobbyists.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-
americans-support

Many Americans realize, at a gut level, that we don't have a economy (a system of production and consumption) anymore. Consumption? Yes. Production? Not so much! It's been outsourced to China and Mexico, or handed off to illegal immigrants at much lower wages.

Unless a nation is able to control the flow of goods, people, and money across its border, it has no sovereign control of its economy. It's the same message as Marine Le Pen and other Euroskeptics, and they're right. All you have to do is look at how Greece is being crucified by the ECB to see how loss of sovereignty works.

There are no manufacturing jobs, and that is a precarious place to be, not only for Americans as individuals but also for the nation as a whole.

That attack on "free trade" is what

REAVERFAN

Monday, March 21, 2016 11:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by whozit:
Quote:
Originally posted by REAVERFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by whozit:
Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Quote:
Originally posted by whozit:
So you think the Republicans will become dictators like Barry? I do agree that if Trump wins in a landslide the Republicans in D.C. will want to be his new best friends. The anarchist in me loves watching you libs become unhinged, he's exposing you people as the lunatics you are. Now go to a Trump rally and get punched out by a Trump supporter.
Not surprising you take pleasure in the thought of violence against people you disagree with. That's what fascists do. You fit right in with the other racist Trumpbots.

By calling me a racist you're trying to shame me, sorry pal that crap isn't working anymore. Now instead of backing away we're telling you race baiters to fuck off. Or in the case of race baiters at a Trump rally, they're getting their asses kicked.
You absolutely are a racist.

Trump gave you permission to be open about it.

Go to a Trump rally and say that to a supporters face, then he or she will punch yours. The common man and woman isn't putting up with your crap anymore. Now go have a nice salad, put on a chick flick and go fuck yourself.

More of the bigotry you and your fellow Trumpettes feel so free to express now. Are you going to a Trump rally soon? Ready to beat up some n*ggers, are you?

That's what you endorse.

1KIKI

Tuesday, March 22, 2016 12:32 AM

Signy - entertain for a minute the idea that Trump means nothing of what he says.

My take was that Trump meant at least SOME of it:

"Unless you think republicans will give Trump majority support in both houses I don't see him getting much done.
Let's say he wants to get a bill passed to build a wall. Who does he go to for support? Or he wants to get a budget passed. Who will pass it? Not generically, but specifically. Rand? Rubio? McConnell? Can you name a single republican in the House with enough pull to get something passed? He has to go to party-identified republicans, and those are the exact same people he's been spitting on.
Maybe my imagination is limited, but I see nothing but roadblocks ahead for him."

Second believes that Trump has both a personal agenda for wanting to be in the WH, and that his political stance would be to promote the republican establishment agenda, ie that he means nothing of what he says, that's it's the same big con-job republican politicians have been pulling on their base all these years, and that republican voters have been falling for all these years. "... Trump would be signing every law the Republican establishment wants and double crossing all those voters that had believed he would really look after the working class voter. Trump screwed anybody he could while in business. He won’t stop in the White House."

What I'm saying is that, if there isn't a Plan B in case the Trump presidency isn't as advertised (and I can't think of one at the moment), at least consider a Scenario B before going down that path.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.