Why I don't fear a Trump Presidency
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 8, 2025 20:38
VIEWED: 11702
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Quote:Congressional Republicans won't go along with Trump selling the White House to the highest bidder. It was a silly metaphor based on Trump being a real estate billionaire.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Winning means he can sell the White House in the biggest real estate deal of the century!"
I'm still trying to figure out why congressional Republicans would go along with it, though.
What I was really thinking of (and even ignoramus Trump knows about despite paying no attention in school to American history) is the kind of goverment corruption that grew during President Warren G Harding’s administration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding#Teapot_Dome
There will be so many opportunities for President Trump and his appointees to loot the USA from the White House. There will be huge scandals, one after another, and Trump will love every minute of it. Trump would absolutely thrive on threats of impeachment from powerless Democrats in Congress. And in the mean time, 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.
I don't fear a Trump Presidency because Trump will make it the greatest reality show in TV history and he will make me and himself richer while screwing the working class. What could be better? [I feel I am in a Wonderland where Trump supporters have lost their ability to tell that Trump is a complete liar.]
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Another reason not to fear a Trump Presidency: European politics is full of Trump-like politics, yet life goes on.
www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11232704/what-trump-supporters-believe
In foreign countries without America's entrenched system of two-party politics, it is relatively common to find a political party that locates itself firmly on the right in most domestic matters while dissenting from the neoliberal consensus on globalization.
Some of these parties, like the National Front in France or the Sweden Democrats, have roots in fascist movements and are considered unfit partners in government by the mainstream parties.
But other populist nationalist parties, including the Danish People's Party and the People for Freedom in the Netherlands have played a role in offering parliamentary backing to right-of-center coalition governments in exchange for policy concessions. Austria's Freedom Party has served in formal coalition at both the national and state levels, and the Swiss People's Party has regularly been a member of the grand coalition that governs Switzerland.
In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi even managed to take advantage of a massive scandal discrediting the mainstream center right to become the overall leader of the country's right wing and serve several terms as prime minister.
All of these populist-nationalist movements tend to be inflected with controversial and racially charged rhetoric (not all that unusual in American politics either), but they exist on a broad spectrum of seriousness about governance in a way that shows the "Trump Show" and personality cult aspects of Trumpism aren't integral to the formula.
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Why I don't fear a Trump Presidency
Trump is no longer a frozen steak salesman. That venture — Trump Steaks™ — was brief, lasting in earnest for just two months in the summer of 2007 as part of an agreement with the Sharper Image, that late-aughts mall store perhaps best known for electric massage chairs and double wine chillers. But in recent months, Trump’s brief tenure as a frontman for a line of frozen steaks has resurfaced in the public imagination.
There’s not much left of Trump Steaks — you can’t order them anymore, and the websites that once sold the frozen meat slabs are now relegated to the internet archives. But it’s worth looking back at exactly how a man who so consistently brags about his intelligence and business acumen failed to sell steaks to one of the most beef-obsessed countries in the world.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/03/04/3756135/trump-steaks-a-de
finitive-history/
Donald Trump's taste for well-done steaks is disqualifying.
His steaks are well done. Very well done. Any chef will tell you that this is not how you should be ordering steak.
www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11234064/donald-trump-steak-well-done
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Why I don't fear a Trump Presidency
President Trump has got speeches already made for double-crossing his supporters:
“The truth about these dysfunctional downscale communities is that they deserve to die!” Trump is warming up.
Pres. Donald will really beat-down his voters, after he modifies this sample speech a bit:
Quote:
Economically, these communities are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.
www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/432569/father-f-hrer
Another great speech Donald could give regarding economically struggling white people in rural communities in the same way the G.O.P. regards economically struggling black people living in inner-city communities. Trump’s speechwriter will have to lightly modify this one, but as President he will have as many speechwriters as he needs:
Quote:
For generations, conservatives have rightly railed against deterministic progressive notions that put human choices at the mercy of race, class, history, or economics. Those factors can create additional challenges, but they do not relieve any human being of the moral obligation to do their best.
Yet millions of Americans aren’t doing their best. Indeed, they’re barely trying. As I’ve related before, my church in Kentucky made a determined attempt to reach kids and families that were falling between the cracks, and it was consistently astounding how little effort most parents and their teen children made to improve their lives. If they couldn’t find a job in a few days — or perhaps even as little as a few hours — they’d stop looking. If they got angry at teachers or coaches, they’d drop out of school. If they fought with their wife, they had sex with a neighbor. And always — always — there was a sense of entitlement.
And that’s where disability or other government programs kicked in. They were there, beckoning, giving men and women alternatives to gainful employment. You don’t have to do any work (your disability lawyer does all the heavy lifting), you make money, and you get drugs. At our local regional hospital, it’s become a bitter joke the extent to which the community is hooked on "Xanatab" — the Xanax and Lortab prescriptions that lead to drug dependence.
www.nationalreview.com/corner/432796/working-class-whites-have-moral-r
esponsibilities-defense-kevin-williamson
I look forward to President Trump kicking his followers in the teeth.
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I do not envy the Republican who must look around in despair and realize that everything liberals have ever said about the GOP is true for such a significant portion of the party.
Sycophants such as Gov. Chris Christie, Ben Carson, and Jerry Falwell, Jr. are luring conservatives and evangelicals to Trump. These men are sellouts. Kathleen Parker, a Washington Post columnist, says they must pay: “The only real strength of Trump’s candidacy has been to expose and shame the cowards and opportunists among us. Remember them.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe the 2016 campaign will turn out like the Harry Potter stories: The Dark Lord rises, the Death Eaters come out to embrace him, and in the end, he is defeated, and his acolytes are punished. But maybe, in real life, where we have no magic wands, the cowards and opportunists win.
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/the_religiou
s_right_is_in_a_battle_for_souls_and_it_s_losing_to_donald_trump.html
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Scott Adams, Dilbert cartoonist, posted on March 15th, 2016:
Unlike Trump, Rand Paul treated voters as if they were intelligent creatures who make decisions based on the facts. His campaign didn’t last long. Rand Paul knows about a lot of stuff. He’s a smart guy. But apparently psychology is not on the list of things he knows. And psychology is the only necessary skill for running for president.
Trump knows psychology. He knows facts don’t matter. He knows people are irrational. So while his opponents are losing sleep trying to memorize the names of foreign leaders – in case someone asks – Trump knows that is a waste of time. No one ever voted for a president based on his or her ability to name heads of state. People vote based on emotion.
Trump ignores facts because he knows facts don’t matter. They never have and they never will, at least when you're campaigning for President. Facts only matter after you win.
And he doesn’t apologize or correct himself. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump looks stupid, evil, and maybe crazy. If you understand persuasion, Trump is pitch-perfect most of the time. He ignores unnecessary rational thought and objective data and incessantly hammers on what matters: emotions.
Did Trump’s involvement in the birther thing confuse you? Were you wondering how Trump could believe Obama was not a citizen? The answer is that Trump never believed anything about Obama’s place of birth. The facts were irrelevant, so he ignored them while finding a place in the hearts of conservatives.
None of Trump's crazy behavior is crazy. It is skillful to the extreme. So skillful, in fact, that he got to the point where he can literally say any damned thing and his supporters don’t care how true it is. They care that he is on their side and doing whatever it takes to tear down the money-puppets in Washington.
If you don’t see Trump’s wink, you can be forgiven for thinking he is Hitler. He probably knew the risks. Reagan had the same experience. Trump is following the Reagan game plan so he had to expect what is happening now.
Democrats are dogs. Republicans are cats.
www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy/2016/03/17
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Well, I haven't had a chance to read what you quoted and linked, but I get the gist of your argument. Trump will give the republicans in congress everything they want, while enriching himself and his cronies from his base at the WH.
It's a scenario I hadn't come up with, but I can see how it could work.
I concede that it's a serious potential threat.
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.
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Quote:The word "everything" is so abstract. Trump is concrete. For example, he’ll nominate a clone of Anthony Scalia for the Supreme Court. Can’t get less abstract than that. Trump will loudly proclaim the clone is a strong supporter of the little people in the GOP. The big people in the GOP know perfectly well from the clone’s history that the Scalia-clone supports only big people. Everybody in the GOP, big or little, will think they have triumphed over those mean, nasty Democrats.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Trump will give the republicans in congress everything they want . .
The little people won’t know they have been cheated because Trump will not explain it to them, poor little darlings, but they will have a vague, nauseous feeling at the next election that their lives are not going well. Trump will tell them that it is the Democrats causing those feelings in their guts. The cure for their disappointing lives is to vote Trump in 2020!
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No, not Donald Trump, not ever
by David Brooks MARCH 18, 2016
www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/opinion/no-not-trump-not-ever.html?ref=opin
ion
David Brooks says Republicans voting for Donald Trump in the primary deserve respect, but this year, their candidate does not. My opinion is Trump voters do NOT deserve respect since they are childishly gullible. Trump deserves respect for understanding those voters deeply and completely, conning them out of their votes, but he ought not to be President for reasons that David Brooks gives. Many of Trump's faults, like his indifference to truth and accuracy, are not really Trump's faults. His voters have never cared about truth or accuracy or honest, the main reasons their work lives and personal lives are screwed up, and Trump is giving those losers more of what they want.
David Brooks admits he does not socially intermingled with Trump supporters. That would be why Brooks respects them and I don't. Brooks just doesn't know 'em.
Quote:
The voters have spoken.
In convincing fashion, Republican voters seem to be selecting Donald Trump as their nominee. And in a democracy, victory has legitimacy to it. Voters are rarely wise but are usually sensible. They understand their own problems. And so deference is generally paid to the candidate who wins.
And deference is being paid. Gov. Rick Scott of Florida is urging Republicans to coalesce around Trump. Pundits are coming out with their “What We Can Learn” commentaries. Those commentaries are built on a hidden respect for the outcome, that this is a rejection of a Republicanism that wasn’t working and it points in some better direction.
The question is: Should deference be paid to this victor? Should we bow down to the judgment of these voters?
Well, some respect is in order. Trump voters are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else.
Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.
And yet reality is reality.
Donald Trump is epically unprepared to be president. He has no realistic policies, no advisers, no capacity to learn. His vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he’s uninterested in finding out. He insults the office Abraham Lincoln once occupied by running for it with less preparation that most of us would undertake to buy a sofa.
Trump is perhaps the most dishonest person to run for high office in our lifetimes. All politicians stretch the truth, but Trump has a steady obliviousness to accuracy.
This week, the Politico reporters Daniel Lippman, Darren Samuelsohn and Isaac Arnsdorf fact-checked 4.6 hours of Trump speeches and news conferences. They found more than five dozen untrue statements, or one every five minutes.
“His remarks represent an extraordinary mix of inaccurate claims about domestic and foreign policy and personal and professional boasts that rarely measure up when checked against primary sources,” they wrote.
He is a childish man running for a job that requires maturity. He is an insecure boasting little boy whose desires were somehow arrested at age 12. He surrounds himself with sycophants. “You can always tell when the king is here,” Trump’s butler told Jason Horowitz in a recent Times profile. He brags incessantly about his alleged prowess, like how far he can hit a golf ball. “Do I hit it long? Is Trump strong?” he asks.
In some rare cases, political victors do not deserve our respect. George Wallace won elections, but to endorse those outcomes would be a moral failure.
And so it is with Trump.
History is a long record of men liNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Trump supporters have a huge disconnect from Trump.
For them, Trump is the "reset" button on American politics, the "none of the above" box on the ballot. Trump speaks their language and he's promising what they want to hear: Make American great again. Take America back to the day when things were going better. Remove ourselves from the international web of agreements that are sapping our jobs and our economy.
TRUMP is running out of ego, like he does everything. Many times he succeeds brilliantly, but sometimes he fails.
Personally, I'm so disgusted with "business as usual", and so viscerally and immediately repelled by Hillary, that I'm willing to turn the table over and vote for Trump, if that's my final ballot choice. In the meantime, my vote is for Sanders. It's a hopeless vote because the Democratic Party establishment super delegates and their ever-compliant "liberal" media have already cast their ballots for Hillary- so much for democracy!
If the Republican establishment does anything other than nominate the winner of the primaries, that signals the end of democracy in the USA.
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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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