Why is Trump so effective???

by Coded Logic 74 Replies latest social current

• 

  freemindfade

  Anyone who understands Trump's personality will realize that people like him will erode our system of checks and balances if given the chance.

  And what would you base that on? Forget Trump for a second, a lot of the nonsense in place that he is using or abusing was put there by the "Giver" American left. I think everyone is terrified of Trump for breaking down government not increasing its overreach. I do believe many want to live in that controlled "utopia" where harm is reduced because people just can't be trusted. Not me.

  Anyone seen the movie the Giver? very interesting. I would put that dystopian reality as a future of where we have been headed with Bush/Clinton/ Obama era's. I feel the left is more aggressive for overreach, but the right is there too.
• 

  bohm

  I think we are seeing something interesting with the Trump movement. Initially, Trump was a pure protest (anti-media, anti-establishment, anti-globalization, anti-modern culture and in particular anti-HRC). The campaign was largely substance-free but anti-Hillary. Trump was never about what he could do, but about "ehmails" or "benghazzi" or MSM or whatever.

  Now Trump has won and he is doing a worse job than many (me included) expected.. like just the past two days his Obamacare replacement will remove insurance from 24M people but give tax breaks to the wealthy, or the Chinese just gave* Kushner 400M and he is basically running the state department (can anyone recall when he had his hearing? no? no hearings? well I am sure that isn't necessary because he is such a nice guy. Why else would someone just give him 400M?). Naively, I expected Trump to rebrand but largely keep Obamacare (while claiming credit) and I expected him to take a hands-off approach to foreign policy which did not include his son-in-law to be running things.

  Naively, I actually expected Trump to rebrand but largely keep Obamacare (while claiming credit) and I expected him to take a hands-off approach to foreign policy which did not include his son-in-law to be running things.

  Anyway, that is a digression. What you would expect to happen now is that Trump supporters (or apologists) would turn on Trump when it turned out he wasn't going to turn the clock back to how grandpa recalled the 1950s. But that is not taking cognitive dissonance into account.. a much simpler solution is to believe this is all justified and THAT requires cranking up the fear/hate of the things Trump was initially against.

  So the more Trump gets his news from infowars, the worse CNN has to be.. the more Trump lies the more the MSM MUST (damn the facts!) lie and the more details of Trump/Russia which emerges the more Obama/Hillary have to be remade from regular crooks into evil geniuses who are trying to destroy Trump using the "deep state" and microwave cameras or whatever the latest spin is.
• 

  Coded Logic

  If you don't think the sky is falling then I'm afraid you simply haven't been paying attention. Here are just a few of the things Trumps administration has done / is in the process of doing:

  1.) Trump's administration has gutted the State Department and is severely curtailing the US' ability to respond to world events. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/state-department-purge-trump-foreign-policy

  2.) Trump has put in charge of the EPA a man who doesn't believe in global warming. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/trumps-war-on-the-climate-begins/519159/

  3.) Trump wants to cut funding to the the UN by over 50% which would cripple peace keeping operations all across the globe. http://thehill.com/policy/international/un-treaties/323781-trump-wants-un-funds-cut-over-50-percent-report.

  4.) Trump wants to cut funding to the coast guard by 1.3 billion dollars which would allow illegal drugs and weapons to flood into the country like never before. https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/13/nearly-60-congressmen-have-called-trumps-1-billion-cut-to-the/21884818/

  5.) Trump wants to cut funding to the TSA and FEMA by over 900 million dollars which would make already long airport lines even longer and severely inhibit our ability to react to natural disasters and provide funding to states declaring emergencies. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/us/politics/trump-budget-coast-guard.html?_r=0

  6.) Trump wants to increase our nuclear arsenal which increases the risk of proliferation and increases the likelihood of other countries starting nuclear programs. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-exclusive-idUSKBN1622IF

  7.) Trump is poised to start a trade war with our two biggest partners in trade - China and Mexico which could skyrocket the price of food and goods here in the states. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2017/02/06/not-much-left-stopping-trumps-trade-war-with-china/#911126d4d1cc

  8.) Trump has said he wont defend members of NATO which has greatly increased the threat of Russia to our European allies. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nato-jens-stoltenberg-russia-vladimir-putin-us-europe-allies/

  9.) Trump as made of White House Press Office a bad joke and the office of the President lacks all credibility. When the wolves really do show up no one is going to believe Trump because he's cried wolf WAY too many times. http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/politics/sean-spicer-donald-trump-wiretapping/

  10.) Trump is making health care unaffordable to the lower middle class but is giving huge healthcare tax breaks to the rich. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/critics-say-aca-risk-strategies-are-having-reverse-robinhood-effect/2016/01/13/e41cf574-b48f-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html?utm_term=.1de4c4e87bae

  Anyone of these by themselves is cause for immense alarm. Instead of attacking liberals for claiming "the sky is falling" maybe you should try opening your eyes.
• 

  bohm

  Coded logic: Very nice summary, and it shows how difficult it is to keep up. I had forgotten some of the items and the list is not even complete! Imagine this was Hillary or Obama who just, whoopsie, forgot to staff the State department...

  I think in particular (1) is one of the items that are very difficult to swallow. It seems that on many fronts the US is simply removing itself from its previous role in the international community. That can potentially have great consequences when someone (Putin, etc. ) tries to fill that vacancy. Just today reports of Russian troops in Egypt near the Border of Libya is floating in. I would not be surprised if that becomes the next refugee disaster...
• 

  fulltimestudent

  Don't attempt to analyse Trump alone in seeking answers to this phenomenon. Look at how the techniques of communicating have changed in the last quarter century, AND (above all) take a good hard look at his followers. What sort of thinkers are they?

  In good old Aussie, we also have this so called populist change. One segment of this populist change follows a woman called Pauline Hanson.

  A cartoon in a Jesuit web-site explains a lot:

  

  In the WA (Western Australia) state election, her share of the vote was down (probably due to a strategic mistake.
• 

  Berengaria

  Trump has been so effective, because he appeals to baseness. To hate and nastiness. We've been steadily shaming such crude base behavior over the last many decades. But with this ass, that baseness has been legitimized and given permission. It's as though a Neanderthal grabbed the mic, and all of the half evolved types have suddenly been brought to the surface again. The pendulum will swing back, evolution will continue. I just hope it's in my lifetime.
• 

  Berengaria

  "And what would you base that on? Forget Trump for a second, a lot of the nonsense in place that he is using or abusing was put there by the "Giver" American left. I think everyone is terrified of Trump for breaking down government not increasing its overreach. I do believe many want to live in that controlled "utopia" where harm is reduced because people just can't be trusted. Not me".

  Are you keeping up with current events? This administration is exactly overreaching. He is not breaking down government, and frankly anyone who says I want a job in government so I can break it down is selling snake oil. You may not realize, but the government is actually supposed to by employed by we the people, and would be if everyone was informed and engaged. What's wrong with giving? We are the boss. The only difference between right and left, is that the right gives to the top, and the left works to give to the people. Since Reagan they've convinced those on the right to work against their own interests, and for the actual elite. The top one or point one percent.
  
• 

  minimus

  More leftist bs
• 

  Coded Logic

  Minimus -

  Name calling is a poor substitute for an actual argument.
• 

  pbrow

  The right appeals to hate and the left appeals to emotion. See, I can do it too.

  Just because someone disagrees with a particular stance does not mean they are racist or appealing strictly to emotion.

  Every government cut comes at the end of a cost/benefit analysis. You wont like this cut and I wont like that cut. You can not like the decision to build a wall but it is not difficult to argue that it is directly related to border security and immigration which is a primary function of our federal government.

  What I don't like about the entire health insurance debate is that its not our federal governments place to mandate that all Americans have health insurance. Now, the argument is going to be about what can our politicians do to "fix" obamacare when it should not be a law in the first place.

  Nothing happens in a vacuum. If/when trump fucks up, we as a society will try, try again.

  pbrow