Trumpmageddon

Started by Stupot, Wed 09/11/2016 08:21:56

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Ali

#500
Quote from: Jack on Fri 13/11/2020 14:06:28
Contribute nothing? I told you to prepare to support Joe Biden when none of your talking heads would dream of telling you that. I don't care about his political fortunes, I just hoped to have a chance to see you do it.

What does this mean? Who are you addressing? What talking heads?

Congratulations on predicting that one of the Democratic candidates would become the Democratic nominee, I guess. I don't think anyone thought Biden's selection was an outlandish prospect.

Jack

Quote from: Snarky on Fri 13/11/2020 14:24:45
So if your predictions don't come true, will you shut up, man?

You're the one that wanted me to post more than memes. A picture is worth a thousand words.

And I will say what I want. If you don't like it, make up some more rules after you ban me, bitch.

AGA

Jack has now been banned for the third and final time.

Ali

I guess the real Trumpmageddon was the friends we lost along the way.

On topic, I still find it extraordinary we have ostensibly sensible commentators quibbling over whether the word 'coup' is appropriate. No, it hasn't gone that far and hopefully it won't. But it's naive to imagine it's impossible. The very idea of President Trump used to be impossible. What Trump is doing is such a blatant perversion of democratic norms, I can't see why anyone is continuing to normalise his narcissistic excess.

Danvzare

Quote from: AGA on Sat 14/11/2020 12:43:33
Jack has now been banned for the third and final time.
What? Really?  8-0

Well uh... I guess this is goodbye Jack.

Khris

#505
Lol, look at this clown sweating through his hair dye (Giuliani): https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1329522155135045638
If only they had an actual case, but looking at him sweating bullets while their cases keep tanking in court is too funny.
There's another vid where he blows his nose, folds the handkerchief the wrong way, then wipes his entire head with the inside... just...

Also, Biden is already packing his cabinet with big oil shills and lobbyists and wallstreet scum and whatnot, like Michael McCabe

Why is everything?

mkennedy

Now that the electoral college has certified Biden as the winner we are another step closer to the end of the trumpocalypse. But still don't let your guard down until Biden is actually sworn in near the end of the January.

Stupot

Quote from: mkennedy on Wed 16/12/2020 15:36:58
Now that the electoral college has certified Biden as the winner we are another step closer to the end of the trumpocalypse. But still don't let your guard down until Biden is actually sworn in near the end of the January.

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Trump’s attempts to stay in power and I think things are gonna turn nasty in January but I have faith (especially since both the electoral college and the Supreme Court have spoken) that he will ultimately fail. Thankfully the US isn’t Russia where Putin can just keep moving the goalposts to keep himself in.

Khris

The people who have by now come to accept that Trump won't get a second term have already moved on to "Trump 2024"...
Even if he's dead by then, the next Republican president will probably be even worse, as in, not bumbling idiot evil like Trump but more the Putin kind.

milkanannan

Sure was an exercise in what the executive arm of power is actually capable of.

Slasher

Wishing everyone a bumper Christmas of joy and fun  (nod)

mkennedy

It looks like things will be delayed in the capital as angry protesters stormed the building and the national guard had to be deployed. Apparently there were explosive devices found. This is truly worrying.

Galen

In this nadir of the Trump experience I felt like revisiting the first page of comments from four years ago to see how they held up...

Quote from: Mandle on Wed 09/11/2016 09:17:38
On the positive side: I predict that Trump will expose most of the corruption in the American and worldwide political system through his sheer just stumbling around in a dark room and not knowing how to maintain the status quo of a coffee table over here or a lamp over there...
This has quite clearly held up, though less in terms of the world stage and more in terms of literally every Republican politician bar Romney.

Quote from: Snarky on Wed 09/11/2016 11:35:54
Having become President and commander of the armed forces, Trump's ego swells to even more grandiose proportions. He is hooked on the high of adulation, and responds to any criticism or attack with uncontrolled fury. Having alienated much of the political establishment (particularly the foreign policy establishment), his administration is short on expertise and full of extremists, sycophants and charlatans. His undisciplined, impulsive and downright foolish words and actions, as well as the missteps of the other unqualified administration members, cause numerous international and economic crises, to which his instinct is to respond with aggression and escalation. Hopefully his easy manipulability (just flatter him) and more rational actors in other countries manage to stop these crises from sparking wider war.

The US abandons many of its treaties, including the Iran treaty (so Iran resumes its nuclear weapons program), NAFTA (causing a loss in trade with Mexico that weakens the economy), the Paris climate change treaty (setting back any effective action to stop the ongoing global environmental disaster), and more. "Obamacare" is only partially abolished, but millions of Americans do lose their health care. Deep tax cuts lead to giant deficits, and to cuts in government programs and staffing. Anti-trade policies and attempts to "get tough" in trade negotiations with China and other countries lead to retributory policies that may escalate into a trade war. Together with the uncertainty caused by Trump's erratic behavior, this causes the economy to plunge into another recession.

On immigration, Trump's signature policies (the wall, deportation) are watered down or only carried out to a symbolic extent; most of his supporters don't notice, but some hardliners decry him as a traitor. In matters of social justice (police violence etc.), a Trump administration is unsympathetic and tin-eared, and this leads to increased social unrest. Killings both of cops and of black activists, by disturbed individuals who have been radicalized online, increase.

Coming into office as a sexual predator with a long list of scandals, a track record of fraud and illegality, not having isolated himself from his business interests, and with ties to organized crime, international fugitives and foreign oligarchs and dictators, Trump's administration quickly shows itself to be the most corrupt and scandal-ridden in memory, with Trump blatantly using the government to enrich himself. These scandals get considerable play in the media, but the GOP Congress is too craven and partisan to take any action to censure or rein him in, at least at first.

Already loathed and feared by half the country, Trump's shtick wears thin very quickly even for many who voted for him. His approval ratings fall to somewhere around the George W. Bush low point of 25%. Resentful and vindictive, he lashes out at his enemies and tries to use the powers of his office to get even with them. This leads to illegalities and abuses that dwarf Watergate.

... So, all around a fun few years ahead.
Administration of sycophants. Abandoning of the Paris treaty and attacks on healthcare, deep tax cuts (for the wealthy), anti-trade policies against China that just hurt the USA, no real wall, massive social unrest centering around social justice - damn. I feel like Snarky actually managed to predict the George Floyd protests and riots. No GOP action against the blatant illegalities whatsoever, of course. Though the 'at first' has clearly died in a ditch unless we're counting "admitting the other guy won by a large margin". Illegalities dwarfing Watergate probably didn't even take until the 1 year mark, but it's certainly accelerated to lightspeed.

Quote"Trump's shtick wears thin very quickly even for many who voted for him. His approval ratings fall to somewhere around the George W. Bush low point of 25%."
Is the part it falls apart though. They just drank the Kool-Aid even harder. Heck, his approval rating is 42% as now. It actually rose since December from what I can see. The crazy train has no breaks, it's only getting stopped by everyone crashing into the side of a mountain and dying in the firey wreckage of 'actually attempting to stage an armed revolt'.

Lord all mighty, you think 2020 is finally over and then 2021 kicks your door in and smiles menacingly at you while brandishing an axe...

Stupot

Quote from: Stupot on Fri 18/12/2020 03:14:20
I think things are gonna turn nasty in January
Called it (not that it wasn’t obvious).

The real question now is will it settle down after Biden’s inauguration or will Trump’s cosplayers double down?

Snarky

#514
The storming of the Capitol is a disgrace for the US, and an alarming sign of the radicalization of the Trumpist base, although I think the practical consequences are few in the short runâ€"unless some of the talk about impeaching Trump again or removing him by invoking the 25th amendment actually goes forward, which seems like an extreme long shot at this point. As Congress finishes the count of the electoral votes and declares Biden the winner, the question remains whether Trump will do anything more than complain, and if so, how Republican officials will respond.

And, I suppose we must now add, whether his followers will continue their campaign of riots and insurrection and can achieve anything that way. (They might go on for a bit, but have no realistic chance of achieving anything except radicalizing themselves further, perhaps becoming a moderate terrorist threat.)

I have been appalled by the GOP's readiness to play with fire in supporting baseless (as most of them surely know) allegations that the election was rigged and suggesting they would overturn the results. "What's the harm in indulging him for a few weeks?" one was quoted as saying last year. At points yesterday it seemed like this would finally be the thing that caused his Congressional enablers to break with him, and a few have indeed taken the opportunity, but given the continued objections to the vote counts after the process was resumed, it seems there truly is no bridge too far.

Quote from: Galen on Thu 07/01/2021 01:00:42
Quote"Trump's shtick wears thin very quickly even for many who voted for him. His approval ratings fall to somewhere around the George W. Bush low point of 25%."
Is the part it falls apart though. They just drank the Kool-Aid even harder. Heck, his approval rating is 42% as now. It actually rose since December from what I can see. The crazy train has no breaks, it's only getting stopped by everyone crashing into the side of a mountain and dying in the firey wreckage of 'actually attempting to stage an armed revolt'.

I feel compelled to point out that I retracted that part of my prediction three years ago:

Quote from: Snarky on Tue 09/01/2018 21:38:50
One thing I think I was wrong about was my prediction that:

Quote from: Snarky on Wed 09/11/2016 11:35:54Trump's shtick wears thin very quickly even for many who voted for him. His approval ratings fall to somewhere around the George W. Bush low point of 25%.

Unless there is an economic crisis or an unpopular war, I no longer think that's very likely to happen. America is so polarized, and fealty to the Dear Leader is such an important identity marker for the right (just witness the way they'll tear apart any of their own who shows disloyalty, from Jeff Flake to Steve Bannon), that I think Trump's base will stick with him almost no matter what. That base is probably somewhere between 30-35% of the population.

(As it happened, even an economic crisis didn't shake their loyalty.)

Other than that, I think my predictions have held up OK. They are not all spot-on, but generally in the right ballpark. In contrast, there were a lot of people on the forums claiming that Trump's election wouldn't change anything, that it would be "business as usual," and I think history has proven them not just wrong, but demonstrated how utterly foolish they were to begin with.

Since it became clear, a couple of days after the election, that Trump had lost, I have been thinking about what he will be remembered for, the big themes of his presidency. (Of course, much of that will depend on the aftermath, particularly on the extent to which Trumpism maintains potency in the years to come, among the right-wing base and within the institutional GOP.) Before yesterday, I had it down to three main things:

1. His disastrously inept and counterproductive handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to unnecessary death and suffering on a massive scale.
2. His activation of a (surprisingly large) populist base fervently loyal to him in and distrustful of and hostile to any other sources of authority or information.
3. His rampant abuse of office and disregard for democratic norms and constraints, as exemplified in the acts that led to his impeachment and his refusal to concede.

Ultimately, the bigger story is not what he himself has doneâ€"he is a malignant narcissist and is predictably acting out his disordered personalityâ€"but what republicans have not just allowed him to do, but have actively supported. They have probably paid some price (though shockingly low!) for it at the polls, and the Democrats winning the presidency, House and Senate (and perhaps some Republican lawmakers shocked into seriousness by this assault) gives some slight hope of reforms that may strengthen democracy in the next couple of years. However, in the long run I remain pessimistic about the ability of the US to pull itself out of its political dysfunction and maintain a democratic form of government.

Khris

It also cannot be overstated that Trump is only a symptom of a decades long process.

There are already claims that the storming was a false-flag op by Antifa all over right-wing Twitter and QAnon circles, and while this claim is so ridiculous on the face of it that even prominent fascists (Martin Sellner) tell their fan base not to spread it, it demonstrates nicely how rotten the brains of these people are.

There have been decades of "free real estate" in the US, culminating thanks to mostly Facebook but also other channels in a generation of middle aged people who have lost all grip on reality and will simply believe whatever if it makes their dreadful late-capitalism existence more bearable. Unfortunately, a sizeable lot of them is also active in the GOP, and they have just learned that about half the country will readily rally behind the next bullshitter, which we'll definitely see in 2024.

Trump may be gone, but the right-wing brain rot is here to stay.

WHAM

Finnish media today are mostly drumming how the American debacle shows us how critically important it is to educate the general populace, so as not to have such a fertile base for propaganda and misinformation as the American general populace has.

Beyond that, I feel we can expect the last 4 years of unrest and violence to go on and potentially even escalate, especially now that both houses of parliament and the presidency are democrat again. That sort of one party government seems likely to fuel the distrust of the people even more than the two-out-of-three branches that the Republicans held under Trump. It's easy for me to say, living in a functional European democracy as I am, but the more I see of the American system the less it looks like a democracy to me. The two party system seems to create an untenable government which maximises friction and polarization, rather than promoting compromises. Right wing, left wing, both extremes are just as rotten and the healthy population that exists between them has nowhere to turn, as there is no third road to go down, and any attempt to create one in the form of third or fourth parties is derided as foolishness and "destabilising the system".

As all populist leaders do: Trump gave his voters what they wanted, or tried to. What the majority of people want in a polarized system like this, however, is rarely good for the whole of a nation. We've seen this time and time again in history, and America seems happy to repeat that history.
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KyriakosCH

"This is the first political coup to happen on the American continent without the involvement of US embassies."
:=
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Khris

#518
(psst: people who say that both political extremes are equally bad are actually on the right.)

Also, the idea that the Democratic Party in the US is left-wing, let alone extremist, is comically absurd.

WHAM

The parties themselves obviously aren't extreme on either side, because they have to encompass the normal people as well as the extremes. The extremes aren't sitting in halls making policy, they are the ones hurting people, destroying lives and property, and claiming they have the right to do these things due to holding the correct ideology while their victims hold the wrong ideology. You know, like extremists do. Thus it makes sense that, say, the extreme right will claim that all Democrats are "extreme left" to justify their actions, and vice versa. Whether it be Qanon or BLM or Antifa, it's all self-serving extremism of some degree or other.
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