General US Politics

[Phoenix Wright]

1 hour ago, Zasplach said:

Playing armchair psychiatrist is like playing armchair quarterback, really easy to do with no consequences, but not of very much value.  The president is an older gentleman who has 'senior' moments, he occasionally loses his train of thought and gaffes and he's basically always said stupid things, that's not new to his old age.  While I won't speak highly of all members of the Trump Administration, some (Mr. Kelly, General McMaster, Mr. Tillerson) seem like loyal enough Americans who would speak up if the President was truly mentally deficient so as to be unable to execute the job of the presidency.

 

well, i think the problem is two-fold
1) they have, but not publicly. there are plenty of private accounts of his advisors complaining about trump, whether it be his lack of attention, lack of understanding, or whatever. plus, he's obviously really stupid. i mean stupid in the sense that he chooses to be uneducated and acts in dangerous ways--he also tends to react rather than be proactive. he may or may not be "smart" iq-wise. not really important to me. 

(for example, a flat earther is stupid, regardless of actual intellectual merit.) maybe the better word is 'moron.' in any case, trump fits the bill, as if he were the very definition of it.

2) it's possible that the united states could appear weak if trump's closest advisors call him a moron openly? i don't know how much global perception of a world leader actually matters, but in trump's case i'd expect they'd try to minimize it.

[Zasplach]

3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

He's a malignant narcissist and he's been one his entire adult life.

I agree that the president is indeed a narcissist, if you want to give it a mental health diagnosis and call him malignant, go ahead, but I'm loathe to do so, I don't know him and I'm not a doctor.  That isn't a disqualifying trait from the presidency, it just makes you a lousy human.

 

2 hours ago, Phillius the Crestfallen said:

Basically. Trump has no reason to talk to Mueller and has nothing to gain from it, so why bother? I must admit though, the suggestion that he answer Mueller's questions via written response was amusing to think about.

As for Trump's mental health, I remember there was an article making the rounds a while ago about Congressmen being prescribed Alzheimer's medication, so who knows. 

I thought about it and there is a way Mr Mueller can compel the President to talk to him, he could issue a subpoena through a grand jury though that may open a whole new can of worms, but I suspect the president would talk to him in private if a subpoena was issued.

Congresspeople are different, the means by which they are removed is very public.  The whole Congress basically has to take up an issue to get rid of the member, so with private things like Alzheimer's disease, Congresspeople are expected to resolve those matters on their own and resign if necessary.  The 25th Amendment allows for relative privacy to initiate the means of removing a sitting President.

1 hour ago, Phoenix Wright said:

well, i think the problem is two-fold
1) they have, but not publicly. there are plenty of private accounts of his advisors complaining about trump, whether it be his lack of attention, lack of understanding, or whatever. plus, he's obviously really stupid. i mean stupid in the sense that he chooses to be uneducated and acts in dangerous ways--he also tends to react rather than be proactive. he may or may not be "smart" iq-wise. not really important to me. 

(for example, a flat earther is stupid, regardless of actual intellectual merit.) maybe the better word is 'moron.' in any case, trump fits the bill, as if he were the very definition of it.

2) it's possible that the united states could appear weak if trump's closest advisors call him a moron openly? i don't know how much global perception of a world leader actually matters, but in trump's case i'd expect they'd try to minimize it.

  I agree that he's ignorant and ill-informed, but old and stupid aren't disqualifying traits for the Presidency. This could have been complained about long before he became President, those traits seemed to attract many Americans to him.  I remember lots of people remarking he 'says it like it is', he is who he is.  

I'm not actually defending the president as a human or a politician, I'm merely defending the institution of the Presidency from needless speculation, removing the President is an extreme action, it can't be taken lightly and shouldn't be glibly flung about.

The world already thinks he's a moron, there's already egg on our faces, some care, some don't, it is what it is.  The world would think no less if his allies started calling him out and if they privately moved to remove him for being incapacitated and failed the Congress would likely be forced to intervene.  

[Shoblongoo]

On 1/10/2018 at 9:40 PM, Phoenix Wright said:

2) it's possible that the united states could appear weak if trump's closest advisors call him a moron openly? i don't know how much global perception of a world leader actually matters, but in trump's case i'd expect they'd try to minimize it.

...thats the open-ended question for the history books now, isn't it?

We know that the rest of the world looks at Trump as a crude, incompetent moron. We know they don't trust him. We know they don't want to work with him. We know that as Trump Era America retreats inward toward protectionism and nativism, Russia and China are filling the leadership gaps where America's presence on the world stage has waned--expanding their sphere-of-influence on everything from  economic investments in under-developed countries and biltilateral trade to  military interventionism in conflict zones. 

What remains to be seen is whether this move away from American leadership is a temporary phenomenon only relating to and arsing from  the absence of American leadership under the Trump Presidency--that is to say, America recaptures its sphere of influence and resumes its leadership role once Trump is out of office.

Or whether America's status in the world under Trump is being irrevocably diminished. That is to say the international community will continue to pivot away from American power +  reorient around Moscow and Beijing post-Trump--viewing America as too politically volatile and paralyzed by internal conflicts to function as linchpin of a stable world order.

I suspect that the damage Trump is doing is irreparable. 

But I also think it in large part depends on how he's removed from office: by term limits in 2024, by defeat in 2020, or by impeachment. 

And I do think that if Democrats retake Congress in the midterms, there is a very good chance of impeachment. 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Time the Crestfallen]

3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Or whether America's status in the world under Trump is being irrevocably diminished. That is to say the international community will continue to pivot away from American power +  reorient around Moscow and Beijing post-Trump--viewing America as too politically volatile and paralyzed by internal conflicts to function as linchpin of a stable world order.

I suspect that the damage Trump is doing is irreparable.

Nothing Trump is doing himself is irreparable (unless he decided to go for the Nuclear Winter route with Kim), but the damage he's done to the US' public image may well be irreparable. He's exposed US politics for being the massive shit-show that it is and people are gonna be wary about dealing with the US in the future because they have no idea if the GOP will go mental again and elect another person like him, especially when one of the more noteworthy features of Trump's presidency is his insistence on dismantling everything Obama did that he can get his hands on.

[eclipse]

Every time Trump does something stupid, image-wise, ask yourself what the FBI investigation uncovered.

[Time the Crestfallen]

7 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Every time Trump does something stupid, image-wise, ask yourself what the FBI investigation uncovered.

You don't even have to ask, you normally see what their up to in the news the very next day. It's almost funny how regular this is.

[eclipse]

But yet the news I overhear is about the stupid thing Trump did.  Almost as if they don't want to pay attention to it!

[Time the Crestfallen]

That's because you can only write about Bannon being Subponeaed once, maybe twice if you really stretch it whereas Trump's shithole comment is an easy five articles.

[Lord Raven]

1 hour ago, Phillius the Crestfallen said:

That's because you can only write about Bannon being Subponeaed once, maybe twice if you really stretch it whereas Trump's shithole comment is an easy five articles.

The shithole comment is low hanging fruit, ripe for the picking and ripe for picking apart (and also for people to get the wrong idea -- it's okay to call Haiti a shitty nation, but it's not okay to say that Haitian immigrants are worse than Norwegian because their countries are crappy, considering this is meant to be a land of opportunity and not a land of supremacy). I don't know if people really know enough about FBI investigations to say much about a subpoena, let alone about Bannon except that he's a Nazi who's now largely irrelevant.

[Time the Crestfallen]

2 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

The shithole comment is low hanging fruit, ripe for the picking and ripe for picking apart (and also for people to get the wrong idea -- it's okay to call Haiti a shitty nation, but it's not okay to say that Haitian immigrants are worse than Norwegian because their countries are crappy, considering this is meant to be a land of opportunity and not a land of supremacy). I don't know if people really know enough about FBI investigations to say much about a subpoena, let alone about Bannon except that he's a Nazi who's now largely irrelevant.

Pretty much; it's the low-hanging fruits that get written about multiple times, whereas things relevant to the investigation can only be written about once or twice because we don't really know a lot about the internal workings of it. Compare how much will be written about Bannon's subponea compared to Bannon's involvement with the Fire and Fury book.

[Shoblongoo]

7 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

The shithole comment is low hanging fruit, ripe for the picking and ripe for picking apart (and also for people to get the wrong idea -- it's okay to call Haiti a shitty nation, but it's not okay to say that Haitian immigrants are worse than Norwegian because their countries are crappy, considering this is meant to be a land of opportunity and not a land of supremacy). 

It isn't without its bitter irony though. Trump wants to know why we have so many people from shithole countries and don't take more immigrants from Norway.

....

Norwegians be like: "We have universal healthcare, better schools, common sense gun and drug laws, low crime, no wars, and a living wage. Why would we want to come to your shithole country???"

Edited January 16, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

It isn't without its bitter irony though. Trump wants to know why we have so many people from shithole countries and don't take more immigrants from Norway.

....

Norwegians be like: "We have universal healthcare, better schools, common sense gun and drug laws, low crime, no wars, and a living wage. Why would we want to come to your shithole country???"

"Why don't people from happy socialist countries come here?", says corporate business man and republican president, who spouts right-wing rhetoric at any given opportunity, unironically.

[Time the Crestfallen]

39 minutes ago, Slumber said:

"Why don't people from happy socialist countries come here?", says corporate business man and republican president, who spouts right-wing rhetoric at any given opportunity, unironically.

It's because he's ignorant and knows nothing about what makes the Nordic countries great. All he knows is that they're considered great places to live and are full of white people, and that's all he gives a shit about.

[Slumber]

15 minutes ago, Phillius the Crestfallen said:

It's because he's ignorant and knows nothing about what makes the Nordic countries great. All he knows is that they're considered great places to live and are full of white people, and that's all he gives a shit about.

It's almost like our president is a big dumb racist.

Who could have seen that coming?

Edited January 17, 2018 by Slumber

[Time the Crestfallen]

42 minutes ago, Slumber said:

It's almost like our president is a big dumb racist.

Who could have seen that coming?

My only worry is that the entirety of this will be pinned on Trump, and the GOP will remain (relatively) blameless when all is said and done.

[Slumber]

3 minutes ago, Phillius the Crestfallen said:

My only worry is that the entirety of this will be pinned on Trump, and the GOP will remain (relatively) blameless when all is said and done.

Depending on how Trump's presidency ends, "X agreed with Trump on Y" could be a major blow to a lot of governors, senators and representatives in political ads.

[Time the Crestfallen]

2 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Depending on how Trump's presidency ends, "X agreed with Trump on Y" could be a major blow to a lot of governors, senators and representatives in political ads.

That's exactly what I'm afraid of though. Assuming that Trump does in fact, wind up impeached, I can see the GOP strategy being two different things; the first (and the most likely to happen should he be impeached) is that they start bitching about the 'deep state', saying that it was all just a witch-hunt to get Trump out of the presidency.

The second is that the GOP completely disavows themselves of Trump; saying that they didn't know about it and that they were just trying to work around him to accomplish what their voters wanted, and then using 'Trumpism' to distance themselves from the man and people like him, even though their actions and politics are what enabled him to get into the presidency in the first place. Then it won't be a matter of the GOP being a problem, it'll just be that a few people in the party are 'too much like Trump'.

[UNLEASH IT]

From a Republican perspective, wouldn't it be a bad idea to take more immigrants from Nordic countries, who tend to be left leaning?

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, UNLEASH IT said:

From a Republican perspective, wouldn't it be a bad idea to take more immigrants from Nordic countries, who tend to be left leaning?

That be common sense talk, and ain't welcome in these parts.

But seriously, the Nordic countries have their own issues.  However, I doubt they'd want to immigrate here.  We may pay less in taxes, but our terrible health care more than makes up for the difference.

[Time the Crestfallen]

18 minutes ago, UNLEASH IT said:

From a Republican perspective, wouldn't it be a bad idea to take more immigrants from Nordic countries, who tend to be left leaning?

And not just left-leaning, but socialists too! It's almost like the only thing he cares about is that they're white.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Phillius the Crestfallen

[Shoblongoo]

12 hours ago, Phillius the Crestfallen said:

 It's almost like the only thing he cares about is that they're white.

...Its almost like he didn't put any real thought into the comment, and just impulsively shot his mouth off without bothering to reflect upon the weight of his words.

Like this is all you need to know about Trump's presidency and his approach to the office: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-reviews-his-own-meeting-gives-a-big-thumbs-up/2018/01/10/683eac4a-f655-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html?utm_term=.0e6de35cb6d8

Trump greeted reporters at his White House immigration summit with an unironic:  "Welcome back to the studio."

He added that the meeting was going to get: "great reviews."

And he described his role in the process of reforming the nation's immigration laws + passing a budget to avoid a government shutdown as:  "my perforamcne--you know, some of them called it a performance--I consider it work."

 He's still acting like he's on the set of The Apprentice and this is all just a Reality TV show.


 

Edited January 17, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Rex Glacies]

16 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Trump greeted reporters at his White House immigration summit with an unironic:  "Welcome back to the studio."

He added that the meeting was going to get: "great reviews."

And he described his role in the process of reforming the nation's immigration laws + passing a budget to avoid a government shutdown as:  "my perforamcne--you know, some of them called it a performance--I consider it work."

 He's still acting like he's on the set of The Apprentice and this is all just a Reality TV show.

Isn't that basically how he treated the entire election? Get any and all publicity, make a character out of himself, act in dramatic and unconventional ways, etc. It's his way of acting (pardon the pun), as he's more familiar with TV than with politics.

[Phoenix Wright]

' “It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance — you know, some of them called it a performance— I consider it work,” Trump said. '

you wouldn't say...

i'd be interested in trump's psychology report--apparently all his mental faculties are in order.

[Shoblongoo]

3 hours ago, Phoenix Wright said:

' “It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance — you know, some of them called it a performance— I consider it work,” Trump said. '

you wouldn't say...

...sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...

[John Denver Fan]

Well I heard on the news last night that the U.S. Secretary of Defense says terrorism is no longer a focus of security in the nation. It is stupid what if something like 9/11 happened again under their noses because of it. Terrorism is on the rise, but the U.S. Secretary of Defense saying it is no longer a focus of security is a recipe for disaster.