Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Todd]

Hmm, the president-elect (and soon President) wants one thing, the Speaker something else.  It is the dawn of a new political era.

[Todd]

Dems rally around POTUS!

[Todd]

I listened to an excerpt from Trump's 60 Minutes interview in which he said he was planning on deporting the criminals and securing the border before working on determining the fate of the rest of the illegals.  The US government can do both.

People are really working overtime trying to find inconsistencies with Trump's statements.

While Trump can order an increase in certain actions, he cannot institute major structural changes to the agencies involved without Congressional support.  At the very least, increased funding is needed.  This would mean that Trump could blame Congress for any failure to toughen up, and if Dems put up vocal and high-profile resistance, all the better.  I predict a bump up in deportations, but nothing in line with his rhetoric. 

[Todd]

The only thing new he has proposed is the border wall.

That's not new, either.  There's about 600 miles of wall and fence (I think about 200 of it is a wall right now) along the roughly 2000 mile border between the US and Mexico.  It is logistically impossible to build a wall or fence the entire length, and it is irrelevant from an immigration flow perspective.  (The wall/fence would have to be focused around actual traversal areas.)  Trump simply tapped into nativist sentiment, proposed something both impossible and irrelevant but undeniably appealing to a good number of voters, and now he will throw a bone to his base by slightly upping the number of deportations.  Dismantling NAFTA would increase the flow of immigrants as Mexico's economy shrinks, and if there is a lot more wall when that occurs (which it won't), there will be a lot more tunnels under the wall, a lot more demolished sections of the wall, and a lot more people coming ashore in southeast Texas and between San Diego and LA. 

One reason why Ryan might not support much in the way of physical barriers is because a lot of US businesses, starting with agriculture, rely on illegal immigrant labor.  Those business interests are not interested in severe restrictions of immigration flow.  (Nor are wealthier urban types who rely on poorly paid domestic help via maid services, as well as other menial service workers, but that is a dirty little secret among both conservative and liberal elites.)  Alabama imposed strict limits on, and enforcement of, illegal immigration for a brief period, and it failed.  That's not to say more can't be done, just that not everyone, even in Republican circles, actually either cares about it or wants it.

[The Six]

It will be interesting to see what happens during Trump's first year.  Everyone seems to be predicting a variety of things.  Mostly predicting his failure.

The only consistent thing about predicting Trump's actions is that almost all predictions have been wrong.

That's right, so you have to alter the prediction: Trump will succeed, but America will fail.

[Todd]

The only consistent thing about predicting Trump's actions is that almost all predictions have been wrong.

True, but his achievements need to be put into context.  He ran a vulgar, aggressive campaign against a terrible, widely unpopular candidate and won.  Now he will be President and will have to work with a Congress that, despite being controlled by the same party, has a different agenda.  The Supreme Court may rule against him, and some lower federal courts definitely will.  And he will have to deal with foreign leaders, some of whom don't care at all about American political opinions or interests and only worry about hard power and economic power.  Trump will succeed at some things, and fail at others, like every President who came before him.  The sheer outlandishness of some of his promises means that he will fail to live up to most of them.  That may not matter a huge amount since a lot of supporters, as the saying goes, took him seriously but not literally. 

[Todd]

Trump makes radical Chief of Staff pick, rattles Washington.  Hey, wait . . .

[Rinaldo]

Y'all cool with an antisemite named chief WH strategist?

[Turner]

Stephen Bannon is reported to be a widely controversial choice here, including among Republicans, due to his campaign & Breitbart role, plus mentioned anti-semitism/domestic violence problems.

[Florestan]

I have no idea who Bannon is but I know who Jared Kushner is. So much for Trump´s antisemitism. 

EDIT:

Bannon married Mary Louise Piccard, his second wife, in April 1995. Their twin daughters were born three days later. Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness in early January 1996, after Piccard accused Bannon of domestic abuse. The charges were later dropped when his now ex-wife did not show up to court. Piccard also claimed that Bannon had made antisemitic remarks, a claim Bannon's spokesperson has denied.[31][32][33][34][35]

[The new erato]

I have no idea who Bannon is but I know who Jared Kushner is. So much for Trump´s antisemitism. 

EDIT:

Ah, dropped charges. Just like Hillary then?

[Florestan]

Ah, dropped charges. Just like Hillary then?

Yes. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty by a legitimately constituted, procedures following court. Justice is not a matter of popular vote/feeling.

[The new erato]

Yes. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty by a legitimately constituted, procedures following court. Justice is not a matter of popular vote/feeling.

To be Clear, I totally agree. But I find it ironic, considering Trumps repeted bleating about criminal Hillary.

[Florestan]

To be Clear, I totally agree. But I find it ironic, considering Trumps repeted bleating about criminal Hillary.

Two candidates for the office of POTUS besmirching and slandering each other. Quite unheard of and unprecedented. 

[zamyrabyrd]

Two candidates for the office of POTUS besmirching and slandering each other. Quite unheard of and unprecedented. 

I have been thinking what seems to be a pattern with DT. He says something completely outlandish (build a wall, Mexico will pay for it, etc.) with a lot of shock value grabbing everyone's attention and after cooling off, is rather conciliatory as he was with Clinton and Obama. He didn't have to go out of his way to say that the country owed her a debt (when in effect it is the other way around) or scale down the wall to a fence.

It comes as a relief that instead of smoke continually coming out of his ears, he is getting down to business even with those who were opposed to him. I don't know if this is scripted, in other words, if he is aware he is doing this for effect or simply a character trait, fulminating in his initial reactions to things before actually mulling them over. His buttons seem easily pushed which is not such a good trait, that is if he is not in control. But the upside is what you see is what you get, unlike most politicos with a private and public persona.

[James]

60 minutes interview ..

>> http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/watch-donald-trumps-interview-on-60-minutes.html

He's only taking a dollar a year to do the job, he's not taking the 400,000 a year the job pays. And no vacations! He claims too much needs to be done, lots of work.

[The new erato]

I have been thinking what seems to be a pattern with DT. He says something completely outlandish (build a wall, Mexico will pay for it, etc.) with a lot of shock value grabbing everyone's attention and after cooling off,

That's the reality show approach. Without being outlandish, you don't get noticed. It's a real pity it's come to that in US politics.

[Florestan]

Completely offtopic (or maybe not): with openly pro-Russian candidates being elected yesterday as president in the Republic of Moldavia and Bulgaria, the "red belt" around Romania is now complete. From Sofia to Belgrade to Budapest to half of Ukraine to Kishinev, Putin´s men / friends are in power, and with the recent agreement between Putin and Erdogan, the Black Sea is for all intents and purposes a Russian lake. Bucharest still holds, though: parliamentary elections next month and there is no party or politician, mainstream or otherwise, who suggests or supports a pro-Russian foreign policy.

[Turner]

Reports right now are that Erdogan in Turkey also plans a public vote reducing EU agreements, and that the reform process (dare I say Westernization) in Ukraine is experiencing severe difficulties, resulting, among other things, in people leaving the government and a new, partly Trump-inspired movement led by Saakashvili.
A very difficult time for the EU.

Marc Galeotti is one of the best analysts as regards Russia nowadays. He is often right in his predictions. Others have dealt with the bromance between the two macho-men Trump and Putin. Russian media have gone out of their way to praise Trump and criticize Western "establishment" since his victory.
But in this interesting article Galeotti describes the less attractive aspects of the bromance, from a Russian point of view, suggesting that Trump will work for better relations and trade with China, and maybe be a hardliner towards Putin.

Of course, we know nothing of what will really happen yet.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/13/watch-out-vladimir-theres-a-new-putin-in-town/

[Mister Sharpe]

Attention grabbing, pussy grabbing - he has done major damage already to our country.  The disingenuousness of Republicans who demand "giving him a chance" astounds: 1.) calling for a civility Trump showed not an ounce of during a horrendous campaign we're still hemorrhaging from ; 2.) do I have choice? not really - we need to get over it as they say or pay a personal medical price that prob. won't be covered in our future anti-entitlement era; 3.) As has recently come out - and more forthcoming - the right made darn sure Obama's administration would fail, part ideological, part racist, all cravenly sick.  Should liberals not return the compliment to the best of our diminished ability?: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/republicans-had-it-in-for-obama-before-day-1/2012/08/10/0c96c7c8-e31f-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_blog.html