USA Politics (redux)

[drogulus]

     

I not sure that world leader are so oblivious to the evolving situation as you imply.  However Trump ought to have tried persuading rather than demeaning, bullying, and threatening.  Demeaning, bullying, and threatening isn't necessarily the best way to approach adversaries much less friends and allies.

     Trump had no rational alternative to offer. Neither do anti-anti-Trumpsters. They mean nothing.

[Todd]

Support from non-Americans means nothing.  Opposition from non-Americans means nothing.

None are so deaf as refuse to listen.

I should like to see some academic research that points to the impact international opinion has on voting in the US.  I know a good number of non-Americans want to believe that their opinions really matter, but that does not make it so.  There is no reason at all to pay attention to what, say, Swedes think about American politics.  The internet and the ability of everyone from everywhere to opine on everything does not translate into effectual opinions and influence.

Support from non-Americans means nothing.  Opposition from non-Americans means nothing.

You obviously missed the point.  Rational world leaders should be looking for an alternative to the status quo ante.  But for the most part, they are not.  China and Russia, for very different reasons, are, though it will take until at least the 2030s to see if their efforts pay off.

I not sure that world leader are so oblivious to the evolving situation as you imply.  However Trump ought to have tried persuading rather than demeaning, bullying, and threatening.  Demeaning, bullying, and threatening isn't necessarily the best way to approach adversaries much less friends and allies.

Demeaning and threatening - the word "bullying" means pretty much nothing generally, and absolutely nothing in the realm of international relations - are effective tools, though they should be used more judiciously than how Trump often used them.  The tactics should be used on friend and foe alike, depending on the objective and situation.  Sometimes, like when Trump strong-armed Canada in signing a new trade agreement, demeaning and threatening can be very useful, indeed.  (To be sure, that was politically beneficial.)

I have no doubt that even modestly effective world leaders are aware of the evolving state of world affairs, yet no national leaders currently covered by US security agreements have taken effective steps to break away from US security guarantees (small, weak countries are security consumers, not security producers, so that's easy to explain), and steps taken to reduce the central role of the dollar and US Treasuries as the backbone of the international financial system have not even been strong enough to be called feeble.  Small, weak nations are dependent on the US.  It's quite embarrassing for said nations, really.

It's not a "line of reasoning." It's a direct refutation of your naive claim that "Non-Americans cannot support American politicians in any real-world way." Obviously, they can.

Or not.  Let's go with not.

[MusicTurner]

Note the amendment ^ ^ ^. Of course they can. it's easy if those Americans own businesses with foreign customers. Want to put money in Trump's pocket? Simple as booking unused rooms in Trump International Hotel (ghost booking). Or through real estate transactions.

As a side remark, lots of European youngsters, including Danes, travel to US presidential campaigns, and directly assist in campaigns over there, typically for the democrats. A good deal of them will traditionally be interviewed by the media here. Their work includes phone calls and visiting potential voters. For campaigning.

[Todd]

As a side remark, lots of European youngsters, including Danes, travel to US presidential campaigns, and directly assist in campaigns over there, typically for the democrats. A good deal of them will traditionally be interviewed by the media here. Their work includes phone calls and visiting potential voters. For campaigning.

What is "lots"?

[drogulus]

     Should Donald Trump be prosecuted? Proceed with caution.

Prosecuting Trump may well be justified, but the consequences of further inflaming an already divided country ought to be sobering. A decision this momentous needs to be made on the merits and kept as far from politics as possible.

     I don't think it's at all likely that the new administration would look favorably on reckless prosecution. It isn't going to work like that. Adam Schiff won't be AG. It might be Sally Yates, a pick which would be very Bidenesque, a former deputy AG that could detoxify the department.

[drogulus]

     It really depends on how much foreign policy affects your vote. If you care about foreign relations then foreign opinion will matter, though indirectly. If you don't consider the US position in the world as a voting factor, you probably won't be interested in what people in other countries think.

     For me it's a matter of satisfying my own curiosity and preoccupation with history as a means of evaluating the present and probabilities for the future. "Means nothing" means nothing to me.

[drogulus]

I have no doubt that even modestly effective world leaders are aware of the evolving state of world affairs, yet no national leaders currently covered by US security agreements have taken effective steps to break away from US security guarantees (small, weak countries are security consumers, not security producers, so that's easy to explain), and steps taken to reduce the central role of the dollar and US Treasuries as the backbone of the international financial system have not even been strong enough to be called feeble.

     Yes, they are making rational choices. There's no need to yammer about alternatives that are less rational than what they do now. If they start to demonstrate they are suffering from the terrible oppression of the Yankee dollar, we'll know. The Trumpist view was that dastardly foreigners were taking advantage of us!

[Herman]

As a side remark, lots of European youngsters, including Danes, travel to US presidential campaigns, and directly assist in campaigns over there, typically for the democrats. A good deal of them will traditionally be interviewed by the media here. Their work includes phone calls and visiting potential voters. For campaigning.

Some, too, in more strategic spots, if it so happens that they have political experience.

[MusicTurner]

Some, too, in more strategic spots, if it so happens that they have political experience.

Yes, they might even participate in planning etc.

[SimonNZ]

The article doesn't address it, but this time it would be treason, wouldn't it? If national secrets leave the blabbing unthinking mouth of Citizen Trump he would no longer have the protection from the law he's recently enjoyed in blabbing secrets?:


When he leaves office, can ex-President Trump be trusted with America's national security secrets?
Ex-presidents are entitled to classified briefings. Some ex-intel officials think Trump shouldn't get access to any national secrets when he leaves office.

[...]"Goldsmith and other experts noted that Trump has a history of carelessly revealing classified information. He told the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in 2017 about extremely sensitive terrorism threat information the U.S. had received from an ally. Last year he tweeted what experts said was a secret satellite photo of an Iranian nuclear installation.

The president also may be vulnerable to foreign influence. His tax records, as reported by The New York Times, reveal that Trump appears to face financial challenges, having personally guaranteed more than $400 million of his companies' debt at a time when the pandemic has put pressure on the hotel industry, in which Trump is a major player.

[...]That said, Trump probably is not conversant with many highly classified details, experts say, He was famous for paying only intermittent attention during his intelligence briefings and declining to read his written materials. Moreover, intelligence officials tend not to share specifics about sources and methods with any president, unless he asks.

So Trump probably doesn't know the names of the CIA's spies in Russia, experts say. But presumably he knows a bit about the capabilities of American surveillance drones, for example, or how adept the National Security Agency has been at intercepting the communications of various foreign governments.

Like so much with Trump, his track record of sharing secrets has been unprecedented in American presidential history.

In interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward for a book released this fall, Trump boasted about a secret nuclear weapons system that neither Russia nor China knew about.

According to The Washington Post, Woodward's sources "later confirmed that the U.S. military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the people were surprised Trump had disclosed it."

When Trump briefed the public about the commando raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, he disclosed classified and sensitive details, according to reporting by NBC News.

In 2017, Trump gave the location of two American nuclear submarines near North Korea to the president of the Philippines.

That same year, a member of his golf club at Mar-a-Lago took a photo of a briefing Trump and the Japanese prime minister were receiving in a public area about North Korea, and posted it on Facebook.

In 2018, The New York Times reported that Trump commonly used insecure cellphones to call friends, and that Chinese and other spies listened in, gaining valuable insights.

Doug Wise, a former CIA officer and Trump critic, argued this week in a piece on the Just Security web site that Trump has long posed a national security danger, and that affording him access to secrets after he leaves the White House would compound that danger.

Trump's large debts, he wrote, present "obvious and alarming counterintelligence risks" to the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, for one, would have a great incentive to pay Trump to act on Russia's behalf, Wise wrote.

"Assuming President Joe Biden follows custom, Trump would continue to have access to sensitive information that the Russians would consider valuable," he wrote. "As horrifying as it would seem, could a financially leveraged former president be pressured or blackmailed into providing Moscow sensitive information in exchange for financial relief and future Russian business considerations?"

It was not impossible to envision Trump paid millions on retainer by Gulf Arab states or other foreign governments, Harvard professor Goldsmith said, "in the course of which he starts blabbing and disclosing lots of secrets. It wouldn't be an express quid pro quo, but people would pay for access to and time with him, knowing that he will not be discreet."

Former CIA Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic who was denied access to his own classified file by the president, said the Biden administration should carefully weigh the question of Trump's access to future secrets.

"The new administration would be well advised to conduct an immediate review to determine whether Donald Trump should have continued access to classified information in light of his past actions and deep concern about what he might do in the future," he said.

Then again, it may never become an issue, said former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos, who pointed out that Trump has long displayed "disdain" for American intelligence agencies.

"I would frankly be surprised if he even wanted these briefings," Polymeropoulos said."

[drogulus]

     We should let him keep the tiny desk.

[SimonNZ]

     

       

Wow. Even after everything I thought at first that that must be The Onion.

So that's in the Oval Office, right? Why have they removed the carpet and the furniture? Especially if Trump is still claiming he won?

[71 dB]

Yes, I ask.  Really.  What is a non-American Trump "supporter"?  What does that mean?  Does it mean they are fans, or something similar?  Non-Americans cannot support American politicians in any real-world way (money, campaigning, voting, etc).  Moral support is worthless.  Just as worthless as moral opposition.

Non-Americans have been asked in polls (yes, we have polls outside the US!):

Which one of Trump and Biden do you want to win the election?

Some people answered Biden. Some other people answered Trump. Some people answered they don't have an opinion. That's how you get supporters for Biden and Trump among people who couldn't vote for them.

Moral support is worthless, you are correct about that, but it is support nevertheless. Support is often worthless. For example 2/3 of Americans support medicare for all. Doesn't mean it's happening anytime soon. So, it is worthless support. There is no vote on medicare for all this 2/3 majority of Americans could win just as I as an non-American could not vote for Biden or Trump. Regular Americans supporting a healthcare system is worthless, because the US is an oligarchy where the insurance companies and Big Pharma dictate the healthcare system almost completely.

[JBS]

Wow. Even after everything I thought at first that that must be The Onion.

So that's in the Oval Office, right? Why have they removed the carpet and the furniture? Especially if Trump is still claiming he won?

It's not the Oval Office, although I'm not sure which room it's in.  And I've just realized that "Google Lens" is much less useful than the old Image Search function.

[JBS]

Two tweets, one showing the room as it was under Obama, the other showing President Bush Sr using the desk for an outdoor signing ceremony.

https://mobile.twitter.com/snowmanomics/status/1332364059061182467

https://mobile.twitter.com/YAppelbaum/status/1332343700198920193

If the second photo seems grotesque, it isn't because of the desk.

[SimonNZ]

Ah...the Diplomatic Reception Room.

[Herman]

The article doesn't address it, but this time it would be treason, wouldn't it? If national secrets leave the blabbing unthinking mouth of Citizen Trump he would no longer have the protection from the law he's recently enjoyed in blabbing secrets?:



In 2017, Trump gave the location of two American nuclear submarines near North Korea to the president of the Philippines.


Russian President Vladimir Putin, for one, would have a great incentive to pay Trump to act on Russia's behalf, Wise wrote.

Oh, but Putin would not have to pay a dime. The art of Trump's deal is he's giving away his secrets for free, because he wants to impress these people. He's so easy to play it's ridiculous. He's a six year old, and he should definitely take this tiny desk home, in January.

[Herman]

The Trump campaign paid three million dollars for a recount in two Wisconsin counties. As a result Biden got a few votes further ahead.

As in Michigan there are reports of Republica observers harrassing the volunteers doing the recount. It seems these people have not taken the trouble to familiarize themselves with the rules and regulations; they are just there to slow things down and make life miserable for the people doing the actual work. There was this guy in Michigan who said he didn't care about the law; he just did what the R party had told him.

"Election officials in Wisconsin complained earlier this week that observers representing the Trump campaign were obstructing the recount.

Observers broke the rules by constantly interrupting vote counters with questions and comments, complained Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson. According to election officials, a Trump observer objected to every ballot that tabulators pulled from a bag to count simply because they were folded."

[Todd]

Non-Americans have been asked in polls (yes, we have polls outside the US!):

Yes, and they mean nothing.  When I see foreign poll results, I remember how John Kerry was preferred by 90%+ of Norwegians in 2004.  Remember, when it comes to the presidency of the US, the US has 538 Electoral Votes.  The rest of the world combined has 0. 

I may do some web sleuthing to see if any psychologists or psychiatrists have conducted research on why people fixate on politics in countries other than their own given that their fixation is intrinsically meaningless.  There must be some explanations for such irrational behavior.

[drogulus]

Yes, and they mean nothing.  When I see foreign poll results, I remember how John Kerry was preferred by 90%+ of Norwegians in 2004.  Remember, when it comes to the presidency of the US, the US has 538 Electoral Votes.  The rest of the world combined has 0. 

I may do some web sleuthing to see if any psychologists or psychiatrists have conducted research on why people fixate on politics in countries other than their own given that their fixation is intrinsically meaningless.  There must be some explanations for such irrational behavior.

     There's nothing mental about having an interest in the politics of other countries, even tiny shithole countries. I think you are being a little disingenuous here, since you have "means nothing" interests just like normal people do.