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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Yeah, sure. A shame that so many real people's lives are at stake, though...
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Oh. I did not know that. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | ^ Yeah, sure. A shame that so many real people's lives are at stake, though... |
On the evidence to date, not that many people have been affected by Trump’s depredations. GW Bush harmed many more. Trump’s real danger, so far, has been to America’s democratic traditions and institutional processes, not so much to many fellow humans.
The Paris accord and his choice for tax cuts over fiscal responsibility will almost certainly cause long term harm, but there is room for some uncertainty over both. Some illegal immigrants have been roughly handled, which is regrettable, but his actions there have not been fundamentally worse than our government undertakes with less cause.
I despise Agent Orange, but I think it’s easy to confuse his assault on decency, intelligence and adult sensibilities with actual worldly harm. Hopefully, in about 2.25 years, this farcical administration will pass like a bad dream, and the better parts of America will re-emerge.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| If Trump loses in 2020 then it'll be to a left wing crazy in the Bernie Sanders mold. American politics might be a less refined, impolite and bellicose game than under Obama, but you can't deny that Trump loves his country and is trying to fix it. Like John Howard just said, let him make his mistakes and learn from them, he's not doing as shit a job as the media and lefties with Trump Derangement Syndrome would have you believe. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Wokko wrote: | | If Trump loses in 2020 then it'll be to a left wing crazy in the Bernie Sanders mold. American politics might be a less refined, impolite and bellicose game than under Obama, but you can't deny that Trump loves his country and is trying to fix it. Like John Howard just said, let him make his mistakes and learn from them, he's not doing as shit a job as the media and lefties with Trump Derangement Syndrome would have you believe. |
At the risk of Godwin’s law, there is no doubt that Hitler loved his country and was trying to fix it. The bar is much higher than that. I doubt his ability to learn from mistakes because I see no capacity in the man to do so.
I agree with the thrust of some of his policies - especially border control, resistance to Islamization, and pressuring China on its predatory trade and IP practices - but success is always about nuance and execution, as well as direction. A good strategy appallingly executed wins no more battles than a bad strategy.
More broadly, America has many serious problems which more of this kind of right-wing politics is unlikely to fix. Fiscal irresponsibility, the highest Gini coefficient in the developed world, insulting and alienating fellow democracies, arbitrary cosiness with septic dictatorships (why NK and not Iran?), rank protectionism and the sowing of social discord from the Oval Office - these will not restore America’s grandeur. Neither will it restore the US to grandeur to raise to such eminence a man whose leadership skills and intellectual capacities are so obviously poor.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I honestly don’t think Trump really loves anything but himself. Like most politicians, he comes across pretty transparently as a raging narcissist. The difference with other politicians is that many others take their jobs seriously and want to do it to the best of their abilities; I get the feeling that Trump likes being president but doesn’t actually want to put the hard yards in.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | I honestly don’t think Trump really loves anything but himself. Like most politicians, he comes across pretty transparently as a raging narcissist. The difference with other politicians is that many others take their jobs seriously and want to do it to the best of their abilities; I get the feeling that Trump likes being president but doesn’t actually want to put the hard yards in. |
Many others? I call bullshit, and I reckon that’s why trump got elected. Sick of the corrupt system, so let’s teach the system a lesson.
What exactly has he done that’s caused harm? I don’t follow Aussie politics, let alone any others! So genuine question.
I just asked hubby, and he said he has invigorated the aconomy, decreased unemployment and he’s running the country like a businessman not a politician.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Swoop and others, I highly recommend checking out the first twenty minutes or so of this recent Noam Chomsky interview, in which he discusses the historical context of ‘Russiagate’:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1EgaHvr_fFg
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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Good read. Hypocrisy has always been a cornerstone of U.S. exceptionalism. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Pies4shaw wrote: | https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/22/conservative-despair-republicans-trump
A conservative perspective from someone who didn't feel the need to take his brain out of his skull before considering Trump. |
There is nothing conservative about Trump, but then, there is nothing very conservative about modern America. Certainly not the Republicans, with their penchant for war (the ultimate unconservative act), their fiscal irresponsibility, and their preference for partisanship over the national interest. That’s not to endorse the Democrats, though on balance o think they are a more conservative force than the Republican Party ; I t’s just to point out that modern America, like most Western nations, lacks a party with a genuine conservative philosophy. This is partly why the West is losing power so quickly to the more genuinely conservative Asian cultures.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Anyone else seen his all-caps Twitter rant about Iran? For the good of the species, someone disable his account, please.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | Anyone else seen his all-caps Twitter rant about Iran? For the good of the species, someone disable his account, please. |
No worse than his earlier stuff about NK before KJU became his bestest buddy. One of several positives in his bedding down KJU, is that it proves his Twittering is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Moreover, given Iranian leadership’s predilection for “Death to America” and “The Great Satan” rhetoric, I’m not sure this is all that significant beyond piling on evidence of his grotesque unfitness for office.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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