The Official Politics Thread - Trump, Brexit & the World!

[rokkerr]

Wow... you guys really offended Catalina enough into self banning...

[carl goldfinger]

Wow... you guys really offended Catalina enough into self banning...

Rokkerr, I think you are wrong!

Catalina catapulted himself out of here by being a Trumpflake. (BTW... thoughts about Jebby come up in my mind right now...)
How to convince a real believer that his believe is totally wrong, or wrong on so many levels, that he has no other chance than to relinquish his believe?
Simplified, you can't!
It doesn't matter what facts you present him even though they are the ultimate truth.
You can't convince a "blindfolded" believer.

The only way to change a real believer's believe is if his adored 'golden calf' - Trump in this case- shipwrecks and he understands that his believe was wrong.
You can't convince him, he has to get it by his own. ( Some may never due to reduced intellectual capacity...lol )

Now, the tragedy is that you all in America -& we here in Germany, too- have to bear with Trump for the next 4 years until you can elect a new president.
Let's see how many disasters he will cause in his periode of time. His list is growing day by day...

We in Germany have a very low opinion about Trump.
Gert-Jan's post with John Oliver's report summarises it perfectly:
How did the US get a pathological liar in the White House?

We are scared



Carl

[rokkerr]

I agree with you Carl and disagree... but if we look at the last couple of presidents...

1. Bill Clinton ''I did not have sex with that woman''
2. George Bush ''There are WMD's in Iraq''
3. B. Obama ''If you like your healthcare you can keep your healthcare''

... I wish we could get to a place where there are serious ramifications for the bullshit that we see in politics. How is it possible that Mitt Romney can call Trump essentially a danger to society... and then a few months later be grovelling for a job saying how smart he is? Politics is now rotten to the core. I was saying to Vicky it seems ludicrous that voters only have 2 possible choices for President of the United States. Isn't there room for some political party in the middle somewhere? The Dems are all now hard left (or pretending to be). The Republicans are now all hard right (or pretending to be). Any time someone comes along who tries to be more moderate they get chastised.

American politics is genuinely a mess.. imho. You don't even get the news in America any more. Fox News thinks the world is now amazing. CNN now thinks it's the end of the world. It's about 55 minutes of rhetoric and opinions out of every news hour. I don't get BBC News any more or I would watch that....

[mrjosh85]

Looking at this as objectively as possible:
1. As Politico has reported, for all of the hysteria surrounding Trump, he has essentially done nothing since he took office. The one substantial thing he did do -- the temporary ban -- was halted.
2. Trump's proposed policies have moderate to strong support among the American people.
- His least popular proposal is the wall, but has still polled at 47% approval. The wall will end up being more barriers and fencing anyways.
- Even with the terrible roll-out, his temporary ban has majority support (53%)
- 80% oppose sanctuary cities, and 75% support increased border patrol
- Repeal WITH replace HAD majority support, but now has slipped to equal support for and against. The reason I think can be explained below.

So how does a president whose policies enjoy broad to majority support have abysmal approval ratings?

Trump is his own worst enemy. And he has built a communications team around which only exacerbate the issue.

Here's what I observe happening:
Trump tweets or says something ludicrous.
Why?
1. Trump has no interest in the truth, but rather only the "version" of the story that benefits him most. This isn't uncommon to the average citizen: one who only reads Huff Post if they're a liberal, or watches Fox News if conservative. But he takes it a step further. It seems he has very selective hearing. He often mishears questions from reporters, misunderstands news reports, or misses the point of the report altogether. This happens repeatedly. Consider that his first controversy -- from his announcement speech -- that Mexicans are "bring drugs, crime..they're rapists", came from a report that he completely misread and misunderstood.
2. Trump doesn't know enough to make accurate statements, so he takes what "he's been told." His mistake about his electoral college victory was "information he was given", and he often uses that as an excuse when he makes mistakes (he even once told O'Reilly that "he read it on the internet.") Since he doesn't have knowledge on issues, he'll just take whatever is thrown his way.

So Trump tweets or says something blatantly false, and then his team has the impossible task of trying to spin it/defend it. And often his tweets are not even on message with his own official stance, sowing confusion into the administration's proposals.

To add to the cyclical destruction, his own communications team can't stay on message either. Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, and Sean Spicer all go out and make ridiculous claims themselves, and become the news, instead of trying to get the administration's message out into the news.

It's a self-destructing White House, which will go into lame-duck status if they lose the support of American people any further. They are seen as too incompetent to deliver, and too bogged down in unnecessary quibbles over news reports, and somehow STILL the election, Hillary Clinton, and their crowd size.

The only way Trump can turn it around is he gets a handler that can channel his amazing ability to market into constructive uses. He needs to remove Conway, Miller, Bannon, and Spicer immediately. He needs a new face to his administration, those who can establish credibility and get the White House on message. Though it may sound funny, a haircut, a new skin tone, and new suits would even bolster his credibility, and make him look presidential. (I can't believe they didn't do that during the campaign!)

[hotjulie]

I'm batshit crazy, but not crazy enough to wade into this hornets nest. I've never heard of anyone banning themselves, has that ever happened before?

[Anthony_JK]

Funny thing: I deliberately pulled myself away from this thread basically because I didn't want my own views -- which, if you can tell from my Twitter timelines, are pretty wild from the Left -- to cause any more unnecessary friction. I just find it hilarious that Cat couldn't back up the wingnutty stuff he was spewing and ultimately bailed out when Vicky very politely called him out on his stuff.

It's so much better when everyone speaks their mind respectful of all others, without tossing their poop.

[Anthony_JK]

Looking at this as objectively as possible:
1. As Politico has reported, for all of the hysteria surrounding Trump, he has essentially done nothing since he took office. The one substantial thing he did do -- the temporary ban -- was halted.
2. Trump's proposed policies have moderate to strong support among the American people.
- His least popular proposal is the wall, but has still polled at 47% approval. The wall will end up being more barriers and fencing anyways.
- Even with the terrible roll-out, his temporary ban has majority support (53%)
- 80% oppose sanctuary cities, and 75% support increased border patrol
- Repeal WITH replace HAD majority support, but now has slipped to equal support for and against. The reason I think can be explained below.

So how does a president whose policies enjoy broad to majority support have abysmal approval ratings?

Trump is his own worst enemy. And he has built a communications team around which only exacerbate the issue.

Here's what I observe happening:
Trump tweets or says something ludicrous.
Why?
1. Trump has no interest in the truth, but rather only the "version" of the story that benefits him most. This isn't uncommon to the average citizen: one who only reads Huff Post if they're a liberal, or watches Fox News if conservative. But he takes it a step further. It seems he has very selective hearing. He often mishears questions from reporters, misunderstands news reports, or misses the point of the report altogether. This happens repeatedly. Consider that his first controversy -- from his announcement speech -- that Mexicans are "bring drugs, crime..they're rapists", came from a report that he completely misread and misunderstood.
2. Trump doesn't know enough to make accurate statements, so he takes what "he's been told." His mistake about his electoral college victory was "information he was given", and he often uses that as an excuse when he makes mistakes (he even once told O'Reilly that "he read it on the internet.") Since he doesn't have knowledge on issues, he'll just take whatever is thrown his way.

So Trump tweets or says something blatantly false, and then his team has the impossible task of trying to spin it/defend it. And often his tweets are not even on message with his own official stance, sowing confusion into the administration's proposals.

To add to the cyclical destruction, his own communications team can't stay on message either. Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, and Sean Spicer all go out and make ridiculous claims themselves, and become the news, instead of trying to get the administration's message out into the news.

It's a self-destructing White House, which will go into lame-duck status if they lose the support of American people any further. They are seen as too incompetent to deliver, and too bogged down in unnecessary quibbles over news reports, and somehow STILL the election, Hillary Clinton, and their crowd size.

The only way Trump can turn it around is he gets a handler that can channel his amazing ability to market into constructive uses. He needs to remove Conway, Miller, Bannon, and Spicer immediately. He needs a new face to his administration, those who can establish credibility and get the White House on message. Though it may sound funny, a haircut, a new skin tone, and new suits would even bolster his credibility, and make him look presidential. (I can't believe they didn't do that during the campaign!)

Here's my own cracked "from the Indy Left" analysis of Trumpster:

Yeah, his massive ego and his meglomania does get the best of him, especially when he's tweeting...but, he's mostly following the template that most right-wing Presidents from Reagan to the Bushes have relied on for ages: he's offering the "red meat" to the GOP/Tea Party/Alt-Right base that catapulted him to his current post. The "Muslim ban" was simply a test of how far he could go in satisfying one of his main platform planks of scapegoating Muslims; he's now replaced that with the ICE raids on "illegals" as his ode to the xenophobes of the GOTP. His appointments thus far have been straight up Reaganite conservatives more interested in unregulating government for Big Business (and also Trumpster's own personal business interests). The ineptitude of his media staff (Spicer, Conway, Bannon, Miller, et. al.) is simply waived off as part of Bannon's supposed brilliance for causing enough chaos to cover what looks like a more traditional right-wing regime.

Nevertheless, there are fractures that are emerging in the GOTP front that could very much stifle Trumpster's enthusiasm. The GOTP in Congress still has a Tea Party faction that wants to go after Social Security and Medicare "entitlements" as cash cows for their massive tax cuts for the 1%...but that would conflict with Trumpster's explicit pledge not to touch those Third Rails. Likewise, the "Obamacare" repeal debacle cuts squarely between those whom at least want some time to develop a decent replacement that doesn't hurt the very people who rely on the ACA, and those (again, mostly the Randians like Paul Ryan and the wacks of the Freedom Caucus Right within the GOTP Congress), who want the ACA killed yesterday. The latter also have the weapon of not only the budget process, but the debt ceiling (remember those battles??) coming into play which may force Trumpster to bite the bullet for even deeper cuts that would saw into a large portion of his electoral base.

I really don't think Trumpster will axe any of his main spokesmen (although Kellyanne might want to have her old 700 Club resume in hand, especially after that fangirl episode on the couch during the HBCU photo-op), since his ego won't allow him to take personal account of his actions. I'm guessing that he will use his infamous media skills to rally the base to force his agenda through as much as possible.

As for the "resistance" of the Democrats? That's a whole another novel. Don't get me started on them.

[PeterL22]

Wow - its still rumbling on in this thread!
Don't think we should give catalina a hard time for having his views and at least being open about them. As a Brit I am not qualified to comment on any US Presidents, but one thing both the UK & US should be grateful for is that we can rant and complain openly without a knock on the door at 03.00.
More importantly, going back to Bill Clinton, can anyone properly explain to me how receiving a blow job is not participating in sex (his defence with Monica)?

[CGYMike]

I miss Catalina...I'd love to hear his latest views on alleged bugging, incoherent press secretaries, Jeff Sessions, KellyAnne Conjob...I just miss him

[PeterL22]

I agree too CGYMike - I miss him too. I hope things are better for him!

[CGYMike]

Spotted today in Midtown Manhattan On International Woman's Day...God Bless you Donald

[rokkerr]

It's just a sexist meme... don't hate...

[PeterL22]

Sorry I have to say it - What a load of Pussies!

We have a Health Minister called Jeremy Hunt - guess what he gets called.
My favourite was Ed Balls - How I wish we had a Prime Minister Balls!

[rokkerr]

This sums up the USA about now...

[stickyvicky]

This thread is just not the same without Catalina. Oh Catalina! Where for art though my fair Catalina?

[CGYMike]

Found him...errrr...it :)

[rokkerr]

I think you guys lost Catalina...

BUT what the hell there's only 3.7 years left of the Trump Presidency to worry/argue about...

[Anthony_JK]

It's just a sexist meme... don't hate...

I'm no fan of Trumpster either, but some of those women really need to crack open one of Nina Hartley's Sex Guide books. Where are the clits that go with those vaginas, ladies??

[George B]

Trump Sends Lawyers After Teen For Site Where Kittens Can Punch POTUS

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-sends- ... D=ref_fark


http://www.kittenfeed.com/

[PeterL22]

images.jpeg (10.02 KiB) Viewed 6 times

I think I may have located Catalina - what a sensible chap!