Donald Trump for President Thread

[terry nodder]

NOAM CHOMSKY: "What do you think about the antics of Donald Trump, in tangent to your earlier idea about American exceptionalism?"

Well, actually, I think we should recognize that the other candidates are not that different. I mean, if you take a look at—just take a look at their views. You know, they tell you their views, and they’re astonishing. So just to keep to Iran, a couple of weeks ago, the two front-runners—they’re not the front-runners any longer—were Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. And they differed on Iran. Walker said we have to bomb Iran; when he gets elected, they’re going to bomb Iran immediately, the day he’s elected. Bush was a little—you know, he’s more serious: He said he’s going to wait 'til the first Cabinet meeting, and then they'll bomb Iran. I mean, this is just off the spectrum of not only international opinion, but even relative sanity.This is—I think Ornstein and Mann are correct: It’s a radical insurgency; it’s not a political party. You can tell that even by the votes. I mean, any issue of any complexity is going to have some diversity of opinion. But when you get a unanimous vote to kill the Iranian deal or the Affordable Care Act or whatever the next thing may be, you know you’re not dealing with a political party.It’s an interesting question why that’s true. I think what’s actually happened is that during the whole so-called neoliberal period, last generation, both political parties have drifted to the right. Today’s Democrats are what used to be called moderate Republicans. The Republicans have just drifted off the spectrum. They’re so committed to extreme wealth and power that they cannot get votes, can’t get votes by presenting those positions. So what has happened is that they’ve mobilized sectors of the population that have been around for a long time. It is a pretty exceptional country in many ways. One is it’s extremely religious. It’s one of the most extreme fundamentalist countries in the world. And by now, I suspect the majority of the base of the Republican Party is evangelical Christians, extremists, not—they’re a mixture, but these are the extremist ones, nativists who are afraid that, you know, "they are taking our white Anglo-Saxon country away from us," people who have to have guns when they go into Starbucks because, who knows, they might get killed by an Islamic terrorist and so on. I mean, all of that is part of the country, and it goes back to colonial days. There are real roots to it. But these have not been an organized political force in the past. They are now. That’s the base of the Republican Party. And you see it in the primaries. So, yeah, Trump is maybe comic relief, but it’s just a—it’s not that different from the mainstream, which I think is more important.

Chomsky, 22/09/15

Love me a bit of Noamsky

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

Elizabeth Warren is that person.

That the one with the glasses who was on ch4 news the other night? Not much younger (If at all) than hilary is she? Sounded too much of an attack dog on trump to me?!

Still, I've made a mental note...

 

[orchard]

Obviously written waiting for USPS to drop his first 'smartphone'.

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.

But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

Amazon product ASIN 0062300547

 

[neil999]

No way that's actually what he thinks. It's how he bought far right votes

yeah..i actually reckon he's personally fairly liberal on social issues, he's obviously hedonistic and strikes me as not being that bothered about abortion, gay rights etc as long as it doesnt stop him making money/doing what he wants

 

[neil999]

That the one with the glasses who was on ch4 news the other night? Not much younger (If at all) than hilary is she? Sounded too much of an attack dog on trump to me?!

Still, I've made a mental note...

she'll be 71 at next election, hmmmm

need a young bernie, must be someone about

 

[Boss_Blue]

Is it wrong that part of me hoped for a Trump victory just for the fume/popcorn?

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

Rather. *adjusts monacle

Well quite

Good I get my butler to offer you a glass of port and a especially tasty watercress sandwich?

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

Is it wrong that part of me hoped for a Trump victory just for the fume/popcorn?

That is such a Boss_Blue thing to do lol

 

[neil999]

the right have been pretty clever in using the lefts anti-establishment message as their own

 

[orly]

yeah..i actually reckon he's personally fairly liberal on social issues, he's obviously hedonistic and strikes me as not being that bothered about abortion, gay rights etc as long as it doesnt stop him making money/doing what he wants

Absolutely agree with this.

People saying 'it's a victory for the bigots / racists' etc are missing the point. Bigots and racists always vote the same way, regardless of the candidates. What the real problem here is that centrists, utterly fed-up with decades of the same tosh, have decided to gamble. And these are not life's natural gamblers, which should show how desperate they have become.

I reiterate - 8 years of 'hope', 'yes we can', quality rhetoric and very little to show for it have lead to the vacuum that has allowed a reality TV star with a fortune built on sand to become the 45th US President. Go further back to Blair and a wave of optimism absolutely squandered. The real crime here is not that the racists and bigots get their day in the sun, but that real chance for progress and social change has been absolutely wasted.

 

[degsy]

The thing is, I don't get this hang up about production rather than consumption. During communism, there was no unemployment in eastern Europe as it was strictly speaking illegal, yet their shops were largely empty. If we're talking about governing for a majority rather than a minority, then we should be representing consumers rather than producers as they're in considerably larger numbers, yet throughout this hand-wringing about globalisation there has been no mention of how much better our lives are as consumers.

Neither do I, nor do I care.
It was the same in in my bit of the UK in the 50's and early 60's everybody had jobs, we made stuff and exported it though there wasn't too much stuff in the shops there was some...usually home produced.

not too sure how it's relevant to why Brexit and Trump happened and why 'I' and others like me - part of the minority within the majority were Peed off at mainstream politicians of all stripes and voted as we did
Disclaimer; not that I actually voted in either...I just know where they're coming from
I know they don't have By Elections in the US...But in the UK by Elections are 99/100% protest votes
Just look at it as the worlds biggest By Election protest.

 

[Harryflashman]

Putin , Farage , Katie Hopkins and piers Morgan all seem very pleased so that has to be a good sign surely ?

 

[Harryflashman]

yeah..i actually reckon he's personally fairly liberal on social issues, he's obviously hedonistic and strikes me as not being that bothered about abortion, gay rights etc as long as it doesnt stop him making money/doing what he wants

I think this is interesting as historically he was , pro choice and also I think actually some LGBT republican groups said he was their most liberal candidate given his history professionally but couldn't endorse him due to his advisors and Pence.

I'd be interested to see whether any of that liberalism manifests itself in his presidency .

 

[orly]

Putin , Farage , Katie Hopkins and piers Morgan all seem very pleased so that has to be a good sign surely ?

Trump put Farage onto that platform not for what Brexit means as a policy decision, but to show his support base that polling and predictions could be defeated. Farage will be politely fobbed off when he turns up, unless he's paying for his own drinks. Do you think someone who swept to victory on the mantra 'Make America Great Again' will want to be seen taking direction from a Brit? No chance. Hopkins and Morgan are just trying to do what anyone does in a Company when there is major overhaul at managerial level or company culture; making a desperate play and hoping to be swept in by the updraft. Morgan is desperate. Hopkins schtick has virtually run out.

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

What we'll get here now is the accusation that 'the thickos' have just killed democracy, just like with Brexit.

See it for what it is: a boot in the bollocks of every person propping up a system that holds people down and beats them with blow after blow of an economic and ideological nature.

Take a look at the grids this morning of the talking heads of the MSM - it's their job to tell you lies whilst keeping a smile on their faces. Well they're not smiling now are they?

Spot-on.

Right result, wrong fella got it.