The people that voted for Trump knew what they were going to get. Does anyone regret voting for Gary Johnson?
Case in point: http://billmoyers.com/story/ironworker-running-to-unseat-paul-ryan/ Now, I don't pretend to understand ANYTHING about the politics where he's running, or understand what his chances of winning are, but I think it would be fucking awesome if he actually beat Paul Ryan. He's has been getting a ton of exposure, from Jon Oliver to Reddit, etc., and has raised a shit-ton of money for his campaign.
I might be the only one who thought: "Yeah, great....more inexperienced politicians with no political capital that want to get shit done". On the upside, at least people are seeing through the curtain of bullshit perpetuated by our elected officials. Ultimately, the federal system is broken because of money. I think that's a potential reason we hired a "billionaire" to lead: because a chunk of us believed he could manage it better, since most of it hinges on money. It's early to say we were completely wrong, but uh...preliminary signs don't look good. The biggest changes I see coming: People actually participate in the fucking primaries. Election day being a protest holiday and eventually an actual holiday. Fox News' decline More (and better) civic participation and an uptick in the declining social capital. I see us moving more towards a social welfare state because...well, fuck what choice do we have? We're seeing tons of disfunction in our government in part because of how it's designed (nuclear family of straight white people owning a home and fully employed 40 hours a week with a pension), and in part because the social responsibility undertaken by our company and community has dramatically receded. The social contract changed for most Americans at some point in the last 25 years and it will be rewritten bit by bit in the next few years.
Ryan won that district by 35 points. It's just kind of hard to win in those heavily gerrymandered districts. Normally I would say having your typical lefty 'lol republicans is stoooopid' talk show host shilling for you isn't necessarily going to help a whole lot, but with how little known he is I suppose any exposure is good. Good luck to him I guess... Also, people are making a big stink about Trump's approval rating - and it is low for this point in a presidency - but it's barely lower than Obama was at through most of his presidency. It's certainly not good, but I just don't think it's the indication of problems to the GOP that a lot of people are making it out to be.
Presidents usually start high and then sink as time goes on. If you compare Obama and Trump's first 100 days: Kind of hard to say they're comparable. It'll be really interesting to see Trump's final numbers and compare them with Obama's final numbers.
Right, that was my point. It is unusual for this point in his presidency, but it is comparable to where Obama was for a good part of his presidency. He started high and finished high with a huge dip in the middle. If Trump keeps sliding in approval than it's worrisome for the GOP, but it's not really all that terrible... yet. I tend to think that due to the high level of partisanship right now we're kind of in a low ceiling, high floor situation for presidents.
I take it to mean that things are shit right out of the gate and just getting shittier, so I would think it would be problematic. He got elected on a ton of rhetoric like "drain the swamp" and other shit that people are starting to realize was bullshit. The New York Times posted a full page of his lies to date: https://twitter.com/stuartathompson/status/878971083201884160 I'd love to see anything that shows any other President that has been so full of shit, so fast, and so consistently.
Now, don't get me wrong... the NYT and a bunch of other publications have seen a huge increase in profits that they know are a result of them picking fights with Trump, so they're not being totally objective in their journalism... but... No other administration has had to shut down the white house briefings like this one has in order to do damage control on the lies and contradictions that are being broadcast. It's blatant, and anyone who says it's not, is delusional and trying to justify it in some way. The dude is a moron, and time has done nothing but expose it more and more with every passing day... with every tweet he's making and promise he's breaking. Some people will say that the media is just making that shit up, following the "fake news" rationalization, but that's not the case. The white house and the President are contradicting themselves in public, and their explanation is usually to play the victim or blame someone else. Being on the outside and looking in, it's not hard to see how the rest of the world is starting to think you guys are fucking retarded for electing him, regardless of your justifications. He's your world-wide representative, and he's acting like a spoiled, stupid child, and it reflects very, very poorly on a lot of very solid, respectable people that make up your country.
I think this is important: We can't accept this as normal. We cannot let this guy set the standard moving forward. In no way should this be an example for either party. Truly. We need to hold our elected officials to far higher standards for this, and for the love of GOD call this bullshit before the elections. It is NOT normal for the president to tweet insults, lies and outright nonsense. It is NOT normal for this guy to shoot his mouth off, revealing classified data to officials of ANY nation and antagonizing departments he is then expected to collaborate with. It is NOT normal for him to run up a bill at Mar-A-Lago that the taxpayer foots. It is NOT normal for ANY of our elected officials to appear so buffoonish, incompetent and embarrassing internationally. My point is this is unprofessional behavior at any job, at any level and we shouldn't tolerate it. That said, I am fatigued of every time he does something boorish, ridiculous and non-presidential it's in the media for the next week. I don't give a shit what he's lying about on Twitter today, I give a shit about the policies he's trying to push through.
He's less than a year in and he's already passed every challenger to the "worst president ever" crown except Buchanan and Harding, and he's gaining ground on them quickly. He passed William Henry Harrison merely by surviving his first month.
He's the most embarrassing president ever. To be the worst president ever you have to actually do things. As stupid as he has acted at times he really hasn't done that much. By comparison to someone like Bush he hasn't done even a fraction of the damage. That's not to say he won't, but he needs more time.
Precisely. Just because he's repulsive to...well, everyone really, doesn't automatically mean he's worse than Andrew Johnson or any of the other legitimately horrible Presidents.
I would not underestimate the impact of merely failing to execute the office of the President faithfully and competently. It is a dynamic office; you can't do nothing and expect the status quo to maintain.
Let's not forget what he's already doing to the EPA and a number of other organizations. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/...members-of-major-scientific-review-board.html When you look past the golfing and tweets, there is actual harm being done to you right now. And NAFTA. Say what you want about it, but if we walked away with our energy, water, and auto manufacturing stuff, large parts of the US would suffer hugely. Never mind the number of US companies that manufacture stuff in Canada due to the exchange rate and then re-import into the US for sale. The US benefits greatly from NAFTA in a number of ways that seem to be forgotten in the blowhardy rhetoric that he spews. The US is not in the dominating position that a lot of people think they are... up until now we've just been too fucking polite to do anything about it. Just ask the milk producers... who went ahead and spun up a marketing campaign basically saying "Ignore Trump, we don't think the same as he does, our problems are not your fault, please don't hate us, let's keep working together".
I mean the US is in a damn good position generally, but no one is in a good position to turn a cooperative game into a zero-sum game. Which is part of what I find so baffling, the Republican Ten Commandments used to go: 1) Jesus 100% would have owned an AR-15 2) Open markets and free exchange always increases total wealth And now they're all lined up behind a guy who wants to smash every effort we've ever made to create those open markets.
I regret my Clinton vote, just based on her actions after the election and not owning it her mistakes and not helping the party grow for 2020. I'm a libertarian, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for johnson at the time because that guy is an idiot with a microphone. In hindsight, I should have still voted Libertarian because of the party (though I strongly disagree with them on taxes and military). Or I would have just abstained from voting top of the ticket. Rest of the ticket I voted libertarian where I could and democrat where that was not an option, and I wouldn't change that.
The only way Trump's approval will go up-- ever-- is if some brown people do something truly horrible in your backyard. He was born into his presidency a loser. All of us with half a brain knew he was a fake, spoiled idiot for the past thirty goddamn years. He defined "Vain, selfish, spoiled asshole" in the 80's. How the fuck he pulled the wool over everyone's eyes so fast considering his never-ending cascade of megalomaniacal embarrassments is admirable to say the least. But a lot of his voters simply chose to be stupid.
The truth is he didn't. The wool was pulled slowly and methodically over the last thirty years, and he was simply the coup de grace that got away from the GOP a little ahead of schedule. Trump is utterly impossible without the last thirty years of right wing media.
I promised myself that I would live to see an Attourney General in your country that doesn't suck. Why do they ALL suck? Is this not supposed to be your nation's top law enforcer?