Elephants and Jackasses...

Behind the scenes wheeling or dealing?

Or locking her up was just a bullshit campaign issue to begin with?

My money's on the latter.

 

Well, except you know the people whose job it is to know who are saying so. Minus the Donald because it would hurt him.

And an RT Russian propaganda article that tries to make it look like someone besides the Russians were behind it all? Shocking. That's sort of how propaganda works.

And don't get me wrong, I think any and all info should be taken into consideration. I think the leaks were fair to report and discuss. But again, there was nothing outright disqualifying posted in the leaks. It was all more bark than bite.

 

This meme of "the left was mean to us, therefore we had to press the self destruct button" is one of the more insane things to come out of this election. I could convince you people to drink lead paint if I called you a redneck and said that I valued undrunk lead paint. Trump is going to be bad for everyone, but he's going to be far worse for his voters than he will be for me. When jobs don't come back, my job that exists will pay more than their job that doesn't; when prices on consumer goods double, my budget will absorb it without blinking; when their government subsidized healthcare vanishes, my private insurance, youthful health, and job-that-doesn't-expose-me-to-silica-dust won't even notice. Voting out of spite is not only petty and childish, it's stupid in a way that only a Trump voter could overlook.

You're still stuck on this idea that this was a normal election and everyone is being overly tribal. It wasn't, and people aren't. There was no "Never Romney" movement within the Republican party in 2012; Former Republican presidents didn't cast their votes for Obama in 2008. Every single intelligent and thoughtful conservative I know in my personal life either held their nose and voted Clinton, voted third party, or wrote in a different Republican. To a man they all saw what Trump is, and I'm still somewhat shocked that you can't.

Hillary's problems were decently sized, although the Republicans have certainly overblown them. I myself was upset at the hubris of the DNC nominating someone under an FBI investigation, it was the only way they could possibly lose to Trump. That said, Trump's temperament (which is a nice way of saying incredibly dangerous and unprecedented level of Narcissistic Personality Disorder) by itself dwarfs every single negative Hillary had.

Spoiler

 

Well, what would you suggest I do? Here's some people that Trump has nominated as members in his cabinet.

State - Tillerson - Once said "The world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not." As CEO of Exxon and a holder of oil assets in Russia, it's hard for me to not connect those dots and be worried that he might go easy on countries with oil reserves.

Treasury - Mnuchin - A hedge fund manager that invested in two Trump projects in the 2000's, he ran a bank that was sued for questionable foreclosures on homeowners and received complaints in California for not lending to minorities.

AG - Sessions - As a senator, he was pro-torture, anti-LGBTQ, and as an attorney for the state, felt okay trying to prosecute voter fraud by black people, but passed on prosecuting 2 Ku Klux Klan members for murder.

Interior - Zinke - In 2010, he wrote a letter proclaiming climate change to be America's next space race. Now, he votes against any climate change bills.

Labor - Puzder - A fast food magnate bitterly opposed to raising the minimum wage and opposing rules that would make more workers eligible for overtime. He said that increased automation could be a welcome development because machines were "always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall or an age, sex, or race discrimination case."

Health - Price - Wrote the Empowering Patients First Act, the Republican version of the ACA. In it, it bans payment for abortions, and essentially allows health plans to bar people with preexisting conditions. Those that do have preexisting conditions get to go into a high-risk pool, where I'm sure they'll get the very best choices in insurance plans.

Housing - Carson - A brain surgeon with zero experience in administrating housing.

Transportation - Chao - She's married to Mitch McConnell. This appointment reeks of Trump throwing McConnell a bone to keep Congress in line.

Energy - Perry - Didn't even know what the department was, but had no problem getting rid of it. I'm sure a man who sat on the board of the company trying to build the Dakota Access Pipeline is totally into energy conservation.

Education - DeVos - She was responsible for Detroit's charter school system. In the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Detroit had the lowest reading and mathematics scores "by far" over any city participating in the evaluation.

EPA - Pruitt - Spent his time as Oklahoma's attorney general suing the Obama administration. He's sued the EPA over the Clean Power Act and Clean Water Act, both of which failed. He said that the Supreme Court's ruling striking down provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act didn't apply to Oklahoma. He also said that after the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked the enforcement of two abortion-related laws until after their constitutionality was litigated (which could take up to a year or more), he still intended to support their implementation and enforcement.

Every single appointment, at least to me, looks like cronyism and incompetence at best (Carson? Really?) to foxes guarding the hen house at worst (Labor, Treasury, EPA, and State). I won't even bother explaining how much of a problem I have with most of these appointments shitting all over the poor and minorities for most of their careers. I definitely won't mention how these people are worth more than $13 billion combined.

One of the biggest planks of Trump's platform was eliminating corruption. Am I to believe that the Secretary of Labor isn't going to slap his dick on the face of every non-skilled worker in America? Am I to believe that the Attorney General is suddenly going to take an interest in protecting the rights of minorities and women he voted against as a senator? Am I to believe that a hedge fund manager that made his money running predatory banks is going to commit to a fiscal policy that won't screw everybody in my tax bracket and lower?

You cannot use the "Clinton Foundation as a tool of enrichment" argument without also admitting that the people being appointed to cabinet posts would do or are doing the exact same thing. You cannot use "What about the emails" argument, without admitting Trump did the same thing. You cannot argue that Trump will act as a tool against corruption without admitting that Trump has no issues with skirting tax laws, making fun of the disabled, and talking shit about the parents of soldiers who have died in the line of duty. You cannot use the "Let's come together" argument, without admitting Republicans have done nothing to bring the country together for 8 years.

Now, if anybody on the right can show me that a Trump government isn't more interested in enriching themselves at the expense of making all of our lives worse, I would be happy and quite honestly, relieved to hear it. But, if all you can do is call me some liberal complaining about election results, complain about where I got my information, or any other straw man bullshit argument, then I don't think we can have a productive conversation because you aren't interested in answering my questions.

 

I don't think the cultural disgust with the left is some singular factor in the outcome. I do think it's one of many factors because of the people who said they voted that way. Of course that doesn't count, you'll tell us why they voted. I do like how the majority of your post was this random tangent of 'well I'm better than them and they're stupid anyway.' Bravo sir. You'll have to forgive me if I don't take your projections of the Trump presidency too seriously. You've gone full lunatic several times posting over reactionary nonsense to mundane stories. I'm not going to rehash the trade stuff too much. I've posted several times on why I prefer Trump's stance to Hillary's and rather than writing out a coherent response people have just repeated 'nuh uh'. Why? Do you fucking know anything about it? Given your analysis of the situation with China, which has sounded more like the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic preaching doomsday over any random headline I'm going to guess no. Do I think Trump is some savior who's going to magically sweep every lost job of the last 30 years back in? No. Do I think disincentivizing companies from moving offshore, pulling out of the TPP, and responding to China's currency manipulations and protectionism are good ideas? Fuck definitely.

I don't think decades of taking donations to buy foreign influence while being a public official is the same thing in terms of evaluating expectations as 'he's done business overseas'. Take Tillerson who everyone is acting really paranoid about. I mean, what the fuck else was he supposed to do? That was his job. Repeated acts of corruption and performing a job function aren't the same thing. I personally like the appointment of Tillerson. He has experience negotiating diplomatically, knows the global market, and is a highly qualified, successful, and experienced non-establishment appointment. If you hate that appointment, you might be able to rest easier as there is a reasonably good chance he doesn't pass confirmation. The republicans hold a senate majority, but it's a super slim majority so with the dems basically vowing to deny him out of political barking I'd say it's fairly likely they get a couple republican senators to move over and vote him down.

The other appointments - yeah some of them do just suck. It's hard to not to cringe at Perry being attached to anything. Making Carson the head of HUD is just weird. You have to assume the guy is reasonably smart, but he's just totally devoid of qualifications. That said, some of the ranting about other appointments is hard to take seriously. Chao is a perfectly qualified candidate. Oh, but she's married to a republican. The fucking horror.

With regards to a lot of the appointments the left outrage basically equates to 'This guy has experience therefore greatest example of corruption ever!' followed by articles selectively combing over their careers to try to define them on one incident. It's not like he's going to start pulling random guys off the street just to show how super outsider he can be. It reminds a bit of the 'Trump is a huge business failure' crap. I would take exception to someone like DeVos who's accomplishments, or lack thereof isn't very encouraging. Of course, we are talking about Detroit, but still, not good.

I do want the ACA eventually repealed. Are you on it? It's a garbage plan that's outrageously expensive. Despite the sky rocket premiums it's still struggling to stay afloat and faces constant risk of going bankrupt. The only people taking it are on it either as a last resort or being in a situation where the stipulations of the bill forced them to sign on, often losing better, more affordable coverage in the process. Reconciling the difficulties of providing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions is hard, but given the enormity of the problems with the ACA I think we can do better. I think you have to spread the cost out, either through a medicare expansion that taxes everyone and/or mandating insurance companies take them on allocated on a scale of a corporate breadth. In any case, Trump has said he won't automatically push for repeal, he doesn't want to do it until another plan is in place, and I take that to be a good sign.

I'm not going to do a breakdown of every appointment because it's just too much. Generally, I think the defense and business postings have been good. The social services appointments have ranged from dog shit to meh.

I can't show you what they're going to do, anymore than I can do more than take a balance of Obama's good/bad ideas in '08. I've written my evaluation of the Trump platform more than once. I can't accurately say what they will/won't achieve. We'll have to see what happens in practice.

 

Who could forget my crazed schizophrenic positions like "Trump should wait until he has an operating State Department before making huge departures from longstanding US policy" and "Indicating an opposition to free trade in the Pacific will give China an opening to strengthen their role in the region."

 

Because he never took a huge departure from longstanding policy. That was just you freaking out. As for your second insinuation, the interdependence between China and the US has been explained. It's also neither sensible nor realistic to expect China to sustain their economy by bypassing the US consumer market in favor of smaller export based Asian nations, some of whom are not on particularly good terms with the Chinese. You either get it or you don't.

 

Maybe I'm not explaining misgivings correctly. The point I'm trying to make is that, Tillerson, an oil executive, is in perfect position to enrich himself, his company, and his friends at the expense of the country he is supposed to be serving. I would say that this is the very definition of corruption.

It's my belief that she's only being given this post to placate McConnell, the dipshit that steers Congress. This sort of cronyism is yet another definition of corruption. I've said it before and I'll say it again. For all of Trump's declarations of draining the swamp, he's doing the exact same thing that previous administrations have done, Democrats included.

No, I'm not. I have a few issues with the right's response to it. For the most part, there is more political will to repeal it instead of fixing it. Republicans aren't even united in what the replacement for it would be. They want to replace it with nothing, then kick the can down the road. Meanwhile, people that were insured (shittily, I'll admit, but still), won't have any coverage at all. Just because I have coverage through my job doesn't mean I don't or shouldn't care about these people. They're human beings and they deserve the right to have healthcare.

 

This is the second time you've assumed I think China is going to stop exporting to the United States. And probably the fiftieth time you find yourself arguing with a caricature of your own creation.

 

Then why don't you explain yourself instead of these constant vague insinuations. You want us to let China fuck us over on trade to stop them from trading with other people? What is your point?

 

We have literally already had this exact conversation in this exact thread.

tl;dr: Taking a hard anti-free trade stance, such as Trump has, will push pacific nations toward China when we could be drawing them closer to us.

 

What, like Japan and South Korea? The two strongest markets in the region and two of our closet allies both militarily and diplomatically? As for the other markets in the region, I'm somewhat ok with long term trade shifts that favor American workers. In the meantime their exports to us are important and will factor into any trade deal. China is an emerging economic heavy weight, and that's going to factor into the global market. Obsessively containing them to our own detriment is totally absurd, and the theories you've postulated has been vague fear mongering that's both poorly explained and has more snobbery than substance. But hey, if you hit a wall, just talk like the other person is clueless and you don't need to explain anything further. You got to really nail down that neo-lib stereotype.

 

We can use trade agreements to push labor and safety standards in these countries as well. Whatever goals we wish to achieve, we're in a better position to achieve them if we're the leading economy in a trade agreement, rather than sitting on the outside and letting someone else take that position.

 

He can't just tell the senate to go fuck themselves and refuse to appoint any establishment republicans. As amusing as that would have been, it's just bad politics. The general stance on energy has been to expand domestic production, which I'm kind of ok with if we're using it anyway. I don't think having continuously engaged in corruption and finding a connection for a potential to corruption is quite the same thing. He would have to do something to demonstrate how he's cutting ties with Exxon Mobil, or I think there's no way he passes confirmation, which might be a long shot anyway.

The republicans on health care are just so all over the place. Both in the base and in those who hold posts. They've been adamantly against Obamacare, but have struggled to unify under much else. There's some disunity among the dems as well in a more general sense, although they obviously support the ACA. . It's part of what makes Trump such a weird candidate to make it through the primaries as a republican. He has a history of advocating for single payer, and while he dropped that he did go out of his way, multiple times, to distinguish himself from the prevailing establishment views. Getting a strong deal through the swamp that is Washington on this issue is no small task, and we certainly saw that with Obama.

 

Jesus fuck. I'm done. You are literally incapable of having either a discussion or an argument.

 

Trump can't have it both ways. He's either draining the swamp with new ideas and new people, or he's in bed with mostly the same group of shitbags that got us here in the first place.

Clearly, you're smart enough to see that. Somehow, I doubt the residents of the Rust Belt will be able to make that distinction.

 

I can agree with this. I think we can strike a position that opposes the TPP specifically, but makes it clear we're for a free trade agreement in general, under more carefully considered terms. I don't think Trump will strike that position or anything close.