I should not have mentioned numbers.


L. Spiro

Why on earth did they support him in the first place then? His hair? :P

Because they hate Hillary. That was the problem with this election. Almost everyone voted AGAINST the opposition instead of FOR their candidate.

I totally get this... what I still have a little bit trouble with is voting FOR Trump just to prevent Hillary. Well, I guess with his nomination there was literally no other choice anymore (meaning the guys who voted for him during the primaries are really to blame)...

But Trump as President is just a total unknown. Might be good, given he does not try his inexpierienced hands at things he should rather leave alone, and lets other do his job. But he has a history. Did the guys who voted FOR him look up his history? Or did they just watch "the apprentice" and have gone all "oh yeah, he looks competent"?

He seemed to be unable to run a business from what I heard and read. He started with a ton of cash thanks to his father, which is the only reason why he is still rich. Then he got into selling his name and showbiz, and found out that this actually was his calling, not leading a company or doing investments.

This in itself is not so bad. I mean, he has his advisors. The president does not run the country alone. A bad leader that LISTENS to others might still do a decent job as a president.

But there is the other part in his history. He doesn't seem fond of listening to others. He always wants to win. He will escalate a conflict with someone he perceives as an obstacle in his way. Which in turn are VERY BAD perks for a future president.

What if he gets in a fight with putin because they end up not liking each other (not very realistic, but possible given the personality of both)? What if he decides one day the isreal president is an *ss because he made a comment Trump understood as him mocking his bad hair? What if everyone tells him that option A is safer, but Trump picks option B because of a whim and his distrust in others?

The fact people are now betting on him NOT realizing his promises made during the campaign. Its a gamble of the worst kind. What if the impossibility of the task he promised just fuels his will to try anyway? Seeing how he did do investments in the past despite many experts telling him its a bad idea, and he even went and sued some of them, that does not seem so far fetched as it would be with any other president.

I digress though. Lets just say, I hope president Trump in 2017 is not Donald Trump from the eighties that almost ruined his own business.

As to the wall. I think it doesn't matter if he builds the wall or not. The damage is done already. Either he tries the impossible and ruins the US financially (good luck trying to make the mexicans pay), or the rightwing loonies which are already, if you believe popular media, are patrolling the border with thei militia, will ramp up their efforts. Given Trumps rethoric, they WILL feel empowered to "defend the US against the aliens"... I ask myself how will Trump react to that, should more and more people be shot along the border?

Then there is a big chance that the economic "war" Trump might want to fight with mexico, and the other southern american countries will lead them even closer to an economical alliance with China. China seems to be VERY actively looking to amp up their ties with other countries, both to secure markets, and to get better access to resources.

AFAIK China is already active in southern america. Given China has actively invested into financing the debts of other countries in the past, southern america and the struggles of some of the countries there are a good target for that. Hell, I am not even saying that China just has bad motives for that... most experts I heard are sure that the first and foremost motive of the chinese is to ensure economical stability worldwide.

But is China as the protector of southern american countries REALLY what the US wants? IDK... given that Trump seems to rather ally with Russia than China, I guess not.

All in all, I guess there is a good chance Trump really does nothing. But as in other topics, his words spread during the campaign might have a long lasting negative social impact that would go beyond just his mandate as US president. The Wall and the "Zero Tolerance" politics with immigrants from Mexico is just one of those things...

The general consensus seems to be that Trump is a total idiot and insane, and the world is going to end.

Also, but not exclusively because of this "build a wall" thing. I'll repeat that I'm convinced this is a mere figure of speech. A provocation. Or, as a Russian representative said on the eve of the election: "He is like hooligan, and only hooligan can fight with Washington corruption" (paraphrased, but very close). In other words: just forget repeating over and over what provocative things he said and wait for what he will do.

He said he is going to build that wall. OK. Whatever. He said a thousand other things, and there's another thousand things you are afraid of he will be doing. Like start a nuclear war because he already had a bad week and breakfast didn't taste well?

Get real. Trump is not stupid, and he is not insane. But even if he was insane, he does not rule the country alone. What do you think will happen? Trump gets up in the morning and presses the "Nuke" button instead of the "Nurse" button like Reagan in that Genesis video? Do you even believe that The President Almighty has a red button which ends the world? There's still people involved who need to turn keys and such. And those people won't just turn said keys unless they're 100% convinced that the command is legitimate, necessary, and there is no other way. Google for "Vasili Arkhipov" if you're interested why this doesn't happen so easily and why you can live your happy life.

Do you think the military will blindly follow his orders, no matter how unreasonable they are? Do you believe the FBI/CIA/Homeland ask for the president's permission for what they are doing? Do you believe that if he orders something that's alltogether nuts they'll just do it? Or the other way around?
Kennedy's era comes to mind. Did Hoover give a fuck about what Kennedy said when he put Martin Luther King under surveillance for five years? Did the military give a fuck about what Kennedy said in the Cuba Crisis? I don't remember the USA doing an air strike on the missle base or invading Cuba as was Kennedy's plan. Go figure why, they're not crazy. There's more than just one uninformed, emotional man deciding what happens, and you can be sure that if the President's decision is wrong, they'll "convince" him make a better decision. Or arrange a sudden but accidential lead poisoning.

Also, Trump is not a bad businessman. You can say that he is unscrupulus to the extent of being a sociopath (that's however true for Clinton, too), but he is not a bad businessman. He has filed bankruptcy for several businesses, true. But that's a way of making money, as he has demonstrated. Take investor money, run business against wall, pull out all assets, file bankruptcy, and keep the money.
Not a very honest way, not very humanitarian, and in my personal opinion not even a valid way of making money. But it is perfectly legal according to the laws. Now, who is the more evil person, the one using the law to his (perceived unfair) advantage, or the one making such fucked up law in the first place? You can call him an asshole for doing such things, but definitively not a bad businessman.

There's those people like this architect who was allegedly "almost ruined" because Trump didn't pay him some 50k bill. The whole story stinks to begin with (it's one of those "architect adds lotsa stuff later so cost explodes" which we unluckily have here as well...). But anyway, 50k won't ruin an architect. More importantly, if he was really so certain that his bill was 100% correct and bulletproof, you have to wonder why he chose to whine about it in public rather than go to court. Woah, Trump's big bad evil Lawyer from Hell said that this might take some years. How scary. Clearly, that means you shouldn't go to court in the first place when you are "obviously" right and thus are pretty much certain to win.
Now, again, you can question whether this "business practice" makes Trump a particularly nice chap, and a philantropist. But it doesn't make him a bad businessman. After all, he gets away with it, and what he is doing isn't even illegal. Is it good? No. But above all it's the system that's corrupt and perverse, has only been using it.

In any case, breaking contracts is "good US tradition", it is very American. Ask any random "native American" about it. It's a Democratic thing, too, by the way, not reserved to the Evil Republicans. It was, for example, a Democrat who in '63 flooded the Seneca's lands and just said "Oh well, that's just too bad for you".

Also, but not exclusively because of this "build a wall" thing. I'll repeat that I'm convinced this is a mere figure of speech. A provocation. Or, as a Russian representative said on the eve of the election: "He is like hooligan, and only hooligan can fight with Washington corruption" (paraphrased, but very close). In other words: just forget repeating over and over what provocative things he said and wait for what he will do. He said he is going to build that wall. OK. Whatever. He said a thousand other things, and there's another thousand things you are afraid of he will be doing. Like start a nuclear war because he already had a bad week and breakfast didn't taste well?

This kind of logic really pisses me off. So what, is he supposed to say anyting he likes, and we should just ignore it because you think he isn't going to do it? So what if he says he wants to build a wall, so what if he asks why we america doesn't use its nukes, so what if he goes ahead and says he is going to kill every illegal immigrant in the country with an orbital death laser because, hey, its not going to happen anyway.

Why do we even have political campains then? Everything that our favourite candidate says that is negative is just brilliant rheotric to fight the system, and everything positive they say is obviously true. If you apply that kind of selective thinking, why even listen to any such candidate anymore? He's trump, he's not part of the NWO and "the system", it doesn't matter what he says, just vote for him.

...

I mean, jesus, how else would you judge a new polititian than by what he says? In trumps case, eighter:

- what he says comes true, which means that he planned all of it and meant what he said. So he pretty much is an insane racist idiot in this case, why would I vote for that?

- what he says doesn't come true, but he still wanted to. In this case, his management/PR/opposition doesn't let him get through with it. He was still an insane racist iditot, just that his plans didn't fullfil (good!). But still, why would you vote for that (unless you support use of nuclear weapons 'n shit).

- what he says doesn't come true, and he didn't want it. That appears what you belive, and WHY ON EARTH would you think thats a good thing? Yeah, no nukes, yippie, but still, in this case he is an openly admitting liar and manipulator, a demagoge, and why would anyone support that? Its one thing not to keep your election promises, or apply "standard" tactics like talking sh*t about your opponent, but to talk insane stuff like trump did, and not meaning it, in my mind that would make him even a worse person than if he just was a totally racist, mysogynic sh*thead with dreams of nuking the world.

If this is true, it pretty much means that ANYTHING he says is 100% meaningless, he's just going to say what gets him the best outcome, and do whatever he likes to do regardless.

(sorry for the harsh tone, but what you are suggesting is that trump is a blatant liar, and that thats a good thing. I FUCKING DESPISE liars, they are the root cause of so much whats wrong with our socitey).

EDIT: I leave it to moderation to decide whether this still fits the required tone or should be removed...

Yeah...and for anyone believing Trump can easily "cut" his ties and not pay his debts to the so-called "alt-right" that was a major force(especially in social media) for him...

http://www.jpost.com/Us-Elections/ADL-slams-Trump-appointment-of-aide-with-ties-to-antisemitic-alt-right-472565

Trump isn't a complete unknown factor, though. He's been political for a long time, and his social policy support has been pretty left-leaning. He flipped on gay marriage as well, and very VERY quietly flipped on abortion.

President-Elect Trump Says Same-Sex Marriage Is 'Settled' Law

ABC News? - 15 hours ago

Republican President-elect Donald Trump said he's “fine” with same-sex marriage

and he's gone from saying "Ban abortion" to "maybe if we leave it up to the states women who want abortions can go to different states to get them, and people who don't want them in their communities won't have them there" (paraphrased).

The wall will keep following this. It will be "Mostly fence" soon.

Yes, it's sad that this is the level of outright lying politics has devolved to, but people who flipped form Obama to Trump knew what they were getting (ed Cruz/others have warned exactly against this).

He's shrunk the ammount of illegals he's going to deport from 11 million~ down to 2-3 million~ (This is how much Obama's administration did as well).

Now he's saying "Mexicans here legally that hvaen't committed crimes are great people, I need to decide what to do with them after we get the criminals out. We aren't looking into creating a deportation force" (paraphrased).

In other words, he's going to give out work visas or amnesty, and probably finish Bushes border fence.

To those that think Trump won't be able to flip because of his base, I'm part of his base and I'm glad he's flipping as planned, Pretty sure there's others like me. Besides, Trump's weaseled his way through just about everything he's tried/been sued on. I doubt this is any different. Following his usual plan (attack/obfuscate/brag/paint as underdog), here's a preview.

"I can't do it alone, folks, the establishment doesn't want these things. These big corporations want their illegal workers, and the senate/house, even though they're owned by republicans, I'll tell you, they're really owned by businesses. It's disgraceful, really, so unpatriotic that I can't do what I promised because they won't let me. And I had a mandate! I won against 16 other candidates, and they still won't cooperate! Ok. But, it's ok, we need to vote em all out in the midterms (or 2020). Get em all out! That's what we need to do. If they won't listen to the people, hey, who cares if it's a democrat for a republican, if they're all owned by the same businesses am I right? And they've show how unfair they can be to me. So unfair, truly unfair."

Ah conquestor3, it's too late to be sounding the "he's like every other politician" horn. We've telling you about that for months and you wouldn't listen. Have your cake and eat it too.

As far as the wall goes, it seems that he's not gonna build it. And now every one who voted for Trump are now spinning his words to be metaphorical and not actual. Which is looking more and more like what his actual Presidency will be, a pure metaphor about all of his policies. The wall is now looking to be a fence. The fence will end up being a bill. The bill will end up changing nothing. Rural America eat your heart out. No, seriously. Eat your heart out. It's the only thing you'll be able to control or even do.

Wall being built will not separate Americans from Mexicans. Or legals from illegals. But the people from the establishment. Though I'm willing to see if he at least hires more Border Patrol or electronic gadgets to monitor the border and tunnels.

Ah conquestor3, it's too late to be sounding the "he's like every other politician" horn. We've telling you about that for months and you wouldn't listen. Have your cake and eat it too.

I think you misunderstood. I WANTED him to flip his positions. I'm happy at his changing stances on the wall/abortion/gay marriage. In this case I got my cake (no hillary) and get to eat it, too (TPP is dead).

I think I said as much even in the first Trump thread, where I said that the wall (While affordable) wouldn't accomplish anything.

There are a few positions I hope he isn't flipping on, though (Constitutional carry being one).

I think you misunderstood. I WANTED him to flip his positions. I'm happy at his changing stances on the wall/abortion/gay marriage. In this case I got my cake (no hillary) and get to eat it, too (TPP is dead).

Well, congrats then !

Ah conquestor3, it's too late to be sounding the "he's like every other politician" horn. We've telling you about that for months and you wouldn't listen. Have your cake and eat it too.

I think you misunderstood. I WANTED him to flip his positions. I'm happy at his changing stances on the wall/abortion/gay marriage. In this case I got my cake (no hillary) and get to eat it, too (TPP is dead).

I think I said as much even in the first Trump thread, where I said that the wall (While affordable) wouldn't accomplish anything.

There are a few positions I hope he isn't flipping on, though (Constitutional carry being one).

Really?

"I'm going to vote for this insane idiot (yeah, @samoth, he's both) in the hope that he does the opposite of what he says, while doing exactly what he says on the select few of the policies that I agree with??"

This is why we need an IQ test for voting.

Ahh fuck it. Burn the world, humanity is too stupid to live on it anyway... :angry: