Trump is just an out and out liar. About
everything.
He shits on democracy, and doesn't even pretend to have integrity. from what i can tell, he's not inspired by a vision, but by resentment. he's got grandiose determination and a very fragile ego. that's why he's such a bitchy drama queen - because if he wasn't always dodging questions about scandals, he might have to engage in public discussions about sophisticated policy matters.
To support him, you must have to overlook an awful lot of negative stuff.
All of it - the corruption, the nepotism, the way he has put people with serious conflicts of interest into certain senior positions
(anti-environmentalists in charge of the EPA, among others), the way he attacks people with nasty insults rather than discussing policy - and just his general demeanour, which seems both non-inquisitive and ridiculously defensive.
He does all the grubby personal-attack stuff to distract people from the fact that he is simply not up to the job being president, of being a leader, of being a politician. standing in front of the cameras and delivering vaguely presidential oratory seems to be too much of a challenge, and ultimately everything is just a total farce.
His tariffs make this obvious - the way he talks about trade deficits, it's pretty clear that he has no idea what they are - but he's floundering so badly as president that he just pushes ahead and says dangerous, silly things (without consulting with his party, and ignoring his advisors) which threaten the stability of the world economy.
i suspect it's because he doesnt understand half of what he's in charge of, but it's all about surface level appearances in the press.
most supporters of politicians are still critical when people they like screw up.
there's something not right - IMO - when supporters can't acknowledge that person's shortcomings. it seems suss.
i'm not really talking about his politics, he is simply incompetent.
The argument that he's "shaking up" politics, in a good way, is just dishonest.
What he's actually doing is damaging government institutions as much as he can. That's not "draining the swamp" of lousy people - if you look at the people that have resigned or been fired (like all of the ambassadors appointend by obama) - lots of them are experienced and knowledgable public servants.
many of the trump appointments seem to be "lousy people" - who embody the hypocrisy of trump when he accuses others of being crooked and/or incompetent, like giving betsy devoss the job of education secretary.
It's pretty weird for someone to be so ideologically critical of "The Government" that they vote in, and support, a president intent on destroying it.
Trump himself is devoid of principles, integrity, political knowledge or any of the sort of skills people require to be president of the USA.
Yes, protest votes can be a good way of having your civic voice heard - and this can often mean voting for candidates who are going to cause trouble.
But electing a populist as cynical and spiteful as trump is foolish.
he says he's going to shake things up, he says he's going to do all kinds of things - but he represents all of the worst things about others - he's crooked, he's not one of your best people.
i think people are so overly invested in the really small, superficial stuff in politics, if someone comes along and makes all the right noises - populist shit about immigrants and all this anti "identity politics" stuff - and lots of people will just go along with it, thinking that he's speaking to them with his cynical, deeply targeted message.
suffice to say, it's a con job - the latest in a lifetime of shake-downs - a cheap trick for publicity that got out of hand on trump's part, if those stories are true.
He's not sabotaging and undermining government institutions
for the good of the people.
His attitude is not libertarian - it's authoritarian.
Trump has idolised putin for years, and angled for his attention. putin played him, but trump still looks to him like some kind of father figure.
I can understand why disaffected people voted for trump, because there is a lot to be cynical about, in modern politics.
but i don't have much respect for the continued attempts to paint him as a hero, or a saint.
It's silly - and if you look past the hype and focus on trump's agenda, and how he's implementing it - it's disturbing.
Even if you agree with trump's politics, his administration is a mess; the evidence of that is overwhelming.
there have been too many first-hand reports from people behind the scenes who paint a very troubling picture of how trump operates behind closed doors to disregard them.
But disregard them is what trump fans continue to.
I cannot imagine supporting some politician who gets up onstage to insult people like a grumpy toddler, but he does, and they do.
The things he has said to the families of dead soldiers, and the stripping of funds from government departments that he has ideological beef with, and the trashing of the affordable healthcare act - his whole act is pretty weak, and it's just to distract the attention to what a fraud he is.
i mean, the guy's clueless and crazy.
the one good thing about it all is that he's almost single-handedly politicised all of the young people of the united states. people have started to open their eyes and not only realise that trump is threatening to destroy a whole lot of things they took for granted - like living in a free, democratic society - and they'll start demanding more from politicians, and they'll start to appreciate that it's important to vote.
i've been starting to think about trump's next moves, and i'm just going to post this here because it's a little trump prediction.
be interesting to maybe look back at such things in a couple of years - maybe it's something for the social thread or something - but it's interesting to ponder
what will happen to trump?
my tip? i think trump will be charged sooner or later - i have no idea whether that's likely while he's still president, but i suppose it might depend on how forthcoming cohen and manafort are. given their plea deals, i think they will get a lot, and mueller will move on trump "like a bitch"
i then think trump will plead insanity.
maybe that explains his batshit behaviour from day one?
when they won the election he probably thought "oh fuck. why did i say all that 'russia are you listening?' stuff?"
if he avoids impeachment - and i don't know enough about that to make an informed guess about whether it'll happen - i think his lawyer could easily make the case that he's out of his mind - senile, syphilitic or whatever.
it would also give the GOP and the people that enabled him the opportunity to blame that and deny any responsibility for the trump administration.
so that's my current theory. just a guess, but it will be interesting (in an uncomfortable way) to see what happens.
