US Politics the 2025 trump presidency thread

[Foreigner]

Yest you feel the need to constantly respond? The statement does not align with the action.

I'm allowed to talk as much as I want. You don't have to like it.

I've done my best to move on as I don't believe Donald Trump is a fascist. I think he's happy to pick up a demographic on a totally equal basis. He doesn't mind what the optics are. If they are single issue voters (or at least can be sawyed based on a small number of issues) and there are enough of them, he's happy to employ equivocal language and actions but I don't believe he himself is a fascist.

I agree with this assessment. He was a card carrying Democrat in the 90s and early 2000s. Donald Trump will kowtow to whatever serves Donald Trump.

As I see it, he has correctly realized that political power is a tremendous tool to expand his business activities. But that's all politics is to him, a means to an end. I'm not simple enough to think other politicians don't do the same. The only difference is that he is more open to using authoritarian methods to do so.

I think this assessment was more accurate in term 1. I have followed him carefully (and Harris as well, during the campaign) and although I still believe he is a selfish person, I think he has had a genuine "growing up" around stewarding a nation. In term 1 he was totally unprepared to be in the White House, didn't understand the internal machinations, and made a lot of obvious blunders. I do think he realizes now that he is playing a pivotal role beyond just serving himself, even though he obviously is still very self-serving. He seems more prepared.

Also I believe virtually every administration is self-enriching. So is every Congress person and every Senator. They all walk away from politics with enormous net worth. The difference is Trump doesn't hide it, while they save face and pretend to only play their appointed role. In a weird way, he is more honest.

Hence authoritarian popularism.

-Consolodate power into the hands of a small number recruited from the 'elite'
-Suppress political opposition
-Spread disinformation
-Fuel politiclal violence
-Reframe non-political issues/institutions as political
-Use of coersion rather than building rational consent

Truthfully I do not see a major distinction between Trump and Biden in this list. The only difference is that Trump blatantly says he's doing it while Biden pretended he wasn't.

I mean... the USAID audit is showing that left-wing organizations were receiving massive funding from the Fed to sow divisions, including the media itself.

The left-wing politicization of language and education in the past 10 years has been abhorrent.

Btw I'm not trying to do whataboutism here, just pointing out that there is not a big net change in the status quo.

BTW obviously I don't know if you have studied Chávez, Bellusconi, Ferage, Le Pen, Orbán and Erdoğan but there are consistant patterns which in my opinion Donald Trump shares. I'm not saying I'm correct, only that I came to that conclusion after a lot of research. But to be clear, authortiaian popularism isn't by dedinition on a (overly simple IMO) left<-->right position. There have been examples whose power-base came largely from groups who would generally self-identify as being 'left leaning'.

That's true. The political spectrum is not cut and dry in terms of authoritarianism. It can also be piecemeal, favoring one aspect of politics while the others remain relatively politically neutral.

I think ultimately it's going to come down to actionable policy. Trump talks a lot of shit to inflame people and rattle cages... because it always works. But we have to actually look at what his admin has done and then evaluate if it really does radically depart from the kind of authoritarianism of previous admins, or not. In my opinion, it currently does not. His term 1 was milquetoast by all standards. People lost their shit over every little thing he said and he did, but he really didn't do that much in the grand scheme that was different from other partisan Presidents. And some of his foreign policy was actually successful.

Mostly I think he is hated because of his personality + he snubs the traditional way of doing things. There is an elitism in DC that likes things to stay the way they are. No different than how upper education works. They want people to enter the inner circle in a way that's status quo and on-board. Trump is a bull in a china shop.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

I haven't seen any proof of this, and trust me I've looked. Is this because of his "fine people on both sides" comment he made one time like 7 years ago when the Proud Boys marched in Charlottesville?

Or simply because the rhetoric and ideology line up? You're too busy looking for explicitly saying things like "white people are better" or something, but as explained in the dog whistle post the communication has changed over time. The policies and implementations are the same, the US now has federal agents regularly asking people for their identification and immigration paperwork simply because they were in a certain area, looked a certain way, or spoke a certain language. Papers please

A minority group is being targeted and blamed for the economic impacts felt by Americans and that group is being rounded up and deported, with at least one camp planned at Guantanamo.

 

[Foreigner]

Or simply because the rhetoric and ideology line up? You're too busy looking for explicitly saying things like "white people are better" or something, but as explained in the dog whistle post the communication has changed over time. The policies and implementations are the same, the US now has federal agents regularly asking people for their identification and immigration paperwork simply because they were in a certain area, looked a certain way, or spoke a certain language. Papers please

A minority group is being targeted and blamed for the economic impacts felt by Americans and that group is being rounded up and deported, with at least one camp planned at Guantanamo.

I wasn't talking to you.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

I wasn't talking to you.

I was talking to you, and anyone else who happens to come by and read this

 

[Foreigner]

I was talking to you, and anyone else who happens to come by and read this

Welcome to my ignore list. Bye bye.

 

[jasperkent]

I know of one goddamned immigrant from Africa I'd like to see deported...

 

[4DQSAR]

I agree with this assessment. He was a card carrying Democrat in the 90s and early 2000s. Donald Trump will kowtow to whatever serves Donald Trump.

I freely admit that I had totally forgotten that fact. It's worth noting that those other authoritarian popularist leaders I mentioned share this political lability. A political party is merely a platform. Most if not all have 'crossed the floor' at least once, many have done so several times.

In the end it will always come down to OUTCOMES. I totally agree that this time Donald Trump does appear to have learnt many lessons. As I have said previously, some statements are worded in such a way as to produce maximum outrage and that they may well be a product of his coming from the business world. Ask $100, accept $50 IF you know the cost is only $25 (I know, dumb example - but I sense that methodology).

The concept of simply applying tarriffs to all imports is appealing. I can totally understand that. But I did take a look at the historic use of tarriffs and I can't find an example in which a nation's economy gained overall. They tend to simply increase prices and reduce economic activity because other nations retaliate. So that one may need revision. Certaainly the US needs certain inputs that if produced within the US, would cost vastly more. Rare earth metals being one example. So nations with established production could use that fact as a lever.

I'm also interested to note that the US even HAS birthright citizenship. It's the exception rather than the rule so closing a loophole isn't unique to the US. Many other nations have done just the same. But mostly they saw it as just that - a loophole.

On a related note, I can well imagine that controlling immigration is on the surface an obvious thing to enact. But it's worth noting that birth-rates are not sufficient to maintain the aging population. In short, you need more young people who work and pay taxes to support such a population. So it's more complex than it initially seems. Putin has had to coerce families into having more children but the success of that policy can only be measured in around two decades from now.

Certainly most if not all European nations are only able to maintain their working-age populations via immigration.

I suppose the one thing I really don't understand is the call to drill for more oil. It's my understanding that economists have essentially said that US oil production is already at record levels and has been gowing massively for a long time. Certainly well development expanded massively some two decdes ago. Economic activity isn't limited by petrochemicals. That fuel prices are high is more a function of the TYPE of oil produced in the US. So again, if one imposes a tarrif on imported fuel, I imagine producers of the light crude needed for fuels will simply respond in kind on the heavy crude the US exports.

Bu as you say, outcomes are all.

 

[alasdairm]

I haven't seen any proof of this, and trust me I've looked. Is this because of his "fine people on both sides" comment he made one time like 7 years ago when the Proud Boys marched in Charlottesville?

i think if you want people to stop comparing you to hitler and you want people to stop calling you and (some of) your followers nazis, a great place to start is to stop sounding like hitler and nazis.

pop quiz. here's a list of statements. some by hitler and some by trump. can you tell me, without looking them up, which are by trump and which are by hitler?

• "they're destroying the fabric of our country and we must get them out"
  
  
• "immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country"
  
  
• "all great cultures of the past died out only because the originally created race died of blood poisoning"
  
  
• "we are fighting against an enemy who consists not of humans but of animals or beasts"
  
  
• "they are not humans. they're animals and i'll call them animals because that's what they are"

it's exactly the same rhetoric. jesus fucking christ, if i reviewed shit i'd said publicly and it read like it came directly from the pages of mein kampf, i'd maybe consider changing it up a little. and if i didn't, well i wouldn't be in much of a position to get bent out of shape when people called me a nazi, would i?

do the left overuse terms like racist and nazi? sure, they probably do it about as much as the right overuse groomer and pedophile. it sucks because it distracts when it's actually happening.

So your opinion would change if you found out a lot of people disagreed with you? You form your opinions based on the herd?

what an earth are you talking about? that's not what i'm saying at all.

you made a claim: "Most people don't agree that he did an sig heil"

i asked how you measure that. you said "polls" and i asked for link to the polls to which you are referring.

it's become pretty obvious that the polls don't exist and your claim is not based on anything quantifiable.

My opinion is that we can't say with certainty that he intended to do a nazi salute. You, however, seem very certain.

i can't say with certainly what he intended either. but i'm talking about what he did and what it looked liked. not what he intended to do.

You want polls showing that most people don't care (#1) or don't think it was a sig heil (#2). Why?

i just want to see the polls you claim exist.

You can't use evidence to make people see when they don't want to see

absolutely. not a little ironic.

if you want to make claims and not provide evidence for them, whatever. but it looks a little odd when you turn around and ask others here to back up their claims. what do you expect?

Even if I don't know for sure, that's at least one plausible alternative explanation, is it not?

yes, of course it is.

alasdair

 

[Foreigner]

i think if you want people to stop comparing you to hitler and you want people to stop calling you and (some of) your followers nazis, a great place to start is to stop sounding like hitler and nazis.

America didn't bother fighting this type of rhetoric. They just voted it out. It turns out calling your opponents fascists and nazis for 4 years wasn't a way to win hearts and minds. The support for the Dems hovers around 30% right now. It's practically rock bottom.

pop quiz. here's a list of statements. some by hitler and some by trump. can you tell me, without looking them up, which are by trump and which are by hitler?

• "they're destroying the fabric of our country and we must get them out"
  
  
• "immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country"
  
  
• "all great cultures of the past died out only because the originally created race died of blood poisoning"
  
  
• "we are fighting against an enemy who consists not of humans but of animals or beasts"
  
  
• "they are not humans. they're animals and i'll call them animals because that's what they are"

Cherry picking rhetoric isn't going to help your cause simply because we could find deplorable statements made by all aspects of the political spectrum and create false correlations to dictators. That's because power in of itself causes polemic language.

Newsbytes are not holistic truths of the big picture.

it's exactly the same rhetoric. jesus fucking christ, if i reviewed shit i'd said publicly and it read like it came directly from the pages of mein kampf, i'd maybe consider changing it up a little. and if i didn't, well i wouldn't be in much of a position to get bent out of shape when people called me a nazi, would i?

Hitler was a vegetarian so I guess vegetarians are fascist too.

Have you actually read Mein Kampf? I have, as part of my polisci education. It is an incredibly detailed, philosophical and existential rhetorical document. Hitler obviously thought long and hard about it. Trump has not done nearly the same, nor has Musk, nor have any of them. They're mostly business people opportunizing a divisive point in history to push policy.

Policy which btw is not a radical departure from any other policy.

The left is bending over backward to try and prove OPINIONS as facts and nothing more. Like they've been doing for the past 10 years by cramming ideology down people's throats in institutions. My opinion is just as valid as yours. You don't get to white wash reality.

do the left overuse terms like racist and nazi? sure, they probably do it about as much as the right overuse groomer and pedophile. it sucks because it distracts when it's actually happening.

It's not "actually happening" though.

You're confusing an emotional reaction with a factual event.

what an earth are you talking about? that's not what i'm saying at all.

you made a claim: "Most people don't agree that he did an sig heil"

i asked how you measure that. you said "polls" and i asked for link to the polls to which you are referring.

it's become pretty obvious that the polls don't exist and your claim is not based on anything quantifiable.

Oh, we're back to this again.

This was already explained to you twice now. I won't explain a third time.

i can't say with certainly what he intended either. but i'm talking about what he did and what it looked liked. not what he intended to do.

I don't agree that it was a sig heil.

So there we are.

i just want to see the polls you claim exist.

No.

By denying you this evidence it has revealed how emotional you are, and I think that is really the crux of this entire issue.

if you want to make claims and not provide evidence for them, whatever. but it looks a little odd when you turn around and ask others here to back up their claims. what do you expect?

You want concrete evidence for a rhetorical opinion. Impossible.

Most people have moved on from this. You realize that right?

yes, of course it is.

alasdair

How can you admit a very plausible route to reasonable doubt but then double down on Trump and Elon being nazis?

Make it make sense.

The media has stirred up some emotional rhetoric and all the lefties with TDS are losing their minds. Just because the media amplifies opinions doesn't mean they are opinions shared by a realistic proportion of people.

I mean hello? They used bogus polls and insane rhetoric to make it look like Trump was losing the election race and then he won in a landslide.

You guys have some serious soul searching to do. I don't think you'll do it. You're just setting yourselves up for defeat in 2028.

 

[4DQSAR]

pop quiz. here's a list of statements. some by hitler and some by trump. can you tell me, without looking them up, which are by trump and which are by hitler?

• "they're destroying the fabric of our country and we must get them out"
  
  
• "immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country"
  
  
• "all great cultures of the past died out only because the originally created race died of blood poisoning"
  
  
• "we are fighting against an enemy who consists not of humans but of animals or beasts"
  
  
• "they are not humans. they're animals and i'll call them animals because that's what they are"

I have to admit that I can imagine both employing such language. I PRESUME they must all be Donald Trump since to the best of my knowledge, Adolf Hitler didn't speak English ;-)

A commonality of authortarian popularism and fascism is the identifaction and demonization of an 'other' that presents an existential threat which is part of that coertian in that rational consent isn't sought but rather fear is instilled.

Just yesterday someone mentioned that in fact Barack Obama deported more people than Donald Trump did in his first term and Joe Biden deported more than either (although over his two terms, Obama deported the largest total number).

I think they key difference is that both Obama and Biden overwhelmingly deported those convicted of a crime or considered 'a risk to national security'. I freely admit that the latter catagory is vague.

I'm uncertain how the US would treat someone who had legally entered the nation and be conviced of a crime. It's my understanding that if a person does not have US citizenship, they are deported.

 

[Foreigner]

I freely admit that I had totally forgotten that fact. It's worth noting that those other authoritarian popularist leaders I mentioned share this political lability. A political party is merely a platform. Most if not all have 'crossed the floor' at least once, many have done so several times.

In the end it will always come down to OUTCOMES. I totally agree that this time Donald Trump does appear to have learnt many lessons. As I have said previously, some statements are worded in such a way as to produce maximum outrage and that they may well be a product of his coming from the business world. Ask $100, accept $50 IF you know the cost is only $25 (I know, dumb example - but I sense that methodology).

The concept of simply applying tarriffs to all imports is appealing. I can totally understand that. But I did take a look at the historic use of tarriffs and I can't find an example in which a nation's economy gained overall. They tend to simply increase prices and reduce economic activity because other nations retaliate. So that one may need revision. Certaainly the US needs certain inputs that if produced within the US, would cost vastly more. Rare earth metals being one example. So nations with established production could use that fact as a lever.

I'm also interested to note that the US even HAS birthright citizenship. It's the exception rather than the rule so closing a loophole isn't unique to the US. Many other nations have done just the same. But mostly they saw it as just that - a loophole.

On a related note, I can well imagine that controlling immigration is on the surface an obvious thing to enact. But it's worth noting that birth-rates are not sufficient to maintain the aging population. In short, you need more young people who work and pay taxes to support such a population. So it's more complex than it initially seems. Putin has had to coerce families into having more children but the success of that policy can only be measured in around two decades from now.

Certainly most if not all European nations are only able to maintain their working-age populations via immigration.

I suppose the one thing I really don't understand is the call to drill for more oil. It's my understanding that economists have essentially said that US oil production is already at record levels and has been gowing massively for a long time. Certainly well development expanded massively some two decdes ago. Economic activity isn't limited by petrochemicals. That fuel prices are high is more a function of the TYPE of oil produced in the US. So again, if one imposes a tarrif on imported fuel, I imagine producers of the light crude needed for fuels will simply respond in kind on the heavy crude the US exports.

Bu as you say, outcomes are all.

The thing is, Donald Trump does not strike me as someone who has real designs on world domination, a desire to target any specific demographic other than bonafide criminals, or policy plans that will enshrine his authority beyond legal bounds.

He seems to be returning government closer to centre and making it smaller in the process. Those run contrary to so-called fascism. Removing radical left policy from the government is not a "far-right" activity, it's a centrist one. It was the radical left that took us away from centre in the first place. Removing corrupt spending, money laundering and likely fraud from the government in the billions if not trillions of dollars is not a "far-right" activity, it's fiscal conservativism, and frankly legalism. We've had multiple administrations on both sides from the 90s onward who could've done these audits and none did because they were all insiders or all bought.

There's simply no evidence that Trump is going fascist. Frankly he's not even statist. His use of power is unusual but not unprecedented in its proportions. Creating restrictions on power and spending are the opposite of totalitarianism.

The left is just being emotional because their agenda is being de-escalated and they think that their emotions mean there's real danger. This is because the left has been totally hijacked by an ideology that is no longer based in rationality. Words are "violence," speech is "oppression," disagreement is "lack of safety," and any system that isn't theirs is "far-right fascism." That type of bullshit is EXACTLY what people VOTED AGAINST in the last US election.

He hasn't even be in office one month. There is no evidence on the policy level to show fascism. The left is completely lying or just exaggerating, as usual.

It's 1984 when airing the government's dirty laundry and holding it accountable is "fascism." The left has become complicit in statism.

 

[alasdairm]

Make it make sense

i can't use evidence to make people see when they don't want to see, so i'm not playing that game anymore.

That type of bullshit is EXACTLY what people VOTED AGAINST in the last US election.

even trump doesn't agree with you here

alasdair

 

[Foreigner]

i can't use evidence to make people see when they don't want to see, so i'm not playing that game anymore.



even trump doesn't agree with you here

alasdair

Ok, take care then.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

I'm so fucking sick of the sight of that hideous, hate-filled orange face already and I don't even live in America.

I find the fact that anyone is genuinely stupid enough to support or like or vote for him to be legitimately terrifying.

 

[4DQSAR]

The thing is, Donald Trump does not strike me as someone who has real designs on world domination, a desire to target any specific demographic other than bonafide criminals, or policy plans that will enshrine his authority beyond legal bounds.

He seems to be returning government closer to centre and making it smaller in the process. Those run contrary to so-called fascism. Removing radical left policy from the government is not a "far-right" activity, it's a centrist one. It was the radical left that took us away from centre in the first place. Removing corrupt spending, money laundering and likely fraud from the government in the billions if not trillions of dollars is not a "far-right" activity, it's fiscal conservativism, and frankly legalism. We've had multiple administrations on both sides from the 90s onward who could've done these audits and none did because they were all insiders or all bought.

There's simply no evidence that Trump is going fascist. Frankly he's not even statist. His use of power is unusual but not unprecedented in its proportions. Creating restrictions on power and spending are the opposite of totalitarianism.

The left is just being emotional because their agenda is being de-escalated and they think that their emotions mean there's real danger. This is because the left has been totally hijacked by an ideology that is no longer based in rationality. Words are "violence," speech is "oppression," disagreement is "lack of safety," and any system that isn't theirs is "far-right fascism." That type of bullshit is EXACTLY what people VOTED AGAINST in the last US election.

He hasn't even be in office one month. There is no evidence on the policy level to show fascism. The left is completely lying or just exaggerating, as usual.

It's 1984 when airing the government's dirty laundry and holding it accountable is "fascism." The left has become complicit in statism.

I was under the impressaion that Donald Trump suggested he wished to 'take over' Canada, Greenland, Panama and Gaza. That thetoric DOES have rather a lot of historical prescedent, don't you think?

While authoritarian popularism isn't inherently on the oversimplified left<--right-->model, they are by definition not in the centre or they would be popular rather than popularist. Two similar terms that have quite different meanings in this context. I provided examples and was explicit in saying that they were not exclusive to one ot other of the monoliths BUT if you read about each on in detail, they were largely constituted by members of one of the two groupings. Not necessarily voted for by one monolith, but composed of one AFTER their election.

If you can provide an example of a centralist authortiatian popularist government, I would certainly be interested to learn about it.

I think we should be considering 'the elite' and 'the people' as the two major grouping within authoritiarian populism. Along with 'the other', obviously.

I was interested to note that many months before the election, researchers had noted that the likelyhood of someone voting for Donald Trump was not associated with intelligence or the outdated left<--right-->model but on how authoritatian their opinions were.

In short, the KEY marker in a voter supporting Donald Trump was their readiness to accept blind submission to authority. Which in it's own way is a self-defeating behavior. Because that authority is composed of the 'elite' and I suggest that said elite is out to enrich itself.

Fascism has a much more coherent set of values and as I previously noted, one cornerstone of fascism is the concatination of business and state - something I feel sure the elite would NOT wish to happen.

 

[alasdairm]

remind me which 'side' is obsessed with identity politics?



alasdair

 

[Fire&Water]

 

[4DQSAR]

Matthew Louis Gaetz II. I have to admit, the name meant nothing to me.

On a little investigation, I think it fair to say he's had a colourful career, shall we say.

Hey - as I've mentioned previously, authoitarian popularism is happy to take votes from any demographic they can identify as 'possibly ameanable'.

 

[Bagseed]

How about you? What expertise or insight can you provide?

That's all I was asking. I still don't think you know what you're talking about, in terms of the current predicament. You haven't said much in this thread that speaks to realpolitik. Just the usual partisan stuff.

lol and what is your direct experience in government so that you know "how it works". you act around like you know everything best, look down on others, never substantiate anything because your opinion seems self-evident to you, but opinion is all you are.

also, you constantly act around like you know science better than people who work in science, but I have never seen you talk a shred about your own scientific work. all I know is that some years ago you wrote about doing something in "traditional medicine". go figure...

 

[tryptakid]

That's all I was asking. I still don't think you know what you're talking about, in terms of the current predicament. You haven't said much in this thread that speaks to realpolitik. Just the usual partisan stuff.

I don't subscribe to Kissinger's view of the world.

You haven't answered my question, and edited it out of your response.