Imagine surrounding yourself with people who never tell you that you're wrong or arrogant or that your ideas are stupid for 40 years. Then you run for President, win, and then bring the same or similar group of sycophants all the way up the ladder with you. Now you just have an echo chamber of bad ideas and every now and then your insanely corrupted and delusional thought process leaks its way into the public by way of twitter or bizarre press conferences. Now as what you can do, well, wait for him to break the law or just cripple him via the mid-term election so he cant do anything. Or you can press the constitutional reset button known as an Article V Convention, which has never been done.
What laws or regulations passed specifically by Trump have changed the way you live your every day life? Are there any? My life hasn't changed much at all from W to Obama to Trump. I still get up, go to work, do what I want to do and then go to bed. Is it more expensive to live now than it used to be? Yes. My parents could say the same thing while looking at the transition from Carter to Reagan to Bush 1. Is Trump stupid? I think so. I voted for him and really don't care. I didn't want more of the same. We have been given the exact same shit for decades: authoritarian, war-mongering, tax raising, budget blowing dickheads and I'm tired of it. I think Trump is exactly what this country needs (not sure if he will be any different other than being caustic to 50% of the public) because he is causing more of America to wake from the consumption stupor we have all been in for far too long. Long enough, in fact, to allow the likes of Pelosi, McConnell, and Hillary to rise to leadership positions where they clearly don't belong. Hopefully, this will all change if people stay engaged and enraged for long enough. Maybe, just maybe, some good people, who aren't all about self-interest will decide to run for office. Maybe we will get a constitutional convention and term limits for the legislature, maybe a lot of things will come from this that I don't anticipate as well but I am fine with change.....I want it to be real and not just a tagline spouted by someone with no inclination or ability to bring it about.
"Is Trump stupid? I think so. I voted for him and really don't care." And patriots wept... It's a unique time in history where a vote was actually placed to destroy, rather than build. I think you're right...the backlash from this guy will inspire actual leadership instead of the soulless sycophants we've had. That said, politics is too often about money and a "billionaire" isn't doing shit to change that. I'm curious why Pelosi, McConnell and Hillary are unfit for leadership? My prediction is actually the opposite: the fragmentation and polarization that has occurred will continue and the Democratic party & Republican party will splinter into smaller parties that cater to some of their niches. We'll look a lot more like a European parliament than a red/blue map.
Democratic party is already there. If the nominee for 2020 isn't Bernie there will be HELL TO PAY!* *Say the Bernie bros who could give two fucks what qualifications the "proper" nominee brings to the table. At this stage they'd sabotage Obama.
After reflection of where we were and where we are headed, sometimes continuing to build upon something that is broken isn't the correct answer. Sometimes the answer is selective demolition or worse full remediation. To your other point, the billionaire is doing shit to change that just by his presence alone. The actual action goes on around him either because of him or in spite of him because people are reacting to him. All three suffer from malignant self-interest or party interest issues, in each case at the expense of the nation and it's people. By definition this is supposed to be public service, not party or self service. Public service was always meant to be for a set time frame, not a life-long career.
He should create his dream il now consisting of Steve King, the Koch brothers and that dickless weasel who owns Papa John's. They'll never turn on one if their own.
What's changed? We have a dipshit pretending to be president. Our "leader" is being contradicted by other world leaders and other members of his party. He comes off like an asshole. No one takes him seriously and we're all waiting for that big fuck you moment where he bites off more than he can chew. Is he going to piss off Kim Jung Un? Iran? Putin? His dumb ass won't back down. He has no clue what he's doing. There's going to be one thing that he fucks up that can't be fixed. That's what is different.
Never mind the absolutely real damage that is being done to the environment through the EPA changes that are happening, and the impact that killing Net Neutrality is going to have, among other things. I find that a lot of Trump supporters go with the "I got mine" mentality... as in, my little sphere is just fine, so I'm OK with what happens. I can understand that, but I think it's very short-sighted and will cause larger problems down the road.
The decline in "soft power" is a real problem. Take North Korea for example. We need to exert pressure on the Chinese to force North Korea to stop producing nuclear weapons. They won't do it for free, and a good way of exerting pressure would have been the trade agreements we backed out of, or the climate change agreements we backed out of. Now, North Korea isn't overtly threatening us, but we made no progress in de-escalating their nuclear program. Also, because of President Tweet-twat, lots of our work is undoing the damage he does publicly...look at his transcripts of the meetings with Mexico & Australia. Again, his style removes any incentive people have to work with him...what serious minded person would trust their career to this guy? It's only fringe elements like Bannon or long-shots like the Mooch. His daughter's appointment is a classic case: she has zero qualifications to do what she's doing, and there are literally thousands of people who studied, went to grad school, interned, networked, wrote papers and analysis and had been mentored to take on roles like that. By his ham-fisted approach, he's sidelining actual talent, alienating people on both sides of the aisle and putting inexperienced people in over their heads. Obama cost the Democrats a lot of ground in 2016. Trump may cost the Republicans the future of the entire party. I do agree with Bannon: the more the left screams racism, the better. Trump courting white supremacists doesn't cost him anything with his base, which is disgusting, but true. Voters in Montana don't give a fuck, because why would they? Democrats still haven't learned that identity politics plays into this team's hands better than any other. However, the left screaming nepotism, abuse of office, illegitimate presidency, etc...that might start to light a few fires.
Here's a question: how many Trump voters, now that they've seen for themselves what people tried to warn them about, will vote for him again? Fool me once, shame on you, etc.
Vote for him again? I think he stands a very real chance at re-election if he were to run. Thats how little faith I have in the Democrats for not fucking it up all over again. Then again, maybe it will create a groundswell of people actually giving a shit this time around.
I think this is the biggest benefit of having Trump in office. The number of scientists and other normally non-political people that are trying to run for office out of anger or frustration of the current situation is surprisingly refreshing. He has forced people to look at politics who normally take it for granted, and I think that infusing the process with more people who haven't aspired to politics for their life is a good thing. We need more technically literate, modern thinking people making the important decisions around such things. To have senators and congressmen who've never even used email or have any idea how it works making technology decisions is not a good thing.
How many? None. If Trump runs for reelection, he won't lose any voters. His opponent would just need to be somebody that can get more votes than Hillary did. Either, like Juice said, energize enough people to care, or someone that can tap into a demographic vote like Obama did.
Trump 48 hours after a white nationalist terrorist attack on US soil where he would be privy to all manner of direct intelligence from law enforcement: I like to wait and get all the facts, I don't want to rush to make a statement without knowing what's going on. Trump 3 hours after an Islamic terrorist attack on foreign soil where he does not have direct intelligence from law enforcement: We should shoot Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs blood.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/898254409511129088 He's referring to an apocryphal story in which General Pershing executed a number of Islamic insurgents in the Philippines with bullets dipped in pigs blood and buried them amongst pigs in order to dissuade others from doing the same.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pershing.asp I guess he's referred to it before. And it's not even true, not that we should expect that to stop Trump from saying it.