Serious Donald Trump's Presidency 9 Months In

Do you approve of Donald Trump's presidency so far?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 15.4%
  • No

    Votes: 178 73.9%
  • Not Sure

    Votes: 26 10.8%

  • Total voters
    241

Chou Toshio

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It's like everything I want to argue for as a liberal ironically negatively affects me. lol

If the US keeps its current mess of a health care system (which I don't directly pay for), the US continues to put out incentives for medical technology innovation that can better our lives here in Japan without us (me included) having to pay for companies' exorbitant profit margins.

If the Republicans massively cut taxes for the top 1% (and get rid of the estate tax...) that actually benefits me directly as well (or via my parents anyway).


Huzzah is what I'd say... in the most short-sited selfish way of viewing the world.

Even the wealthy don't want to live as trillionaires surrounded by concrete and barbed wire separating them from starving masses. Greater society-- we don't want a world without a vibrant middle class that both fuels consumption and provides the productive and creative manpower needed to further all human endeavors. We don't want to live in a world where liars and thieves are not treated as such as long as they are rich and powerful enough to have the law in their pockets. We don't want to live in a world where corporations make all their decisions to serve the short-sited here and now of an investment-robot's hedging algorithm-- without thinking about that corporation's potential for world-changing innovation or value generation in the long-term if we just invested in it and its people. We don't want to live in a world so razed that it is unlivable for future generations. We don't want to live in a world where "efficiency" and "productivity" are the values of society, the end goal of what we are aim for-- instead of human enrichment and liberation, which are where the true gains capitalism has brought on, and can still be built on lie. Are we slaves of the system, or does the system exist for us?

Nothing this administration has done looks to me like policy that can lead to a better world.

The difference between conservatives and liberals is not what we want from the world-- but rather a question of focus on not breaking stuff that works, or looking to fix stuff that seems broken-- both have their time and place, but modern Americans ARE the frog in the slowly boiling water...

In some ways, the vote for Trump is a show that the American people are more aware than that frog-- we just collectively decided to jump right into another pot.
 
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Shrug

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Chou Toshio said:
Even the wealthy don't want to live as trillionaires surrounded by concrete and barbed wire separating them from starving masses.
source?

you seem to be a very nice guy, and if you were to come into extreme world-warping wealth, I'm sure you'd be willing to fund some measure of social democracy. but your claim here is actively falsified by the promoted policies of the world's wealthiest people. see the GOP tax bill: it funnels money to people richer than anyone else in human history by sucking it from the pockets and services of the poor on whose backs the country was built and is maintained. the rich don't want concrete and barbed wire? the kochs travel with private security heavily armed, and it's not to ward off adoring fans. they know that there's a chance, however remote, that someone will decide his immiserated life isn't worth living and try to take one of the ghouls responsible with him. they do want concrete and barbed wire and trillions of dollars. they wont ever stop taking. it's harmful to ascribe to them a sort of morality that they very obviously lack - makes the project of hating and destroying (symbolically if you'd prefer) them much harder. they're not like you or me or anyone who posts on this forum. they shouldn't exist, and there are mechanisms for ensuring that is so. we ought to use them.
 

Chou Toshio

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source?

you seem to be a very nice guy, and if you were to come into extreme world-warping wealth, I'm sure you'd be willing to fund some measure of social democracy. but your claim here is actively falsified by the promoted policies of the world's wealthiest people. see the GOP tax bill: it funnels money to people richer than anyone else in human history by sucking it from the pockets and services of the poor on whose backs the country was built and is maintained. the rich don't want concrete and barbed wire? the kochs travel with private security heavily armed, and it's not to ward off adoring fans. they know that there's a chance, however remote, that someone will decide his immiserated life isn't worth living and try to take one of the ghouls responsible with him. they do want concrete and barbed wire and trillions of dollars. they wont ever stop taking. it's harmful to ascribe to them a sort of morality that they very obviously lack - makes the project of hating and destroying (symbolically if you'd prefer) them much harder. they're not like you or me or anyone who posts on this forum. they shouldn't exist, and there are mechanisms for ensuring that is so. we ought to use them.
Very good point, thank you for catching me there! I think the word I'm looking for is not "don't want" but "shouldn't want".

Let me correct myself and say that I think almost all of the major problems for livelihood and economics in the United States find their root causes in alignment of our laws, systems, and market mechanisms with the motivations for personal enrichment of private industry sectors-- and specifically with the very wealthy.

Democracy is a better system of government than totalitarianism because the motivations of the rulers are more aligned with a greater number of people. But the way our government's direction has been ruled and dictated, and the way our market system has been shaped by borders, trade, regulation (or lack thereof), monopoly consolidation, automation-- both systems of government and of the private sector being increasingly aligned with a narrowing class of constituents is what causes the wealth gap and the increasing detriment of the commonwealth.

It is members of the extremely wealthy class, motivated by greed, that have been the agents of this direction. The economic theories about marginal return of added wealth and the generosity of the extremely wealthy have largely failed us and lead to the disasters facing us today.



On a more positive note, there are individuals of the extremely wealthy class that do want more done for social welfare, or at least due to their personal circumstances find themselves with motivations more aligned with the majority.

Bill Gates' work for the working poor and for the poor around the world cannot be said to be less than inspiring. Technology and Silicon Valley... why are people like Zuckerburg and Musk pushing for Universal Basic Income? Motivations. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple ... for these companies, UBI represents greater consumer wealth (and therefore attracting more ad revenue) and more of the Youtubers, hot posters, musicians, artists, independent journalists, bloggers etc. upon whose content their business models rely.

Does Google want the Koch brothers to help pay for everyone getting $15000 a year so there are more aims around the world spending their time playing video games uploaded to Youtube, and more people with time to spend watching them do it? hahahahaha... yes.

Getting the wealthy to pay for freeing up the masses to pursue creative endeavors, secure the commonwealth that also secures their monopolies, and at the same time potentially silence the uproar over increasing automation/AI use? All of that plays into their hands and their visions of the future, and the tech industry stands to profit way more long-term from the social changes UBI could make than it would lose in increased taxes.

I don't think that's bad... I think that doing what we can to encourage alignment of motivations between the powerful and the common man is a line of work that the liberal left should never abandon if it wants to actually make meaningful accomplishments. One reason why the term "should want" is appropriate is because there is tangible benefit in long-term wealth and stability for the wealthy class if they do buy into social democracy, and there are logical actors amongst them that do subscribe to that world view.

For a bit more optimism around this topic, I recommend this podcast by Bernie Sanders where he talks to Chuck Collins about the wealthy who are fighting for social democracy:

Bernie Sanders & Chuck Collins: Institute for the Policy Studies' Program on Inequality and the Common Good
 
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PDC

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since we're on the topic of silicon valley, my main gripe about that group of technocrats is that their hyper-technological global society is more often than not riding on the back of 3rd world labor. silicon valley wants us to believe in global capitalism for the sake of "progress and connectivity," but this connected world is merely a consequence of slave labor. they want us to believe the internet and the machines that run the digital are immaterial and fair, that if we keep marching forward in this never-ending gauntlet of technology we will all be equal: when has technology ever been an equalizer?

silicon valley and elon musk want to focus on the "immaterial" as the truth, disregarding the very material reality of the products they ride on.
 
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Chou Toshio

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I’m not against caring about the rest of the world, and the US pays out a lot of foreign aid that is a much better use of our money than military spending. I’m not against caring about the work conditions US companies make abroad.

I am skeptical though of demonizing foreign production in terms of what it means for foreign workers. The first 10 Pages of Marx’s book praises capitalism for its power in enriching and liberating people. You might not like the idea of people in Vietnam working 80 cents an hour to make our shoes but then the question is if you have a contingency plan for economic development there. Global capitalism is a net good for developing countries— in the broader story of human history, capitalism has been and continues to be a radical and liberating force. Unless you have a better, realistic plan of lifting those peoples out of poverty, you have to give them the opportunity to go through the development transition.

I’m more like Bernie on this one (though I’m with him on most issues)— we need to be more concerned with what’s going on at home; what not taking a hard look at immigration and trade policies have done to the American working class. We are a sovereign nation, and caring about what happens abroad doesn’t mean we don’t prioritize our own. Rather, we can’t continue to help others without taking care of ourselves.

I know there is a lot of negative sentiment towards the US at home and abroad, and I don’t deny any of the many, many cases of suffering we have caused— but you have to keep in perspective that overall war and famine are on the decline, that we are living in one of the most peaceful and prosperous eras of human history; and despite all the horrors one can attribute to the US, the good trends in the world have been greatly contributed to by American exceptionalism, in both business and global affairs.

We should aim for a better world, but we can do it while also fairly assessing how much has been given to us by the sacrifices and world order created by generations before.
 
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Boris Hardrada

Banned deucer.
I am skeptical though of demonizing foreign production in terms of what it means for foreign workers. The first 10 Pages of Marx’s book praises capitalism for its power in enriching and liberating people. You might not like the idea of people in Vietnam working 80 cents an hour to make our shoes but then the question is if you have a contingency plan for economic development there. Global capitalism is a net good for developing countries— in the broader story of human history, capitalism has been and continues to be a radical and liberating force. Unless you have a better, realistic plan of lifting those peoples out of poverty, you have to give them the opportunity to go through the development transition.
I can see why you might think that, but you're wrong. For starters the economic development of nations requires institutional reform in addition to just improvements in the standards of living, but it's these institutions precisely - a corrupt or ineffective government apparatus, lax fiscal policy, lax workers' rights, lax workplace standards, lax emissions penalties and anti-trust regulations - that make those countries so appealing to multinational firms in the first place. It is easy to see just from this revelation that the preservation of this state of affairs would be in the interest of these firms: after all, they're only guided by a profit motive. But we don't have to rely on just speculation, since reality offers us plenty of evidence to our end. Sweatshops in Vietnam, suicide nets at the apple factory in Shenzhen... we're numbed to all these since they enter our cultural discourse anesthetized, as punchlines or urban legends, but they're very real - testaments to the human cost of capitalist imperialism.
 
Incompetent, corrupt, basically running our country like a business, and has genuinely made me feel depressed about the country I have to live in now. If anybody here votes for him again, then you're making life worse.
 

Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
From my experience, everyone seems a LOT more angry. Not just in America, but around the world. Everyone seems to be a LOT more angry and it always seems to somehow make it's way back to Donald Trump.
 

Soul Fly

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no biggie.... just that the orange moron somehow managed to crash the entire US government despite having uninterrupted majority over every major federal institution. Within barely a year of his historic presidency. And an entire country is fucking napping on the wheels. that's what just happened.

This is devastating levels of stupid lol. It would be funny if it weren't so serious.
 
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kilometerman

Banned deucer.
If you think that the government shutdown is a result of anything but the Democrats refusing to work with the president and the GOP than you have a serious lack of knowledge about US government.
 
If you think that the government shutdown is a result of anything but the Democrats refusing to work with the president and the GOP than you have a serious lack of knowledge about US government.
There was a bipartisan deal that Senate democrats and Senate republicans came up with that would have easily passed the senate. It was also quite popular with the American public.

Donald Trump derailed it when he said he wouldn't accept it and then started talking about shithole countries for god knows why.

This isn't on democrats or republicans -- they were able to come up with the deal that was popular and easy to pass.

This is on Trump.

Also, Chuck Schumer offered Trump the wall for DACA... Trump didn't accept it.

Also, if republicans really wanted to, they could have nuked the filibuster and passed the CR because there are 51 republicans in the senate (+6 democrats who are vulnerable enough for reelection).

(Also keep in mind that there were 4 republicans who didn't vote for the CR, and 5 democrats who did... it wasn't just a party line vote).
 
Also democrats have been helping the GOP pass CR's for months now and have still not gotten the DACA they were promised (The program that has over 70% approval rating and the one that Trump randomly decided to end because he doesn't like immigrants). It's not like they choose to obstruct from the beginning.

Like the GOP keeps kicking the can down the road and it is frustrating people (even republicans because... 4 of them in the senate voted against it).
 

Myzozoa

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If you think that the government shutdown is a result of anything but the Democrats refusing to work with the president and the GOP than you have a serious lack of knowledge about US government.
"I'm looking for something that President Trump supports, and he has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign,” McConnell said. “As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels.”-GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell

lol u are really ignorant for real, even the GOP blames the president and here u are spouting off whatever headline they had on breitbart this morning
 

tcr

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can u explain the logic jump that leads to a republican controlled executive, legislative, (and arguably judicial) branch all bowing to the will of filthy liberals resulting in government shutdown?

like trump himself blames the president or is it different becsuse hes not a democrat?
 

Fireburn

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Don't see how you can frame the shutdown as being anything other than Trump's fault (or at least Stephen Miller's fault) when he rebuffed a bipartisan compromise and the GOP leadership has openly admitted they don't know what he wants.

It seems to me the Democrats may be opting for a tactical retreat with the shutdown strategy. It looks like they caved in the short-term but the outcome really wasn't that bad for them: CHIP was removed as a bargaining tool (shameful it was one in the first place) and they still have DACA as leverage so they'll be better positioned to hold the line come Feb. 8 if the GOP/Trump reneges again.
 
I am really happy with how this shutdown went honestly. Democrats got a better deal after the shutdown than before the shutdown. Now Mitch and Congressional Republicans have to try to get DACA done otherwise they will be hounded by the media (I don't have much faith in Congressional Republicans). A prolonged shutdown really isn't good for anyone, and it would have been a very long shutdown if both sides stuck to their guns.
 

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