[Discussion] Hope to Remember The Trump Administration Thread as being 'transparent and honest'

Let's follow and discuss what our newest presidential administration gets up to, the good, the bad, the lawsuits, and the many many indictments.

Top_Shelf wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

How much do you want to bet that he couldn't manage the strength to rip open the top shirt?

Trump doesn't realize he's Lex Charles Montgomery Burns.

FTFY. DCAU Lex Luthor had almost the same chest size as Superman, for crying out loud.

Rat Boy wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

How much do you want to bet that he couldn't manage the strength to rip open the top shirt?

Trump doesn't realize he's Lex Charles Montgomery Burns.

FTFY. DCAU Lex Luthor had almost the same chest size as Superman, for crying out loud.

And was, you know. Intelligent.

Rat Boy wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

How much do you want to bet that he couldn't manage the strength to rip open the top shirt?

Trump doesn't realize he's Lex Charles Montgomery Burns.

FTFY. DCAU Lex Luthor had almost the same chest size as Superman, for crying out loud.

Still disappointed that Batman V Superman wasn't just Man of Steel 2 with Ben Affleck as sexy Lex-y. That would have been good.

Moggy wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

If you had told me 5 years ago that Buzzfeed was going to be a big news organization that was very cleverly and systematically adept at tearing down the facade of the President’s bullsh*t... I’d have been very skeptical.

Obama predicted it pretty well during his last Whitehouse Correspondants Dinner:

I never watched the whole thing until now and I'm kinda gushing at complete sentences.

I'm trying to avoid wishful thinking, as well as avoiding conformation bias in the media I'm consuming, but does it feel to anyone else like this last week or two was different? Like, the first debate and especially the covid diagnosis have pretty much kicked the legs out from under the administration and given Republican leadership an opening to abandon him? He's publicly melting down, and the usual people who aide and abet that aren't stepping up to his defense. Except for Lindsay Graham, who is also publicly losing his goddamn mind.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm trying to avoid wishful thinking, as well as avoiding conformation bias in the media I'm consuming, but does it feel to anyone else like this last week or two was different? Like, the first debate and especially the covid diagnosis have pretty much kicked the legs out from under the administration and given Republican leadership an opening to abandon him? He's publicly melting down, and the usual people who aide and abet that aren't stepping up to his defense. Except for Lindsay Graham, who is also publicly losing his goddamn mind.

Yeah, it's looking overwhelmingly hopeful, but I'm like... Biden ain't gonna do sh*t about the climate change disaster, so... I dunno. Yay.

I'm also still expecting some weird republican election shenanigans, so... I'm not hopeful for senate/house elections.

I'm worried about what happens during the lame duck period. The senate will jam through SCOTUS if they don't succeed prior to the election. Trump loses and has 2 months or so to destroy even more things. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he literally smears his feces all over the white house walls.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm trying to avoid wishful thinking, as well as avoiding conformation bias in the media I'm consuming, but does it feel to anyone else like this last week or two was different? Like, the first debate and especially the covid diagnosis have pretty much kicked the legs out from under the administration and given Republican leadership an opening to abandon him? He's publicly melting down, and the usual people who aide and abet that aren't stepping up to his defense. Except for Lindsay Graham, who is also publicly losing his goddamn mind.

If it isn't completely obvious by now, Trump won the 2016 election largely because Clinton got caught running the same campaign she ran in 2008. She had no new tricks, no new platforms, and no real understanding of how the political landscape had changed. Furthermore, she had no idea how to counter a sustained character assassination effort coordinated by a hostile foreign power combined with manufactured third party candidates specifically designed to siphon off support. This was Putin's gift to Trump.

This time around, it appears that it is Trump who has failed to regard the changing political landscape because he is running a low competence/high budget version of the playbook Putin ran only with complete idiots in charge. His manufactured scandal of Hunter Biden in Ukraine blew up in his face despite the fact that he invested his entire presidency in it. He committed treason by compromising US national security by extorting a foreign ally in coordination with a foreign adversary in exchange for a scandal that never truly materialized. Even now he spends effort and resources attempting to pull that turd out of the trash to polish it and sell it to his base.

I think we are all bracing for some kind of October Surprise to massively change the political landscape again like Trump is some kind of evil genius, but the reality is that he never was. He's stuck clutching onto his Hunter Biden plan and allegations that Joe Is somehow medically unfit to serve like they are Gerald O'Hara's Confederate bonds. And yes, there will be significant f*ckery between now and January 21st. There will probably be HUGE f*ckery between now and October 3rd. In the end though, America is finished with Trump's sh*t. Hopefully we are done with Republicans as a whole.

I'm finding myself reluctantly hopeful as well, but I cannot square Trumps rising approval rating with what's going on in the news and the election polling results.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Yeah, it's looking overwhelmingly hopeful, but I'm like... Biden ain't gonna do sh*t about the climate change disaster, so... I dunno. Yay.

Well, to be fair, people said the exact same thing about Gore, Kerry, Hillary, and how they'd never do anything on any given issue, and look how great the alternatives turned out.

Orphu wrote:

I'm finding myself reluctantly hopeful as well, but I cannot square Trumps rising approval rating with what's going on in the news and the election polling results.

Where's the rise? Trump's approval rating has been solidly underwater ever since he took office and has (weirdly) stayed in a narrow band in the high 30/low 40s regardless of what he does.

Dude caught the 'rona and his approval rating is still more than two full points below his peak. People couldn't even muster a pity approval bump for him, probably because 63% thought he got sick because he's an idiot who didn't take proper precautions.

Meanwhile 10 million Americans have already voted and Trump has a little over three weeks to appeal to voters, the vast majority of which have long made up their minds about him and who they're voting for.

Well, it's higher than it was in July...and good God but we're a dumb nation when ~44% still approve of the job this man is doing. If anything the job he's doing now is demonstrably worse than in July, yet his approval rating is that high?

I know he's "underwater" as you say, but it's still shocking to think about what it would take for the worst president in our history to get back to <40%.

A quarter of Americans approved of Nixon's presidency the day he resigned...

Trump's 40% approval is built on the cult of personality he and conservative media have crafted. Every other president has had their approval rating rise and fall significantly over the course of their time in office. Trump hasn't probably because Fox News has relentlessly told its viewers that Trump is greatest president America has ever had, that he's delivered on every promise he made (in spite of being constantly attacked and falsely accused by, well, everyone), and that he's the last hope for (white *wink*) America, which will immediately catch fire and explode if anyone but Trump becomes president.

which will immediately catch fire and explode if anyone but Trump becomes president.

Not least because they'll make it catch fire and explode.

I had an argument with someone earlier in the week who claimed to still be undecided concerning the election. I hadn't realized such people actually existed, so I was amazed!

bekkilyn wrote:

I had an argument with someone earlier in the week who claimed to still be undecided concerning the election. I hadn't realized such people actually existed, so I was amazed! :)

I'm curious, what was their reasoning? I'm of the opinion that this is a lie people are telling themselves because they have decided but are attempting to avoid judgement by people that are comfortable stating their choice.

JC wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

I had an argument with someone earlier in the week who claimed to still be undecided concerning the election. I hadn't realized such people actually existed, so I was amazed! :)

I'm curious, what was their reasoning? I'm of the opinion that this is a lie people are telling themselves because they have decided but are attempting to avoid judgement by people that are comfortable stating their choice.

Thought the DNC and Biden had brought the party to the far left (which was astonishing to me, considering that I don't find them to be left at all) and and liked that Trump had apparently kept the country from going to war with China. I of course went through a whole list of the despicable things that Trump and his GOP had "accomplished," which he tried and failed to argue against.

He claimed to be politically homeless, so I suppose he believes himself to be some sort of moderate or centrist.

Oh and Bernie had "sold out" in his opinion (he brought up Bernie on his own, not me) and was campaigning for them, so I thought that maybe he was a true-to-life "Bernie Bro" but it wasn't consistent with his view that Biden of all people was far left.

I of course argued that anyone who had supported Bernie from the beginning would know that Bernie had always planned to support the Democratic nominee.

I don't think he's talking to me now.

bekkilyn wrote:

Thought the DNC and Biden had brought the party to the far left (which was astonishing to me, considering that I don't find them to be left at all) and and liked that Trump had apparently kept the country from going to war with China.

I must have had a stroke and completely blacked out during the time we were almost going to war with China...

I also find it kinda funny because my uncle absolutely loves Trump because he thinks China is America's #1 enemy and Trump is the only one willing to stand up and fight them.

bekkilyn wrote:

I had an argument with someone earlier in the week who claimed to still be undecided concerning the election. I hadn't realized such people actually existed, so I was amazed! :)

That person is either lying to you, or they’re the stupidest person you know. I’m talking low low low IQ.

bekkilyn wrote:

I had an argument with someone earlier in the week who claimed to still be undecided concerning the election. I hadn't realized such people actually existed, so I was amazed! :)

NYT has an interactive graphic out today for the Undecided to determine how to vote. The title is something like, "Still undecided? Take our quiz to see how you should vote!"

It's just a bunch of random questions, like,

"Did Ross cheat?"
"Guac or salsa?"

Stuff like that.

Regardless of one's answers, the last question is always, "Are you concerned about the direction of the country and the consequences of a rapidly warming planet?"

The only option is to answer Yes and it then tells you to vote Biden/Harris.

OG_slinger wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

Thought the DNC and Biden had brought the party to the far left (which was astonishing to me, considering that I don't find them to be left at all) and and liked that Trump had apparently kept the country from going to war with China.

I must have had a stroke and completely blacked out during the time we were almost going to war with China...

I also find it kinda funny because my uncle absolutely loves Trump because he thinks China is America's #1 enemy and Trump is the only one willing to stand up and fight them.

There’s a theory, mostly espoused in Steve Bannon and a few neocons, that America and China are on an inevitable collision course and will go to war sooner or later.

The collision course part is right. Hopefully it doesn’t overflow into a major conflict. The problem is that Trump has been using up America’s ammunition to score political points, not to meaningfully negotiate with the CCP. Meanwhile, Putin rubs his hands together gleefully.

LOL, war with China.

Trump's the only person saying "We'll make China pay" for the coronavirus.

Step 1: Say you will go to war with China
Step 2: Don't go to war with China
Step 3: Take credit for preventing war with China.
Profit?

Land wars in Asia are good and easy to win.

Shadout wrote:

Step 1: Say you will go to war with China
Step 2: Don't go to war with China
Step 3: Take credit for preventing war with China.
Profit?

Basically. Russia pulled the same sh*t in 2016. During the election there were a number of prominent members of Putin’s government talking about how Russia and America were going to war if Clinton won, so to prevent war we should elect Trump.

Shadout wrote:

Step 1: Say you will go to war with China
Step 2: Don't go to war with China
Step 3: Take credit for preventing war with China.
Profit?

This is even more blatantly what happened with Trump and North Korea. There’s also the added step of blaming Obama for almost starting the war.

Never mind that you were one raising tensions by insulting and threatening Kim on Twitter.

I'm guessing if Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio had won we would have gone to war with Iran (for no good reason), because Bolton has been pushing for that for ages.

Biden is much less likely to start new wars than Trump.

For that matter, Trump still has time to fire the nuclear missiles before the end of January. If he wins, we probably will see a nuclear war at some point, because he's deliberately letting the New START treaty expire in February.

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/NQNYZwY9/Screenshot-20201012-144125-Edge.jpg)

Every day he finds a new low.