[Discussion] The Donald Trump Administration

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

Trump is talking to the deplorables there, not NATO. The deplorables are rooting him on like they are winning some sort of championship in douchieness.

Jayhawker wrote:

Our president is such a douche bag.

Classic behavior for malignant narcissists.

Shadout wrote:

Every time Trump demands that the other NATO members pay more money for their defense (which is a reasonable enough point in some ways), I am still not sure he knows it is not money they have to pay directly to the US.
Nor can I imagine he would cut the US defense budget if the rest of NATO increased theirs, so how exactly is the low defense budget of NATO members costing US tax payers money.

I don't know if it's actual mental capacity* or just the habits of a lifetime, but it seems to me that he has real discomfort with interactions that aren't some kind of zero sum horse-trading. If the trade isn't immediate, it becomes a patron-client interaction but at base that's still the same thing to him.

* I enjoy "blue meat" like David Robert's article about theory of Trump's mind at Vox, but I'm not always comfortable with this kind of distant diagnosis.

Jayhawker wrote:

Trump is talking to the deplorables there, not NATO. The deplorables are rooting him on like they are winning some sort of championship in douchieness.

This is the important point. His base thinks this is "winning". Liberal tears were shed and some European urban elites got put in their place. They literally don't care about the geopolitical implications. Speeches like this are for them, but do nothing to make their lives better.

Qaraq, did you read this recent WaPo article? If not, you've intuited one of the basic truths about his worldview.

To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive outlook took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood.

Instead, Trump grew up fighting for his life and taking no prisoners. In countless conversations, he made clear to me that he treated every encounter as a contest he had to win, because the only other option from his perspective was to lose, and that was the equivalent of obliteration. Many of the deals in “The Art of the Deal” were massive failures — among them the casinos he owned and the launch of a league to rival the National Football League — but Trump had me describe each of them as a huge success.

A common thread I've noticed with a certain mindset that supports Trump is that everyone is a taker but them. They've bought the line that America is the defender of the free world and that other countries are blowing money on silly things like free education and universal healthcare while depending on the US to protect them from all of the many, many bad guys in the world. When they talk about the militaries of countries like France or Spain, they make them sound like mall cops in balsa wood boats armed with slingshots. Reality is not in this picture. So in that instance it's the world taking from America. But then when you get down to the local level they blame the US government for taking from hard working Americans to help poor lazy criminals and illegal immigrants. Loving the global America while hating the actual US government is not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact most of the people I know who consider themselves "true patriots" are all about taking down the national government. So by having Trump give a shakedown to other world leaders for "all the money they've been taking from us" he's living the dream of people who want to take back everything they think is owed to them by the world and their own government. When you complain about your tax dollars going to help "some foreigners who can't take care of themselves" you're really not concerned about global politics, how everyone is interconnected, or the benefits that they, themselves enjoy which are funded by other hard working people's taxes. It's a dangerous self delusion where no one matters but you and yours and everyone else is a leech.

Robear wrote:

Qaraq, did you read this recent WaPo article? If not, you've intuited one of the basic truths about his worldview.

I didn't read that one but I did read another from when that guy first came forward last year. There's also this bit from Chris Hayes, which is so close that I presume Hayes read some of the same stuff, but this is from April:

The only belief I feel like he has, which forms the deepest core of his worldview, is this incredible belief in zero sumness in every domain at all times. Every single interaction is a pie that's going to be cut between him and someone else. He's going to win or lose. He's going to f*ck them or they’re going to f*ck him. Like, it is unbelievable how he applies that to everything and how appealing it is to think in those terms.

The bit about the USFL gets weirder, because Trump basically destroyed it in a legal gambit to try to get himself an NFL franchise.(link)

Kehama- I agree. I also think that that same demographic are the people who think we spend vastly more on foreign aid and similar stuff than we actually do. Last numbers I saw showed the average person thinking that's 26% of the budget when it's actually < 1%.

Trump statement on Manchester terrorists: "losers"

Trump statement on our German allies: "The Germans are bad, very bad."

Then complains, again, about imaginary NATO "bills".

Finally, refuses to say US will commit to defense of NATO countries from his Russian overlords.

Breaking news. Jared Kushner is the person of interest in the Russia investigation.

“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.”

Astounding.

BadKen wrote:

“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.”

Astounding.

Hell, that might be the first honest statement he's made.

JC wrote:

Breaking news. Jared Kushner is the person of interest in the Russia investigation.

Any sort of link or source?

Link to Kushner story

They're making a distinction here between a 'focus' of the investigation and a 'target'. They're interested in situations he was involved in (meetings) but they're not saying there's evidence linking him to wrong-doing. So he's a focus, not a target at this time.

Oh, it's just the Post. Fake news. Sad.

You going to believe a bunch of foreigners? Hell, they couldn't even win WW2 without our help.

Donnie is gunna be pissed with the way Macron dominated him on the handshakes.

Bruce wrote:

Donnie is gunna be pissed with the way Macron dominated him on the handshakes.

He's just a political establishment European swamp dweller.

Vrikk wrote:
Bruce wrote:

Donnie is gunna be pissed with the way Macron dominated him on the handshakes.

He's just a political establishment European swamp dweller.

But they should all be limp-wristed Baggins, right? So, I mean, our president should be able to kick their asses... which, he shoved that one guy from Moldavia or whatever but who cares, they probably don't even have an army but the French guy sort of beasted on Trump which is making me feel weird. I don't... maybe we need that Montana guy to go next time.

Bruce wrote:

Donnie is gunna be pissed with the way Macron dominated him on the handshakes.

Has anyone made a super-cut video of leaders handling his stupid handshake non-sense?

Mixolyde wrote:
Bruce wrote:

Donnie is gunna be pissed with the way Macron dominated him on the handshakes.

Has anyone made a super-cut video of leaders handling his stupid handshake non-sense?

Oh this needs to happen. I would do it, but only if I could use Depeche Mode's "Everything Counts" as background music. "The handshake seals the contract..." "The grabbing hands grab all they can..."

It should be set to "You're the best around" from Karate Kid.

Lost in the recent shuffle:

"Die Deutschen sind böse, sehr böse"
'The Germans Are Bad, Very Bad'

U.S. President Donald Trump voiced significant displeasure over Germany's trade surplus on Thursday during a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels. "The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump said, according to meeting participants.

The participants told DER SPIEGEL that Trump went on to say: "See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this."

Apparently no one told him that those German cars are built in factories in Alabama, South Carolina, andTennessee. Or that they provide thousands of American manufacturing jobs.

Gremlin wrote:

Lost in the recent shuffle:

"Die Deutschen sind böse, sehr böse"
'The Germans Are Bad, Very Bad'

U.S. President Donald Trump voiced significant displeasure over Germany's trade surplus on Thursday during a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels. "The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump said, according to meeting participants.

The participants told DER SPIEGEL that Trump went on to say: "See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this."

Apparently no one told him that those German cars are built in factories in Alabama, South Carolina, andTennessee. Or that they provide thousands of American manufacturing jobs.

Tell your lies long enough, and you'll begin to believe them. I think that really is part of the problem with the entire administration - it's not just a twisted worldview, it's that even when presented with facts to the contrary. It's going to ideologically have to be crammed into that framework. If that requires a little trimming of the fa(c)t, so be it.

It's almost as if a foreign power infiltrated them and convinced them to tilt in a specific direction.

That really makes me wonder how pro-Trump voters in southern Tennessee will be reacting now, since an awful lot of them are employed by VW.

Gremlin wrote:

Lost in the recent shuffle:

"Die Deutschen sind böse, sehr böse"
'The Germans Are Bad, Very Bad'

U.S. President Donald Trump voiced significant displeasure over Germany's trade surplus on Thursday during a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels. "The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump said, according to meeting participants.

The participants told DER SPIEGEL that Trump went on to say: "See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this."

Apparently no one told him that those German cars are built in factories in Alabama, South Carolina, andTennessee. Or that they provide thousands of American manufacturing jobs.

When Merkel visited back in March she had to explain the fundamentals of trading with the European Union to him 11 separate times. Apparently none of them stuck because Donny still seems to think that he can bypass the EU and cut a deal directly with Germany.

U.S. President Donald Trump voiced significant displeasure over Germany's trade surplus on Thursday during a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels. "The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump said, according to meeting participants.

The participants told DER SPIEGEL that Trump went on to say: "See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this."

So the US trade deficit is bad, but the German trade surplus is also bad? The Germans have a surplus because they make good products that people want and spend within their means. When did that become a bad thing to Republicans?

IMAGE(https://media.tenor.co/images/1cb2e85a1e7ba86f0afccae7a40e5826/tenor.gif)

Those bad, bad germans at Der Spiegel accurately sum up the situation:

Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it. He doesn't read. He doesn't bother to peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.

He is a man free of morals. As has been demonstrated hundreds of times, he is a liar, a racist and a cheat. I feel ashamed to use these words, as sharp and loud as they are. But if they apply to anyone, they apply to Trump. And one of the media's tasks is to continue telling things as they are: Trump has to be removed from the White House. Quickly. He is a danger to the world.

Mixolyde wrote:

So the US trade deficit is bad, but the German trade surplus is also bad? The Germans have a surplus because they make good products that people want and spend within their means. When did that become a bad thing to Republicans?

As soon as it was somebody else making the surplus.