Ansiktsburk wrote: ↑Sat Nov 02, 2024 11:34 am
Read through last pages not having logged in in a while. Seems like the discussions centers on the mental abilities of the presidential candidates. Well, not having seen much of Harris, Trump do not seem very much different now than when he was a president of the USA. And while his posts on twitter was a bit amusing and lets say not so statesman worthy, I cannot say that his political actions were overly incoherent. He stated as a candidate a stance of resistance to immigration, and to a neoliberal, somewhat conservative line, pretty much a Republican line of politics. And he did, as it appear to me, stick to that pretty stringently.
Now, I (Scandinavian) would definitely vote Democrat, Ie Harris, if I suddenly got American citizenship, but I cannot say that the actual political decisions during the Trump administration was strange. And all criticism against Trump is mostly on matters outside his political decisions.
For instance, I am not sure an overwhelming majority of American voters did hate the idea of a wall against Mexico. Even if I don’t like it.
Am I wrong in my analysis of the governmental actions during his presidency? And if not, are there serious signs he have changed since then?
It seems more like you just take no interest and pay no attention. When he was president, and of course in the run up to that, he was considered a fucking idiot and a liability. The only reason he isn't remembered for he pre-covid policy disasters because the only ones he got to do were the trade wars (starting trade wars, the promise to reshore manufacturing jobs would have required winning a trade war and he did not do that). Beyond that he got virtually nothing done at all, maybe perhaps 7% of his wall got built? If so, Mexico didn't pay for it though. Look at his promises for the 2016 election and find one that he delivered if you can. This time round he says he's the candidate of peace and everyone else is a war hawk. Has everyone forgotten he promised to invade ISIS and appropriate the oil fields of Syria to pay for it?
The current election campaign in the USA contains almost zero policy though. His big election promise in 2016 was to do away with Obamacare and replace it with something much better within his first days as president. He said at the time that he was going to make this look extremely easy. When he actually attempted to dismantle Obamacare as president he failed because he had no replacement to offer and his own party in Congress wouldn't pass the law. He then said
‘Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated’. It goes without saying that everyone knows healthcare policy is complicated. Now in this election cycle, when asked about his policy in these matter again he offers that he has
Concepts of a Plan after 8 years.
What he did as president was start silly trade wars and call them a policy. This time he sort of thinks he can replace income taxes with import tariffs? That's the stupidest idea I ever heard. If such a notion were ever enacted, or even anything that vaguely resemble it, the outcome would be economic catastrophe both locally and globally.
But there was another reason why he got so little done as president first time round. That was because he was surprised to find out that he couldn't order the chair of the Fed to just drop interest rates abd print more money for him because that agency is nominally independent. He openly demanded, it if anyone remembers. He made speeches claiming that it was unfair to him that Obama got money printing and he wasn't allowed any. This was pre-covid when unnecessary money printing would have overheated the economy and caused a recession.But in his epic selfishness, Trump doesn't care about stuff like that.
This time round, he will use Project2025 to ensure that there are no independent agencies. All senior officers in every department and agency will be Trump loyalists willing to swear an actual oath of fealty to him. He will order the Fed to drop interest rates if it suits him politically and that order will be carried out without question.
