accelafine wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 1:22 am
But can any of the Trump haters actually say which of his policies they hate so much? All I hear is a lot of waffle about how 'evil' he is. Can't be that hard
Lacewing is struggling because she can't actually name any of his policies, and in truth that's reasonable.
Trump's main approach is to avoid having policies as such. GW Bush tried to do something useful about immigration with the
DREAM Act, which offered a pathway to full citizenship for people brought to the USA as children. In his first presidency, Trump made a point of unwinding that and fucking the DACA recipients as hard as he could because half of Bush's policy was eventually implemented by Obama. Trump's "policy" was to build a wall and hope that Mexico never discovers a technology we know as "ladders".
In place of policies, which usually are costed, have limited objectives and are designed to be achievable, Trump just promises to do stuff and to make it look easy. For instance Obama had a flagship policy known to most of us as
Obamacare. In his first campaign, Trump promised that he would repeal and replace Obamacare, and it would be
"So Easy". When he failed, he said "
Nobody knew health care could be so complicated". During the most recent presidential campaign, he was asked if he would finally explain what his healthcare policy to replace Obamacare would be, his response was that he didn't have a plan, but he has "concepts of a plan".
More recently he repeated that trick by claiming he was going to end the war in Ukraine on day one. Then it turned into a bit of project. Then he had only ever been sarcastic about the "day one" thing. Now he's walking away from that promise, that never got as far as a policy, because policies require an actual plan for how to achieve the goal, and Trump doesn't do that bit.
But there are a few "policy areas" no president can avoid, they always come with the territory, so we can judge him on his approach to those and call whatever we find there his "policies" I guess.
Trade Policy I: Trump is horrible on trade policy because he is an idiot and he has selected as his main adviser in these matter a complete psycho called Peter Navarro. Other cabinet members recently waited for Navarro to go on a holiday so that they could force Trump to rescind his tariffs rampage without that fucknut in the room. There is real risk that Trump will cause a global economic recession with his antics.
Trade Policy part II: I would draw separate attention to the underlying faulty reasoning in Trump's trade policy. He is a
mercantilist which is a thing that fell out of fashion two hundred years ago when it was demonstrated to be the economic equivalent of the Flat Earth theory of astronomy. He thinks that all trades are zero sum and any time you buy something from a seller, you have been taken for a sucker.
Foreign Policy: The United States has long wielded cheap and highly effective soft power. Trump is spunking that up the wall with his horrible foreign aid cuts and his constant belittling of allies. He really does want to be the first president to increase America's territory in a hundred years just in time for the 250th anniversary of independence on July 4th next year. That's what he wants Greenland and Canada for. fucking nutter.
Economic Policy I: A standard Republican president's economic policy would be to promote growth with tax cuts and by slashing red tape, and to maintain a balanced budget. That policy set doesn't really work and they never balance the budget, but they are always optimistic. Trump is planning to blow a $5Trillion dollar hole in the budget with a massive unfunded tax cut for the rich. He's doing trickle down economics, which is something you purport to despise.
Economic Policy II: His cutting of red tape will be quite impressive though. I mean, fucking terrible to behold, but impressively so. It looks like if he makes it through an entire presidency he will
dissolve the agencies that attempt to stop financial services providers from ripping off consumers, he's already cancelled investigations into a number of cryptocurrency frauds before anybody got a chance to look at the massive crypto rug-pull he did on the
day before his inauguration.
Environmental policy: He's also killing off almost all
environmental protections, not only the ones relating to global warming but also the pollution in the drinking water stuff. And obviously he is
taking out the agencies that would enforce or oversee environmental matter also.
That's enough for now, I don't have time today for an exhaustive run down of all Trump's policy disasters. Can somebody name a policy area where he isn't a total liability? There's definitely more to be said on his deregulatory activities which revolve around allowing incompetent idiots to just try and make AI do everything for them as they wipe out swathes for the Federal Government with no idea that they are cutting funds to maintain nuclear safety.
