I have a serious question for the Trump haters on this board?

[Deranged Rhino]

47 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

Everything you have there such as using the IRS to get back at enemies is your opinion.  You have a view of the world, that somehow there is this deep state conspiracy that the former administration used, and you interpret all things to fit your narrative.   They are not fact.  Fact will or will not be ascertained by actual investigation.

 

You are 100% wrong -- the facts say so. But will you be honest enough to admit it? Or do you want to keep proving to the class how uninformed you truly are? 

 

1. Gutting the powers of the IG: 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/obama-administration-stonewalled-inspectors-general/

https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/08/17/hiding-inspector-generals-say-obama-obstructing-justice/

In an unprecedented letter, a majority of the federal government’s inspectors general (IGs) claim that the Obama administration is obstructing their investigations into government mismanagement and corruption.

 

2. Using the IRS to target political enemies: 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/07/house-finds-lerner-central-figure-in-tax-exempt-scandal-in-contempt-of-congress/#5aba35e42e36

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbasile/2014/01/31/obamas-weaponization-of-government/#7af7ee291b92

Last year, Lois Lerner, the IRS’ former director of Tax Exempt Organizations, publicly acknowledged the political, predatory and punitive actions of the agency that led to the harassment and intimidation of conservative groups.  

 

3. Obama spying on Congress, Media, and US Citizens: 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/04/barack-obama-spying-journalists-dennis-kucinich-sharyl-attkisson-donald-trump-campaign-transition/

https://theweek.com/articles/464430/why-did-obama-administration-spy-associated-press

The Associated Press on Monday revealed that the Department of Justice had secretly spied on AP reporters, obtaining two months' worth of telephone records in what was most likely an attempt to crack down on internal leaks. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-senate-staffers

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials.

 

FISC opinion memo: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FISC_Memo_Opin_Order_Apr_2017.pdf

 

 

 

One of us is confusion opinion with fact, but it's not me. 

55 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

From what I can tell on this side of the board, diving into source documents equates to finding sources that back your preconceived opinion.  I on the other hand will wait for actual congressional investigations if and when they take place.

 

Read above. 

 

And only a fool waits for a body with no prosecutorial power to resolve these issues. 

53 minutes ago, GG said:

 

You seem to be taking the position that if there were no criminal indictments, then the action did not take place.

 

Because he's deeply dishonest. 

[oldmanfan]

20 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said:

 

You are 100% wrong -- the facts say so. But will you be honest enough to admit it? Or do you want to keep proving to the class how uninformed you truly are? 

 

1. Gutting the powers of the IG: 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/obama-administration-stonewalled-inspectors-general/

https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/08/17/hiding-inspector-generals-say-obama-obstructing-justice/

In an unprecedented letter, a majority of the federal government’s inspectors general (IGs) claim that the Obama administration is obstructing their investigations into government mismanagement and corruption.

 

2. Using the IRS to target political enemies: 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/07/house-finds-lerner-central-figure-in-tax-exempt-scandal-in-contempt-of-congress/#5aba35e42e36

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbasile/2014/01/31/obamas-weaponization-of-government/#7af7ee291b92

Last year, Lois Lerner, the IRS’ former director of Tax Exempt Organizations, publicly acknowledged the political, predatory and punitive actions of the agency that led to the harassment and intimidation of conservative groups.  

 

3. Obama spying on Congress, Media, and US Citizens: 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/04/barack-obama-spying-journalists-dennis-kucinich-sharyl-attkisson-donald-trump-campaign-transition/

https://theweek.com/articles/464430/why-did-obama-administration-spy-associated-press

The Associated Press on Monday revealed that the Department of Justice had secretly spied on AP reporters, obtaining two months' worth of telephone records in what was most likely an attempt to crack down on internal leaks. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-senate-staffers

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials.

 

FISC opinion memo: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FISC_Memo_Opin_Order_Apr_2017.pdf

 

 

 

One of us is confusion opinion with fact, but it's not me. 

 

Read above. 

 

And only a fool waits for a body with no prosecutorial power to resolve these issues. 

 

Because he's deeply dishonest. 

I just posted above I was glad to read more about the IRS thing.  To me it is an example of what I want to see,  a part of the executive branch overreaches, the legislative beach through its oversight corrects it. So you can stick your dishonesty stuff.  

[Deranged Rhino]

5 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

I just posted above I was glad to read more about the IRS thing.  To me it is an example of what I want to see,  a part of the executive branch overreaches, the legislative beach through its oversight corrects it. So you can stick your dishonesty stuff.  

 

You were the one who called it fake, asshat. 

 

(That's called being dishonest -- especially when you don't say, "gee, sorry about that, I was wrong" )

[Bill from NYC]

16 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

 

“Molesting” is an intentionally incendiary word and, in any event, Joe Biden is not the issue here.  

 

I watched a lot of the Kavanaugh hearings, and I listened to the entirety of them.  I’ve also worked a fair number of sexual assault cases.  I believe his accuser.  

 

***

 

Two additional points.  

 

1.  Someone can fear flying but still take a plane.   The two aren’t mutually exclusive.  

 

2.  Corroboration is of course preferred but not essential in a sexual assault case.  The very nature of the act often does not lend itself to corroboration.  Google the “prompt outcry” rule.  You’ll find that courts are lenient on admitting such evidence (the outcry sometimes is far from what most would consider prompt) because of the shame in disclosing a sexual assault to another person.  

First of all, I dare say that I have as much experience as you in sexual assault cases.

 

Kavanaugh is not all over you tube molesting (yes molesting) women and young girls. Biden is, and; women including at least politician have come forth to complain.

 

It's sad how left wing sheep try to tell others what is or is not the "issue." When one talks of Hillary stealing money and other corrupt deeds, she is not the issue according to the sheep, but she really is. If she wasn't the worst candidate in American presidential history, President Donald J. Trump, YOUR president, might not have won.

 

Now, evidence is all over you tube showing that Biden was engaging in corruption in the Ukraine with his degenerate kid. I would be willing to bet that you are fine with this, as well as his sexual behavior and dementia.

 

Would you want your children to rub Biden's leg hair in a swimming pool?

 

Please.

 

 

[SectionC3]

4 minutes ago, Bill from NYC said:

First of all, I dare say that I have as much experience as you in sexual assault cases.

 

Kavanaugh is not all over you tube molesting (yes molesting) women and young girls. Biden is, and; women including at least politician have come forth to complain.

 

It's sad how left wing sheep try to tell others what is or is not the "issue." When one talks of Hillary stealing money and other corrupt deeds, she is not the issue according to the sheep, but she really is. If she wasn't the worst candidate in American presidential history, President Donald J. Trump, YOUR president, might not have won.

 

Now, evidence is all over you tube showing that Biden was engaging in corruption in the Ukraine with his degenerate kid. I would be willing to bet that you are fine with this, as well as his sexual behavior and dementia.

 

Would you want your children to rub Biden's leg hair in a swimming pool?

 

Please.

 

 

 

The issue was Kavanaugh.  You pulled a "whataboutism" move and tried to change the subject by bringing Joe Biden into the mix.  That would be the equivalent of me now saying that  everything written in this threat to this point is immaterial because Donald Trump is a self-confessed sexual predator inasmuch as he promotes "grab[bing] 'em by the *****" and (ineffectively, apparently) bangs porn stars while his wife is home with his newborn son, and that your character is suspect because you support such a thing.    

 

[Bill from NYC]

President Trump foolishly talked about grabbing women. I do not condone this.

Don't you think that is different from being on film doing it? Is that what you condone?

[SoCal Deek]

20 minutes ago, Bill from NYC said:

President Trump foolishly talked about grabbing women. I do not condone this.

Don't you think that is different from being on film doing it? Is that what you condone?

It’s really a waste of breath anymore. Ever since Bill Clinton the politics of personal destruction have ruled the day and dominated the discourse. We have almost no dialogue about programs, platforms, philosophies and direction. It’s way easier to attack: Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Romney, Kavanaugh, Trump, Biden and all the others on personal matters to distract the ill informed voting public from the more complex topics. 

[ComradeKayAdams]

18 hours ago, njbuff said:

I didn't expect this type of response to my thread.

 

I wish I was getting paid by each comment.

 

I can't even get this damn quarantine to work in my favor. ?

 

I’m surprised that you’re surprised at the reaction! It was a provocative thread title that cuts to the visceral core of PPP. Since everyone else is airing their various Trump grievances, I will give your original question a shot as well:

 

Hate is too strong of a word. I do not hate Trump. I strongly dislike many of his public policies. If I’m being honest with myself, I would probably forgive many of Trump’s “personality peccadillos” if he believed in the same policies that I do. I may be a far-left social democracy kind of girl, but believe it or not we are on the same page regarding Russiagate and Obamagate. I also do not care about defending Obama’s legacy, even though I voted for him in the past, because with the benefit of hindsight I see him now as a complete fraud.

 

But getting back to why I dislike Trump…it boils down to 3 big-picture classes of public policy issues for me:

 

1. Continuation of America’s post-WW2 interventionist foreign policy: Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2016, which I greatly respected. And as it turns out, I see him as our greatest 21st century president on foreign policy so far, overcoming a very low bar set by Dubya (Iraq, Afghanistan) and Obama (add Syria, Libya). But what I have also seen is only a continued budgetary expansion of the already out-of-control military-industrial complex under Trump’s watch. There has also been no real large-scale reduction of our country’s military presence as the world police. This is probably not financially sustainable for us, especially given the most recent additions to the now $25.5 trillion national debt. Of course, there’s also the deeply troubling ethical quandaries to the Trumpian foreign policy such as dramatically increasing drone strikes in countries like Somalia, enforcing hard sanctions on the Iranian people, undermining Venezuelan sovereignty by propping up Juan Guaido, and supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

 

2. Rebranded supply-side economics from 1980: Trump ran as an economic nationalist in 2016, fighting for all these working-class manufacturing jobs lost to globalism. That was nice, but Trump’s highly touted USMCA is seen by most economists as little more than a slight variation of NAFTA. Trump also has never been one to support labor unions. Then we have all of Trump’s tax cuts to the very rich while wage growth continues to lag behind all the cost of living metrics for a majority of Americans. Then came the collective coronavirus coup de grace: massive corporate socialism without oversight in the first bailout bill, sweeping federal deregulation measures without any clarification of what regulations are considered frivolous and what aren’t (so we can avoid something like a repeat of the causes of the 2008 Great Recession), and grossly insufficient government-mandated protections for the most financially vulnerable Americans (basically, people outside the professional and managerial classes) compared to how most other Western countries responded to COVID-19 (yes, both Reps and Dems in Congress deserve blame here too).

 

Trump now has a historically dire economic situation in his hands, with skyrocketing unemployment numbers and seemingly innumerable small businesses whose goods and services (restaurants, sports, etc.) may not return to normal consumption levels for a long while, if ever. So many Americans need money to spend but don’t have the money anymore to do so. To an amateur economist like myself, it seems to me that these are unusual times where Friedman dogma should be discarded in favor of good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulation for the lower and middle classes. If Trump is interested in a speedy economic recovery, he will need a large majority of Americans to return to their previous economic consumption levels as soon as possible, and this will require some level of government intervention in order to jumpstart an abruptly flatlined economy. But based on everything Trump has said and done to date, as well as based on all the advisors he surrounds himself with, I seriously doubt he will break away from conventional Republican economic wisdom.

 

3. Environmental protections and global warming: see my posts in the global warming thread for a complete description (if anyone is still reading this and cares about my opinions lol…). Basically, I think Trump is far and away the worst president in modern American history (i.e., since Nixon) on this set of issues. I find myself vehemently disapproving of just about everything he does when it comes to the environment.

 

Ok I'm done. Sorry for the long post!!

[BuffaloHokie13]

18 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

No I do not think Obama wanted to be a dictator.  Yes I think Trump does and the evidence of that to me is irrefutable.

 

On the topic of thinking, it is apparent you do not and only continually either parrot you deep state material or insult those who dare to call you out on it.  I think about things and have opinions you may not agree with.  You do not think about things and reflexively try to fit everything into your preconceived agenda.

This is kind of perplexing. What irrefutable evidence do you have that says Trump wants to be a dictator? I find the projection of authoritarian intent on him to be interesting, because I just don't see it bearing fruit in his policies. At all.

[billsfan1959]

18 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

I watched a lot of the Kavanaugh hearings, and I listened to the entirety of them.  I’ve also worked a fair number of sexual assault cases.  I believe his accuser.  

 

If you have any experience with Sexual assault or with witnesses then you should understand the concepts of what makes a witness credible and what makes the information provided by that witness credible. They are intertwined but not the same thing. A "credible witness" can still lie or be mistaken and provide information that is not credible, while a witness with little credibility can provide truthful information that is credible.

 

So, in your experience with witnesses and sexual assault, please tell us:

 

1) What factors did you rely on to reach the conclusion that Ford was a credible witness (if you did)?

2) What factors did you rely on to reach the conclusion that her accusation was credible (which is inherent in your statement that you believed her)?

[KRC]

44 minutes ago, RealKayAdams said:

 

I’m surprised that you’re surprised at the reaction! It was a provocative thread title that cuts to the visceral core of PPP. Since everyone else is airing their various Trump grievances, I will give your original question a shot as well:

 

Hate is too strong of a word. I do not hate Trump. I strongly dislike many of his public policies. If I’m being honest with myself, I would probably forgive many of Trump’s “personality peccadillos” if he believed in the same policies that I do. I may be a far-left social democracy kind of girl, but believe it or not we are on the same page regarding Russiagate and Obamagate. I also do not care about defending Obama’s legacy, even though I voted for him in the past, because with the benefit of hindsight I see him now as a complete fraud.

 

But getting back to why I dislike Trump…it boils down to 3 big-picture classes of public policy issues for me:

 

1. Continuation of America’s post-WW2 interventionist foreign policy: Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2016, which I greatly respected. And as it turns out, I see him as our greatest 21st century president on foreign policy so far, overcoming a very low bar set by Dubya (Iraq, Afghanistan) and Obama (add Syria, Libya). But what I have also seen is only a continued budgetary expansion of the already out-of-control military-industrial complex under Trump’s watch. There has also been no real large-scale reduction of our country’s military presence as the world police. This is probably not financially sustainable for us, especially given the most recent additions to the now $25.5 trillion national debt. Of course, there’s also the deeply troubling ethical quandaries to the Trumpian foreign policy such as dramatically increasing drone strikes in countries like Somalia, enforcing hard sanctions on the Iranian people, undermining Venezuelan sovereignty by propping up Juan Guaido, and supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

 

2. Rebranded supply-side economics from 1980: Trump ran as an economic nationalist in 2016, fighting for all these working-class manufacturing jobs lost to globalism. That was nice, but Trump’s highly touted USMCA is seen by most economists as little more than a slight variation of NAFTA. Trump also has never been one to support labor unions. Then we have all of Trump’s tax cuts to the very rich while wage growth continues to lag behind all the cost of living metrics for a majority of Americans. Then came the collective coronavirus coup de grace: massive corporate socialism without oversight in the first bailout bill, sweeping federal deregulation measures without any clarification of what regulations are considered frivolous and what aren’t (so we can avoid something like a repeat of the causes of the 2008 Great Recession), and grossly insufficient government-mandated protections for the most financially vulnerable Americans (basically, people outside the professional and managerial classes) compared to how most other Western countries responded to COVID-19 (yes, both Reps and Dems in Congress deserve blame here too).

 

Trump now has a historically dire economic situation in his hands, with skyrocketing unemployment numbers and seemingly innumerable small businesses whose goods and services (restaurants, sports, etc.) may not return to normal consumption levels for a long while, if ever. So many Americans need money to spend but don’t have the money anymore to do so. To an amateur economist like myself, it seems to me that these are unusual times where Friedman dogma should be discarded in favor of good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulation for the lower and middle classes. If Trump is interested in a speedy economic recovery, he will need a large majority of Americans to return to their previous economic consumption levels as soon as possible, and this will require some level of government intervention in order to jumpstart an abruptly flatlined economy. But based on everything Trump has said and done to date, as well as based on all the advisors he surrounds himself with, I seriously doubt he will break away from conventional Republican economic wisdom.

 

3. Environmental protections and global warming: see my posts in the global warming thread for a complete description (if anyone is still reading this and cares about my opinions lol…). Basically, I think Trump is far and away the worst president in modern American history (i.e., since Nixon) on this set of issues. I find myself vehemently disapproving of just about everything he does when it comes to the environment.

 

Ok I'm done. Sorry for the long post!!

 

While I may disagree with your points to some extent (you may even have moved me toward your POV in some aspects), it is refreshing to see a well-reasoned response from someone on the left. Outside of one or two posters here that are left-leaning, it is usually just garbage which prevents any actual discussion. Thank you.

[BillsFanNC]

41 minutes ago, RealKayAdams said:

 

I’m surprised that you’re surprised at the reaction! It was a provocative thread title that cuts to the visceral core of PPP. Since everyone else is airing their various Trump grievances, I will give your original question a shot as well:

 

Hate is too strong of a word. I do not hate Trump. I strongly dislike many of his public policies. If I’m being honest with myself, I would probably forgive many of Trump’s “personality peccadillos” if he believed in the same policies that I do. I may be a far-left social democracy kind of girl, but believe it or not we are on the same page regarding Russiagate and Obamagate. I also do not care about defending Obama’s legacy, even though I voted for him in the past, because with the benefit of hindsight I see him now as a complete fraud.

 

But getting back to why I dislike Trump…it boils down to 3 big-picture classes of public policy issues for me:

 

1. Continuation of America’s post-WW2 interventionist foreign policy: Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2016, which I greatly respected. And as it turns out, I see him as our greatest 21st century president on foreign policy so far, overcoming a very low bar set by Dubya (Iraq, Afghanistan) and Obama (add Syria, Libya). But what I have also seen is only a continued budgetary expansion of the already out-of-control military-industrial complex under Trump’s watch. There has also been no real large-scale reduction of our country’s military presence as the world police. This is probably not financially sustainable for us, especially given the most recent additions to the now $25.5 trillion national debt. Of course, there’s also the deeply troubling ethical quandaries to the Trumpian foreign policy such as dramatically increasing drone strikes in countries like Somalia, enforcing hard sanctions on the Iranian people, undermining Venezuelan sovereignty by propping up Juan Guaido, and supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

 

2. Rebranded supply-side economics from 1980: Trump ran as an economic nationalist in 2016, fighting for all these working-class manufacturing jobs lost to globalism. That was nice, but Trump’s highly touted USMCA is seen by most economists as little more than a slight variation of NAFTA. Trump also has never been one to support labor unions. Then we have all of Trump’s tax cuts to the very rich while wage growth continues to lag behind all the cost of living metrics for a majority of Americans. Then came the collective coronavirus coup de grace: massive corporate socialism without oversight in the first bailout bill, sweeping federal deregulation measures without any clarification of what regulations are considered frivolous and what aren’t (so we can avoid something like a repeat of the causes of the 2008 Great Recession), and grossly insufficient government-mandated protections for the most financially vulnerable Americans (basically, people outside the professional and managerial classes) compared to how most other Western countries responded to COVID-19 (yes, both Reps and Dems in Congress deserve blame here too).

 

Trump now has a historically dire economic situation in his hands, with skyrocketing unemployment numbers and seemingly innumerable small businesses whose goods and services (restaurants, sports, etc.) may not return to normal consumption levels for a long while, if ever. So many Americans need money to spend but don’t have the money anymore to do so. To an amateur economist like myself, it seems to me that these are unusual times where Friedman dogma should be discarded in favor of good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulation for the lower and middle classes. If Trump is interested in a speedy economic recovery, he will need a large majority of Americans to return to their previous economic consumption levels as soon as possible, and this will require some level of government intervention in order to jumpstart an abruptly flatlined economy. But based on everything Trump has said and done to date, as well as based on all the advisors he surrounds himself with, I seriously doubt he will break away from conventional Republican economic wisdom.

 

3. Environmental protections and global warming: see my posts in the global warming thread for a complete description (if anyone is still reading this and cares about my opinions lol…). Basically, I think Trump is far and away the worst president in modern American history (i.e., since Nixon) on this set of issues. I find myself vehemently disapproving of just about everything he does when it comes to the environment.

 

Ok I'm done. Sorry for the long post!!

 

With all of the complaining about this being a right wing dominated board, this is a welcome post by someone on the left who actually articulates how someone in the political arena pushes all the opposite buttons on POLICY.  Political debate on policy issues is supposed to be rough and tumble and contentious, and to a certain degree has always been "it's only bad when the other side does it".  But I have so many people on ignore these days because ALL they can do is #orangemanbad posts about things long proven to be false.

 

 

[Keukasmallies]

On 5/20/2020 at 12:18 PM, billsfan1959 said:

Because I don't like what I'm feeling, the whole world needs to know how I am feeling,  and somebody needs to pay for making me feel this way....

 

 

But what if the someone is a Democrat....  The media won't report it, the big city populations won't accept if they happen to hear about it, and the House of Rep's will committee/investigate it ad infinitum.

[Tiberius]

1 hour ago, RealKayAdams said:

 

I’m surprised that you’re surprised at the reaction! It was a provocative thread title that cuts to the visceral core of PPP. Since everyone else is airing their various Trump grievances, I will give your original question a shot as well:

 

Hate is too strong of a word. I do not hate Trump. I strongly dislike many of his public policies. If I’m being honest with myself, I would probably forgive many of Trump’s “personality peccadillos” if he believed in the same policies that I do. I may be a far-left social democracy kind of girl, but believe it or not we are on the same page regarding Russiagate and Obamagate. I also do not care about defending Obama’s legacy, even though I voted for him in the past, because with the benefit of hindsight I see him now as a complete fraud. 

Obama was a complete fraud? What does that mean? 

[billsfan1959]

2 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Obama was a complete fraud? What does that mean? 

 

This is one of those rhetorical questions, right?

[Tiberius]

1 hour ago, RealKayAdams said:

 

 

 

Trump now has a historically dire economic situation in his hands, with skyrocketing unemployment numbers and seemingly innumerable small businesses whose goods and services (restaurants, sports, etc.) may not return to normal consumption levels for a long while, if ever. So many Americans need money to spend but don’t have the money anymore to do so. To an amateur economist like myself, it seems to me that these are unusual times where Friedman dogma should be discarded in favor of good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulation for the lower and middle classes. If Trump is interested in a speedy economic recovery, he will need a large majority of Americans to return to their previous economic consumption levels as soon as possible, and this will require some level of government intervention in order to jumpstart an abruptly flatlined economy. But based on everything Trump has said and done to date, as well as based on all the advisors he surrounds himself with, I seriously doubt he will break away from conventional Republican economic wisdom.

 

 

How in the world do you reach the conclusion he will win when you say the above? Will an economic miracle suddenly manifest itself to raise the economy without Keynesian measures? 

Just now, billsfan1959 said:

 

This is one of those rhetorical questions, right?

For you it would be. 

 

 

[billsfan1959]

2 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

For you it would be. 

 

I think for anyone sensible it would be....

[Tiberius]

2 minutes ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

I think for anyone sensible it would be....

Obama > Trump 

[billsfan1959]

2 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Obama > Trump 

 

The simplicity of this just struck me as very funny and made me laugh out loud. Well done....

[Buffalo_Gal]

1 hour ago, RealKayAdams said:

 

I’m surprised that you’re surprised at the reaction! It was a provocative thread title that cuts to the visceral core of PPP. Since everyone else is airing their various Trump grievances, I will give your original question a shot as well:

 

Hate is too strong of a word. I do not hate Trump. I strongly dislike many of his public policies. If I’m being honest with myself, I would probably forgive many of Trump’s “personality peccadillos” if he believed in the same policies that I do. I may be a far-left social democracy kind of girl, but believe it or not we are on the same page regarding Russiagate and Obamagate. I also do not care about defending Obama’s legacy, even though I voted for him in the past, because with the benefit of hindsight I see him now as a complete fraud.

 

But getting back to why I dislike Trump…it boils down to 3 big-picture classes of public policy issues for me:

 

1. Continuation of America’s post-WW2 interventionist foreign policy: Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform in 2016, which I greatly respected. And as it turns out, I see him as our greatest 21st century president on foreign policy so far, overcoming a very low bar set by Dubya (Iraq, Afghanistan) and Obama (add Syria, Libya). But what I have also seen is only a continued budgetary expansion of the already out-of-control military-industrial complex under Trump’s watch. There has also been no real large-scale reduction of our country’s military presence as the world police. This is probably not financially sustainable for us, especially given the most recent additions to the now $25.5 trillion national debt. Of course, there’s also the deeply troubling ethical quandaries to the Trumpian foreign policy such as dramatically increasing drone strikes in countries like Somalia, enforcing hard sanctions on the Iranian people, undermining Venezuelan sovereignty by propping up Juan Guaido, and supporting the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

 

2. Rebranded supply-side economics from 1980: Trump ran as an economic nationalist in 2016, fighting for all these working-class manufacturing jobs lost to globalism. That was nice, but Trump’s highly touted USMCA is seen by most economists as little more than a slight variation of NAFTA. Trump also has never been one to support labor unions. Then we have all of Trump’s tax cuts to the very rich while wage growth continues to lag behind all the cost of living metrics for a majority of Americans. Then came the collective coronavirus coup de grace: massive corporate socialism without oversight in the first bailout bill, sweeping federal deregulation measures without any clarification of what regulations are considered frivolous and what aren’t (so we can avoid something like a repeat of the causes of the 2008 Great Recession), and grossly insufficient government-mandated protections for the most financially vulnerable Americans (basically, people outside the professional and managerial classes) compared to how most other Western countries responded to COVID-19 (yes, both Reps and Dems in Congress deserve blame here too).

 

Trump now has a historically dire economic situation in his hands, with skyrocketing unemployment numbers and seemingly innumerable small businesses whose goods and services (restaurants, sports, etc.) may not return to normal consumption levels for a long while, if ever. So many Americans need money to spend but don’t have the money anymore to do so. To an amateur economist like myself, it seems to me that these are unusual times where Friedman dogma should be discarded in favor of good old-fashioned Keynesian stimulation for the lower and middle classes. If Trump is interested in a speedy economic recovery, he will need a large majority of Americans to return to their previous economic consumption levels as soon as possible, and this will require some level of government intervention in order to jumpstart an abruptly flatlined economy. But based on everything Trump has said and done to date, as well as based on all the advisors he surrounds himself with, I seriously doubt he will break away from conventional Republican economic wisdom.

 

3. Environmental protections and global warming: see my posts in the global warming thread for a complete description (if anyone is still reading this and cares about my opinions lol…). Basically, I think Trump is far and away the worst president in modern American history (i.e., since Nixon) on this set of issues. I find myself vehemently disapproving of just about everything he does when it comes to the environment.

 

Ok I'm done. Sorry for the long post!!

While I do not agree with much of what you wrote, I will echo others in saying that your post was a breath of fresh air in this group.  It is a different side expressed reasonably. If we had more posts like this from "the left side" PPP would be a better place for political discussions.

Note: I used to be a hard core leftie, now I am more of a centrist.
 

Edited May 22, 2020 by Buffalo_Gal