And now the real disaster begins...

Politics & Elections
1

Okay, so disenchanted working-class voters who feel ignored by an “elite” (== qualified) administration have their man in the White House. The thought of DT’s smarmy smile from behind the Resolution desk is bad enough, but now the real horrors begin.

DT has no experience in administration or government and sees things only from the perspective of a lifelong anti-government, tax-avoidance, anti-regulation businessman. He also has the attention span of a toddler. So he’s going to be, by and large, a zero in actual administration of the government, except as a giant sock puppet…

…of what could be the worst, very worst, no good, bad, horrible White House cabinet and major appointees since at least the pre-Civil War era, if not all time. Every post is going to be filled with the deepest Republican ideologue - the Gingriches, Cheneys, Pences, Cruzes etc. They will all be men who do know how government works and can be bent to their collective will; some have decades of experience already under Bush II and Reagan. These aren’t just hardcore right/R’s - they’re the purest of the pure ideologically and the most determined to sweep all liberal taint from every corner of US policy. And DT will do nothing but rubber-stamp and sign whatever they bring him, all flattery turned up to 11.

And that’s assuming most of them are indeed long-term government types, and not Roger Ailes or Breitbart or Hannity or other “outsiders” who will surely fix everything with their kountry wizdom of the kommon man.

DT will appoint one SCJ for certain. Two or three with almost as much certainty. Possibly four. He will, of course, nominate and seat only the most extreme rightist ideologues he can find (== his cabinet can unearth)… because liberal taint, you know.

And he has both the House and Senate.

[ul]
[li]ACA will be dismantled by summer.[/li][li]Roe v. Wade will be on the October docket. And struck by year’s end.[/li][li]Any semblance of controls on Wall Street and investment banking will be shredded within the year.[/li][li]The EPA will be dismantled.[/li][li]Taxes will be restructured a la Reagan, with the US debt ballooning into numbers not seen outside of astrophysics.[/li][li]All US efforts towards climate change will be shelved.[/li][li]Mining and logging on federal lands will explode.[/li][li]Foreign policy, intervention, and containment of the other major powers… can’t even think about it.[/li][/ul]
A hearty congrats to the working class voters who showed them elites what’s what and Sent A Goddamn Message To Washington. At the mere cost of a blow the US - that’s your US, and your childrens’ - may never recover from.
Your new Prez owes a billion dollars to China and thinks Putin is a role model, by the way. I’m sure that will be of no consequence, eight years of hysteria over the ~$100k Whitewater deal notwithstanding.

2

Acting President Pence?

3

Geez … you make this sound like a bad thing …

4

Donald Trump stands up today and says, “I did what I did during the election because I knew that’s what needed to be said in this toxic political atmosphere in order to get an outsider elected. That’s not who I am, and that’s not how I’m going to run this country.”

C’mon! If there is a multiverse, at least a few of them have this outcome! Maybe we’re in one of them!

5

[quote=“Amateur_Barbarian, post:1, topic:771203”]

[snip] … [li]Mining and logging on federal lands will explode … [snip][/li][/QUOTE]

I’m going to address the second part of the above … though I can’t say I’m particularly knowledgeable in the exact details of logging on Federal lands … just I live right smack in the middle of this issue and pay attention.

If you remember the Northern Spotted Owl controversy, then you remember Bill Clinton shutting down the Federal forests to logging. I’m here in the middle of the O&C lands and these have be idle these past twenty years. That’s fucked for the timber dependent communities as well as the local governments that depended on their fair share of the receipts from auctioning off the timber on this land.

Poverty that’s surrounded by untapped wealth …

The problem is the written law requires a certain minimum level of harvest, and each plan the BLM* puts forward falls short of the legally required allotments. The local counties sue (they have a profound financial standing here), and the courts tell BLM* to try again. Years and years and years of depravation and it gets to the point where an entire county can only afford a single police officer, we can report a crime at 9am Monday morning when he opens the office there in the county seat.

  • = Bureau of Land Management

Obviously, the people are angry … they voted for change … what, exactly, do the poor have to lose?

6

You really need a paper bag to breathe into so you quit hyperventilating.

It’s like you think this is the first time in the last 40-50 years that we’ve had Republican presidents and majorities in both houses.

7

Previous GOP Presidents and Congress haven’t been such raging assholes.

8

<Confused>

So he’s admitting he lied throughout the whole campaign and got elected under false pretenses?

Oooooh-kay. :confused:

9

Trump is not a Republican, not a politician, not a proven administrator, has no public service (or military service) and has never been anything but a rich spoiled brat who lies incessantly about his every action.

And now he’s President with both houses behind him. (And his likely cabinet and appointees.)

Not even remotely the same thing as anything past.

10

Previous Republican presidents and congresses at least thought that they were doing something for the good of the country. Trump does not give a fuck for anybody but himself (and maybe his children). He will lower taxes for the wealthy, build a bigger military, gut the EPA and, above all, go full bore into coal and oil. I guess it is good if you are a WV coal miner. At least, if you don’t require breathing. Climate change denial is in the ascendant node and the accords are toast. No subsidies for alternative energies. Goodbye to Roe v. Wade, to affirmative action and why not repeal the civil rights acts while you’re at. After all, Trump was personally a victim of that last.

As for bringing jobs back, lot’s of luck. Unless you are an industrial robot. The people who voted for him because he is going to do anything for the disaffected worker are in for a disappointment. He cannot and doesn’t care about them anyway.

11

First of all, it’s unsurprising in the extreme that people are trying to tell other people to shut up.

Fear of the future based on the election of the leader of the 4th Reich isn’t hyperventilation. It’s reality. So, wag a civil tongue, because until the new Fürher stops all free speech, it’s still a good idea around here.

Second of all, review the last 50 years of Republican presidencies and tell em how many of them were savagely and openly racist towards all non-whites, how many of them were quite vocal in their adoration of sexual assault and how many of them were excited about using nuclear weapons against enemies.

…crickets…

12

Let’s add his thirst for revenge that’s he’s clearly demonstrated for decades and his threats to muzzle the press.

13

Look on the bright side … all those bogus Mexican passports are sky-rocketing in price !!!

14

The presidency is not an entry-level job.

15

And he’s not a Republican president-He is a con artist who was the first presidential candidate to refuse to let his own campaign vet him for possible problems. That message the voters sent to the White House? It just got stamped “RETURN TO SENDER”…and it’s ticking.

16

Cute, but not really relevant.

There are plenty of folks with roughly Trump’s experience who could handle the presidency. Trump’s problem is not lack of experience but lack of curiosity, lack of interest in anything not-Trump, and his mean-spirited, spiteful personality.

17

In retrospect, that seems to have been a sound plan. His supporters just don’t care about his manifest shortcomings. As long as he complains about immigrants, makes noises about somehow stopping globalization, and promises to appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court, his supporters don’t care about what else he says or vilifies or gropes.

18

There is absolutely a risk of this happening eventually, but it would require more vacancies. There is a pro-Roe majority on the current court and the single justice Trump gets to appoint right off the bat will not change that…yet. Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was decided 5-3.

A WV mining executive, maybe.

19

I’d disagree. No matter how savvy and smart the individual, with “relevant” experience, if they don’t have a few years in the national political world, with personal connections, experience and general learning what rope’s tied to what… they are going to flail uselessly a large part of the time.

The Presidency is not an entry level job to national politics. Even a year or two as Senator might be enough, but there is no other “relevant” experience no matter how many CEO positions they might have held.

20

[quote=“Amateur_Barbarian, post:1, topic:771203”]

[li]Roe v. Wade will be on the October docket. And struck by year’s end.[/li][/QUOTE]

This is the one of the things I heard more and more in the closing days that doesn’t really have any basis. Trump putting another Scalia-like conservative on the Court would just keep the status quo of the Court’s composition. Kennedy is the swing vote who has voted to keep the basic constitutional right (well, actually the constitutional right to privacy, which implicates abortion, etc.) to an abortion more or less intact. So, even with a Scalia-like replacement, the current vote on this issue is still 5-4 in favor of the status quo.

[QUOTE]

[li]The EPA will be dismantled.[/li][/QUOTE]

If Reagan (and Bush I and Bush II) managed to keep the EPA around, Trump probably will too. He will just neuter it by placing an anti-EPA administrator in charge.