MEBuckner, what you’re describing is exactly what I’m afraid of. Trump will lie, misstate, shift blame, and continue to act the way he always does, because in his mind, only results matter. He got elected despite all the lies, misstatements and shift blaming. If his efforts actually lead to decrease in unemployment, lower taxes, more benefits for all, and any other issues that improve approval ratings, the ends will have justified the means. That means values such as honesty, integrity, trust and personal accountability will mean nothing.
The president is the country’s biggest role model, and if his tactics pay off, that means more will follow his example. If a parent scolds a child for lying, the child can say “What’s wrong with that? The president does it!” If somebody refuses to pay their debts and are sued, they can claim “The president does the same thing” and possibly set a precedent. (Haha. I used the correct spelling.) If Trump’s methods are successful and all the sacred cows are butchered, then criticisms of him become weakened, and the paradigm shift will be massive.
I’m pretty sure that Trump’s legacy will be one that puts Buchanan in second place for “Worst president”.
But if he gets everyone insurance like he promised and builds a strong middle class and everyone is prosperous, safe and it’s not at the expense of scapegoating classes of people or demolishing rights or rampant corruption then groovy. Wouldn’t bet on getting the former and we’ll probably see the latter regardless.
That scenario still depends on Congressional approval, who would fear backlash from their older constituents. Trump doesn’t share those concerns. I think if confronted with crisis, Trump would figure out some way to shift responsibility and avoid making hard decisions. He would never put himself in the role of the victim. That’s not what winners do.
I did not suggest killing half of the people of the world as a solution to overpopulation (above thread a bit) for either of these reasons -
because Trump has suggested doing so
because Stalin or Mao killed people for this reason
Instead, I used that example because I wanted to draw into the sharpest possible relief why it is so important to examine issues closely. There are always at least 2 sides to every issue. Issues are COMPLEX! Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t taken a moment to think.
What Trump has suggested, essentially, is that he’s willing to make decisions without thinking about them first.
Over Population a problem? Kill People! Done!
Not a moment of consideration for the victims. Not a moment of consideration to their families, the businesses for which they work, etc.
This is an extreme example meant, again, to illustrate a point. Let’s take a more “reasonable” example (stolen from up thread).
We need to cut Social Security by 20% to keep it solvent? Fine. Cut it. Done.
Never mind the human cost. Never mind the impact it would have on businesses. Never mind that there are very real alternatives which wouldn’t have these negative results. Never mind THOUGHT. Just cut it. Done. Moving right along…
Society is facing a lot of REAL problems. Problems with no easy answers. Problems where the solution(s) ain’y gonna be making anybody happy.
A career politican…or hell for that matter any half decent person who hates to be hated…won’t MAKE those hard choices…they will tweak this or putz with that…but that very well may NOT solve the problem.
As far as I can tell…T Rump don’t give a shit about that…if unpleasant choice X needs to be made…he will make it…hell, he might even enjoy it.
You guys need to watch the Sci Fi movie “Cold Equations”.
That requires believing that Trump will be able to see that unpleasant choice X needs to be made. And even in the world of unpleasant choices career politicians aren’t making, there’s multiple possible unpleasant options to choose between, Trump isn’t instilling confidence in anybody that he’s able to make the better choice.
** billfish678**, Calculating Consequences is what Ethics are all about. What I am hearing is that you believe that it is possible that the leader we really need - the one who could (potentially) do the most good in the world - is one who is utterly without any sense of ethics.
Ah, the old Hollywood fairytale of how there are solutions to all our problems but the Career Politicians just don’t have the guts to Make The Hard Choices! A feature of, well, any TV show or movie where there’s a President.
Life doesn’t work that way. The problem is that a President is very, very rarely faced with a straightforward choice. Issues like international trade, foreign relations, tax policy, criminal law, the division of powers between the federal and state governments, funding for any program - these issues are not problems because of a failure to make the hard choices. They are problems because there are no clear correct choices at all. They’re hard problems to solve, problems full of nuance, different interests, unintended consequences and an unknown future. They’re problems that may not have solutions at all, just mitigations.
The idea that you can solve all this stuff with a quick “hard choice” is part being a Hollywood myth; it’s goddamn dangerous. A “Hard choice” in foreign relations could start the Third World War. A “Hard choice” in trade policy can start a depression. The reason smart men and women in positions of power are very, very careful about making hard choices, and take a middle ground where they can, is because they know the limitations of their knowledge and office and don’t want to start a depression or World War Three.
In 2016, a smart, well-informed person would be especially aware of the danger of the easy lure of the Hard Choice, because they’d notice things are generally not that bad.
The OP’s question is terrible. Heck, most of us seem to not even know exactly WHAT The question is. And a bunch of you seem to be fighting the hypothetical…even though nobody agrees on exactly what it is.
MY point is that Trump will do what most career politicans won’t do. See a solution to a problem and DO IT.
I’m not saying he would be right. I’m not saying he would be insightful. I’m not saying he would actually be solving a “problem” that even existed.
What I AM saying is…TRUMP WILL DO SOMETHING…and after some/maybe just a little /even no thought about said problem…he will do his best TO DO IT…end of story…
He doesn’t care if you get butthurt about it…he doesn’t care if he won’t get re elected…heck, he probably doesn’t care if he eventually goes to jail…or hell for that matter…
And IMO that is defining factor that makes him different than most politicans that have come down the pike lately…
I’m not saying it or him is good or bad…that’s a different thread…I’m just saying that this is his approach…
He is utterly without a sense of Ethics. That what I was trying to get across. You’ve just said it also. He will not consider the consequences of his actions.
I am saying that it is bad. I am not really ashamed to say that I consider it important to elect (and otherwise elevate) people who act Ethically. Many businesses have Ethics related rules. Many governments have Ethics Committees.
As others have noted, a big issue with the question is defining what ‘works’ means. As I’ve said before, the only objective measure of ‘works’ for first term presidents is if they get re-elected. Note, and in reference to previous push back on this statement. I don’t mean that people can’t have heartfelt subjective measures of what ‘works’. And I don’t mean ‘historians’ can’t know better than average people and in the future with some time to analyze and put in context. But we’re a long way from that time and I don’t agree with the apparent belief of some people that there are many in the way of non-partisan historians until long after the president in question dead and gone.
But if we leave it to each person’s interpretation of what ‘works’ means, there’s just no common baseline.
To answer the question rather than quibbling about it, I think Trump’s main potential to get re-elected is to avoid actual big blow ups with other countries over trade, and enact economic policies the GOP Congress will support and which would likely create more growth and happier markets at least in the short term. It would be a continuation of the effect we’ve seen in markets since November.
Even if you wheel in Paul Krugman et al to say the hoped for policies are the wrong ones for average people in the long run, etc. the practical political fact is that more enthusiasm by investors will create a political tailwind for whoever is in office over a horizon like 4 years. You can include the part of the tailwind you think is really due to Obama’s stewardship, or just the business cycle and not due to the US president at all (Clinton at least in part inherited an already developing bounce that was a little too late to save Bush I).
Otherwise Trump has to avoid alienating his base, but I think that’s one thing he’s really good at it. Again if the economy improves rather than going south, which is very hard to talk your way out of as president. Obviously I’m also excluding unpredictable international events where Trump is not the one causing the problem, I’m saying if he doesn’t cause it. For example a crisis over NK nuke capable ICBM’s is coming sooner or later. It won’t be because of Trump. Clinton, Bush II, and Obama policies have not headed it off, nor will Trump be able to if it occurs in his first term, no matter what he tweets.
Can he make his approach work? Phrased that way, one sees the words “work” and “make”, which suggests that if he hears that, the answer will be obvious: outsource it to Asia. He will be Bullish on the China shop.
A career politician is much more likely than Trump to make an actual hard choice - instead of one that just hurts other people at no cost to himself - and is *capable *of actually doing so. Trump couldn’t do much of anything constructive if he tried, which he won’t.
No he can’t, save by sheer luck. He’s incompetent and a monster; he does nothing but harm. His career is full of people who made the mistake of thinking they could somehow profit from associating from him, and lost big because of it.
Why? He doesn’t care about solving problems. He cares about profit and boosting his ego. He’s also an incompetent. He couldn’t “solve problems” if his life depended on it, he causes them; his entire career is one of leaving a trial of economic wreckage behind him.
He will cause major damage to the US, because* that’s what he does* to anything he has any control over.
Would you like to have an actual discussion about Trump and XYZ?
Or is your hatred of him (well founded or not) such that you can not see past that?
I dislike Hillary with the passion of …well… a few hundred burning suns…but I’d like to think I could, without too much bias, make arguements about what she did right and what she did wrong…
Since a few of you are asking the definition of “works”:
I mean what if his policies are considered successful? Example: because of the Great Wall of Mexico and Muslim registry, immigration-related crime decreases. Because of his tax incentive deals, less Americans lose their jobs. Because of his disdain for bureaucracy, paperwork gets processed faster.
These examples do not take into account the flip side, such as increased Muslim aggression resulting from the registry, the Great Wall being too costly too maintain, more corporate bosses getting insanely rich while the income gap widens even further, and so on. The benefits will generally be more apparent earlier than the drawbacks, and he might be out of office before the latter sets in. He’ll still gloat in triumph about the immediate gains and let the next administration deal with the fallout.
So by “works,” I mean in the short term, maybe 2-3 years. Will the American people decide his example is the better way to go through life? Will the financial douchebags and incubi increase in number? Will the strong crush more weak under their heels?
One more thing: I’m not asking whether Trump’s actions and policies are wrong or right. That’s a topic for Great Debates and ultimately The Pit. I’m asking what if they actually yield positive results?
Will American values change? Will honesty, integrity and responsibility be wiped out in favor of more Trump-like virtues?
I suppose, to be honest, I can say that they might be valid lines of inquiry in a setting like this one that encourages speculation. So, my contribution to the speculation (my WAG) would be that if either a Hard Left or Hard Right leader were elected - and served nobly and successfully and ethically and in a dedicated and self-effacing manner - that person’s political ideas and policies would take their rightful place in the history of this country, providing inspiration and guidance for many years to come.
This is a little like asking: If I were to somehow PROVE that gravity doesn’t exist, would the scientific community accept the validity of my claim?
The answer is (IMHO): Yes. They would accept it. It would take time. It would take effort. But, if the substance of the argument and the test data was significant enough, one theory of physics would fall and another would rise.
What mess? The country’s in better shape than when Obama took office. Just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s a mess.
When you’re talking about problems for which a drastic solution is the only option, you have no ground to stand on. History is full of examples of presidents acting drastically in response to emergencies, like entering two world wars, dropping the A-bomb, bailing out banks to prevent a global financial meltdown, even initiating a civil war to keep the union together. One of the draws of the presidency is the chance to make history, and history isn’t made by doing nothing. I don’t know where you get the idea that presidents, whether they’re career politicians or not, forsake their duty in times of crisis as a matter of course.
Invoking drastic measures in the absence of a crisis is what gets presidents into trouble (see “invasion of Iraq”). Social security isn’t a crisis yet, so there’s no need to go nuclear on it. There’s still time to gradually and continually reduce the budget deficit (like someone has been doing for the last eight years;)) without causing widespread hardship and a shock to the economy.