Really? Like who?
The Moderate Republican has been sitting at the same table as the Woolly Mammoth and the Great Auk.
Oh? Well, good, but just for reassurance, how many would that be? Would that include the “Never Trump” Republicans who have been rather quiet, of late? You depending on them, or maybe the ones who have had their Come to Donald Moment and seen the Darkness? They are going to stand up to him?
Will they stop him on immigration deform? Will they stand firm against shitting on Muslims and gays? No, they will cheerfully cooperate on that.
So, what do you expect they are going to “rein him in” on?
The reason to fear Trump isn’t that he’ll build a wall (he won’t), or that he’ll deport millions of people (he won’t), or that he’ll start a trade war with China (he won’t), or that he’ll find a way to enrich himself while in office (he will).
The reason to fear Trump is that he’s a dangerous buffoon that is easily manipulated by those skilled at flattery and appealing to his narcissism. He is the very definition of the Kruger-Dunning effect and he’ll be the perfect puppet for anyone with an arm long enough to shove it up his ass to make his lips move.
Trump cannot tolerate criticism.
He has already said that he wants to change laws so that he can sue any media entity that published something he doesn’t like. And he has before him the shining example of Gawker being put out of business by his ardent supporter Peter Thiel, who bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s libel suit against the site.*
Trump would like to put The New York Times and The Washington Post out of business. He would like it very much.** (And of course, not just the Times. How will this site fare, for example, if it’s hit with massive lawsuits–not just under existing laws, but under any enhanced libel laws that state legislatures, eager to qualify for federal goodies, might be willing to enact…?
If Trump gets his way, there will be no Woodward, no Bernstein. There won’t even be little ol’ us, commenting on what Trump does.
There will be nothing but Hymns of Praise throughout the land. (Or else.)
**
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-libel-laws-219866
To be fair, for now he seems to be retreating on this idea, mainly because someone pointed out to him. “You know, you might be sued a lot more.” (Why Trump isn’t likely to open up libel laws)
The Post seems remarkably certain of which of Trump’s self-contradictory statements he will adhere to.
All I know is that he has not, to date, shown that he can tolerate criticism.
Apples and oranges. Obama was a moderate Democrat with a detailed plan of governance, and reasonable people could easily foresee most of what he would attempt to do. Paranoid speculations about extreme doomsday scenarios are not what we’re talking about here.
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
I thought those fears just as ridiculous as I think the fear of Trump is now, that he’s going to become a dictator and (yep) tear up the Constitution.
[/quote]
This is largely a strawman. The OP didn’t ask you for reasons not to fear Trump “becoming a dictator” or “tearing up the Constitution”. There are plenty of other much more realistic negative outcomes to worry about.
You responded to concerns over environmental issues by assuring us that President Trump wouldn’t literally destroy the earth, and now you’re responding to concerns over more general governance issues by assuring us that President Trump won’t literally become a dictator or revoke the Constitution.
Are you really not aware that there is lots of extremely credible middle ground between those extreme doomsday scenarios and “no reason at all to fear”?
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
As for illegal immigrants Trump has said time and time again that his main focus will be on immigrants who commit crimes
[/quote]
Oh, so when you said “Yes, if you’re an illegal alien you have cause to fear him, but then that’s the consequence of entering a country illegally”, you were just bullshitting about the mere fact of undocumented status being a cause for deportation?
Sheesh, Trump supporters can’t even keep straight from one discussion to the next what they expect him to do (though tbh Trump’s flipflopping is so convoluted that one can’t really blame them).
Make up your mind, aldiboronti: is Trump going to be instituting mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants simply for being undocumented, because “that’s the consequence of entering a country illegally”, or is he going to confine the crackdown to “immigrants who commit crimes”?
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
Trump is going to do things that you don’t like.
[/quote]
We’re absolutely sure of that. What we’re asking you in this thread is: what things will those be? And why do you feel confident that none of them qualify as a cause for serious concern about Trump’s Presidency?
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
If he tries to go too far there are more than enough moderate Republicans in Congress to rein him in.
[/quote]
How many? Can you name, say, any five of these so-called “moderate Republicans” that you feel can be trusted to “rein him in”? What sort of action, specifically, would count as Trump “going too far” in the view of these “moderates”?
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
Trump is not Hitler.
[/QUOTE]
As I’ve been saying all along, the problem with such reassurances is that they are setting the bar way too fucking low.
No rational person in the world thinks that Trump is literally as bad as Hitler, so that particular reassurance is not necessary. But the issue you’re consistently failing to confront is that a President can do a hell of a lot of damage in the nation and the world without being anywhere near as bad as Hitler.
And that is a very reasonable thing to be concerned about with a President as ignorant, irresponsible, unstable, and greedy as Trump.
Originally Posted by aldiboronti
“Trump is not Hitler.”
I think you just came up with the bumper sticker for 2020.
BTW may 2020 live up to its namesake and provide some clarity in the electorate that was sorely missing in 2016. Amen.
He has nominated quite a few very troubling people for Cabinet positions. But that’s not anything, right?
In the first place, no, there aren’t.
And in the second place, note this:
Trump posse browbeats Hill Republicans
Lawmakers are loath to say anything remotely critical, fearful they might set off the president-elect or his horde of enforcers.
My bold.
I think Trump just gave you the bird flip on that.
No interventionst vibes from that Trumpino?
Or the following rotter, whose book Field of Fight, is, kinda, wwwelllllll, intervention-y, kinda?
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/flynns-warped-worldview-and-trumps-foreign-policy/ (not exactly an immediate go-to source of mine)
Name one.
Prescient speculation notwithstanding - cite.
Not sure if I should hold out much hope for what Trump might accomplish with infrastructure.
Even though I’m north of the border I’m definitely not dancing any jig over what the next four years might have in store.
Lady, if he tells the Russian Ambassador to move into the White House and orders the Atlantic Fleet to sail to Murmansk to be interned, then yeah there is a reason to freak out. Until it happens, no need to get your blood pressure riled up
:rolleyes: Looks like I’m going to need a macro to save constantly re-typing the following quote:
There is a whole lot of cause for concern in the broad middle ground between “tells the Russian Ambassador to move into the White House” and “nothing to worry about”.
It is remarkable how cavalierly the conservatives and Trump supporters seem to be tossing around these speculative straw scenarios, like climate science deniers blithely telling people not to worry about global warming because it’s unlikely to the point of impossibility that the Earth will literally cease to exist. :dubious: Not all that comforting, actually.
I guess what they’re trying to tell us (or trying to avoid telling us) is that they got absolutely nothin’ in the way of credible reassurance about the many realistic causes for concern that the OP and other posters have been asking about.
Just to touch on a couple of those items…
People are losing health care BECAUSE of ACA. Getting rid of it is a good thing. It is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress.
Obama has already made us an international laughing stock. Your fear of loss of respect is way late.
There is, and has been, absolutely absolutely no indication of future environmental degradation. And Trump sure as hell isn’t in charge of climate change. That would be The Sun.
The rest of the items really don’t need to be responded to, simply because they are just Chicken Little squawkings.
I’m sure conservatives would find a way to hand-wave these things away too.
Ooops… not the pit. Damn.
Some people are, while other people are gaining health care because of ACA. It is not honest debating to complain about the former while refusing to acknowledge the latter.
In fact, the net impact of ACA has been to significantly increase the number of insured. As this 2015 Forbes article notes,
[QUOTE=Clothahump]
Obama has already made us an international laughing stock.
[/quote]
Wrong. As I noted in an earlier response to aldiboronti (and why is it I have to keep repeating myself on these points, anyway? aren’t you people reading my carefully researched and crafted posts? :(),
[QUOTE=Clothahump]
There is, and has been, absolutely absolutely no indication of future environmental degradation. And Trump sure as hell isn’t in charge of climate change. That would be The Sun.
[/quote]
:dubious: Okay, you are a full-bore climate science denier. Noted.
(For the sake of readers who haven’t sworn themselves to permanent and willful ignorance on the subject of climate science, though, here is NASA’s introductory summary.)
Even if you’re going to handwave away those remaining points, there are plenty of others. What reasons do you have for thinking that we shouldn’t be worried about the following, for example? (I’m leaving out concerns about NASA/NOAA/etc. cuts and interference because naturally there’s no way that an ideologically committed climate science denier would be able to admit that those could be problems.)
-
Economic impacts of trading disputes with China and consequent increased tariffs on imports
-
Economic impacts of re-embracing failed “supply-side/trickle-down” economic policies that primarily focus on tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations
-
Conflicts of interest in which foreign countries influence the policy choices of President Trump by offering favors and benefits to Businessman Trump
-
Increased obstacles to working Americans’ right to organize due to Republican anti-labor policies
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Increased attacks on abortion rights from the Supreme Court on down
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Increased attacks on marriage equality and other civil rights of LGBTQ people
-
Impacts on seniors and the disabled of cuts to programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Forbes again:
There are dozens more possibilities, but these will do for starters. Please explain why you think that none of these aims of the incoming Republican federal government provides any cause for concern.
Done. Gone.* That was easy peasy.
And thanks for providing reassuring alternative solutions.
Well thank Gronk we have someone exemplary like Don to clean up that diplomatic mess.
You do realise who the new head of the EPA will be, right? Do you even know anything about him?
*hypothetical (just in case there might be anyone obtuse enough to try jump on that)
This is a warning for changing text in the quote box. Normal editorial rules apply: that is, you may indicate omitted portions of a quote by the use of ellipses “…” and you may add text to clarify a word using square brackets (e.g., “her [the sister’s] friend”), but you may not add editorial comments or edit a quote so as to change the substantive meaning; nor may you substitute text such as “some blather” or “more nonsense” inside the
[QUOTE]
tags.
[/moderating]