How do you suppose Trump would govern?

Politics & Elections
1

I’m not sure if this is an election topic, per se, since it presupposes that :eek: Trump wins the Presidency. :smack:

How do you suppose he would govern? We’ve seen how he campaigns - brash, rude, crude, simplistic. Would that carry over into his administration? Would President Trump call out other world leaders as “idiots”, or would he suddenly go into “business negotiator” mode and become all silver-tongued and shit? Would he keep up the grade school level jargon, or would he truly hire the best and the brightest to administer within his administration and demonstrate the “brilliance” he likes to tout?

In his history, Trump has supported healthcare reform, taxes, abortion rights, and Democratic politics; is he going to lean left on once he’s elected?

And what of his relationship with congress? If Trump is elected, surely he would bring in a Republican (and likely Tea Party) congress with him, wouldn’t he? Should we expect a Trump presidency to rubber stamp anything they send to him, or do you think he has anything substantive to propose of his own (“Let’s file bankruptcy, dissolve the country, and rebrand. It totally cleans the slate. I like calling us “The Republic United Member Participants”…You know, TRUMP for short.”)?

Considering that other countries are discussing whether he should be banned, our foreign relations are going to start out low under Trump. Does he even attempt to meet with the Mexican President on his wall-building plan, or was that just election puffery? There’s no chance of Russia becoming an ally, is there?

And most importantly, will he take on the long days and nights and inordinate stress that seem to rapidly age President’s during their term? If so, what of the hair? I personally think that he’s correcting for the bald spot in the middle of his head? I bet we get to see it after 4 years!

2

"The message is that there are known knowns. There are things we know that we know.

"There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know.

“But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

– Donald Rumsfeld

3

Contries? Plural?

But I think you’re wrong about Russia. I suspect Putin and Trump would get on quite well and find they had much in common.

4

Yep. UK and Germany make two. But really…isn’t one discussion by an ally enough?

Wouldn’t two huge egos clash in person? Especially after Trump is briefed that Putin has his enemies killed? I have a hard time believing he’d be buddies with Vladimir.

5

One or two legislators calling for a ban is not a “debate”. Britain is expected to have an actual debate in Parliament. Two quite different things.

Why? Take Syria, for example. Trump wouldn’t care about getting rid of Assad. in fact, he’d be happy to keep him in power. He and Vlad could team up on carpet bombing the opposition. Trump, like Putin would not be bothered by such wussy ideas as “collateral damage”.

6

Additionally, when local politicians in Toronto and Vancouver consider even the Trump name on a building to be shameful, you know the guy’s not exactly an international celebrity in any positive sense. And the new PM, politically careful and reticent, nevertheless has no problem using words like “ignorant” and “irresponsible” in describing Trump.

Meh, Putin has his enemies killed, Trump sues his enemies – it’s a culture thing, otherwise same difference. :smiley:

As to how he’d govern … some candidates have predictable ideologies, others have known principles – the only known thing about Trump is that he’s driven by getting rich, becoming famous, and feeding his enormous insatiable ego. Best guess at his governing style is that it would be geared to the above objectives. His failed airline venture, thrice-failed casino ventures, and ill-advised real estate ventures should be the key indicators.

He nominally has a project in Toronto that’s a good microcosm of his whole style – the Trump Hotel & Residences. He’s a minority shareholder who has almost nothing to do with it, the thing has been such an abysmal financial failure that many of the condo investors couldn’t even get mortgages, and last I heard one of the units that was put on the market received one bid for less than half of what the developer was still trying to unload new ones for. But Trump is making out like a bandit, getting vast royalties for the use of his “brand”. It’s a familiar and downright repetitious story. The man is practically a classical con artist. I doubt that anyone really wants to see this enacted on a national scale.

7

Was debated a week ago. Summary response to petition:

“The Government has a policy of not routinely commenting on individual immigration or exclusion cases”

Full response to petition:

Full transcript of debate:

https://hansard.digiminster.com/commons/2016-01-18/debates/1601186000001/DonaldTrump

8

There are two likely scenarios:

  1. Trump the Blowhard. Wants legislation, doesn’t get it, insults everyone within yelling distance, makes a spectacle of himself for his entire Presidency, maybe even quits in disgust since he’s not getting his way. Maybe even gets impeached for doing illegal executive actions in ways that disgust both parties.

  2. The Real Trump. Sure, Trump’s always been a blowhard, but underneath the spectacle is a fairly typical moderate Democrat who has donated to Democratic causes, is friends with the Clintons, and who has never let his personality get in the way of making deals. There’s just no way Trump could be as successful as he’s been without being able to act like an adult when it was time to sit down and negotiate.

In both cases, it’s a one termer for sure. Trump is a Democrat at heart, but Democrats will never like him due to his nativist tendencies and boorish manner(which would be fine if it was only directed at Republicans). And Republican voters will realize they’ve been had.

9

Why not both? When he gets blocked on something he’ll rant and rail against his opponents in public and sit down and talk sensibly with them in private. However I do think he has genuine problems with impulse control that could get him in trouble. However if he wins the election (extremely unlikely) I can’t see that congress would have the balls to impeach him even if he did something blatantly illegal. If the Republicans control congress they won’t impeach one of their own, and if the Dems control congress they won’t want to for fear of it being seen by the public as “revenge” for impeachment of Clinton.

The Dems controlled congress in 2008 and could have impeached Bush for water boarding or lying about intelligence to start a war with Iraq. If they didn’t impeach for that, I can’t see they’d impeach Trump for pretty much anything.

10

Because a Trump impeachment could be bipartisan. But you’re right, it’ll probably be a combination of both. I think in practice he’d just be a louder Bloomberg.

11

As long as he was still popular in the opinion polls I can’t see the Republicans ever impeaching one of their own. No matter how blatant the “high crime and misdemeanour” they’d justify it on “we gotta win the war on terror”,“can’t make an omelet without breaking egg” etc grounds.

12

I think Trump would make speeches promising some big idea or initiative and how great it will be. Before the public can start expecting any results, he’ll be promising something else. All he has to do is keep the hype ahead of the expectations. When there’s good news, like the economy, Trump will take the credit; when there’s bad news he’ll shift the blame.

13

Once we start getting into the details though, it doesn’t actually sound like his Presidency would be all that problematic.

14

Could you elaborate on what details make you believe this?

Trump’s campaigning has not been exactly detail-oriented, so I’m not sure where anyone would find details to determine whether his presidency would be problematic or not. I suppose you could look at his other ventures to see what forms of controversy or problems resulted, but the post is so vague about these “details” that I can’t tell whether you’re doing that or not.

15

I mean what people are saying about how he’d govern in this thread.

16

I don’t know what his goals are but I believe he would be very good as a president if he doesn’t pursue wacko ideas. He is a businessman, he doesn’t have a history of being an ideologue, he’ll work towards what is possible and be willing to compromise. He’ll talk to the public in the manner he does now, but behind close doors he’ll be working through problems. I think he will be after economic stimulus, and he’ll want both tax breaks and spending to do that. I don’t think he’s ready for the devil’s deals that come out of congress though. In business you can rely on the parties to work toward their best interests, which can generally be reduce to dollars and cents. The members of congress see their own best interest as getting re-elected, their stated goals are only to further their lust for power. This would probably derail any real plans he has and leave him frustrated in trying accomplish anything through compromise. In that regard Hillary would actually be the best candidate running as she won’t waste time seeking any real results, just playing the same game as the congress.

Trump will be excellent at foreign affairs. Despite the eyebrows he raises worldwide other countries he will charm the leaders of other countries and work out his type of deal that will give us better long term results. At the same time he’ll probably alienate a lot of Americans in the process.

The problem remains that we don’t know what he’s really after. Given a Republican congress we could end up with tax breaks for the rich and no new spending to prop up the economy short term, which will result in ever increasing costs to us over time, i.e., the Reagan policy. If he does things in the overall public interest he may achieve them simply by tossing away other interests that may even be more important. He is a businessman, well known for doing whatever was necessary for his own interests, as president for the first time he will be representing the interests of others and we have no idea how he would do at that.

If I really knew he was and what his goals were, and those were reasonable goals I’d vote for him readily and expect him to much better at achieving those goals than other presidents. Unfortunately as the election process continues that picture will become fuzzier and not clearer.

Oddly, I see him as something like Obama, more centrist than he speaks and the public believes, accomplishing a few things, but unable to unite the country behind any real progress. Sadly that may be the best any potential president can do for us anyway.

Of course the worst case is that he really is a right wing true believer on issues like the economy, immigration, and healthcare, and that he’s capable enough to reverse the snail’s pace progress of we’ve made in these areas.

A couple of things to keep in mind, he’s not strongly anti-union, he knows that unions can deal. He’s probably in favor of infrastructure improvements, he recognizes that as a legitimate economic concern. He’s not anti-immigration despite his populist approach to the subject, again, he recognized the economic interest we have in immigration. On the flip side I don’t think he cares that much about civil rights, not an opponent, but not someone who considers that a high priority. I have no idea what he will do in terms of appointing judges, which is scary with the supreme court. And over all I don’t see him as having a long term vision for the country. His idea of making America great again doesn’t sound like a ground up approach, I think he just means a short term, and probably hollow economic boost.

17

How has Trump built his empire? From where he started to where his empire is now? Has he been rude, loud, boorish, egomaniacal, chauvinistic, fearful of immigrants, weak on details, disrespectful to other (business) leaders? Business-wise, by at least some measures he is successful, but how did he get there? Did he crush other business owners in vicious takeovers? Did he accumulate other companies, only to break them up and fire their employees?

I don’t know the answers to all of these questions. But going back to the early 1980s and the upstart football league, the USFL, Trump’s brash ego and greed were at least contributing factors if not major reasons why that league failed. But what about his empire and how he built it?

18

Hi Alley Dweller, what is meant by this quote? Rumsfeld is an idiot, yes, but this quote does make sense. We all know what we do and don’t know. And we all have unknown blind spots too. Those who aren’t aware of this are naïve at best and ignorant and dangerous at worst.

19

He built his empire through good business. Like all other successful businessmen that includes ups and downs. His public persona is just a marketing gimmick, he’s a hard working, careful businessman. He’s been in the real estate business so Romney like takeovers and dissolutions aren’t his approach, he actually built real things that didn’t exists before. His employees are highly complimentary as are the most of the other businessmen he’s dealt with. The USFL failure had nothing to do with him, he just made a bad choice investing in an unworkable concept.

20

It means what you said. Knowing that there are things you don’t know is constituent component of wisdom. Unfortunately Rumsfeld was not a wise person.