I just want to know, where there really seven million, two hundred forty-two thousand, six hundred and sixty three Colleens on this board already? And is it hard to remember the whole number?
Interesting:
Res also explained why she is supporting Clinton for president.
“First of all, everyone knows he has no experience. I mean, the idea that he would be president is just ridiculous. I have other developers I worked for who were just smarter than he is – and I wouldn’t vote for them for president either. And I mean, you need to have some experience and some knowledge of government,” she said.
Another person who knew him well who says he’s not particularly intelligent. He’s just very good at conning people during short meetings. He’d never be a success if he hadn’t inherited a fortune.
My bolding.
And just HOW is he going to bring work back to people? Did he lay out any concrete plans or policies? Did he give any indication that he knew a path forward? At all?
Or was this simply rhetoric, happy lies being spread by someone who wants adulation, but has no idea how to do things?
Because that’s what it seems to me. His mouth writes cheques he cannot cash. He’s a bullshitter. And he told people that he’d get them jobs, because that’s what they want to hear. And he has no plan whatsoever about how to do this. Bet he does not give a shit, because he’s all about the bullshit up front, and not much about the actual delivery.
This reminds me almost phrase by phrase of the sales pitch for George W. Bush.
Uniter: check.
Inevitable economic boom: check (at least until the house of cards collapsed).
Charismatic guy you’d want to have a beer with: check.
President-as-CEO, the delegator/decider-in-chief: check.
How many times are we going to swallow this bait?
I do agree that ‘wait and see’ is the right approach until he actually starts doing stuff. We may as well enjoy the holidays.
And so you see, Colleen, what I was talking about regarding the board’s behavior regarding Trump. Most posters here absolutely will try to destroy any positive comment anyone makes about him. Regarding Barbara Res, she had retired from her 19 year executive position with Trump and wanted to see Hillary Clinton elected president, so it’s not surprising she’d denigrate his intelligence and ability toward that end. She and several other women still held very high positions in his companies for a very long time, and that is the salient point: Trump has always promoted and put his trust in capable women employees. (Witness Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager.) There is no glass ceiling with him.
And the claim Trump only got rich because of an inheritance is couldn’t be more wrong. He built his first multi-billion dollar fortune from a one million dollar loan from his father. He then lost it in the early nineties and wound up a billion in debt, after which he successfully recovered and built his second multi-billion dollar fortune. All of this occurred before his father died and left him a sizable inheritance in the late nineties. Trump Tower was built and The Art of The Deal published at least a decade before Trump’s father died. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve explained this on this board already and yet people are still trying to dismiss his success as being the result of his father’s money.
Trust me, you need to take any criticism of Trump you read on this board, and any declaration as to his intelligence and/or abilities, with a huge grain of salt.
Another way to phrase this would be: “Donald Trump, a liar, claims he built a fortune starting from only a million dollar loan.”
You’re the same guy who claimed his he’s only successful because of an inheritance from his father, aren’t you?
No, I’m a billionaire real estate developer who built my fortune starting from only a million dollar loan from my father. And I can teach you to build your own fortune at my university. Don’t have any money? Put the tuition fees on your credit card!
But we are “seeing” right now. His cabinet picks couldn’t be a clearer indication of his direction, and there’s no conciliation, hope, or moderation for a liberal to find in any of them.
“If you like you plan you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.”
Millions more were conned by your guy, and a great many of them are now being forced to pay through the nose for coverage they can’t use because they can’t afford the co-pays and deductibles.
Plus Trump owns or has interests in about 500 other businesses. Funny how the ones that don’t pan out are the only ones that get brought up around here.
Trump holds 500 legal entities. Those aren’t the same things as businesses. For about $2,500 in registration fees you too can own 500 “businesses.” And none of them will fail, making you a better businessman than Trump!
Not so young. My day to day life is not dependent, but it has affected me negatively. More so than any other election.
Thank you for the two links. I read the first Haidt article and will read the second later when I have a bit more time. I appreciate the introduction to him.
Perhaps you missed my post wherein I described my sincere, almost desperate hope that the post-election Trump would reveal a different persona than we had been used to, most notably that we would see the appointment of Cabinet members of proven relevant competency and capable of inclusive and moderate policymaking. Instead we have the situation I described, of appointing not just far-right extremists but mostly extremists hell-bent on destroying the mission of the very agencies they’re supposed to be managing.
But you can just keep right on asserting that I’ve been corrupted by the hive mind of the board. Your guy is even now throwing the country under the bus in his typical style by condemning his own country’s intelligence agencies over the Russian hacking allegations which both the CIA and FBI have confirmed, while Obama tries to take a fact based approach over a critical security issue that appears to be affecting other western democracies, too. Trump finds it suits his interests to deny it. It seems that exactly the same irresponsible over-the-top wingnuttery and self-serving mendacity that we saw during the campaign will be the hallmark of his entire administration.
Trump’s Cabinet appointments remind me of a guy I went to high school with. One of those really smart people who just never applied himself. I ran into him once, while he was working at Target. We talked for a second about absolutely nothing, and I commented that it struck me as odd that he ended up working in a retail department store. He leaned in, and whispered conspiratorially, “actually, Walmart hired me to bring this place own from the inside.”
Develop a secret handshake.
I know this will seem to you like I’m just one of those “Trump can’t do ANYTHING right, no matter what he does I’ll spin it into a negative” types, but … honestly, this about-face really bothers me and it seems quite illuminating about the kind of man Trump is.
If he honestly believes everything he said about Clinton’s criminal behavior, why the hell is he letting her off the hook? Why did he only use her supposed crimes merely as election material, when the “crimes” are pretty serious? Wouldn’t a high profile conviction of someone who compromised national security and used political connections for personal gain send a strong message to other potential wrong-doers? Assuming that he actually believed half of what he said about Clinton’s wrongdoing, it strikes me as bizarre, weak, and disappointing that he doesn’t care about prosecuting that kind of criminal activity. (Let’s not even talk about how he’s reneging on what he promised his supporters - apparently they don’t care whether he actually follows through on anything, so I guess if they don’t feel betrayed, I won’t waste any energy feeling self-rightous on their behalf.)
If, as I personally think is the case, he knew all along that he was spinning grotesque exaggerations at the very least, and sometimes outright lies, about Clinton - and he did it just to get elected, that doesn’t speak well for what kind of man he’ll be in office. It says he thinks it is acceptable to do anything, even if it is dishonest and damaging to other people, just to get what he wants.
I don’t think appointing a special prosecutor to look into Clinton makes sense, so part of me is glad he has backed off. But then, I never pretended I thought it was a good idea in the first place. For Trump to back away now is just evidence of his cynicism and willingness to say anything to get elected, even when he doesn’t mean it.
For the record, I haven’t found your posts in this thread objectionable at all. And I apologize for not having the time to address your question to me in your last post. It’s not that I’ve been ignoring you, it’s just that I’m having a busy day in preparation for a trip out of town.
Your point about Trump in this regard is well founded and one of the main complaints I’ve always had about Bill and Hillary Clinton, which is that they’ll say anything that they think will serve them with the electorate whether they believe it or not.
There’s a saying that Trump’s supporters took him seriously but not literally and his opponents took him literally but not seriously, and I think that’s a pretty good analysis of what was going on pre-election. I know I didn’t take a lot of what he was saying seriously. But still he said enough that I was uncomfortable with to give me pause, and that, combined with his previous history of being somewhat all over the map politically, caused me to decided not to vote for him primarily because I simply couldn’t be confident about anything he might do.
But to get back to Hillary though, I don’t think Trump’s current posture in regard to prosecuting her is necessarily attributable to a cynical plying of the electorate. He yanked the rug right out from under her lifelong ambition, one that she has worked and sacrificed for her entire adult life and at one point thought she was only hours away from attaining. In other words, he came in from out of nowhere and completely destroyed her, and I’m sure it was very tough to hear her voice on the other end of the line on election night when she conceded. It’s also possible that, now that he’s been elected, Trump feels there’s more to be gained in terms of bringing the country together and getting things accomplished than there is in prosecuting a woman who, even if guilty of what he accused her of, is no longer in a position to cause any harm, and whose prosecution is only going to alienate people that he would like to bring over to his side.
Trump has shown a remarkable inclination to let bygones be bygones with a lot of people who’ve done everything they could to oppose him, and I’m thinking that he realizes it’s best to try to bring as many of these people around to his side as possible - at least to the degree that they can work together and get some things accomplished.
So even though on the surface he appears to be doing the same sort of thing in this regard as I’ve always condemned the Clintons for, he’s at least less prolific (by far) and he may have overriding reasons which will play out better for the country in the long run. Conservatives of many stripes have been willing to forgive Trump a lot in order to get someone in office who will shake things up and get things done and I think this is one example, similar to how the evangelicals forgave or overlooked his multiple marriages. So we’ll have to wait and see what kind of job he does, but from my perspective I’m seeing a lot of things I like in how he’s been operating since the election.
"In speeches and public talks, Trump has repeatedly expressed his fondness for retribution. In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, to explain how he had achieved his success. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that successful people must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.” "
Really? Because he’s certainly made no secret of how much he enjoys revenge.
ETA: Ninja’d!