We already have President Biff. According to the link, Trump was the model for Biff.
"President of the United States Donald Trump" still seems vaguely unreal. Anyone else feel this way?
I have done the exact same thing - except my voice is a mix of despairing and appalled rather than incredulous.
Ronald Reagan would disagree with you if he were alive. Although he had political experience first, as governor of California.
Edit - ninja’d!
One of the best summaries of the situation I’ve read. The amazing thing, as so many of the BS promises and random pronouncements are already being reneged on, is all the supporters pointing out that they knew all along he wasn’t serious. So, they supported him because they were pretty sure he was a pathological liar?
Well, it certainly all fits. Life imitating art imitating life.
Reagan was a B-film actor who was most noteworthy for staring in a role opposite a chimpanzee (Bedtime for Bonzo) prior to being president of the Screen Actors Guild and then governor of California. Donald Trump is–to give him credit–a legitimate popular culture icon, headlining his own reality television show and plastering his name on every flat surface he could find in the tri-state region. Reagan, for his faults, did have actual policy statements and a reasonably consistent ideology; Donald Trump has the digital equivalent of brain-farts spewed across the Internet with a peculiar focus on Rosie O’Donnell who hasn’t been culturally relevant in nearly a decade. In fact, O’Donnell probably owes some kind of promotional fees to Trump for even bringing her name back into the public consciousness. I had a point when I began this but it has since disappeared like a Mexican waiter at a Trump hotel.
John Oliver: “That leaves us with two bad options: Either we just elected a president who didn’t mean a single word he said, or we elected one who did.” (Oliver, by the way, appears to have lifted the line from Arthur C. Clarke, who said, "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”)
Trump doesn’t value the truth even enough to care that he’s lying. He boasts of his business acumen even though the bulk of his businesses have not made money, his flagship casino properties have been taken over by investors because they rapidly went into default, he invested in mortgage debt right before the mortgage market took the largest financial dump in history, and sold “Trump Steaks” through The Sharper Image, otherwise known as that store at the airport that you use to waste time looking at overpriced plastic shit made in China in between flights, and apparently no longer has retail locations so why the fuck wouldn’t you just order your shitty Christmas gifts for relatives you are thankful you only see once a year at cut-rate prices from Amazon.com? Anyway, Donald Trump is objectively a mediocre business personality at best, and has demonstrated no actual aptitude for running anything as large or significant as the parks and recreation department of a small municipality, so why would anyone believe him to be qualified for running the economic, technological, and military powerhouse of the developed world?
The only answer I can come up with that doesn’t give some extremely depressing view of humanity at large is that Hillary Clinton was such a terrible candidate that she couldn’t even give a crocodile a run for the money. Clinton was a Democratic stalwart, a good fundraiser, and objectively at least a pretty good senator who managed to get bipartisan agreement for her and other initiatives at a time when obstructionism was a mantra among the GOP. But she was also about as publicly appealing as a dead fish, and came along with the appearance of entitlement and corruption by the same interests who donated heavily to her foundation. That Trump could be the default choice for anyone who isn’t a white nationalist or terminally ignorant speaks volumes to just how bad the choices were in this election (and the ‘alternative’ candidates weren’t any better).
In a population of 320 million people, we should be able to do much better than this.
Stranger
This is why I wake up every damn morning from a great dream and instantly feel my heart sinking because I remember trump is president. He is incompetent and advised by people who care nothing for America. I fear his followers and advisors are trying to disolve our union.
What’s even MORE sobering is that one day flags will be flown at half mast for this person, on the occasion of his death. Official portraits will hang of he and his good lady wife. I find these and other small “atrocities” to be stomach-churning.
Here’s how it struck me.
The other day I was watching Obama speak at the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony. He was in his element and at his best. Especially when he made Ellen DeGeneres cry. Then I thought, *what if Trump was doing this presentation?
*
After I did a first-quality spit-take, I laughed as hard as I could then cried a solitary tear under soft lighting.
Hello everyone.
To me, it seems more surreal. It’s scary that the American people have lost so much faith in our government. We’ve elected a person who’s never worked in government or served in the military, and that’s a first. I’m 34. This was the fourth presidential election that I’ve been able to vote in, and the first that I elected not to. That was not an easy decision. When push came to shove I knew that I personally would not vote for Trump, but I also wasn’t thrilled about Hilary. So much so that I sat this one out.
I hope that he does a great job. I really do.
Great-Yet another person who sat on “The Fence of False Equivalency”. Nobody asked you to be “thrilled”, but if you couldn’t recognize that one candidate was worse than the other, well…I think the following pertains to all of you that passively “hope” that things will work out without any personal effort:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke
To compare Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan is to do a great disservice to Reagan, even if you absolutely hated Reagan he had political experience way beyond The Donald, and knew how the game was to be played.
Reagan was a life long Democrat until switching to a conservative Republican in 1962. Was a twice elected union president. And a twice elected governor of California, California for Christ’s sake.
You can hate Reagan all you want, but to compare his political experience to Trump is way out of line. Like Trump, he benefited from weak opposition, but he knew the game, at least at first. Trump has no idea.
The are difference buffoons all together. (insert Airplane joke)
They are different bufoons.
I am comparing them only in that they were figures who were a presence in popular culture before ascending to the presidency. I was refuting a claim that was made, which is just not true. While I despise Reagan, I recognize that by the time he was elected president he had decades of political experience. He was bad for the nation and arguably his policies led to the phenomenon of President-Elect Trump, but in terms of experience or competence Trump isn’t fit to lick Reagan’s boots.
You’re entitled your opinion, and I understand where you are coming from.
Now on this point, I strongly disagree. I put in every bit of effort that I have to give every day to provide for my wife and 3 children. Going and standing in line at church for an hour and casting a vote is not some sort of act of patriotism if you don’t think either option is fit for office. The hard work, that keeps America ticking is the work that all of us put in everyday, regardless of who’s in office. Washington (and corporate America, in Trump’s case) are so far removed from this that it’s sickening.
I think that they were both very dangerous candidates (and I’m a democrat… I’ve voted Kerry, Obama, Obama). I promise you that I put A LOT more time and thought in that no vote than a lot of people who cast ballots for whomever.
Donald Trump isn’t going to do a great job of anything except lining the pockets of Donald Trump and family. We’ve already seen in his pre-inauguration preparation for transition he has selected a bevy of truly awful and unqualified advisors, verbally attacked media representatives for showing him in a less than favorable light in a meeting intended to establish good working relationships with the media, tweeted out criticisms against protesters and the cast of Hamilton for expressing their opinions as protected by the First Amendment, and generally reversing many of his strongest statements during the election such as building a wall on the Mexican borders (and making Mexico pay for it), appointing a special prosecutor to investigate and charge Hillary Clinton, or immediately rounding up and deporting millions of illegal immigrants. Sure, it may be a good thing he’s not doing these things, but then that begs the question of what his actual agenda is and who is driving it.
Stranger
Stranger,
I agree with you. I didn’t say that I’m confident that he’ll do a great job - I’m far from it.
But, I do hope that he manages, somehow, someway, to do a good job. I think to wish for anything else would be making that leap from a liberal to a radical. I’m not going to do that.
What do you think of his appointment choices so far?
The Breitbart guy is terrifying. The home school lady scares me a little bit also, at least from I’ve heard about her the past few days. Honestly, I didn’t know anything about her before the appointment.
** EDIT **
I shouldn’t say that he is terrifying, but Trump’s lack of judgement on that appointment was terrifying.
Don’t worry about it-You’ve still got your hope to keep you safe, right?
Yeah… What else can you have? My life is going to go on, matter who he appoints. There just isn’t any other way to proceed in my opinion.
- Do I like it? NO
But, I also think some of things that Hillary has done are equally as dangerous.
I think that Donald Trump was the 2nd least popular presidential candidate of all time, and he happened to be running against the least popular candidate of all time. We’ve had 8 years to identify & prep a candidate for this election, yet EVERYONE has known from the day Obama took the Office that Hillary was next in line and I haven’t met A SINGLE democrat who was ever thrilled about that option.