Yes, one suspects Trump certainly believes that in years to come he will be running the master race and will be studied by all Americans as part of their compulsory education.
Let’s see if I can grok this…
Trump is will be terrible for the country, but he will be effective at being terrible?
Trump makes outlandish proposals that will never happen, like making Mexico pay for a wall, but he will be effective?
You don’t know what his goals are, yet his policy proposals are at his website.
He’ll cause global unrest, conflict, and maybe even nuclear war, he’ll pardon every crony he knows, all the while letting his VP run the government.
The levels of exaggeration to demonize are creating an anchor that makes Trump seem not really that bad. If the expectation is that he’s going to be just the worst ever, reality is he’ll probably exceed expectations.
Let me see if I “grok” this: Rather than present a coherent idea of your own as to what Trump will accomplish in office, you decide to conflate/exaggerate several posters thoughts as to what might happen and present it as a single contradictory idea.
If there are any contradictions to be found, they are there because Trump continuously contradicts himself.
I’m not surprised you’ve missed the point again. I didn’t present a coherent idea of what Trump will accomplish in office because I don’t think he’ll accomplish anything significant in office. I’ve stated as much.
You seem to think Trump is so good at what he does, he’ll be able to enact the worst possible outcome imaginable. I simply don’t think that’s likely. I think it’s more likely he’ll be ineffective and not a whole lot will be done. But you’re the one arguing that he’ll be able to do all of this bad and nefarious stuff. Why do you think he’ll be so effective?
The attitude of the Republican Party and the Republicans on this board a year ago about his so-called “ineffectiveness” in his effort to become the Republican candidate makes any talk about his ineffectiveness as a President ring pretty fucking hollow. Who the hell is going to oppose him? It sure as shit won’t be any of the Republicans-they just showed us their willingness to take it up the ass.
Why don’t you tell us what specifically will make him so damn ineffective and supposedly powerless.
You’ve heard these stories about other party members not supporting him right? You’ve acknowledged the screwups by the campaign yes? You’ve read here on the board fairly staunch conservatives saying they will vote for Hillary, yes? He’s constantly criticized by members of his party, talk of constant infighting, continual discussion about replacing him as a candidate, etc. He doesn’t have wide spread support and the best argument in favor of Trump’s candidacy seems to be that he’s not Clinton. Do these things lead you to believe that Trump will be an effective leader?
Your only proposition that he will be able to do all the evil nefarious things people seem to be so afraid of is that he got the nomination in a week field as an underdog. Why don’t you tell us what specifically will make him so damn effective and supposedly powerful. The Senate will still be able to block legislation, the courts in most jurisdictions will still be stacked, though if he gets SCOTUS noms then that’s a real thing.
Trump can do an awful lot of damage as an ineffective leader though.
He can start the wall with Mexico and begin mass deportations, then lose interest in finishing a task that requires more attention span than he has. It’ll be the worst of all worlds - massive short-term disruption and ill-will, with no long-term change or benefit.
He can ignore his NATO responsibility and promise nukes for everyone as China and Russia decide to split up Eurasia between them.
He can fill up the courts for decades with case after case of maybe-terrorists arrested and tortured and denied their civil rights. And he just might also fill up the courts with judges who don’t think that’s a bad thing.
He can shut down the government every time Congress passes a bill he doesn’t want to sign.
And so on. Trump’s supporters largely hope that he’ll dismantle Washington, and you do not have to be an effective leader to make that happen. Ineffectiveness from Congress is already dismantling Washington even without the President’s help. (And I’m all for small government, but you have to take it apart slowly and intentionally, not just pull out a wrecking ball and rule from atop the rubble. In that respect, Cruz is just as bad as Trump.)
Cruz is worse. Trump would flail around with a sledgehammer while Cruz would drill holes and place the demolition charges, carefully calculated for maximum effect.
Two words.
Executive order.
What type of executive order do you think could occur that would be so damaging?
Pretty much any of them. The only check on them is the Supreme Court, and they don’t actually have the power to stop them, just declare them unconstitutional. There’s no enforcement mechanism.
The only other option is impeachment by Congress, but we’ve never had a successful conviction from impeachment. And we see first hand that there is this weird party loyalty ethic in the Republicans. Getting enough to impeach him is hard, and Trump is exactly the type of person who would push it that far, rather than backing off because of the threat. He for some reason cannot actually back down.
Congress is ineffectual, and they are the only thing that could actually stand in the way of Trump if he were president. It would take them actually growing some balls and actually working together to stop him.
And, even though I would hold out hope of that eventually happening, Trump could do a lot of damage in the interim. He’s the first candidate for president I’ve seen that is dumb enough to accidentally fuck us over as well as capricious enough to do it intentionally if someone makes him angry.
This isn’t really an answer. Keep in mind that EOs only impact the executive branch just like pardons are only for federal crimes. The risk of doomsday seems quite overblown.
Trump can issue as many executive orders as he wants. Unless he has the people in place to carry out those orders or somehow correctly compartmentalizes the information so that each person that takes part in the execution of the order is unable to see the illegality of what he’s ordering, people can just ignore what he says if it’s clearly something that shouldn’t be done.
Are you serious? The executive branch that includes the DoD, DoJ, DHS, every intelligence organization there is, DoE, Commerce, and Treasury to name a few? I think if you use your imagination you can come up with some fairly unpalatable possibilities. Possibilities that can only be ended well after the fact.
You may be willing to chomp into the Trump pie yourself, but at least do the rest of us the favor of not insulting our intelligence.
In case you haven’t noticed, Trump prefers to hire sycophants rather than competent people. You can see this in the convention: nobody thought to review his wife’s speech with standard plagiarism software. They got 2 competent speechwriters to put it together, then didn’t tell them when their draft had been tossed. A ghostwriter wholly inexperienced with political speeches took over.
If his underlings break the law while obeying his instructions, Trump will simply pardon them. He can do that. It’s only tradition and fear of electoral consequence that has stopped Presidents from doing that. But Trump doesn’t care about tradition or his effects down ballot.
So yeah, executive orders would be enormously powerful.
You mean something like pardoning 140 people in the very last hours of his Presidency? Like Bill Clinton did? The pardons that Jimmy Carter called disgraceful?
Kinda like that?
I don’t like Trump but I suspect that he has a strategy that freaks people out. I believe Trump starts out thinking of everything as a negotiation and his opening position is way beyond what he wants. Then later asks for something reasonable and he is more likely to get it.
I think Trump, if elected, will be much mellower policy wise than everyone thinks. I also think, if elected, he will still say crazy shit.
In any case, Johnson is getting my vote.
Slee
Actually no. Nothing like that. Did Clinton order his underlings to commit illegal acts, then pardon them? No?
There’s no parallel here. None.
Oh, and George Bush commuted his underling Scooter Libby’s sentence at the end of his term. That isn’t in the same ballpark as what I described either. If you want a comparison, think about Trump offering to pay the legal fees of those who attack protestors. Still not the same magnitude, because the stakes are lower. But more apt and relevant, since we’re talking about a guy who is actually running for office now.
Trump’s speech tonight - well, I think there is potential there for a brilliant presidency, one that could pleasantly surprise his naysayers, and one that could lead to a landslide reelection in 2020. I might vote for the guy.
What, specifically, was the part that made you think Trump would be brilliant?
Did you see or hear the speech?