# The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070 "2016-12-07T00:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 732
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14625 "2017-12-22T19:21:56Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Based on what we have observed, it is very likely he forgot where he left it. Based on how Pence walks, I think I found it. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14626 "2017-12-22T20:07:08Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Speaking of backstabbers, get a load of 'dis guy lately: > > [Bannon Jokes Trump Is 'Like an 11-Year-Old Child' - Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-trump-like-11-year-old-child-2017-12) > > Trump is “like an 11-year-old child” > > I also found it interesting how Bannon recently seemed convinced that Trump’s cabinet is going to stage a coup using the 25th Amendment. Seems to me Trump’s not the only one living in conspiracy theory land. Seems to me Bannon is projecting his own smouldering resentment at a White House that he failed to fit into. I keep hoping that one day I’ll read in the news that Bannon finally drank himself to death. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14627 "2017-12-22T20:10:48Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > I keep hoping that one day I’ll read in the news that Bannon finally drank himself to death. He looks to be well vaccinated. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14628 "2017-12-22T21:06:50Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Or you could just not give a fuck about truth and gaslight people, which seems to be what everyone in the Trump administration is doing. It’s very Hitleresque, Putinesque. They’re not shying away from the truth; they’re just saying that the truth doesn’t apply to them, that there are new rules that everyone else are going to have to play by, and the rule is, ‘the truth is whatever the fuck we say it is.’ What people watching need to understand is that this isn’t a joke; it’s a deadly serious assault on democratic political norms, and **it’s completely incompatible with democratic outcomes.** Sounds familiar… _“That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”_ – Karl Rove, during the G.W. Bush years ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14629 "2017-12-22T21:32:14Z")
US Ambassador to the Netherlands denies that he ever made comments about Muslim terrorism in the Netherlands and calls a reporter who called him on it fake news. When pointed to a video which shows him saying it, he says, “Well, I never said it was in the Netherlands, and I never called it fake news.” > **[US ambassador denies own comments, then denies denial | CNN Politics](https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/22/politics/us-ambassador-to-netherlands-denies-own-comments/index.html)** > > The new US ambassador to the Netherlands lied twice to a Dutch news crew about 2015 comments he made saying the country was in chaos because of Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14630 "2017-12-22T22:32:32Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Nothing to be gained by war with North Korea? I’m not so sure, although I would prefer a more competent president prosecute it. To me, it’s like knowing a crazy cult is openly building bombs in the middle of a residential neighborhood. If you do nothing, today and tomorrow and probably next week and next month will be far more pleasant. But what about next year? And if everyone in the neighborhood knows about the cult, why haven’t they moved away? > > IOW at a certain point it’s not our fault if people disregard their own safety so blindly as to live in Seoul. Were I South Korean, I would get my family far away. Maybe to the U.S., like my older kids’ aunt (my ex-wife brother married a South Korean expat), or at least to the southern end of the peninsula. Frankly, it’s irresponsible of South Korea not to have relocated the population center long ago. Nukes aside, there are an absurd number of artillery guns trained on that city. Talk about Damocles’s sword! > > I guess we are fortunate that there are no other countries in the world as batshit crazy as North Korea. But what precedent are we setting in treating them so gingerly? The path all the foreign-policy “realists” seem to want to choose strikes me as providing an incentive for future such regimes, instead of making an example of them for no one else to have any interest in following. What nonsense. How do you propose the population of 51 million people leave the country en masse? Where are they going to go? To the US, where bigots like Trump and his supporters are increasing the level of xenophobia? Oh, you blithely tossed in a suggestion to move to the southern end of the peninsula. How do you expect that to work when there are already millions of people living there? Damn, you are fucking stupid. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14631 "2017-12-22T22:42:39Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > What nonsense. > > How do you propose the population of 51 million people leave the country en masse? Where are they going to go? To the US, where bigots like Trump and his supporters are increasing the level of xenophobia? > > Oh, you blithely tossed in a suggestion to move to the southern end of the peninsula. How do you expect that to work when there are already millions of people living there? > > Damn, you are fucking stupid. Because it’s so fucking brilliant to sit by and let a raving loon–who kills his relatives and boasts of his plans to win nuclear war with America–continue to plug away at building better nukes and ICBMs to launch them. And frankly, with that going on, if I’m president the lives of 51 million South Koreans can not be as high a priority as the lives of 300+million Americans. Not even close. Your Neville Chamberlain-style “solution” is likely to end up with at least as many Koreans dead, and millions more Americans along with them. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14632 "2017-12-22T22:45:18Z")
> [@](#): > > As the Republican tax bill made its way through Congress, Republicans fell over themselves to compliment Trump on its success, almost as much as Trump complimented himself. As Seth Meyers explains, Trump definitely did not invent the idea of branding tax reform as “tax cuts,” nor did he really get rid of Obamacare. But maybe if we just make Trump believe he’s already accomplished all his promises, he’ll stop trying. Why not just bake him a cake that says, “Congrats on a great 8 years” and then convince him to get out already?.. [Source](http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/seth-meyers-wonders-if-we-can-gaslight-trump.html) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14633 "2017-12-22T22:47:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Nothing to be gained by war with North Korea? I’m not so sure, although I would prefer a more competent president prosecute it. To me, it’s like knowing a crazy cult is openly building bombs in the middle of a residential neighborhood. If you do nothing, today and tomorrow and probably next week and next month will be far more pleasant. But what about next year? And if everyone in the neighborhood knows about the cult, why haven’t they moved away? > > IOW at a certain point it’s not our fault if people disregard their own safety so blindly as to live in Seoul. Were I South Korean, I would get my family far away. Maybe to the U.S., like my older kids’ aunt (my ex-wife brother married a South Korean expat), or at least to the southern end of the peninsula. Frankly, it’s irresponsible of South Korea not to have relocated the population center long ago. Nukes aside, there are an absurd number of artillery guns trained on that city. Talk about Damocles’s sword! > > I guess we are fortunate that there are no other countries in the world as batshit crazy as North Korea. But what precedent are we setting in treating them so gingerly? The path all the foreign-policy “realists” seem to want to choose strikes me as providing an incentive for future such regimes, instead of making an example of them for no one else to have any interest in following. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > “Like a Kim or a Hitler or a Stalin”. Kim is the only one of those three who has been in power in the living memory of anyone but the elderly. And Stalin was rational and deterrable. That leaves Hitler, who required utter defeat in a massive, all out world war. What was your point again? > > BTW, the smart thing to do, which definitely rules out Trump doing it, would be to offer China annexation of North Korea in the aftermath of war. That would clear up any notion on their part that we were going for a land grab. It might even keep us from having to put any “boots on the ground”. The truly frightening thing is that this brand of “drunk idiot at the bar” statesmanship now has its proponents at the highest levels of government. Instead of being laughed at, cut off and sent home in a cab, some ignorant moron with a similar grasp of diplomacy and geopolitics may get us into a world conflict with millions dead. Merry Christmas, everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14634 "2017-12-22T22:52:56Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > BTW, the smart thing to do, which definitely rules out Trump doing it, would be to offer China annexation of North Korea in the aftermath of war. That would clear up any notion on their part that we were going for a land grab. It might even keep us from having to put any “boots on the ground”. Actually, China doesn’t want to be flooded with NKorean refugees. Thus they wouldn’t want the country either. Who wants the armpit of Asia? ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14635 "2017-12-22T23:00:21Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > I keep hoping that one day I’ll read in the news that Bannon finally drank himself to death. If you were a miserable bastard like him, wouldn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14636 "2017-12-22T23:16:30Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Actually, China doesn’t want to be flooded with NKorean refugees. Thus they wouldn’t want the country either. Who wants the armpit of Asia? They don’t have to take it if they don’t want it. But at least by offering, they’d know we weren’t trying to get our military on their border. We could just leave it occupied by no one, like Somalia was for several years there. Not a great outcome (there are none on the menu), but it’s better than having an organized and very hostile government working on nukes and ICBMs to deliver them. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14637 "2017-12-22T23:42:11Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Because it’s so fucking brilliant to sit by and let a raving loon–who kills his relatives and boasts of his plans to win nuclear war with America–continue to plug away at building better nukes and ICBMs to launch them. > > And frankly, with that going on, if I’m president the lives of 51 million South Koreans can not be as high a priority as the lives of 300+million Americans. Not even close. > > Your Neville Chamberlain-style “solution” is likely to end up with at least as many Koreans dead, and millions more Americans along with them. :dubious: WTF? Do you really believe you are making sense here? My solution is to not agitate for a shooting war. Another part of my solution is to recognize that China is very much involved and has its own concerns about a change in the status quo on the Korean peninsula. FYI: My wife happens to be one of those 51 million South Koreans and is still living in in the southern part of South Korea. What happens there is not just some abstract discussion for me. By the way, thanks for admitting your lack of actual concern for Koreans. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14638 "2017-12-23T00:17:37Z")
Yeah, what’s a few million Koreans if we feel good about our huge dicks. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14639 "2017-12-23T00:38:02Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > By the way, thanks for admitting your lack of actual concern for Koreans. They are not old, white guys, so why should he care? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14640 "2017-12-23T00:44:00Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > They don’t have to take it if they don’t want it. But at least by offering, they’d know we weren’t trying to get our military on their border. > > We could just leave it occupied by no one, like Somalia was for several years there. Not a great outcome (there are none on the menu), but it’s better than having an organized and very hostile government working on nukes and ICBMs to deliver them. China doesn’t care about our military on their border; they already have unfriendly democracies bordering their territory. As others have stated–and you continue to ignore–what China cares about is what it calls stability on the Korean peninsula. They recognize that a major change in North Korea would likely lead to a massive influx into China of not just a few, but millions of refugees from North Korea. China is already having problems dealing with populations that do not enjoy being ruled by China. While the PLA is currently modernizing and professionalizing, it still has a long way to go. The population providing recruits to the PLA is more educated than that of the 1950s and isn’t likely to sacrifice themselves blindly for the current NK regime, which the general public, as opposed to the government, in China is not fond of. If the PRC were to attempt to occupy any part of the Korean peninsula, it would be a disaster exponentially worse than the Irish Troubles. Leaving a power vacuum in the North would also be disastrous, for both humanitarian and economic reasons. After all, China does rely on resources from tbe DPRK for the economy in one Chinese region. You, yet again, are stumbling into a topic where not only are you completely clueless, but are again managing to show how unamerican you actually are. In short, you’re the perfect trumpster. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14641 "2017-12-23T00:54:22Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > If the PRC were to attempt to occupy any part of the Korean peninsula, it would be a disaster exponentially worse than the Irish Troubles Can you expand your thoughts on this? I’ve often wondered if that would not be better - China just taking over North Korea as a new province or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14642 "2017-12-23T01:10:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > BTW, the smart thing to do, which definitely rules out Trump doing it, would be to offer China annexation of North Korea in the aftermath of war. That would clear up any notion on their part that we were going for a land grab. It might even keep us from having to put any “boots on the ground”. Why would China want it? I think the only real use they have for NK is as a buffer between a Western ally and their border. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14643 "2017-12-23T01:21:57Z")
[Take a look at the egotestical Twit-In-Chief’s Presidential Coin](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/its-very-gold-the-presidential-coin-undergoes-a-trumpian-makeover/2017/12/22/23c8b11e-e5bb-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trumpcoin405pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.196613f41088): Gold as all fuck, has his name on it _four times_…and can you guess what replaces _“E pluribus unum”_? “Make America Great Again” Someone call “The Onion” and tell them to pack it in-Trump spoofs himself, and our country, better than they ever could. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/14644 "2017-12-23T01:31:12Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Can you expand your thoughts on this? I’ve often wondered if that would not be better - China just taking over North Korea as a new province or whatever. There are still people alive in both Koreas who experienced Japanese rule. Of course their children and grandchildren have been taught how evil foreign rule was. The PLA is not likely to be seen as a great thing. Consider akso that a number of ethnic Korean Chinese families have members who are DPRK citizens still in North Korea. Besides that, China does have to worry about its government spending. There is a lot more on their plate than staging a revolution in another country, a country whose remaining population won’t be happy with foreign occupation. China still has a population problem, not likely to be alleviated with an influx of refugees. Of course there is also the danger of setting a precededentt of allowing peopke to flee a country in search of freedom. That could have dire consequenses on the other side of China, not to mention right there in the ethnic Korean part. No, China really doesn’t have all that many good options either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=731) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=733)