And the UK had a long period of being Great, so did France, etc. America was great, and could be again.
This isn’t quite the same thing, though. The main threat Europe faces is from Russia. No matter how much help Europe gave in Afghanistan (and, to be blunt, the United States didn’t really need NATO assistance in Afghanistan, although it was very nice of a coalition to help after 9/11 anyway,) it doesn’t excuse Europe for being so weakly prepared to face the Russian threat, or for pooh-poohing Russia.
Okay, I’m going to go with a serious answer.
Back when he was running in 2016, Trump identified our nation’s infrastructure as a growing problem and said that if he was elected he would make rebuilding infrastructure a major priority in his administration.
This was pretty much the only position he took that I agreed with him on so I voted for Clinton.
And then Trump got elected and basically ignored the infrastructure.
Perhaps that’s because improving infrastructure was a big initiative during the Biden administration, and by definition, nothing good happened while Biden was president.
The Biden administration came after Trump’s first administration, so that can’t be the reason he didn’t do anything with infrastructure. As I recall though, a lot of Republicans were happy to take credit for Biden’s efforts to improve infrastructure.
I think they conveniently ignored that they voted against Biden’s infrastructure bill.
I agree that there was going to be a need for space based military operations and personal to be in its own branch. I just think we are probably a decade or two away from it being necessary.
Out of curiosity, why couldn’t the USAF be the branch to handle all space stuff for the military? (I am a civvie with zero military experience)
For the same reason why the Air Force was better suited to not be part of the Army anymore. A different mission with different operational needs. It could have functioned as part of the Air Force for years more but eventually the need would be greater for more specialization.
I mean, that’s debatable and that’s not why he did it.
A lot of what people are agreeing with in this thread is not why he did those things.
Fair.
Less Trump per se but definitely his administration. I felt like the changes to the federal loan process are mostly better than what was already in place. The solution to the education affordability crisis is to lower the cost of education, not allow people to take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that they couldn’t possibly repay. I say this as someone who once had massive amounts of student loan debt.
I am only really concerned about the part that caps the amount you can take out - it all but guarantees poor people will never become doctors and lawyers. And they were downright nasty in their messaging around these changes.
But in general I think more accountability needed to be built into the system.
In many ways, Trump and MAGA are like conspiratorial, tiger, helicopter or ultra-religious parents who want their kids to have good outcomes but behave in such a wrong way that they instead get the opposite of everything they want. Or like bad sports owners who demand winning, but drive away every good player and coach.
Trump wants a good economy - what president doesn’t? But in his efforts to get a good economy, all of his actions are destroying the economy.
He wants a good economy because it will reflect well on him, not to help people. But if he was able to do it despite that fact…
He has the best economy. Two years ago, we were a dead country because of Sleepy Joe. Now we’re the hottest country on Earth. Everyone asks me, “Sir, how do you do it?” /s
The problem is, Trump thinks “A good economy” is one in which the stock market is constantly going up. But as we’ve seen time and time again, stock valuations quite often have nothing to do with the actual value of the companies, and are just caused by rich people trying to get richer by playing the markets.
Meanwhile, the real economy of physical goods meant to be bought by regular people who earn wages has just gotten worse and worse, with almost every product spiraling down the “Charge more, give less” ramp, making everything worse for the vast majority of the population.
And I think that the Air Force is, and will be for the foreseeable future, perfectly appropriate for handling those needs. There’s a reason why “aerospace” is considered one field, after all. All that the Space Force actually accomplishes is to distract attention away from the new force that we do actually need, a Cyber Force. Possibly because that’s the only battlefield left on which Russia is still competitive.
I listen to a public radio program called Marketplace and one of its mantra is the stock market is not the same as the economy.
This one is kind of a stretch, but I actually think Trump’s instincts on certain aspects of health care are correct (not the MAHA craziness, but the fact that the government should use its power to lower costs).
I have this strange idea that if he thought he could convince the GOP to accept a truly universal health plan (something like Medicare-for-all-who-want-it) and call it Trumpcare he would absolutely go for it.
Here’s an article from 2017 that puts some meat on my vague impressions: Trump’s forbidden love: Single-payer health care
I think he’s drifted away from this over the years as he’s gone a bit batty and focused on ephemera and international entanglements.
But he’s not above government intervention, or price fixing. And he loves having his name on things.