Inspired by this comment in the “compendium” thread:
Assume you are in a debate, and are assigned the position of defending this administration’s efforts so far. Likely not anything that could be persuasively expressed out loud, but a rationale that is aimed at benefitting the country as a whole at some point in the future.
The best I am able to come up with is some sort of isolationism and anti-globalism, contending that we are strong enough to succeed at bending the world to our will, such that whatever short-term pain Americans experience will be outweighed by “something” in the future. And an element of “trickle down”, whereby further enriching the wealthiest will benefit the least fortunate. I guess if I were a person who was threatened by LGBTQ+ issues, I might think the anti-DEI efforts a step in the right direction, bucking an undesirable recent trend.
I know it is easy to point out the many ways these policies seem ill-advised and ill-motivated. And it is easy to make jokes. But I would really appreciate if folk would try to restrain themselves in this thread. Just thinking it might be an interesting exercise to see if there could be ANY rationale that might put what we are seeing in a positive light.
FWIW - I wrote “Trusk” in my OP to forestall folk from saying Trump is too clueless/etc to be responsible for what we are seeing, that he is a puppet of Musk/others, etc.
By “non-evil explanation”, do you mean an explanation that makes Trump out to be non-evil, or do you mean that the explainer is non-evil? Because once you allow for the possibility that the explainer is evil, it’s easy: “Trump isn’t doing that, that’s just fake news liberal lies”. And once you get someone whose only information sources are evil explainers, then it doesn’t even matter if those people are evil.
In no way is this my position, but if I HAD to defend it, it would go something like this:
The best days of America are in the past. We need to get back to our Christian traditions. Things like diversity and inclusion have led us down the wrong path and are holding us back from what we are capable of as the world’s sole superpower. The social changes since the 1950s have caused more trouble than they are worth, and have resulted in broken families, lack of respect and generations of poor people that don’t want to work. Likewise, things like nation building and helping poorer countries are robbing us. We can’t be the world’s policeman and charity. Spending money on anything that doesn’t directly benefit us is a waste of American tax dollars. Wealthy Americans are the drivers of innovation and industry. When we keep their taxes low, the economy thrives and that benefits everyone.
I see/hear variations of this all the time from MAGA supporters.
He’s trying to apply a business model to government. Doesn’t work and never will. And given his history with failed businesses, it really doesn’t bode well.
I mentioned over in the “Why don’t you just…” thread that what Trump is doing - or particularly, what Musk/DOGE is doing, is a very very simplistic method to finding government waste.
Why don’t they just go through the budget line by line and get rid of waste? They can also set up a way for people to see how much waste they have identified and gotten rid of, in real time!
That is something that the good people of the r/personalfinance Subreddit tell people in debt/without savings that they should do. Why is it not what the federal government should do?*
*Rhetorical question. Please don’t explain why this is not something the federal government should do.
I think the best possible non-insane/non-evil explanation for Trump’s efforts is that he’s in significant mental decline and is surrounded by rapacious advisers who know just how to push his buttons to advance their own agendas. (Not that I buy that explanation, to be clear)
Oh, no doubt about it! Without those pesky limits, business will be able to disregard public harm and environmental disaster, with the result that profits will soar. And since that is what is most important to the wealthy few, the public should just go along with it.
Government keeps growing, the budget keeps growing, and the red tape keeps growing.
This has been true for decades, and Congress has never shown an ability to do anything about it. Meanwhile, the debt is approaching genuinely dangerous levels. Even Powell says we are on an unsustainable trajectory.
Congress can’t do anything about it because spending and tax cutting always sells, and the chickens have never come home to roost.
So, tear it all down, get it manageable, and build back in what you decide was necessary after all.
Not my actual opinion, but that’s how I’d handle the assignment.
For the foreign policy, I simply cannot defend making enemies of allies, I cannot defend the dismantling of a world order that has meant the post-war era is far, far less fraught with wars than was the case pre-war
The most rational non-evil explanation is that Trump has been possessed by the ghost of Jefferson Davis, and lies trapped within his mortal form unable to lift a finger while the ghost of Jefferson Davis attempts to destroy America in the most racist and embarrassing way possible.
Seriously any non-evil explanation would require similar rational and believable turn of events at this point.
What could posses an US citizen to make a thread like this?
You deserve to get your social security paid out in Doge coins and to pay taxes in yuan.
If you think going to work is more important than getting the muskoviets out of government finances your risk assessment is fundamentally broken.
There is no non-evil/insane explanation for any of this.
The fact that we want to get the Muskoviets out of government is precisely what possesses a US citizen to post a thread like this. Yeah, Trump is evil, but not all of his supporters are. If we’re ever to hope to get him and his party out of power, we need to understand what his non-evil supporters are thinking, so that we can convince them otherwise.
While I do not agree, I would say…People were/are unsasitified with politics and governing in general. They were tired of the same political promises on how to make it better from the same basic politicians, and those promises not being fulfilled. They wanted something radically different - blow it all up and start over. Trump promised to blow it all up and govern radically different. He is doing that - what our country wanted and expected him to do.
I think that explanation is not insane (clinically) nor evil…not sure it’s the best. Insane/Evil are widely subjective measures though so to each their own.
I think mjmartin hits some of the specifics very well, but for me, it’s just a general feeling of radical change for the sake of radical change since politics as usual felt like it was not working.
*These are not my views. Not even close.
Late: I think the posts directly above and below mine are very well placed.