The Politics Thread

[Khan]

Somehow, I can't see Mitch McConnell being all that scared of Donald Trump.  Is it just me?

[DRW50]

 

He's afraid of losing power, not Trump. He's waiting Trump out.

[DramatistDreamer]

In the meantime, I don't know any country that will trust the U.S. at this point, especially with Trump in office.  Perhaps some of the damage can be repaired once he's out of office, but that will take a lot of time an effort. It has gone beyond undoing agreements that the Obama administration put in place, Trump has actually been destroying some long-standing accords, treaties and agreements that have been in place for generations. Angela Merkel alluded to the U.S. no longer being a reliable partner during the nascent days of the Trump administration and things have only deteriorated since then. 

Trump has been wrecking long-existing partnerships and obliterating what level of trust there was, not to speak of the countries (Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa) that often tended to look warily on the U.S. where the Obama administration had just begun to cultivate trust--I seriously doubt those places will ever have one iota of trust where the U.S. is concerned.

 

Trump has done a ton of damage, diplomatically speaking. His foreign policy is the worst I've ever seen of any president in my lifetime.

[DRW50]

I think the trust probably went away for good after the way we treated the world following the sympathy and support they showed us post 9/11 - we went on to bully them into war, and shamed and belittled any country that didn't agree. I think Obama knew that trust, and those relationships, were gone, and was pragmatic enough to base relationships on a mutual need. 

 

That's the question - do any of these countries need us anymore, after Trump? 

 

I doubt it. 

 

I think we've turned a corner in terms of isolationism and shutting ourselves off. Unless Biden is getting a second wind, then the Democratic nominee is likely to still want to keep much of the world at arm's length. Not in the same way Trump does, but enough to continue to push us more and more into our own bubble that no one can ever penetrate.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I actually agree with some things but not totally. 

 

Having family from other countries and getting their perspective, I get more of a clear-eyed perspective of how the U.S. has been perceived over the last couple of decades.  The U.S. was never perceived as being totally trust-worthy by many countries (particularly those with a majority non-white population) but hear me when I say that Obama definitely made inroads in that respect.  Also when it came to formulating treaty agreements, there was almost always a base level of some sort of trust (perhaps out of mutual necessity, as you mentioned) that the U.S. had that, it would, as a nation be a reliable partner (as Angela Merkel alluded to) and keep their end of the agreement.  The U.S., under Trump, doesn't even have that base level of assumed integrity.  Under Trump, the U.S. has shown that not only will they say one thing, one day, only to reverse themselves the very next day but not a word that is said or put into writing, can be taken seriously.  That has not always been the case--that is a new contribution from the Trump administration to the perception of the U.S. worldwide. 

The level of damage that Trump has done is brand new and it will last generations.

Edited October 10, 2019 by DramatistDreamer

[DramatistDreamer]

[marceline]

 

That's because it's not really foreign policy, it's international organized crime.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Exactly! 

Trump has two towers in Turkey, people shouldn't forget that when assessing his motives for leaving the door open for Turkey's military to attack the Kurds.

 

[Khan]

I'm quoting this from Facebook, but it's truly how I feel as well: I never, ever want to hear again how a businessman can run this country better than any politician.  Because, if this is the best that a businessman can do for the U.S., then, for Christ's sake, bring back the career politicians who've been groomed for the job since they were in the cradle!

Edited October 10, 2019 by Khan

[ReddFoxx]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's term as Governor of California pretty much showed that being a businessman and being an elected official have no correlation. Businessmen are about making profit and government is not for profit.

 

One reason that Clinton lost was because she played up experience so much and a lot of voters took that to mean career politician (which isn't necessarily a bad thing to have in a President). Voters are often far to obsessed with choosing outsiders over who is actually qualified.

[Khan]

 

Amen!

 

Meanwhile, Facebook has officially decided to help out Trump again:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/facebook-trump-biden-ukraine-ad-removal-154944386.html

 

But seriously.  FB knows damn well the claims made in those ads have been debunked, over and over again.  They know, too, how misinformation like that ("BUT HER EMAILS," 'member?) helped Trump enormously in the last election.

 

Again, though, Zuckerberg doesn't give a [!@#$%^&*] about any of that.  He's just there for the clicks.

 

And as much I would miss chatting with many of my peeps on FB, I would not shed one damn tear if someone were to take it down for good.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Khan

[Vee]

 

 

[Khan]

Is it just me, or is the wording in that first tweet ("Two foreign-born men who have worked with Rudy Giuliani [...] are expected to be unsealed later today") oddly funny?

 

"Unsealed"?  So, does that mean they've been kept inside Ziploc bags until now?

 

(Don't worry, I get what Tom Winter is saying, no need to explain it to me, lol.)

Edited October 10, 2019 by Khan

[marceline]

 

Anti-intellectualism and a disdain for experience has infected the left as well as the right.

[Khan]

 

Which is, perhaps, the saddest thing to happen in my lifetime.  Since when was it wrong to be educated, or to have paid one's dues, in order to be trusted to run a damn country?  I shouldn't feel like I'm SMARTER than the president, when it's always been the other way around!

 

But, you see, I blame George W. Bush for that.  He was the first Commander-in-Chief who made it okay to be "intellectually incurious," as my hero, Linda Ronstadt, once so aptly put it.*

 

America should have learned never again to elect a man into the WH, who only got married because his wife was a librarian and he needed help reading the big words.

 

 

 

(*Yes, I'm a Linda Ronstadt fan.  Fight me.)

Edited October 10, 2019 by Khan