Is Trump doing a good job?

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stuper1
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:46 pm

doodle wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:43 pm
Stuper,

Trumps policies are not necessarily bad. I have said this on many occasions. But he is utterly incapable of implementing them because he is such a horrible leader. These are serious issues that merit attention but Trump undermines them by being so incompetent at leading. He is a BAD LEADER in every way. His ideas on the other hand not so bad....but again, this is a democracy not a dictatorship. Change requires leadership of which Trump has none! .

Also, how does one account for Trump now claiming he fired Mattis after it is so clear that he resigned? Maybe because Trump is incapable of telling the truth.
Okay, so we should vote for a leftist who can implement terrible policies?
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by doodle » Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:10 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:46 pm
doodle wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 8:43 pm
Stuper,

Trumps policies are not necessarily bad. I have said this on many occasions. But he is utterly incapable of implementing them because he is such a horrible leader. These are serious issues that merit attention but Trump undermines them by being so incompetent at leading. He is a BAD LEADER in every way. His ideas on the other hand not so bad....but again, this is a democracy not a dictatorship. Change requires leadership of which Trump has none! .

Also, how does one account for Trump now claiming he fired Mattis after it is so clear that he resigned? Maybe because Trump is incapable of telling the truth.
Okay, so we should vote for a leftist who can implement terrible policies?
Maybe if the political right didn't give him so much support you'd be able to have a candidate stand in who actually had some leadership ability. By not calling him out for his bullshit you are in essence enabling his crappy leadership to continue. In the meantime, he has riled up the left to a degree that now I'm even more terrified if the Republicans lose power...which is not improbable at this point. Overall, he has polarized and radicalized this country to a degree that is unhealthy. Good for realty TV ratings...not so much for a democracy.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:03 pm

I guess I'll have to agree to disagree. I put much more of the blame for polarizing the country on the biased media reporting.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by shekels » Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:04 am

doodle wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:10 pm


Maybe if the political right didn't give him so much support you'd be able to have a candidate stand in who actually had some leadership ability. By not calling him out for his bullshit you are in essence enabling his crappy leadership to continue. In the meantime, he has riled up the left to a degree that now I'm even more terrified if the Republicans lose power...which is not improbable at this point. Overall, he has polarized and radicalized this country to a degree that is unhealthy. Good for realty TV ratings...not so much for a democracy.
Just a few observations I have with your statement.
You may not agree with Trump But could a "crappy Leader" have made it to become President?
IMHO Trump was the Anti run of the mill Republican President, Trump WAS the outsider that beat all the others.
The people on the "political right" wanted a different type of Leader .
A leader that was not a Shill for the people that are screwing over the Republican party for many years. and got one..
I said Leader. I did not say people agreed he had a Great personality.
He is only Polarized/Radicalized to Trump haters and those who watch to much Anti Trump Media. which IS good for Rating/Money/Agenda
Also I will make it a Point to ask if you are a U.S. American, because I was taught in the UNITED STATES of AMERICA we are a Republic...
The U.S. is not Collectivism or a democracy no matter how much the U.S. has fallen victim to corruption and corrupt Leaders
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by WiseOne » Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:15 am

Doodle, you have to keep in mind that your image of Trump's leadership comes through an extremely biased media lens. Once you are on the alert for this, you'll see all kinds of dirty tricks, e.g. taking innocuous statements and spinning them in an obviously biased article. My favorite is the one where a highly negatively-charged headline is paired with a photo of Trump carefully chosen to make him look awful, and then contradicted in the article itself - usually near the end since they know most people don't read that far. Or where a similarly nasty photo of Trump is juxtaposed with an article on a negative unrelated topic, to give the impression that Trump was somehow to blame without ever actually stating it. Then there's the obvious factual misstatements like the one about the tear gas at the D.C. church, or how it's a "slam dunk" that the Hunter Biden/Burisma saga was entirely innocuous.

Just try reading news articles with an eye toward searching for this type of propaganda. You'll be amazed at what you find. This is not to say that Trump doesn't provide plenty of material on his own, but I tend to think of him as your annoying old uncle who manages to drive everyone nuts at family gatherings, but whose basic reptilian instincts are essentially correct. And, those instincts are pretty consistently to the benefit of John (or Jane) Q. Public, which is the reason for the organized effort to discredit him. People benefiting from the prior regime don't want to give up their power, pure and simple.

Also, given the extent of opposition against him, it's amazing to me how much he has, in fact, accomplished. Compared to what Bill Clinton went through with that incessant Ken Starr investigation which crippled his second term, what he's suffered is far worse. You won't find any news articles commenting on this, but the man has clearly worked harder than either of the prior two presidents. That's a work ethic that doesn't fit with the media narrative - which should give you yet another indication of that narrative's accuracy.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by doodle » Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:46 am

WiseOne wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:15 am
Doodle, you have to keep in mind that your image of Trump's leadership comes through an extremely biased media lens. Once you are on the alert for this, you'll see all kinds of dirty tricks, e.g. taking innocuous statements and spinning them in an obviously biased article. My favorite is the one where a highly negatively-charged headline is paired with a photo of Trump carefully chosen to make him look awful, and then contradicted in the article itself - usually near the end since they know most people don't read that far. Or where a similarly nasty photo of Trump is juxtaposed with an article on a negative unrelated topic, to give the impression that Trump was somehow to blame without ever actually stating it. Then there's the obvious factual misstatements like the one about the tear gas at the D.C. church, or how it's a "slam dunk" that the Hunter Biden/Burisma saga was entirely innocuous.

My impression of Trump comes almost entirely through his own words...namely his asinine tweets and whatever lies he spews out during interviews. I also do not like the way that Trump thumbs his nose at the law. He has been involved in legal controversies his entire career...this is not something the media has hoisted on him since becoming president.

Biden is a whole different subject and I hate when he is brought into the discussion. He is a regular scumbag himself...and I'm sure Burisma involved corruption on some level. And if he is elected I will criticize him as well if he deserves it.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by WiseOne » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:36 am

You know, it would be kind of fun to use the Wayback Machine to pick a random month during Trump's presidency and do an exhaustive review of the highly-read mainstream media articles, classifying them according to the type of propaganda technique used and providing a score for each news outlet.

I would predict that the number of unbiased articles will prove to be very small. It would be even more fun to compare to back issues of Pravda during the Soviet era, which is probably the most famous example of propaganda disguised as a news outlet. I bet there won't be a whole lot of difference, except that Pravda's brand of propaganda will be much less sophisticated.

This reminds me of Robert Heinlein novels & short stories that depict the use of propaganda in totalitarian regimes. In his imaginary universe, news is manipulated by professional "psychometricians" who carefully pitch stories by selecting words ranked according to the type and intensity of emotional response they evoke, and also selecting which facts to report to evoke an impression while not actually stating false information. I don't think journalism has quite gotten to that point, but it's getting uncomfortably close.

I've been enjoying the American Thinker site recently: https://www.americanthinker.com/

It's equally biased to the mainstream news and there are a lot of 'high emotional index' words, but in the opposite direction. This is actually helpful for learning to spot the use of standard propaganda techniques in the mainstream media, even if you disagree with the articles themselves.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by doodle » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:02 am

I agree, something has to be done regarding the media...not sure what....some type of independent fact checking institute that runs a ticker symbol like scroll bar during programming continuously labeling the veracity of statements being made? Lack of accurate information is a huge issue.

But again, Trump doesn't need the media to make him look bad. His Twitter feed is so insane it's hard to know at any given moment if those are his own words or if he has been hacked.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by doodle » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:50 am

And you link nypost...an obviously right biased paper as evidence. You fall prey to it just as much as left does.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:50 am

doodle wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:02 am
I agree, something has to be done regarding the media...not sure what....some type of independent fact checking institute that runs a ticker symbol like scroll bar during programming continuously labeling the veracity of statements being made? Lack of accurate information is a huge issue.

But again, Trump doesn't need the media to make him look bad. His Twitter feed is so insane it's hard to know at any given moment if those are his own words or if he has been hacked.
Would you rather have a politician that sounds great with terrible policies, or one that sounds terrible with great policies? That's the kind of choice we have to make. You think his Twitter feed is insane, but he's the one who got himself elected, not you. Maybe he understands better than you how to mobilize the type of person he needs to vote for him. I've always said that actions matter more than words. Most people seem to get that idea when the words are great and the actions are bad. Apparently a lot of people can't understand that it should work the same way too when the words are bad but the actions are great. We'd all love it I'm sure if we could have somebody whose words were great and actions were great, but that's not the choice we had.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by doodle » Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:15 am

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:50 am
doodle wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:02 am
I agree, something has to be done regarding the media...not sure what....some type of independent fact checking institute that runs a ticker symbol like scroll bar during programming continuously labeling the veracity of statements being made? Lack of accurate information is a huge issue.

But again, Trump doesn't need the media to make him look bad. His Twitter feed is so insane it's hard to know at any given moment if those are his own words or if he has been hacked.
Would you rather have a politician that sounds great with terrible policies, or one that sounds terrible with great policies? That's the kind of choice we have to make. You think his Twitter feed is insane, but he's the one who got himself elected, not you. Maybe he understands better than you how to mobilize the type of person he needs to vote for him. I've always said that actions matter more than words. Most people seem to get that idea when the words are great and the actions are bad. Apparently a lot of people can't understand that it should work the same way too when the words are bad but the actions are great. We'd all love it I'm sure if we could have somebody whose words were great and actions were great, but that's not the choice we had.
Stuper, I agree actions speak louder than words. But this is politics and words matter...and unless we are going to resort to bashing one another over the head then words are all we have to create consensus. I don't think many of his policies are that radical, but his words and demeanor are so abrasive that it undermines his ability to create consensus. Take immigration for example, I don't think his policies are that radical, but the way he went about trying to implement them made things much worse. Calling immigrants rapists and murderers and shrieking about how Mexico was going to pay for Wall all contributed to taking a common sense issue and making it hyper partisan. That was not necessary and in fact was detrminetal to coming up with a common sense immigration plan that I think most Americans would stand behind Its Bad leadership.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by doodle » Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:31 am

Another thing that is completely unacceptable is the way Trump bullies and mocks people by drawing attention to things like height, or weight, or mental capacity. That alone is so unnaccptable that it should disqualify him from ever expecting to being treated with respect. No one respects a bully. Again, words matter. Would you respect a teacher or boss or co-worker who is a hard worker but constantly demeans his students or the people around him? Then why would you hold the president to a lower standard?
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by Cortopassi » Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:47 am

No, I don't post under an alter-ego named doodle. :D Glad there are people who feel similarly.

Many of you are able to see past his personal failings and to his policies, which as I've mentioned I generally am ok with. But I can't see past that.

I don't like my other choice, though. I truly hope the dems figure out how to replace Biden in the next couple months. Leave him in the basement. We should not be electing 78 year old anyones, dems or repubs.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:29 pm

doodle wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:31 am
Another thing that is completely unacceptable is the way Trump bullies and mocks people by drawing attention to things like height, or weight, or mental capacity. That alone is so unnaccptable that it should disqualify him from ever expecting to being treated with respect. No one respects a bully. Again, words matter. Would you respect a teacher or boss or co-worker who is a hard worker but constantly demeans his students or the people around him? Then why would you hold the president to a lower standard?
I must admit I haven't paid much attention to this stuff, but I'm pretty sure you'll find that a lot of this has been mis-characterized by the press. They said he was making fun of a disabled guy who had spoken badly of him. I'm pretty sure he replied strongly to the disabled guy, but didn't actually mock his disability. I could be wrong. Trump doesn't care a bit whether I respect him or not. I actually don't respect him as a person, because I don't know him at all. I do like some of his policies much better than the alternatives offered by leftists.

If people are so sensitive that they can't deal with their actual height, weight, or disabilities, then they should stay out of the public eye.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by dualstow » Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:44 pm

stuper1 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:29 pm
...
I'm pretty sure he replied strongly to the disabled guy, but didn't actually mock his disability. I could be wrong.
...
What, this?
Image
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:03 pm

Tell me when you find a perfect person to be president. Until then, I'll be happier with somebody who's willing to fight for what he believes in versus somebody who just lays down anytime a snowflake complains because you didn't use their preferred pronouns.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by Libertarian666 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:26 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:47 am
No, I don't post under an alter-ego named doodle. :D Glad there are people who feel similarly.

Many of you are able to see past his personal failings and to his policies, which as I've mentioned I generally am ok with. But I can't see past that.

I don't like my other choice, though. I truly hope the dems figure out how to replace Biden in the next couple months. Leave him in the basement. We should not be electing 78 year old anyones, dems or repubs.
We do not elect Presidents to be role models. It's nice if they can be that, but it's not necessary.
What they are is the CEO of a large and powerful organization called the United States Government.
Therefore, voting for anyone other than whichever of the major party candidates you think is more qualified for that role makes no sense and can have very severe consequences.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by dualstow » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:08 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:22 pm
This is a wonderful example of fake news. He has used that flailing motion when replying to many people. Furthermore, the disabled person whom he was supposed to be mocking was not flailing his arms around but was standing still.

Here are the actual facts:
https://www.investors.com/politics/comm ... -the-left/
I mean, I don't even care. That image, that GIF is the reason he is accused of that. As far as I'm concerned, he's said enough weird things that one more thing (here, a gesture, not words) doesn't matter.

But like a few others here, I'm more focused on his policies than his personality or personal behavior. As far as his policies go, I'm good mostly.
We've probably already discussed it, but one thing I'm worried about is our withdrawing from the world and China subsequently filling the void. Those articles are everywhere.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:51 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:24 pm
I'm not sure what you mean by "withdrawing from the world". I don't want the US to be the world police. Limited immigration according to merit, fine. Tourism, fine. Otherwise it's up to US citizens and companies how they want to relate to people and companies in other countries.
From what I've read, one of the big things that made Mattis hate Trump was that Trump decided to pull out of Syria.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:53 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:41 am
I'll be astonished (in a happy way) if you (or anyone else) can convince someone with rampant TDS to actually notice media bias, no matter how extreme. A person who is willing and able to do that wouldn't have been brainwashed in the first place.

It usually takes getting hit over the head, figuratively or literally, to shake the hold that the lamestream media has on someone like that.
Telling them they have TDS isn't the way to convince them either. There's definitely a.... persuasion-gap on both sides. Until his last couple posts I thought doodle was just venting, not trying to convince anyone of anything. No offense, doodle.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by shekels » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:08 pm

Cortopassi wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:47 am
No, I don't post under an alter-ego named doodle. :D Glad there are people who feel similarly.

Many of you are able to see past his personal failings and to his policies, which as I've mentioned I generally am ok with. But I can't see past that.

I don't like my other choice, though. I truly hope the dems figure out how to replace Biden in the next couple months. Leave him in the basement. We should not be electing 78 year old anyones, dems or repubs.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:33 pm

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:51 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:24 pm
I'm not sure what you mean by "withdrawing from the world". I don't want the US to be the world police. Limited immigration according to merit, fine. Tourism, fine. Otherwise it's up to US citizens and companies how they want to relate to people and companies in other countries.
From what I've read, one of the big things that made Mattis hate Trump was that Trump decided to pull out of Syria.
There you have it. The war machine doesn't like to hear the word "no", and it hasn't had to hear that word for a long time.

But Trump's not a good leader? Last time I checked, good leaders are willing to make unpopular decisions when they believe them to be right.

If Obama had made this decision, they would have labeled it the Obama Doctrine or something and talked about it like it was sent down from heaven on golden tablets. When Trump makes it, they distribute pictures with Trump in a clown suit and say that he is unpatriotic.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by Libertarian666 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:37 pm

shekels wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:08 pm
Cortopassi wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:47 am
No, I don't post under an alter-ego named doodle. :D Glad there are people who feel similarly.

Many of you are able to see past his personal failings and to his policies, which as I've mentioned I generally am ok with. But I can't see past that.

I don't like my other choice, though. I truly hope the dems figure out how to replace Biden in the next couple months. Leave him in the basement. We should not be electing 78 year old anyones, dems or repubs.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:41 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:36 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:53 pm
Libertarian666 wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:41 am
I'll be astonished (in a happy way) if you (or anyone else) can convince someone with rampant TDS to actually notice media bias, no matter how extreme. A person who is willing and able to do that wouldn't have been brainwashed in the first place.

It usually takes getting hit over the head, figuratively or literally, to shake the hold that the lamestream media has on someone like that.
Telling them they have TDS isn't the way to convince them either. There's definitely a.... persuasion-gap on both sides. Until his last couple posts I thought doodle was just venting, not trying to convince anyone of anything. No offense, doodle.
I don't expect anyone with TDS to listen to reason. In effect, it's against their religion of Trump hatred.
Your mistake is in thinking that TDS is a permanent, non-changeable condition. Normal people who aren't engaged and don't know what's going on who happen upon a CNN article, get temporary TDS, and then parrot it back to you can be helped but you can't be a dick about it. Literally happened to me yesterday.
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Re: Is Trump doing a good job?

Post by stuper1 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 3:52 pm

This is an excellent point.
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