Will Trump be Re-elected?

[dualstow]

@WiseOne: understood.

Maybe we could turn this discussion to identifying news sources that we all think are truly reliable.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2960

[Xan]

It is a good idea to separate "the press" from current mainstream news-consumer outlets with (IMHO) zero credibility, if that's what you're advocating. Outside of these, the press is worth protecting. I do try to use the phrase "mainstream press" to emphasize this difference, but I get lazy sometimes.

Until relatively recently, it was understood that every publication had an opinion, and there was no pretense of objectivity, only competition among opinions. I don't know whether that model is better than the "objective" model. Perhaps the former is better only because the latter isn't truly obtainable. And I certainly believe that journalistic ethics should prevail even in an opinionated publication.

It's also worth keeping in mind that our freedom of the press was invented precisely in order to protect opinionated publications, not objective ones. Of course freedom of the press must apply to ALL press, or else you have the problem of who decides what's objective and what isn't.

Also, a later paragraph claims that gifts made during life should be subject to the inheritance tax. I can only assume that the author of this little opus has no idea how taxes actually work.

The gift tax and the inheritance tax are really one and the same: if you give more than the annual exemption in any given year, then the gift starts to count against your inheritance exemption, and once that's gone, it's fully taxable. So all gifts made during life really are considered by the IRS to be "pre-inheritance".

[jacksonM]

Now he's probably not dumb in every sense, but he doesn't seem to have a deep understanding of any topic pertinent to the presidency, and his bonafides as a private sector winner are mostly in the sleazebag department, not "making great deals." Even the writer of his "Art of the Deal" book has said he's essentially a dimwit.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... ogin-email

I wonder why it is that every Republican president in my lifetime has been a dumbass even worse than the one before while every democrat has been a genius.

[moda0306]

How old are you? Bush I was certainly smarter than Reagan.

[jacksonM]

How old are you? Bush I was certainly smarter than Reagan.

Just a youngster. Turning 70 in June. Truman was president when I was born.

Teddy Kennedy made some interesting and favorable observations about Reagan's intellect, especially at his age.

But that was back before the time when Democrats were forbidden to say anything nice at all about Republicans. Now Joe Biden gets into trouble just for suggesting that Pence is a "decent man" even though his kids go/went to a Christian school (or his wife teaches at one or something. Can't remember which).

[jhogue]

Newsflash!

Donald Trump is to blame for everything-- including the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party.



https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video ... party.html

[dualstow]

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video ... party.html

Heh. I bump into that guy about once a month irl.

[jacksonM]

How old are you? Bush I was certainly smarter than Reagan.

Then I guess smarts has nothing to do with effective governing or being re-elected.

The idea that some dumbass can be elected president of the United States not once but twice is nothing more than a fantasy on a par with the story of Forrest Gump (or some equally fantastical stories in the Holy Bible if you will).

[dualstow]

News item: Mueller has submitted his report.

[moda0306]

How old are you? Bush I was certainly smarter than Reagan.

Then I guess smarts has nothing to do with effective governing or being re-elected.

The idea that some dumbass can be elected president of the United States not once but twice is nothing more than a fantasy on a par with the story of Forrest Gump (or some equally fantastical stories in the Holy Bible if you will).

The idea that some dumbass can sit and deliver news day-in-day out... blah blah. Same shoe other foot. There are plenty of astoundingly stupid people in politics. Add to that, people have their strengths and weaknesses. That doesn't mean they're not exceptionally corrupt AND dim-witted in some key areas. Trump AND the mainstream media carry massive negative traits considering the positions they hold, many of which have simply to do with their lack of deep knowledge on any important issues, but even more have to do with just being sleazeball opportunists. Both are extremely powerful (but only one has their finger on the button). Any attempt (including liberal ones) to be heavily critical of one but chronically defend the other is ridiculous and I refuse to beat around the bullshit on this issue. We can pat our heads and rub our bellies at the same time.

[WiseOne]

Trump's "dumb-ness" seems to be very compartmentalized. His main issue is the complete lack of a brain to mouth filter, and I'm sure he's been told so many times. It's just that he genuinely thinks he doesn't need one. Other than that, I still have a hard time understanding how a genuinely low IQ person could have accomplished what he has. It is likely more of a personality disorder than an IQ problem. I have no wish go down the armchair psychoanalysis path though.

On some level, it's kind of fun to hear the unedited thoughts of someone living in the White House. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure his staff are careful not to feed him too much material. Perhaps the best chance of getting him impeached is his revealing something classified on Twitter.

[moda0306]

Trump's "dumb-ness" seems to be very compartmentalized. His main issue is the complete lack of a brain to mouth filter, and I'm sure he's been told so many times. It's just that he genuinely thinks he doesn't need one. Other than that, I still have a hard time understanding how a genuinely low IQ person could have accomplished what he has. It is likely more of a personality disorder than an IQ problem. I have no wish go down the armchair psychoanalysis path though.

On some level, it's kind of fun to hear the unedited thoughts of someone living in the White House. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure his staff are careful not to feed him too much material. Perhaps the best chance of getting him impeached is his revealing something classified on Twitter.

A lack of filter is one thing, which he certainly has, but that doesn't quite include the complete lack of being able to communicate in a coherent, consistent manner or be constrained by facts. George Carlin didn't have a filter. But he communicated very clearly. Trump seems to be suffering from some sort of cognitive decline and/or mental illness. I have a dad who is suffering from mild dimentia and I notice many similarities to how Trump thinks and communicates.

He hasn't "accomplished" much beyond leveraging the vast empire he inherited for some degree of douche-bag celebrity. Man, the kudos people are willing to give to inherited capital interests for simply not blowing all their money is astounding. The man inherited half a billion dollars by the 1990's. This doesn't make him evil or stupid, until he is completely willing to be fraudulent and bombastic about how he has "earned" the money. That degree of unearned confidence is downright dangerous as trigger-man to the largest killing machine in the history of the world, and while the media certainly is "a joke," they don't get to drop bombs. Focusing on "Thuh Mediuh" while giving the blow-hard with his finger on the button a pass is one of the most bombastic double-standards one could assemble when looking at power-politics today.

[jacksonM]

Then I guess smarts has nothing to do with effective governing or being re-elected.

The idea that some dumbass can be elected president of the United States not once but twice is nothing more than a fantasy on a par with the story of Forrest Gump (or some equally fantastical stories in the Holy Bible if you will).

The idea that some dumbass can sit and deliver news day-in-day out... blah blah. Same shoe other foot. There are plenty of astoundingly stupid people in politics. Add to that, people have their strengths and weaknesses. That doesn't mean they're not exceptionally corrupt AND dim-witted in some key areas. Trump AND the mainstream media carry massive negative traits considering the positions they hold, many of which have simply to do with their lack of deep knowledge on any important issues, but even more have to do with just being sleazeball opportunists. Both are extremely powerful (but only one has their finger on the button). Any attempt (including liberal ones) to be heavily critical of one but chronically defend the other is ridiculous and I refuse to beat around the bullshit on this issue. We can pat our heads and rub our bellies at the same time.

I think I posted a video clip over on the religion thread that showed what some kind of lizard had to go through from the moment of birth without any assistance from either parent who were long gone. Basically it was a gauntlet whereby they had to make it past an obstacle of snakes who were working together, equally amazingly, to eat them for their own survival.

The lizard in the clip made it to the end and joined other lizards somewhere near the ocean and I cheered for him.

Was that lizard simply a dumb creature?

I think not. Evolution had obviously developed some form of innate intelligence in the creature over many years. A human being would never survive what that lizard had to go through, at least at the current state of evolution.

And that's the way I view politicians.The only debate is whether they are snakes or lizards.

[boglerdude]

Manhattan real estate had a huge turn around in the 90s when Giuliani got tough on crime. Trump was in the right place at the right time. California needs a Giuliani.

[dualstow]

Is Mueller’s report going out with a whimper? It feels that way.

[moda0306]

for those who think trump is dumb, try to open something as small as a street cart to sell hot dogs in NY city... not blowing "any" sized fortune, in especially in real estate in a city that big, unionised, regulated, legislated, corrupt, expensive, and mobbed up must take some kind of smarts.

Or maybe just some lessons from daddy and maybe HE is mobbed up and corrupt.

Or maybe just provide some evidence that inherenting half a billion dollars in nyc is almost guaranteed to be a failure. Not just a break-even but a loss of everything. Or maybe you’ve opened up a hotdog stand in NYC and care to share you anecdotal story with us.

I don’t think anybody is saying he didn’t have some excellent advantages, and some good luck thrown in as well. but it still takes a combination of business smarts, street smarts, and political smarts to operate in that environment, even on the hot dog stand level... I haven’t opened a business in a big city, but I have opened a business, but even if they haven’t I would think that most people have enough common sense to see that being without some good measure of the above mentioned "smarts" does in fact pretty much guaranty failure at either the billionaire or the hot dog stand level, and especially so in tough competitive place like NY .

as for the mobbed up comment ...really?..
you don’t think that if that were the case all the democrats and the majority of the republicans wouldn’t have pinned him to wall with it during the primary’s or the very second they caught scent of it.....

[dualstow]

a hotdog stand in NYC

Can't help but think of the movie Sleepers. Ugh.

[WiseOne]

Consider this: Trump was not the only millionaire in NYC in the 1990s. How many of them built a real estate empire and become billionaires? If it were that easy, why didn't more business moguls do the same thing?

People get uncomfortable when comparing themselves to someone who has achieved great success. It's human nature to rationalize it by saying things like "he just got lucky" or "he's actually not as smart as me". Plus, given the strong undercurrent of general hatred for the man, that's bound to translate into stories like that "he inherited $400 million" puff piece, which serve to stoke the fantasy further.

I really don't care about whether he's someone I'd want to have dinner with. I just care about what policies will survive his presidency, and what the effects will be on me and the people I care about. Short-sighted I know, but too bad. On balance, he's been more successful than either Obama or Bush in that regard.

[moda0306]

Consider this: Trump was not the only millionaire in NYC in the 1990s. How many of them built a real estate empire and become billionaires? If it were that easy, why didn't more business moguls do the same thing?

People get uncomfortable when comparing themselves to someone who has achieved great success. It's human nature to rationalize it by saying things like "he just got lucky" or "he's actually not as smart as me". Plus, given the strong undercurrent of general hatred for the man, that's bound to translate into stories like that "he inherited $400 million" puff piece, which serve to stoke the fantasy further.

I really don't care about whether he's someone I'd want to have dinner with. I just care about what policies will survive his presidency, and what the effects will be on me and the people I care about. Short-sighted I know, but too bad. On balance, he's been more successful than either Obama or Bush in that regard.

He. Didn’t. Build. Empire.

He expanded a half a billion dollar one to a $???? one, via tax fraud and sleazeball business practices.

Also, plenty of folks probably just coasted on dividends and interest. I actually have more respect for that than trying to do what daddy did and not even beating the s&p 500.

It’s not a “puff piece.” I’m no bag man for NYT, but it’s some solid investigative reporting. That is, if you want to know if your President is a huckster fraud on top of being a general slimeball.

And How has he been “more successful” than Obama or Bush? Because he keeps brown people from wanting to come here?

It amazes me how folks can fold like a lawn chair to rent-seeking capital class fuckwits is beyond me. He’s no better than a lifelong welfare recipient. Even worse, he acts as a poster boy for all the temporarily embarrassed millionaires and hopes that one day they can too “build an empire” from a measly $400 million pittance.

[moda0306]

Consider this: Trump was not the only millionaire in NYC in the 1990s. How many of them built a real estate empire and become billionaires? If it were that easy, why didn't more business moguls do the same thing?

People get uncomfortable when comparing themselves to someone who has achieved great success. It's human nature to rationalize it by saying things like "he just got lucky" or "he's actually not as smart as me". Plus, given the strong undercurrent of general hatred for the man, that's bound to translate into stories like that "he inherited $400 million" puff piece, which serve to stoke the fantasy further.

I really don't care about whether he's someone I'd want to have dinner with. I just care about what policies will survive his presidency, and what the effects will be on me and the people I care about. Short-sighted I know, but too bad. On balance, he's been more successful than either Obama or Bush in that regard.

Whenever someone tells me that Trump is dumb, my answer is "Then he must be the luckiest man in the world!".

Well yeah, a $400 Million inheritance is quite the ovarian lottery.

Getting a 7-10% RoR on your money on real estate, however, is pretty par for the course... perhaps arguably pretty weak.

[I Shrugged]

OTOH, Hillary Clinton is notoriously smart.

It's all so wrong and unfair!

[dualstow]

Pence?

[moda0306]

Pence?

No, Warren, Hillary, AOC clone who is already past 35yo, Bernie, etc.

LOL to putting Hillary in the same category as AOC.

Speaking of folks "over-playing their hand," as utterly terrible as Hillary was, one thing she WASN'T was a left-wing commie. She was just your typical robotic war-mongering centrist corporatist democrat.

She wasn't going to raise billionaires' taxes to 70%, forgive student loans, or institute a green new deal. But conservatives acted like she was Vladmir Lenin.

[dualstow]

... Hillary ...
But conservatives acted like she was Vladmir Lenin.

According to Roger McNamee's 'Zucked', there is a good reason for that.

[Kbg]

@moda... love the irony, railing against the press, the Don, Hillary and the previous three moron Republican presidents...and yet where are his narratives coming from?

Personally, I have no personal knowledge of any President in my lifetime. I do know how to spot a narrative being created and continued by their partisans. On the positive side...

Kennedy and Reagan were very good at inspiring Americans and asking us to strive to be our better selves and a better country.

Johnson did more than any single President behind Lincoln to actually advance civil rights

Nixon was pretty good at navigating the bi-polar world that existed at the time

Ford knew job 1 for his tenure was healing a very divided country and filled that role well

I do think Carter was a man of compassion and integrity

Bush 1 was a thoughtful statesman who surrounded himself with probably the best cabinet in my lifetime

Clinton was pretty good at economics and actually did bring the federal deficit down

Bush 2 was fundamentally a very good person and did many good things at an individual/family level that were never advertised and he never wanted them advertised...and he was smart enough to pick probably the best Fed Chairman in history.

Obama had the most rational foreign policy of any US President since Eisenhower and also actually brought the federal deficit down

Trump has been the first president in my life who actually does challenge the status quo and is not afraid to gore some very large oxes that probably need goring.

With regard to intelligence, everyone of them were smart enough to navigate and compete successfully enough to win both their party nomination and the presidency. As a minimum, they all made the right choices to get there and were smart enough to pick the team that helped them win. Everything I’ve ever read or watched about this process indicates it is exceedingly difficult on many levels financial, personal, family, organizational, communicative, and requires the ability to identify and campaign on those issues that motivate voters to pull the lever for them at that particular time in history.