The Slow Painful Death of the Trump Administration

[Boges]

Just now, GostHacked said:

Trump has only to blame himself for the imposed tariffs that resulted in GM's decision to close plants. 

I think GM's uncompetitiveness in the "Anything but a truck, crossover or SUV" had more to do with it. 

But steel tariffs certainly didn't help. The Steel tariffs are ultimately anti-business. Sure it helps the US Steel Industry but they can't even supply the US market with all the steel it needs so prices have had to go up on everything. 

[Zeitgeist]

36 minutes ago, Boges said:

I think GM's uncompetitiveness in the "Anything but a truck, crossover or SUV" had more to do with it. 

But steel tariffs certainly didn't help. The Steel tariffs are ultimately anti-business. Sure it helps the US Steel Industry but they can't even supply the US market with all the steel it needs so prices have had to go up on everything. 

I don’t see how it helps US Steel’s operations in Canada. 

[WestCanMan]

13 hours ago, Iznogoud said:

Is Trump doing everything he said he would?  He hired from the deepest part of the swamp he said he would elimination.  Where is the Wall?  Why is the stock market tanking?  Why did his trade agreements with Canada and Mexico leave NAFTA almost unchanged?  Why are US businesses still leaving the country?  And I have to laugh at your Manafort comments - you pretty much admitted that Trump is a complete sleazeball. 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed

There are two lists of his work since he became president. So the answer to your first question is a resounding yes.

Trump hired a campaign finance guy who helped win elections in the past. It's wise to do that. Do you think he needed to work with a guy who knows the ins and outs? Do you know that Trump knew Manafort had committed crimes? People don't usually brag about that, just like there are no 265 lb guys walking around admitting that they took steroids.

Do you think that Trump isn't trying to get the wall built? He shut down the government. If that's not trying I don't know what is. It's not like when Trudeau "tries" to get a pipeline built, while he's going around the world saying that they're phasing out the oil sands, as if it's good for business.

Why is the stock market tanking? That's a stupid question that you already know the answer to. Because of a trade war with China. Trump is doing what Obama should have done, and what even Chuck Schumer was praising him for. Protecting American intellectual property for starters. And by "tanking" do you mean "why is it only 4,000points higher than it has ever been now"?

If you think that NAFTA now is almost unchanged since Trump came in then that's your own issue. Ford and GM alone have reversed the trend for moving out of America. They won't admit that it had anything to do with Trump, but it was pretty sudden.

I've never said that Trump wasn't a sleazeball. He's just way less of a sleazeball than Hillary Clinton. In a perfect world Trump wouldn't be president. In a perfect world the whole middle east wouldn't be a shithole. Our PM wouldn't be racking up debt, killing jobs, paying huge gobs of cash to terrorists, insulting Canadians and saying that we have no culture. Etc, etc. Trump isn't below avg for a politician in terms of sleaziness, the media just hates him like they hate all Republicans. They hated Bush Sr too, they just suddenly liked him when he died.

Yes I admit to things and I tell the truth iznogoud. Weird hey?

[bush_cheney2004]

6 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

And four in the good ol’ US of A.  GM lost a billion dollars due to these tariffs. How could the US government do this to US Steel in Canada?  Talk about shooting yourselves in the feet...Canada has a 25% tariff on Chinese steel, so no excuse for your country’s self-distructive mistreatment of Canada.  Belligerent and unintelligent US leadership at work. 

 

Same way that Canada had tariffs on the U.S. and other nations for many years...the WTO permits tariffs as part of international trade.

Do you think that Canada is "special" compared to other nations that the U.S. trades with ?

[bush_cheney2004]

7 hours ago, Boges said:

And a bunch of American plants as well. 

Trump was not happy with GM's decision. 

 

Oh my...auto plants have never closed before Trump's tariffs ?

[Zeitgeist]

19 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Oh my...auto plants have never closed before Trump's tariffs ?

You keep harping that GM is a US company.  It’s been hit hard by the steel tariffs.  

[bush_cheney2004]

3 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

You keep harping that GM is a US company.  It’s been hit hard by the steel tariffs.  

 

So?   GM (like Chrysler before it two times) should have folded in 2009....when there were no Trump tariffs.

Should I worry about Canadian companies that fail ?

[Iznogoud]

7 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed

There are two lists of his work since he became president. So the answer to your first question is a resounding yes.

Trump hired a campaign finance guy who helped win elections in the past. It's wise to do that. Do you think he needed to work with a guy who knows the ins and outs? Do you know that Trump knew Manafort had committed crimes? People don't usually brag about that, just like there are no 265 lb guys walking around admitting that they took steroids.

Do you think that Trump isn't trying to get the wall built? He shut down the government. If that's not trying I don't know what is. It's not like when Trudeau "tries" to get a pipeline built, while he's going around the world saying that they're phasing out the oil sands, as if it's good for business.

Why is the stock market tanking? That's a stupid question that you already know the answer to. Because of a trade war with China. Trump is doing what Obama should have done, and what even Chuck Schumer was praising him for. Protecting American intellectual property for starters. And by "tanking" do you mean "why is it only 4,000points higher than it has ever been now"?

If you think that NAFTA now is almost unchanged since Trump came in then that's your own issue. Ford and GM alone have reversed the trend for moving out of America. They won't admit that it had anything to do with Trump, but it was pretty sudden.

I've never said that Trump wasn't a sleazeball. He's just way less of a sleazeball than Hillary Clinton. In a perfect world Trump wouldn't be president. In a perfect world the whole middle east wouldn't be a shithole. Our PM wouldn't be racking up debt, killing jobs, paying huge gobs of cash to terrorists, insulting Canadians and saying that we have no culture. Etc, etc. Trump isn't below avg for a politician in terms of sleaziness, the media just hates him like they hate all Republicans. They hated Bush Sr too, they just suddenly liked him when he died.

Yes I admit to things and I tell the truth iznogoud. Weird hey?

So what you are basically claiming is that making the United States worse is helping his base.  Interesting. 

And you do realize that some of the government workers whose paycheck he cut off are probably people who voted for him.  And that the trade war with China is completely unnecessary as well as unwinnable, which at the same time also hurting his base. 

The really interesting thing is that everything Trump has done weakens him.  And now he has to face a House controlled by the Democrats.  I'm looking forward to 2021 when the USA and the rest of the world will be rid of him.  Weird hey?

[Iznogoud]

11 hours ago, GostHacked said:

Oh there is plenty on Hillary Clinton, it's the desire to prosecute one of their own that is the real issues. She escaped the charges of top secret info on her personal servers that she used for government purposes (illegal). It's not incompetence that got Hillary off, it was the broken system that takes care of their own regardless of them being a Rep or a Dem.

I agree that so-called American democracy is in need of major reform.  But it is not really a new problem; big business and the wealthy figured out how to corrupt the system more than150 years ago. 

[Iznogoud]

18 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Very necessary even before tariffs were imposed....one more Yankee owned auto plant is gone forever in Canada.

Are you inferring that you would prefer Canadians to buy GM products made elsewhere? 

[bush_cheney2004]

4 minutes ago, Iznogoud said:

Are you inferring that you would prefer Canadians to buy GM products made elsewhere? 

 

I don't care what make of autos that Canadians buy....GM sells more cars in China than in Canada or the United States.

There are no major Canadian owned auto makes, unlike in other G7 nations.

[Iznogoud]

5 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

I don't care what make of autos that Canadians buy....GM sells more cars in China than in Canada or the United States.

There are no major Canadian owned auto makes, unlike in other G7 nations.

I am aware of the lack of Canadian-owned automakers - most nations have the same problem.  However, if Canadians are going to be forced to buy a foreign product wouldn't it be nice if that product was at least partially assembled here?  It does after all employ close to 200,000 people and use large amounts of Canadian resources. 

[WestCanMan]

12 minutes ago, Iznogoud said:

So what you are basically claiming is that making the United States worse is helping his base.  Interesting. 

And you do realize that some of the government workers whose paycheck he cut off are probably people who voted for him.  And that the trade war with China is completely unnecessary as well as unwinnable, which at the same time also hurting his base. 

The really interesting thing is that everything Trump has done weakens him.  And now he has to face a House controlled by the Democrats.  I'm looking forward to 2021 when the USA and the rest of the world will be rid of him.  Weird hey?

I answer everything you say directly with facts and you come back with more insipid accusations:

"Trump is making the USA worse", "a trade war with China is unnecessary and unwinnable and it's hurting his base", blah, blah blah.

Is the USA really worse with low unemployment and an increased military budget, among a whole host of other things that are on the two lists that I linked above? Can you explain how the US is worse in any specific way?

You do know that even Chuck Schumer admits that it was important for the USA to stand up to China re: trade right? He's the last guy on earth to blow sunshine up Trump's exhaust pipe, so if even he says that then who are you to say different? And without anything more than your own opinion. LMAO.

 

[bush_cheney2004]

4 minutes ago, Iznogoud said:

I am aware of the lack of Canadian-owned automakers - most nations have the same problem.  However, if Canadians are going to be forced to buy a foreign product wouldn't it be nice if that product was at least partially assembled here?  It does after all employ close to 200,000 people and use large amounts of Canadian resources. 

 

Not if the cost to do so are the highest in the world.    Canada/Ontario has been losing auto sector jobs for decades due to a bevy of factors caused by government and labour unions...long before Trump's tariffs.  

The best selling vehicle in Canada is manufactured in the the United States (Ford F-150 pickup truck).

[Iznogoud]

2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Not if the cost to do so are the highest in the world.    Canada/Ontario has been losing auto sector jobs for decades due to a bevy of factors caused by government and labour unions...long before Trump's tariffs.  

The best selling vehicle in Canada is manufactured in the the United States (Ford F-150 pickup truck).

But I do note that Ford maintains a plant in Canada and almost certainly given the way vehicles are made these days, many of the 150's parts originated in Canada. 

[bush_cheney2004]

32 minutes ago, Iznogoud said:

But I do note that Ford maintains a plant in Canada and almost certainly given the way vehicles are made these days, many of the 150's parts originated in Canada. 

 

Maybe, but Ford closed the St. Mary's plant a long time ago.   Auto plant employment in Ontario has been dwindling for some time, irrespective of Trump.

[Iznogoud]

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

I answer everything you say directly with facts and you come back with more insipid accusations:

"Trump is making the USA worse", "a trade war with China is unnecessary and unwinnable and it's hurting his base", blah, blah blah.

Is the USA really worse with low unemployment and an increased military budget, among a whole host of other things that are on the two lists that I linked above? Can you explain how the US is worse in any specific way?

You do know that even Chuck Schumer admits that it was important for the USA to stand up to China re: trade right? He's the last guy on earth to blow sunshine up Trump's exhaust pipe, so if even he says that then who are you to say different? And without anything more than your own opinion. LMAO.

 

Sorry, but your "facts" are merely the opinions of a right wing news site and can just as easily be argued the other way, especially those events that Trump had little influence on, like the US economy.  Just as an example many US manufacturers and farmers are lamenting the fact that they are shut out of the Trans-Pacific-Partnership. 

And here is another Trump mistake.  The US national debt has climbed by two trillion dollars.  It is now over 75% of GDP, a number that is usually considered a tipping point, and is slated to climb to 96% in the next 10 years. 

US national debt has increased $2 trillion since Donald Trump took office, new data shows

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-national-debt-2-trillion-donald-trump-presidency-deficit-treasury-congressional-budget-office-a8710546.html

I also had to laugh at the last of Trump's supposed triumphs.  " Restoring confidence in and respect for America "  Respect for the US under Trump has taken a complete dive.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/09/how-the-world-views-the-u-s-and-its-president-in-9-charts/

Also do you think that Trump can win a trade war against a country that does not have to respond to its citizens?  All the Chinese have to do it wait two years and Trump will be gone.  And I strongly suspect that if Mr. Schumer was negotiating with China he would have used more diplomatic means.  China's history reveals that it will not be pushed around by other nations, not after what happened in the 19th and 20th Centuries. 

BTW increased military spending generally makes a country poorer, not wealthier.  That is why no US ally spends the ridiculous percentage on defence that the US does. 

As the thread states, Trump is dying slowly and very painfully.  Tossing red herrings into the topic does not it any way disprove it.  He is stuck at 40% in the polls and dues not appear able to move that number.  The last election showed that even active intervention by Trump did not stop a Democratic tide; in fact in many cases it may have helped it. 
 

 

[Iznogoud]

1 minute ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Maybe, but Ford closed the St. Mary's plant a long time ago.   Auto plant employment in Ontario has been dwindling for some time, irrespective of Trump.

I can throw you a straw if you want one. 

[bush_cheney2004]

1 minute ago, Iznogoud said:

As the thread states, Trump is dying slowly and very painfully.  Tossing red herrings into the topic does not it any way disprove it.  He is stuck at 40% in the polls and dues not appear able to move that number.  The last election showed that even active intervention by Trump did not stop a Democratic tide; in fact in many cases it may have helped it.

 

Actually, Trump is polling the same as Obama at this point in his first term and lost fewer seats in Congress than Obama did in 2010 (House and Senate).   Trump actually picked up more seats in the Senate.   As for deficit spending and federal debt, Trump has not exceeded the excesses of Obama budgets (yet).

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, Iznogoud said:

I can throw you a straw if you want one. 

 

Trump will come and go, but Canada's/Ontario's economic challenges will remain, being so dependent on exports to and investment from a single nation, the United States.

[WestCanMan]

13 hours ago, Iznogoud said:

Sorry, but your "facts" are merely the opinions of a right wing news site and can just as easily be argued the other way, especially those events that Trump had little influence on, like the US economy.  Just as an example many US manufacturers and farmers are lamenting the fact that they are shut out of the Trans-Pacific-Partnership. 

And here is another Trump mistake.  The US national debt has climbed by two trillion dollars.  It is now over 75% of GDP, a number that is usually considered a tipping point, and is slated to climb to 96% in the next 10 years. 

US national debt has increased $2 trillion since Donald Trump took office, new data shows

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-national-debt-2-trillion-donald-trump-presidency-deficit-treasury-congressional-budget-office-a8710546.html

I also had to laugh at the last of Trump's supposed triumphs.  " Restoring confidence in and respect for America "  Respect for the US under Trump has taken a complete dive.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/09/how-the-world-views-the-u-s-and-its-president-in-9-charts/

Also do you think that Trump can win a trade war against a country that does not have to respond to its citizens?  All the Chinese have to do it wait two years and Trump will be gone.  And I strongly suspect that if Mr. Schumer was negotiating with China he would have used more diplomatic means.  China's history reveals that it will not be pushed around by other nations, not after what happened in the 19th and 20th Centuries. 

BTW increased military spending generally makes a country poorer, not wealthier.  That is why no US ally spends the ridiculous percentage on defence that the US does. 

As the thread states, Trump is dying slowly and very painfully.  Tossing red herrings into the topic does not it any way disprove it.  He is stuck at 40% in the polls and dues not appear able to move that number.  The last election showed that even active intervention by Trump did not stop a Democratic tide; in fact in many cases it may have helped it. 
 

 

The facts I linked were in direct response to you questioning whether or not Trump was doing what he said he was going to do when he was running for election. So my facts are actual facts and if you're being honest you will acknowledge that they were spot on.

 https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762 Yes the deficit is growing. It was going down in the early stage of Trump's first year, until he passed the tax cuts, but the government is still bringing in more revenue than it was under Obama despite the tax cuts. If you research and understand the Laffer Curve you'll see why govt revenue is up even though the taxes are "lower" now.

 

You laugh at "restoring confidence in and respect for America" but it's actually true. The entire country was experiencing widespread rioting, looting and arson and racial tensions were incredibly high in Obama's last years. Remember? Cops were getting murdered in groups and he linked their deaths to slavery which was abolished well over a century ago. Would you have travelled to Baltimore or Ferguson or a dozen other cities for the last year Obama was president? When people got gassed in foreign countries despite Obama's warnings they merely faced his indignation. Islamic state was growing despite Obama's "best efforts". China stole what they wanted and ran the trade table. NATO relied on the US and no one was spending their fair share. Other countries might have liked Obama more than Trump, but that's not always a good thing and in this case it wasn't.

 

Trump has made headway against China. So there's always that, right? Or does some progress just count as nothing? China is becoming a bigger and bigger problem and it has nothing to do with Trump. They were on this path for a long time.

 

The thread states something, but that doesn't make it true. It's just a symptom of people watching and believing too much of what CNN is belching up, not an actual prognosis of what's happening in the US. People are getting jobs, getting off food stamps, and prospects are much brighter for the average citizen under Trump. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, and I know that you'll want to focus on the 2% who are worse off than the 98% who are better off, but that's normal for liberals. There's no holding them to rational dialogue.

Edited January 4, 2019 by WestCanMan

[scribblet]

The Nation is a respected liberal  mag. whose article goes on to discuss the use of anti-Russian patriotism in manipulative campaigning along with discussing how similar charges are suspected of being used against Corbyn in the U.K.

If you buy into the "Russian collusion" story, you should read the whole article.  Interesting though, is that those making the accusations are more guilty of the very charges they make than those they are targeting.

https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-elections-interference/

The reports, from the University of Oxford’s Computational Propaganda Research Project and the firm New Knowledge, do provide the most thorough look at Russian social-media activity to date. With an abundance of data, charts, graphs, and tables, coupled with extensive qualitative analysis, the authors scrutinize the output of the Internet Research Agency (IRA) the Russian clickbait firm indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in February 2018. On every significant metric, it is difficult to square the data with the dramatic conclusions that have been drawn.

• 2016 Election Content: The most glaring data point is how minimally Russian social-media activity pertained to the 2016 campaign. The New Knowledge report acknowledges that evaluating IRA content “purely based on whether it definitively swung the election is too narrow a focus,” as the “explicitly political content was a small percentage.” To be exact, just “11% of the total content” attributed to the IRA and 33 percent of user engagement with it “was related to the election.” The IRA’s posts “were minimally about the candidates,” with “roughly 6% of tweets, 18% of Instagram posts, and 7% of Facebook posts” having “mentioned Trump or Clinton by name.”

[WestCanMan]

40 minutes ago, scribblet said:

The Nation is a respected liberal  mag. whose article goes on to discuss the use of anti-Russian patriotism in manipulative campaigning along with discussing how similar charges are suspected of being used against Corbyn in the U.K.

If you buy into the "Russian collusion" story, you should read the whole article.  Interesting though, is that those making the accusations are more guilty of the very charges they make than those they are targeting.

https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-elections-interference/

 

Interesting rticle scribblet, thanks for posting that.

Quote

 “Our best estimate,” Facebook’s Colin Stretch testified to Congress in October 2017, “is that approximately 126 million people may have been served one of these [IRA] stories at some time during the two year period” between 2015 and 2017. According to Stretch, posts generated by suspected Russian accounts showing up in Facebook’s News Feed amounted to “approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content.”

1/23,000 is actually a lot. If you have 1/23,000th native DNA you can call yourself a Cherokee and get into Harvard as a visible minority. /sarcasm

[Iznogoud]

7 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

The facts I linked were in direct response to you questioning whether or not Trump was doing what he said he was going to do when he was running for election. So my facts are actual facts and if you're being honest you will acknowledge that they were spot on.

 https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762 Yes the deficit is growing. It was going down in the early stage of Trump's first year, until he passed the tax cuts, but the government is still bringing in more revenue than it was under Obama despite the tax cuts. If you research and understand the Laffer Curve you'll see why govt revenue is up even though the taxes are "lower" now.

 

You laugh at "restoring confidence in and respect for America" but it's actually true. The entire country was experiencing widespread rioting, looting and arson and racial tensions were incredibly high in Obama's last years. Remember? Cops were getting murdered in groups and he linked their deaths to slavery which was abolished well over a century ago. Would you have travelled to Baltimore or Ferguson or a dozen other cities for the last year Obama was president? When people got gassed in foreign countries despite Obama's warnings they merely faced his indignation. Islamic state was growing despite Obama's "best efforts". China stole what they wanted and ran the trade table. NATO relied on the US and no one was spending their fair share. Other countries might have liked Obama more than Trump, but that's not always a good thing and in this case it wasn't.

 

Trump has made headway against China. So there's always that, right? Or does some progress just count as nothing? China is becoming a bigger and bigger problem and it has nothing to do with Trump. They were on this path for a long time.

 

The thread states something, but that doesn't make it true. It's just a symptom of people watching and believing too much of what CNN is belching up, not an actual prognosis of what's happening in the US. People are getting jobs, getting off food stamps, and prospects are much brighter for the average citizen under Trump. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, and I know that you'll want to focus on the 2% who are worse off than the 98% who are better off, but that's normal for liberals. There's no holding them to rational dialogue.

Here's the thing.  Nothing you have posted in this thread detracts from its theme.  Even if you were 100% right instead of the opposite Trump is still going down.  There is just too much accumulated evidence against him.  You may argue if you wish that all of that evidence is false, but too many other people have chose to believe otherwise. 

[Iznogoud]

21 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Actually, Trump is polling the same as Obama at this point in his first term and lost fewer seats in Congress than Obama did in 2010 (House and Senate).   Trump actually picked up more seats in the Senate.   As for deficit spending and federal debt, Trump has not exceeded the excesses of Obama budgets (yet).

Unlike Obama I suspect Trump is not going to recover.  He has simply offended too many independent voters.  But that is what makes politics fun - its unpredictability.