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I Don’t Mean to Alarm Anyone, But …
I reckon the only times in history we’ve seen this much geopolitical instability and danger were prior to the outbreaks of the First and Second World War, and it seems a goodly portion of the American electorate — of all age groups, education groups, racial groups, ethnic groups, and both genders — thinks Donald Trump is the man to navigate our Ship of State through these rocky shoals.
To me, this looks like a distinctly sub-par situation. But it hardly helps for me to run about like a headless chicken, does it?
Can anyone here think of anything I can do to improve this state of affairs? Me, personally, today?
Published in General
I said we got the leaders we deserve. Starting with Obama. Frankly, after voting for Obama, we deserve a lot worse than what we got. Thank God for the Republicans, who stopped what he would have done if he had gotten his way.
Uh huh. Still said we got what we deserved. Not seeing it. Not want conservatives deserved
I don’t necessarily; I’m just saying that if you cross overland from Turkey through Bulgaria, you’ll definitely feel you’ve gone downhill, not up, in general freedom and vibrancy when you cross the border. Bulgaria still has that incredibly depressing Warsaw Pact feeling. And if you keep going and (God help you) wind up talking to people in a place like Republika Srpska, you’ll realize they’d be up for another round of ethnic cleansing in a heartbeat — and you’ll want to get out of there as fast as you can. It’s really a creepy place. I even had that feeling in Belgrade, although it’s less overt. I don’t think it’s hopeless; I think in fact that it’s astonishing how much better it is now than it was, but definitely figure if NATO hadn’t intervened they’d still be at war. The population would probably be 10 percent of what it is now.
The lesson of the Nevada Caucus is that Trump learns quickly. Remember how he blew Iowa by not having a real GOTV operation. He very thoroughly corrected that oversight in Nevada. For his supporters to show up at the caucus sites with campaign t-shirts and signs, somebody had to get them delivered. This wasn’t just phone banks nagging people to caucus. This was boots on the ground delivering the swag.
I don’t know whether Trump figured this out on his own, or if he really did “hire the best people. People so good it’ll make your head spin.” It’s certainly causing GOP establishment heads to spin. Or maybe explode.
What’s interesting about Nevada is the difference in Trump’s organization there versus Iowa. Trump didn’t really bother to set up a proper GOTV operation in Iowa, and got handed his head. In Nevada, he set up a first rate operation, not just getting his people to the caucus sites, but making sure they had campaign materials (signs, t-shirts, etc.). The result was that he handed Cruz and Rubio their heads.
I don’t know how much of this he figured out on his own and how much came from “hiring the best people”. But it looks like he is at least bright enough to recognize and take good advice. And that’s a very good quality in a President.
I think Trump has the potential to be a pretty good President. Maybe not in Washington’s or Lincoln’s class, but above average. And certainly better than what we have now, or God forbid, Hillary.
Question for you and anyone else who thinks Trump is bright. Do you believe George W. Bush knowingly lied to the American people about the Iraq war? If so, why do you believe this? What do you think was his motivation for doing this? Why do you think that having done so, he would not go the distance and place WMD in Iraq to be “discovered?”
What do you think the motivation of the House and Senate would have been to cover up that lie, but not go the distance and make the conspiracy appear credible?
What do you think Trump really believes about this?
He’s right about that, too.
I should think that would horrify you, confirming Trump’s victory.
It does horrify me. But the petulance of those voters who are more interested in punishing their own side than in getting anything done, also horrifies me.
Sorry, Claire. Unless you have expertise on cult worship nullification by proxy, I’m afraid nothing stops the Trumpian tidal wave from washing us all away. I may need therapy soon unless I either tune out completely or the wave is somehow miraculously averted.
Volunteer. Not to beat a dead horse but volunteer. And if you can’t, find someone else who can.
Dubya definitely oversold the WMD threat from Iraq. I blame Colin Powell for this. I think Powell convinced Dubya that the only thing that would move the UN to approve military action against Saddam was WMD. This probably was true, as the UN is an utterly rotten collection of thieves and grifters. The problem with this approach, as opposed to a broader argument that Saddam was generally an outlaw and a terror sponsor who needed to be taken down, is that when no significant WMD stockpiles or production facilities were found, it damaged their credibility. They never did sell an alternate rationale for the war, and that gave the Democrats an opening which helped give us seven years and counting of Obama.