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[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

"So, why do you want to be President?"

"Well, it's very simple. Make America Great Again. America's reputation has never been worse..."

DUDE YOU WERE PRESIDENT FOR FOUR YEARS. VERY RECENTLY.

[–]makesyoudownvote 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

To be fair, apart from the division and the pandemic during the last year, things were definitely better during his presidency than they are now.

I'm not even a right wing guy. I'm a slightly left leaning moderate, and a staunch liberal who voted against Trump both times, but both times I somewhat regret.

That doesn't mean I am pro-trump at all. In fact I think the key job of the president is supposed to be to unify the country, congress is supposed to handle more of what people associate with executive powers. In this one job Trump fails miserably and for that reason regardless of whether or not it's fair to him, I think he's a horrible president.

For a similar reason I think Thomas Sowell, Colin Powell and Barack Obama though they might be considered good to great president's in the modern day, would have been awful presidents in the 70s or earlier, because they would divide the country too much and not act as an effective figurehead. The fact they were black alone would make them ill equipped for the job in that era.

Trump similarly is a horrible president, not because he's bad at the rest of the job. I think if you REALLY look at it from a distance without any emotion and minimal bias, you'd see he actually did a pretty great job. It's just that people hate him too much, and he can't help but be provocative that makes him bad as a president/figurehead specifically.

That all said, in the next election if it's down to him and Biden, I will probably abstain, but if I had to choose, it won't be Biden. At least Trump works towards improving the US's global power and economy. This is what quality of life is based on. You can't have the social programs of the left without a strong economy and relative global stability. Trump handled all that far better.

Also Trump is more of a liberal than Biden or most of the modern left imo. I don't think he would be one reliably, but his policies at least come from a liberal mindset. The DNC and their mindless puppet Biden are social Marxist authoritarians.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think if you REALLY look at it from a distance without any emotion and minimal bias, you'd see he actually did a pretty great job.

I don't know, man, I'd say I'm pretty similar to you politically - a slightly left-leaning moderate - and I feel like I was able to observe Donald Trump pretty objectively.

And what I saw was a man who... really was not doing the job at all. Like, he couldn't be briefed because he found briefings boring unless they were about him personally. He took four, five, six hours of "executive time" in the middle of the day to eat fast food and watch cable news. He never really wanted to do the job of being president. He just wanted the title, and then to continue spending all his time Tweeting and getting on TV.

He simply didn't know how the levers of power worked. He didn't know how to get anything done. He'd waste whole days obsessing over utterly pointless shit like proving he wasn't wrong when he said Hurricane Dorian was gonna hit Alabama. Every source says that any meeting with the guy was just him blathering on and on about all his normal talking points we've heard so many times, and no one could get in a word edgewise.

Pretty much everything he said he'd do, didn't happen. "Ban all travel from the Middle East!" Didn't happen. "Build a wall!" Didn't happen. "Lock her up!" Didn't happen. "Ban trans people from the military!" Didn't happen. "Big military parade in D.C.!" Didn't happen. I mean, let that sink in. The fucking commander-in-chief of the military couldn't get the military to do what he wanted them to do. The military was just like "nah bro that'd be bad for the roads."

Sometimes he didn't even seem to understand that he was president. He kept using the phrase "somebody ought to look into this." Like, dude, who the fuck is "somebody" if not the head of state??

I think if anything, Trump showed us what the country's like when we don't have a president. Like, that's how the government would have run if we had elected a Big Mouth Billy Bass as a joke.

[–]makesyoudownvote 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Firstly I want to thank you for a well thought out and thorough response. You didn't just "nuh uh" , but you provided a structured argument with supporting facts and examples. You avoided personal attacks and logical fallacies and stuck to the point. I really commend you. This is rare on these types of sites.

I think you're point of view is also valid. However I also think a lot of the basis is from the onslaught of exaggerated media attacks. That doesn't mean that you're examples are wrong at all, just a bit exaggerated and coalesced into a conclusion that comes from bias. That said where you are coming from is sufficiently valid that it could just as easily be my own biases and distain for modern journalism that leads to me being overly skeptical. I think the pattern of attack from the media is obvious here, but I could be chicken and egging this where their pattern is inspired by truths and not as exaggerated as I feel.

I do think you're right about him being a bit blasé about his position. I also think he's a textbook narcissist who looks only out for himself and would sellout the entire country if he believed it would benefit him. However I also think his reputation and legacy is important to him, and I think that's about the only thing that really keeps him from being the evil the left views him as.

I think the examples you've chosen are for the most part just as true with the other president's we've had this side of the millenia excepting maybe Obama.

The fast food and cable news thing is definitely weird, but cable news is how the people are informed. I think it's a decent way to get a gage of what the American people are experiencing and going through, and I by no means fault him for his personal food preferences, no matter how much they wouldn't suit me.

Also I think that with a lot of those, didn't happen examples, they really didn't, at least not the way they are perceived. Again the stories are so exaggerated they may as well be false. Though I will say his "didn't happen" is really more of the same, because they kinda did. It's like the story with poison in Halloween candy. It didn't happen, except that one time where a father did it to his own children. So it did happen, but not to the extent that strangers are poisoning children. When you say it didn't happen you sort of devalue the fact it COULD happen and it also sort of happened. The Muslim ban would be one of my best examples from your list because it didn't happen at all the way public perception of it did, but it also didn't not happen. Russiagate would be another great example here. Russia did meddle in the election, but there was no real collusion to the extent they painted it as.

But overall our economy and our foreign relations improved under him. The foreign policy one is a particularly funny one, because they hated him but he was good at making deals and agreements. Definitely not my preferred method of diplomacy, but it appeared to work to me at least.

I don't know again your perspective seems to be more common among the more rational people who aren't right wing. I'm moderate, but not necessarily a centrist but this does come from an effort to hear both sides out.

Also conspiracy theory-wise, I still believe he was put up to running by the Clintons who were upset that Obama beat Hillary. I think the Clintons knew they could pressure the DNC enough to ensure her nomination and were hoping Trump would split the Republicans. But I think Trump very quickly got away from them because of his narcissism. I think he couldn't resist taking it as far as he could. I think that's why he really wasn't prepared or expecting to be president. I don't think he thought there was a real chance until suddenly there was. I think it took him over a year to even realize what he wanted out of being president in the first place.

I think he's going to win this next election at this point almost for certain and to be honest I am worried about the result of which. I think vengeance and spite is very much part of his agenda. But I think he could be pacified and encouraged to try to act well, and better than his first bout if we give him an opportunity to actually create a legacy. But then again, that's me working my form of diplomacy which is the exact opposite of his. I also though have two narcissist parents and am reasonably used to dealing with similar behavior to his.

I don't think the big mouth bass thing is very accurate at all. He's more like a parrot who can't stop tweeting and squawking. But I think the perception most people have of him isn't realistic at all, and to me indicates a lack of understanding of human nature even for as bizzare as he might be.

[–]Hematomato 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Firstly I want to thank you for a well thought out and thorough response. You didn't just "nuh uh" , but you provided a structured argument with supporting facts and examples. You avoided personal attacks and logical fallacies and stuck to the point. I really commend you. This is rare on these types of sites.

Hey, thank you. I appreciate that, too.

I think the examples you've chosen are for the most part just as true with the other president's we've had this side of the millenia excepting maybe Obama.

I think that's fair, but also, at the same time, totally different situations.

George W. Bush was pretty obviously not fully up to the job, but his solution was pretty straightforward: he just made Dick Cheney effectively the co-president. So from 2000-2008, we didn't have zero presidents - we had two.

And Joe Biden is pretty obviously too old and infirm to do the job, but he's a career politician whose main skill is delegating. The one thing he still knows how to do as well as ever is to select people for all the jobs who will advance his interests while at the same time being competent enough not to embarrass him. So the captain may be asleep at the wheel, but at least he's got a staff holding on to it at all times.

Also conspiracy theory-wise, I still believe he was put up to running by the Clintons who were upset that Obama beat Hillary.

I think that's... half true. I think there's a pretty clear record that he ran for president basically out of spite, because he was incredibly hurt by how the media treated his birther views (and especially by how Seth Meyers turned him into an object of national mockery in 2011).

But that said, Hillary Clinton definitely wanted him for an opponent and did everything she could not to discourage him.

I think he's going to win this next election at this point almost for certain and to be honest I am worried about the result of which.

I'm not sure the numbers add up there. I mean, he lost in 2020. Polls are showing that Biden's unpopular, sure, but also that Trump himself has lost popularity every single year since then. The guy is an absolute broken record at this point. It's hard to imagine him attracting any new support. All he has is his old base, and they couldn't get the ball over the line three years ago.

I think it's looking like it'll be a banner year for third-party candidates and people stubbornly staying home. Wouldn't surprise me if the Libertarian candidate took like 8% of the vote next year. But I'm not convinced at all that Trump can get the EVs to get to 270.