- I did not vote for Trump
- I do not like Trump
- I do not support Trump but, then, I don’t support any president. I support or oppose policies.
- I do my level best to be as fair-minded as I possibly can be, up to and possibly beyond a fault. That doesn’t depend on the letter behind the president’s name. I do not suspend my critical faculties depending on political party.
Appointing weak subordinates is a sign of a weak manager but that was to be expected from a political tyro without much support from within the Republican establishment.
Trump became president spending less money in real terms than any victorious candidate in recent history. I don’t interpret that as Trump didn’t really want to be president (as some do) because I think he doesn’t feint. I think it points to just how poor a candidate Hillary Clinton was.
Calls for impeachment now would have a lot more force if they weren’t coming from people who were calling for Trump’s impeachment before he had been inaugurated. Or from people who never met a war they didn’t like.
I did vote for Trump, but really as an impotent expression of disgust for his opponent. I was in IL at the time.
I don’t like him either. He’s quite a flawed man. But one does have to say, right or wrong, he’s willing to pursue his convictions. Not much of that in politics.
The point about policies is key. I don’t care about Trump boinking Stormy Daniels any more than I care about JFKs revolving door or Bill Clinton schtupping Jennifer Flowers. I do however care about the almost certainly true rape of Juanita Broaderick and using Hillary to destroy women instead of paying them Trump style. There is evil there.
But Trump has been willing to take on the trade issue, thumb his nose at silly legacy building deals with Iran or flat out dumb unilateral industrial disarmament, uh, global warming deals. And despite having started 10 of the last zero thermonuclear wars, with the exception of Afghanistan, has better reigned in the warmongering tendencies of the last few presidents. He is no friend of regulations. If policy is what matters one might want to focus on those and not bizarrely contorted interpretations of campaign finance laws. The impeachment crowd is not, shall we say, distinguishing themselves.
I completely agree about Clinton. I totally understand someone voting against her, and that is why they voted for Trump. I also wish they would knock of the impeachment stuff unless and until Mueller finds something about Trump. Let’s face it, while the violation of campaign laws is serious, no one his team cares sine he is their crook.
On policy, I am disappointed with his lack of effort on trade. Not even attempting to get new deals, just tossing around tariffs. The Iran deal was probably the best nuclear deal we had with any country and he jumped out of it. Others are not following. I am concerned that he continues the warmongering of other presidents. He has mad it pretty clear that he won’t take the risk of leaving Afghanistan and probably not Syria or Iraq. Permanent troops in 3 ME countries instead of two in that area is not an improvement. His lack of effort on regulations is disappointing. His admin has not been able or willing to do the follow up work needed to actually rescind regulations (who knew you couldn’t just sing them away) and the new regs I am dealing with coming out of his CMS endanger my patients every day. I think that when you evaluate his policy, and what he has actually done, not what he takes credit for, there isn’t much to like. That still doesn’t mean we can or should impeach.
Steve
“High crimes or misdemeanors”, the grounds for impeachment, are anything the House says they are. While I think that if Democrats win the House they will, indeed, vote to impeach or at least bring it to the floor on a regular basis making it for them what repealing the ACA was for the Republicans, I do not believe that a Republican-led House will do that or a Republican-led Senate will vote to remove with Trump’s approval rating at 43.5% as it is now. That’s just about what Obama’s was at the analogous point in his presidency. I also think that if Democrats take both houses of Congress and impeach and remove Trump, they are risking an actual shooting civil war.
My enormous antipathy for HRC was my primary motivation in voting for Trump. And, while his abrasive rhetoric continues to turn me off, the childish, churdish oppositional actions and in-actions of the democrat party, accompanied by the violent and inane behavior of side and fringe groups supporting democrats, dilutes most of the distaste that bubbles up when I hear some of Trump’s more wretched commentaries.
Policy and his very openly defiant defense of the ordinary working man/woman, however, is what saves the day for me in weathering this president’s term in office. In the policy department Trump has broken with much of consensus thinking practiced by earlier administrations. The Paris Accord, for instance, was a sham, with the two highest carbon producers, India and China, being given a pass, while the U.S. paid most of the money collected for this accord. In the meantime, this country continues to lower it’s carbon while other countries, still in the climate accord, are experiencing a rise in their carbon production.Â
The Iran deal was also a non-starter for me, as most of the original criteria controlling the actions of Iran was either dropped or muted. The IAEA was supposed to have any-time-any-where access to Iran’s facilities — that was deleted. Soil samples, instead, are mailed in by Iranians for testing. Their ballistic missile capability was also minimized, including buying arms from other countries like Russia.Â
Furthermore, Trump has waded into trading waters long decried by other presidents, but meekly circumvented because of the political cost.  In tandem with these ongoing trade negotiations, Michael Pillsbury, a Chinese “expert,” has gradually come around to praising Trump’s handling of China, saying they have been totally unprepared for someone not backing down like other administrations have done. How these trade deals or non-deals eventually end up is anyone’s guess. But, I have to hand it to the current administration for tackling some of the more difficult and growing problems of our time, rather than passing them off to the next president. Even N. Korea and Russia are having greater sanctions being applied than previous administrations dared to do.
I also have little problem with Trump’s domestic policies and deregulation of business — especially how it has effected small businesses start-ups. At the end of the Obama era. more small enterprises were going out of business than were coming on line. The Russell 2000’s growth, during the last 18 mos, however, reflects a renewed and robust domestic economy In fact, the optimism in this area has bloomed, including in minority communities (a 400% increase in AA small business growth) . Employment opportunities seems to have positively effected most demographics, including minority, youth and those without HS diplomas. In the health care arena, there seems to be real efforts to devise short term plans for people, that are more affordable and having fewer non-applicable criteria that are attractive to hard-hit middle class families. The VA is attentively turning the wheel on supplying faster medical care via vets attaining medical help in the private sector.  Workforce reform has also been addressed with the private sector joining in training and internship programs for upwards to 3 million people. Advancement in prison reform is in the news as well. And, then you have energy task forces actively meeting with members of this administration to address inadequacies in the power grid (giving them an A+ )– something the prior administration didn’t do once during their 8 year term in office.
Nonetheless, most credit-worthy headway, made by the Trump administration, rarely makes it in the MSM news cycle, let alone graces an editorial page. Instead, sensational gossip, the endless Mueller investigation, and the antics of screeching opposition forces are all you hear and read about. It’s fatiguing to many, and the end result of the House being turned over to drama-filled democrats, after the midterms, is beyond discouraging.
https://nypost.com/2018/08/22/why-trumps-supporters-wont-care-about-cohen-and-manaforts-convictions/
I thought this article in the New York Post is a good observation of the underlying political reality.
It also highlights Democrats’ problems. The Democratic Party is the party of the bureaucracy, insiders, and apparatchiks. What is it they can do that won’t threaten the positions of that core?
Look at it another way. What will Mike Madigan (Speaker of the Illinois House for most of the last 35 years) and J. B. Pritzker (Democratic gubernatorial candidate) do for Illinois? The centerpiece of Pritzker’s campaign is a proposal for a graduated income tax in Illinois. That would require amending the state’s constitution. He won’t succeed in doing it and even if he does it will merely accelerate the exodus of high income voters from Illinois.
“Weak tea,†is, I believe was expression about all this Trump investigation. Meanwhile, back in the real world. Mr Mueller seems disinterested.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/08/22/despite_comey_assurance_vast_bulk_of_weiner_laptop_emails_never_examined.html
Nancy Pelosi said that ‘impeachment is off the table’ and leftists are down with Medicare for All. Nobody in power thinks it’s happening. Problem is that Trump is insanely corrupt. I don’t about ‘weak management’. He was on top of the Stormy Daniels pay-off, for example. That was a good move on his part. He definitely has the management skills re: sending hush money to the 5,000 porn stars he’s had 4 seconds of sex with.
And that Zito article points to the gaping flaw the GOP has. It’s written like something out of Pravda. The Democrats are the party of aging boomer consultants in DC. But they’re also Chapo Trap House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and young white moderates in Pa and Texas. I’m sure Dave means to be ominous with his talk of civil war, but when normal people under 50 think of Republicans revolting, it’s fat laughable white seniors terrified by a picture of Antifa on Fox buying 8 more guns and talking to bots on twitter.
Yeah, its youth orientation is why all of the Democratic leadership is over 70.
“Yeah, its youth orientation is why all of the Democratic leadership is over 70.â€
Heh.
I was shocked MM claimed Ocasio-Cortez. That woman is in the class of politicians capable of concerns that Guam might tip over.