Trump tweets again
Just a few years ago it would have seemed extraordinarily odd if you had learned that in 2016 a great deal of discussion would center around a president-elect’s or president’s tweets.
“What’s a tweet?” would have been your first question.
“Who’s the president?” would have been your second. And if the answer you received was “Donald Trump,” you would have dismissed the speaker as nuts.
But I digress.
It is indeed the case that a great deal of discussion these days centers around president-elect Donald Trump’s tweets. As Dick Cheney put it recently:
Note the sly smile.
So, the pattern this has taken is that each day or couple of days there’s a new TrumpTweet that the press gets up in arms about. Thus, the press is actually amplifying the effect of Trump’s tweets rather than diminishing them.
The latest tweet has to do with this:
“Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” the president-elect wrote on Twitter.
“The plane is totally out of control. It’s going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program and I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump elaborated in brief comments to reporters at Trump Tower. “I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.”
As I heard someone recently say (I believe it was Jonah Goldberg) on some TV cable news station or other, Trump has a flair for drama. Exactly.
I could discuss the ins and outs of whether Trump’s statement was in error or not (for example, was it really 4 billion dollars, or was that a misstatement?), all the ins and outs of the statement’s effect on the Boeing stockholder, and whether it was advisable at all, but you can follow the arguments at those links I just gave. For me, this tweet of Trump’s and so many of his tweets and activities lately have been for the most part in the service of sending a message to the public about who Trump is, rather than about any particular policy with a particular company. In this case, the message is, “I drive a hard bargain, and I will cut the fat.”
As I’ve said many times before: we’ll see.
[NOTE: What about Trump’s meeting with Al Gore, a get-together that has drawn a lot of ire from the right? As I’ve said before, I look at every single position and statement from Donald Trump as mutable. Who knows what he really thinks about AGW? Not me, not you, and perhaps not even Donald Trump.
To find out what I’m talking about when I say “perhaps not even Donald Trump,” read this, and please read it carefully. It seems that, long before the meeting with Gore, Trump was fairly agnostic on human-caused climate change.
I also believe that—as with the subject matter of this post—Trump’s Gore meeting had a symbolic meaning above all. That meaning is a message to the middle and the left: “See, I’m not an AGW-denying troglodyte; I have an open mind, and I’m not going to be a target for you in this respect.”
When Trump becomes president, it will become more clear what he will actually do. Till then, all is mutable and all is also symbolic.]
I think Salena Zito noted a profound distinction remark when she wrote:
The link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/
” . . . a profound
distinction</strike remark . . ."The real issue with Gore was why was Ivanka meeting with manbearpig? Her stated expertise is in fashion (maybe?) or branding?. Could this all be that she has to have the President Elect use his influence to make her insulated from Dad’s working class supporters? Clearly her child care program announced at the GOP convention is not fiscally responsible or one a limited federal government should use. If it is nothing more than helping her market her wares then God help us all.
Worth a read — Ivanka Trump, climate czar? The first daughter aims to use the first lady’s lectern to champion liberal causes.
I suspect that, of all his advisers, it’s those in his family Trump most listens to.
But, I repeat myself. During the primaries I formed an image of Trump as thin skinned, shallow, and likely to shoot from the hip.
Based on his overall performance as a candidate, and as President-elect, I am prepared to modify my attitude. There are indications that he is a strategic, if unconventional, thinker whose view of reality is well grounded.
I think we will know within the next three to six months whether either assessment is valid. In the mean time, buckle up.
It seems like there is a little crazy like a fox going on here. Trump has used social media to vector the discussion away from the meme(legacy) building that the WH/MSM complex are trying to accomplish. He is creating squirrels for the lapdogs to chase. Notice how the media is suddenly fascinated with the (actually quite mundane) military/government procurement process to the exclusion of the image building that would normally be happening at the end of a presidential term.
Only today did we here the first voice from the left complaining that Trump was not yet President but was acting like he was. This is the same crowd that has told us for two years that Trump is not “Presidential” material. Now he is acting too Presidential… (mirthful smile).
We know his children and ivanka’s husband have djt’s ear. None of them were able to vote for him in the NY primary. They are the NYC values liberals discussed during the campaign for the nomination. I hope this meeting with Gore is just another one of his kabuki moves signifying nothing and daddy’s little girl will be disappointed when Trump does not stop the rising of the seas.
‘perhaps not even Donald Trump.’
I agree, although I probably would have said ‘definitely not even Donald Trump’
‘at Trump was not yet President but was acting like he was’
I don’t think they meant that quite the way you think.
If Trump’s statement on the Boeing Air Force One project is a signal to government contractors, I say, YES! I know some retired Boeing engineers and the scuttlebutt I get from them is that DOD doesn’t do a very good job of keeping costs down on their contracts.
Yes, the airplane will have a ton of electronics, defense against heat seeking missiles, the latest whiz bang automation, etc, but, other than the way it is configured, it’s an airliner that retails for about $357 million. Is the additional $3.7 billion paying for all the whiz bang electronics etc.? I don’t think so.
This is bringing the thinking of a business man to the government. It is going to be interesting to see how many sacred oxen get gored in the process.
Parker!
I’m going to Des Moines on Thursday for the Trump rally. If you are going, look for me. I will be wearing a Creighton Bluejay blue hat. Only one there, for sure.
Trump’s EPA transition team is strictly hardcore skeptics. Al Gore’s meeting is Kabuki, not substance.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/05/trumps-full-epa-transition-team-named/
J.J. – right on! Somebody whose actually going to look and government contracts and say, “No way, Jose!” The bureaucrats in the Pentagon (and elsewhere) must be diving under their desks!
The beginning of my favorite scene in a political movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D89VFP-BBas
Cornhead,
Not going, other commitments have been made to teach an aikido class. Plus Mrs parker still needs my tender care as she fights off a nasty cold. A cold that I struggled with for 8 days. I think I caught the virus from the kid’s class I teach on Wednesdays.
Come spring I would be glad to meet you in Des Moines for lunch at the Gateway.
It is strikingly difficult for Neo to say something nice, anything nice, about Trump. I’m reading less of hers as a result. Has she had anything good to say about the nomination of Sessions? About Mattis? About anyone? About his Thank You tour (when last did a Pres.-Elect do that?)?
Trump is right. He has created a Movement.
Trump critics seem not know how to respond except to blow foghorns of warning and doubt. But foghorns don’t make their fog, though the critics do.
Frog:
Let me introduce you to your friend the “search” function. Although you’ve hung around here for years, you seem unfamiliar with it. It’s on the right sidebar below the “donate” button. All you have to do is type in a word and voila! It gives you links to my posts with that word in it. First it gives ones where the word is in the title, and then ones where the word is in the body of the post.
So if you type in “Sessions,” you can easily find this post of mine where I discuss how very qualified Sessions is, as well as Flynn and Pompeo, three of Trump’s earliest appointments. I conclude the post this way (just to save you the trouble of going there):
As for Trump’s victory tour, what interests me is what he does, not giving speeches. That’s my opinion not only about Trump, but about almost all politicians. However, I certainly covered the Carrier deal, which was connected with the victory tour, and I praised it as brilliant PR:
What’s more, this post—the one we are commenting on—once again praises Trump’s PR skills, and describes what I think his message is. If you think that’s a criticism, you’re wrong. It’s not my cup of tea in terms of what I’m looking for, personally (I’m interested in what he will do). But I think PR is very important in general, and something GOP candidates have sorely lacked. That’s something Trump has in abundance. Why shouldn’t I praise it?
I have made no secret of the fact that I would have preferred another GOP candidate, or one of several actually. But now Trump is going to be president, and I am evaluating both the good and the bad. It’s very curious to me that you seem to be taking offense at posts that actually praise Trump, and you interpret them as dissing him.
Very curious.
If I see something in Trump to praise, I praise it. If I see something to criticize, I criticize it. I plan to continue to do so as I see fit. Why you would want me to do your bidding and write the way you want me to I cannot say. But if you want to write about those topics, feel free to start your own blog.
Trump meeting with Algore removes the tips from certain arrows in the liberal quiver. Great fun watching their heads explode with cognitive dissonance. Trump is a very, very smart man.
“I think PR is very important in general, and something GOP candidates have sorely lacked. That’s something Trump has in abundance.” – Neo
Agree. It is probably at the heart of the perceived and actual failure of the GOP over the past number of years, though it wouldn’t be the only thing.
.
“Why you would want me to do your bidding and write the way you want me to I cannot say.”
Seen something similar directed my way.
The objection seems to be that there is any hint at skepticism wrt trump.
.
It seems we, as citizens (at least for some of us), have profoundly lacked skepticism when and where it is needed, and are so profoundly skeptical in other cases, to the point of conspiracy, where there is no acceptable ground between those two poles.
I learned this cycle that I wasn’t skeptical enough of those who claimed to speak for “conservatives”.
It’s amazing the effect Trump is having without even being president!
He’s certainly establishing his brand. I wonder if he plans to trademark “President Trump”. 🙂
Has there ever been as much anticipation about a future presidency as with the Trump? Possibly Kennedy, but I was fairly young then, so I don’t remember.
For some anticipation, for others anxiety.
As to the Boeing 747 build, I read that was for two planes with a $3.73 billion price tag over 12 years, so the $4 billion would be the expected cost overruns.
Remember Trump likes to bring projects in under budget.
Somebody better tell him if he is going to go after every government overrun, tweeting in the middle of the night, he’s going to have to install a Starbucks in his bedroom.
He’s also going to have an additional 2 million MSM followers on his Twitter account, and they’re all going to scrutinize every word and letter, looking for every opportunity to criticize him. He should learn to leave specific numbers out of his tweets.
oldflyer said: There are indications that he is a strategic, if unconventional, thinker whose view of reality is well grounded.
—-
I’ve always thought this was true, and while Trump does seem to shoot his mouth off a lot, I think a lot of it, perhaps most, is carefully calculated. After all, he plays the press like a fiddle, something they don’t even seem to realize.
I think he’s a lot smarter than most people give him credit for, and definitely much smarter than the press makes him out to be, or believes. This is to his advantage as it was with Reagan.
There is also the “take him literally” vs. “take him seriously” divide that Neo has talked about, meaning he communicates to his constituency in a way that the press deliberately distorts and probably completely misunderstands.
Trump, for all his faults (and he was far from my first choice out of the GOP field), is the perfect weapon against political correctness, and there are millions of liberals whose brains are completely crashing and rebooting every time he opens his mouth. This is going to help this country a lot, because it will help portray the MSM and liberal narratives (which pretty much overlap) and being anything other than the nonsense it is to more and more people.
I’ve been cautiously optimistic since Election Day, more optimistic than cautious. We’ve needed someone for decades who can stand up to the press and not kowtow every time he sins against political correctness, and Trump is that person. Even if he fails some conservative litmus tests, and might cozy up more to the GOPe than we angry voters would like, I don’t think we’re going to see the status quo.
Frog Says:
“It is strikingly difficult for Neo to say something nice, anything nice, about Trump. I’m reading less of hers as a result.”
That’s OK. I’m not into Trump worshipers anyway.
“Trump is right. He has created a Movement.”
BS. The movement was already there – it was called the Tea Parties. You remember that they began in early 2009, don’t you, back when the orange blowhard was still BFF with Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, and Hillary, donating to them, was pro-abortion, pro gun control, a 9/11 Truther – just your standard NY liberal Democrat a la Michael Bloomberg. He saw the 15 candidate field in the Republican Party as much easier to play divide and conquer with than the Marxist Party with Hillary an apparent shoo-in.
The Tea Parties already had a natural favorite – Ted Cruz. Then Trump put on the most vile campaign of character assassination against him I’ve seen since the Marxists hammered Palin, filled with lies and ad hominem smears. He doesn’t know what the Constitution is, let alone that it was written to prevent the rise of someone like him or Hillary, until it was bastardized by two hundred years of politicians, lawyers, and judges sabotaging it.
Trump has no honor, integrity, principles, morals or ethics. He will have to be one fabulous president for me to accept a nasty human being like that.
Before you get all huffy and scream “#NeverTrumper” at me, I voted for him, but only out of desperation. I’d say several tens of millions of others also voted with me against Hillary, with Trump as the not-quite-as-horrible alternative.
Like I read Neo to learn what Frog has to say. Ribbit.
@Neo – you are in good company in thinking there is this weird pushback on any criticism:
“My real problem is with all the people who seem to think that any skepticism of Trump’s actions on my part can only be explained by anti-Trump bias or bitterness. These people seem to think that the most positive, most pro-Trump spin on any new event is not only always correct but obviously so, and any skepticism about the genius of his actions is a sign of illegitimate bias.
And that’s crazy.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442842/donald-trump-boeing-air-force-one-tweet-story-behind-tweet
Same article:
“The projection is for two Air Force One planes, the current contract with Boeing is “only” $170 million to work up the plans for the interior of the aircraft, etc.”
Having worked on contracts with the government, it is easy to understand how it is possible to have $640 toilet seats, or other extraordinarily priced items.
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/news/vw-18804_1_nut
It is not all corruption, and perhaps none at all, but incompetence and other people’s money spent by them.
Last comment on this.
The new phrase “Take trump Seriously, Not Literally”,
Should be changed to:
“Take trump Seriously, Not Literally, Unless trump Is Being Literal”.
Or was that to be changed to:
“Literally, Take trump, Seriously” 😉
geokstr:
Trump resurrected the Tea Party movement, of which I was a local founder, to a certain and important extent. He used Alinsky tactics against his opponents GOP and Dem, which I had urged my local Tea Party to adopt. Our TP faded from the scene because it was almost all nice, mannerly greyheads. Those few of us who went to the many nominally public meetings of our various city gov’t subunits did cause transient change, the sunlight effect. We were the only members of the public to attend, watching millions spent by motion, second, no discussion, no public comments allowed, vote, carried. But we could not keep up the pace by ourselves alone.
I am however dubious that we will see major shrinkage of government, a Tea Party dream, realized.
Neo, thanks for your long reply. But because you so often include snippets of doubt about Trump, his motives, his lack of gov’t experience, and his abilities, most of which I deem as hedging so one day you may say, “See, I was right!”, I am reading you less.
And you are right, I have never used your “search” button.
Frog:
How odd that you consider my doubt “hedging” so that I can say “See, I was right!” when in fact this blog’s entire premise is based on a political change that says “I was wrong.”
You really should try to be more logical.
I have said over and over that if Trump were to be elected I would be very much hoping to have been wrong about him
I find it bizarre that, after reading this blog for years, you don’t know that my motivation is to call it like I see it. As a blogger working in real time, there is no way to avoid having been wrong at times. I am a naturally careful person, and I do not jump on bandwagons, and I see plenty of reason for caution in evaluating Trump. I describe the hopeful signs as well as the less hopeful signs.
If you don’t like that and don’t want it in your reading matter, you’re free to read as little of it as you like.
I also suggest that if you’re going to speculate on what I have written in the past on a certain topic, you really owe it to yourself to use the search function. Why you would not have done so before you wonder whether I’ve written on a topic is beyond me. Perhaps you’d rather cling to your own beliefs than find out the facts.
It is strikingly difficult for Neo to say something nice, anything nice, about Trump. I’m reading less of hers as a result.
When people prefer to read things that reinforce their biases and their bubbles, congratulations, you have become a cultist or a Leftist. Not much difference.
It’s cognitive dissonance to see and hear things that run contrary to your world view. But what can one expect out of human weaklings.
These people seem to think that the most positive, most pro-Trump spin on any new event is not only always correct but obviously so, and any skepticism about the genius of his actions is a sign of illegitimate bias.
No, it isn’t crazy. It’s mind control. Or rather, it’s priming the pump, makes it easier for other propaganda operations to take hold in foreign and friendly territory. It’s a war of psychological push and pull, instead of bombs and planes.
“Before you get all huffy and scream “#NeverTrumper” at me, I voted for him, but only out of desperation. I’d say several tens of millions of others also voted with me against Hillary, with Trump as the not-quite-as-horrible alternative.” – geokstr
That, and several million of what would be expected voters stayed home, based on comparative turnout of proportion of eligible voters. Most of them were evidently dem voters.
BOTH candidates had the highest negatives ever, and neither were acceptable candidates to many millions.
trump does not have a mandate as such, but he does have power, fair and square.
Down ticket GOP in Congress seem to have more of a claim to a mandate.
It is an opportunity the GOP have been given.
We can hope it turns out wonderful, and be surprised and delighted despite any skepticism we hold.
We’ll see where trump and the GOP Congress goes with it.