The current Trump-describing meme…
…is that he’s turned into a centrist (for example, see this).
But it’s hard to see how he could turn into one, when he always was a mish-mash of competing statements on many subjects. After all, it wasn’t just an objection to his personal style that caused many conservatives to oppose him during the primaries, or even after. It was statements such as his praise for the Canadian health care system, and myriad other examples of not just centrist thought but even in some cases leftist thought.
Any conservative observer of Trump factored that in long ago. Any conservative voter had to consider it during the primaries, but especially after he’d won the nomination. Voting for him constituted a leap into the unknown with a person roundly distrusted. It was only because the alternative—Hillary—was so very dreadful that most conservatives ended up holding their noses and pulling that Trump lever.
The real surprise is that Trump’s been as conservative as he has so far rather than the other way around. I’m not sure I would be surprised by anything Trump does. He is predictable in his unpredictability. But even that is unpredictable because he might suddenly turn consistent, at least for a while.
Which is why we should want him surrounded by as many conservatives as possible even if they are less than perfect like Bannon.
Thread jack!
Regarding the recent news story of the United passenger’s removal from a flight from O’Hare to Louisville, this, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/04/united-passenger-removal-reporting-management-fail.html is a very detailed, unbiased and unemotional account of what appears to have happened based on available evidence, and applicable law. For those interested, it’s worth a read, but here are some of the highlights:
An article I recently read claimed Trump and his appointees are Ayn Rand fans. That along with pragmatism and much experience working the system could explain much of what we’re seeing.
I logged in to say spot on Neo, but . . .
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HEY RUFUS, very interesting details, how it got placed here I don’t know.
Trump is a pragmatic nationalist, he’s opposed to anything that reduces or threatens American sovereignty and supports anything that, in his instinctually based judgement, benefits America. Conservative and liberal labels are meaningless to him.
GB, I hate to be snarky, but I corrected this for you:
“Trump is a
pragmatic nationalistTrumpist, he’s opposed to anything that reduces or threatensAmerican sovereigntyTrump and supports anything that, in his instinctually based judgement, benefitsAmericaTrump. Conservative and liberal labels are meaningless to him.”“Any conservative observer of Trump factored that in long ago.”
I don’t really think so. Many of us did, and some (like me) found him unacceptable.
A whole lot of Trump voters just mirror-imaged what Obama voters did eight years before, and saw what they wanted to see in Trump.
“He’s a conservative”
“He’s a Godly man. It’s so good to see God back in the white house”
“He’ll clean up Washington”
etc . . .
Trump, like obama, is interested in what bolsters his narcissism. Unlike obama, he has no core political philosophy. Thus, its a case by case (except when its not) affair with djt. Expecting consistency from Trump is futile. Compare his campaign statements about China to his current statements about China. There is no there there with djt. I will like what he does or I will not, case by case.
Bill I only know one person that voted for Trump that thought the things you wrote–and I know A LOT of people who voted for him. We all hoped his judge list would come into play; knowing full-well, the opposite of that list would be Hillary’s choices, not to mention the other destructive things we know she would do FULL STOP
He keeps our adversaries guessing. Launching the Tomahawks over chocolate cake was a master stroke. The Chinese president (?) respected that.
It takes us back to where we were pre-election. It was a binary choice: there were only two people who had a chance at being the next president. You could vote for one of them or not, if it made you feel better to waste a vote on a no-hope candidate to avoid having to choose to between two unappetizing choices, but there were only two possible outcomes.
A significant percent of Trump voters were either people who projected, Obama-like, their political fantasies onto him, or people like me, who argued vehemently against him until the debate was over and eventually voted for him because just the chance that he would not select a hard-left Supreme Court judge was better than anything Hillary would ever do for me.
Anything Trump does, does not really surprise me.
Bill,
That’s a not uncommon point of view, especially among neverTrumpers. My assessment was not offered as praise but as honest evaluation. I don’t think its supportable to argue that Trump only cares about himself, nor that his ego dominates his every consideration. That assessment is not by any means meant to deny Trump’s excessive self-regard, it just acknowledges that there’s more to the man than simple narcissivism.
I’ll give up my non-binary choice when you pry it away from my cold, dead fingers!
Neo:
I’m not sure I would be surprised by anything Trump does.
Then you won’t be surprised when he proposes a Value Added Tax to fund Social Security and Medicare. Every Democrat and some Republican’s are salivating at the prospect of what amounts to a hidden national sales tax. We are one of the few advanced economies without one. I have little doubt this proposal will be passed in one form or another. The idea here is to pass it off as a new funding mechanism for SS with the carrot of eliminating the payroll tax. Once a VAT is in place it will oh so easy to find other urgent needs, and what the heck, “it’s only another 2%”, which then becomes another 3% etc…;
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2017/04/13/Trump-Keeps-Promise-Not-Touch-Social-Security-Reform-Or-Did-He
Here’s a list of VAT taxes worldwide. Most of them run about 20%, for instance Germany 19%, United Kingdom 20%, Sweden 25%, and so on.
http://www.uscib.org/valueadded-taxes-vat-ud-1676/
President Trump has achieved my goal in voting for him.
He is not Hillary Clinton.
He has also achieved my “stretch goal” by nominating a good supreme court justice. That was my only hope when I voted for him. Nothing else he does will matter as much in the long term.
What Martin posted.
An extra point to President Trump if overall Federal spending increases by less than 1% a year during his administration(s).
He made strides in meeting my essential criteria with the Gorsuch appointment. Let’s hope it is the start of a trend.
Trump is kind of all over the place; but, his appointments are solid. I think Tillerson may turn out to be one of the great modern Secs of State.
Rufus, I won’t say what you posted is a heap of crap; but, it is the lawyer’s spin. About what you would expect. Regardless of the mistakes UAL made, the guy did something to make the cops (airport or city) react the way they did. UAL did not play a part in that. So, my BS meter is approaching the upper limit when I hear the lawyer sound off.
Concussion, two broken teeth, broken nose, slander, all started by UAL incompetence using airport police to enforce bad decisions to remove paying passenger by having a hot head, sub standard, cop come onto the plane and this is what happens: big lawsuit plus bonus points for lawsuit $, x 2 over 65 age squared, x 3 if Doctor x number of his patients next day, plus temperature on plane x number of miles traveled from West coast to Chicago x 6 if Asian ,, this is a logarithmic progression and if you hit all variables when they play Whack-a-Mole on your head you could end up being the majority stockholder of United and have to answer for the next round of screwups.,, Just saying.. I am very sorry for the doctor and I do hope he receives justice.
This airport beating really rounds out a great week of Trump in the news with the media chasing their tails trying to figure out what happened.
Trump has kind of shown he can, with the help of the Senate, get a choice Supreme court appointment sworn in while he is entertaining China top dog while he blowing the crap out of Syria while he is rescinding Obama crap, winning in Kansas while Dems complain about the margins of victory. Getting China to pay attention to N. Korea and killing some ISIS by popping off the biggest bomb used in combat since, maybe 1945.
Hell it doesn’t get much better than this with the media mis-reporting the illegal United mess and then watching them play catch up with Trump’s news. Pop some popcorn and stay tuned for a fresh round of weekend news of the Goober Head Trump shaking more stuff up and exceeding my expectations many times over since I was willing to settle for one good appointment to the Supremes, the rest of this is whipped cream topping with sprinkles cause, he’s not Hillary.
There are many people who voted for Trump, like me, that believed, from looking at his business record, that he was very much a pragmatist who would do whatever worked to bring success to this country. We also felt secure enough in our conservative philosophy that the only thing that could possibly work would be conservative.
Where others see flip-flopping we see a change in tone due to changed circumstances.
Russia went from a possible ally to a possible enemy to be dealt with at arms length based on their intransigence, especially in Syria. Trump gave them a chance to negotiate in good faith and they turned it down.
NATO went from useless and outdated to a stronger ally based on their agreements to increase defense spending and to participate more in the war on Islamic terrorism
China went from a currency manipulator and unfair trader to a country with which we could make deals based on their stopping the currency manipulation, voting with us in the UN,
helping with sanctions on North Korea, and replacing the North Korean coal orders with orders for American coal.
Not wanting to get involved in other countries affairs is a philosophical political idea that doesn’t override our interest in keeping chemical weapons from becoming acceptable in the mid-east to the point that ISIS might get the ideal it would be okay to use them elsewhere. It is also important to assist countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel, among others, that could be allies in the war on militant Islam.
The failure with healthcare reform is solely due to Trump trusting Ryan to come up with a bill that he could pass. He didn’t think Ryan was such a lightweight that he would try to force something fast that had no support. Trump knows better now and the next effort will be successful.
So, instead of spending all our time trying to analyze Trump’s motives for the things he does (how much is narcissism and how much is honest effort; something none of us can judge accurately and which doesn’t really matter anyway) we just analyze the effects of his actions and are very happy so far.
He hasn’t done everything he said he would do yet but he has only been in office about 3 months and the level of opposition to everything he does is at unprecedented levels from both parties and the media.
It’s a miracle Trump has done the things he has so far: a new conservative Supreme Court justice, the most conservative cabinet in history, illegal border crossings down over 60%, accelerated deportations of criminal aliens, huge reductions in the administrative burden on business, a new optimism among allies and fear among enemies, a good start in unleashing our fossil fuels industry and on and on.
I would love to start hearing more evaluations of his actions and less of his motives and feelings. Those latter evaluations always tell me more about the evaluator than the evaluated anyway
This piece by NRO’s Rich Lowry in Politico illuminates some of my (many) concerns about The Trump WH. Even though one of those concerns is Bannon (with his miscalculations and bulldozer-style of dealing with people), if Bannon is in fact pushed out in favor of the Jared/Ivanka faction, then Trump might be reinforced in the NYC liberal positions he has held in the past:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/when-jared-wins-215021
On the other hand, Gorsuch has been confirmed so there’s that.
I haven’t been able to get a good line on Bannon. I expected him to be more alt-right — whatever that is.
However, I started reading Bannon on foreign policy and he sounded like he out-neoconned the neocons with his firebreathing talk about the coming wars with Islam and China.
“Then you won’t be surprised when he proposes a Value Added Tax to fund Social Security and Medicare. Every Democrat and some Republican’s are salivating at the prospect of what amounts to a hidden national sales tax. “- The Other Chuck
When you read the article, the consideration of a VAT (probably not going anywhere at this point) is due to the fact Trump pledged during the campaign not to mess with SS or Medicare.
Actually I would prefer a national sales tax (excluding food and drugs) to pay for entitlements– SS, Medicare, Medicaid and AHCA, but the fact that the issue is being raised to address the looming entitlement debt crisis is good.
But what should be obvious to everyone from this, is that Trump is trying to keep his campaign promises. So he’ll be as conservative as his campaign pledges were. Beyond that the NYC Democrat/Republican side of him will probably drive his administration.
As has been said several times already, Trump is a pragmatist– he’s for what works so ideological labels are a poor measure of his philosophy.
As to the VAT or sales tax– in deep blue Washington State we use a sales tax to raise revenue and we like it. We don’t have an income tax– much to consternation of the left and about every election cycle they try and entice voters to enact one, so far without success.
Most of the tax burden from the federal budget is paid by a small segment of the population. Some sort of consumption tax would insure that even the bottom income tier pay something– since at this point, not only are some not paying any income tax, but are receiving payments from EIC and other bottom line credits.
As to Morrissey’s point that it turns SS into a welfare program– well it is a welfare program. Over the years Congress has increased the number of people receiving payments from SS that haven’t contributed taxes to the fund. At least using a consumption tax, everyone is paying something to the program.
At this point, we need to start paying for the government. Conservatives think the solution is cutting benefits– but so far that hasn’t worked out. It’s time to get serious about reducing the deficit.
Part of that are Trump’s economic proposals to grow the economy. Part of that is realistically taxing people for the benefits they want. A VAT or consumption tax may be a solution.
I should add that the only way to control government spending is a balanced budget amendment. Any increased revenue stream will squandered, regardless of the intent of the tax– think SS lock box.
Soon after SS was enacted Congress was debating whether it should be a pay as you go program or whether taxes should be put into a fund reserved for SS payments. This was in the 1940’s. So even then they knew they had poor impulse control.
John Kasich is a leader working to get the requisite number of states to call for a balanced budget amendment.
Without that you’re concern about a new funding source being abused by congress is valid, though voters do vote their pocketbook.
Brian E, I don’t dispute the rationale for a VAT given the predicament we find ourselves in with an ever increasing debt burden. Remember that Rand Paul proposed one last year while campaigning but called it something else. He also had a working session with Trump on the golf course recently to supposedly discuss health care. Coincidence?
Trump has to be given credit for his appointments, especially Gorsuch. His attempts to roll back regulation by executive order and through the various departments is also a big positive. However, he was a lifelong Democrat and it shows. He sees government as a force to manipulate the economy and by extension our lives. One way or another the massive infrastructure projects he envisions, rebuilding of the military, and national health care will all have to be funded. With the current entitlements of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, & housing subsidies eating up revenue, there won’t be any money for his big plans without some kind of new tax source.
A VAT will enable the expansion of government. Was Trump voted in to grow government or to drain the swamp and free up the private sector?
The Other Chuck,
Actually I agree with you. I think Trump is what used to be called a Jackson (Scoop Jackson) Democrat– strong national defense, liberal domestically with a streak of businessman that sees regulations as a hindrance to economic growth.
But he is making a good faith effort to keep his campaign promises, which is to his credit. Other than that, yes, he’s going to be all over the map.
Being a social conservative that wants to see real economic growth and have had my eyes open to the downside of globalism, I’m willing to overlook Trump’s failings and appreciate the potential of accomplishments.
Like most, I overlooked his vulgar side because I think the last defense against the collapse of the country into some socialist/authoritarian nightmare is trying to keep the federal court system somewhat balanced. The damage leftist judges can do is certainly yuge.
And we are seeing that play out with the election of Trump. Imagine the damage these socialist/progressive judges could do at the lower court level if Hillary had won and another Ginsburg had been placed on the court. It would have been game over.
Since 1992 we’ve lost 5 million manufacturing jobs, half of them due to offshoring. The social disruption of that out weighs the benefits to investors. Cheap toasters and tvs are a bitter solace. As a businessman, Trump sees the added value to the country with a healthy manufacturing sector. I intend to hold him to his promise to create a business environment that encourages domestic expansion. So far it’s been encouraging.
“Bill I only know one person that voted for Trump that thought the things you wrote—and I know A LOT of people who voted for him. We all hoped his judge list would come into play; knowing full-well, the opposite of that list would be Hillary’s choices, not to mention the other destructive things we know she would do FULL STOP” – Sharon
Sharon, thing is, A LOT of would be GOP voters also stayed home.
Perhaps they thought in similar terms as Bill? And, that a vote for trump was a step too far from what they stood for themselves?
How else to explain the historic (or nearly so – if one compares the GOP relative turnouts of prior POTUS elections) low GOP turnout as a percentage of eligible voters?
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The list of judges was the MOST concrete thing that trump comitted to.
Even then, there was plenty of room to be skeptical as to how far he’d push for it, especially if, as had seem at the time, the dems might take a majority of the Senate.
Fortunately, the GOP DID retain the Senate majority (notably, most with better margins than trump himself did in those states under contention – i.e. no coattails).
At this point, who knows how strong trump would have been at getting anyone from the list approved. Given his flops on other things, seems very possible / likely he’d drop it like a hot potato – and maximize his blame on the dems.
Let’s see on the rest that come up during his term. It should be easier for him to pick from that same list, given the nuke option deployed. Will he?
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Both candidates were terrible.
If there isn’t a better demonstration of how partisan the core of each party has become that they each were acceptable, I don’t know what is.
Ideas and principles be d*mned – we need to “WIN!!”, no matter.
Frankly, this election, right up until Nov 8, looked like another wasted GOP opportunity, but for the luck of a good turn in the news cycle.
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“It takes us back to where we were pre-election. It was a binary choice: there were only two people who had a chance at being the next president.” – Kyndyll
Well, that was certainly most peoples’ mind set.
There were other choices, and, earlier on, the opportunity to settle on one of those others was still extremely possible, hadn’t enough regular GOP voters found trump acceptable.
“we just analyze the effects of his actions and are very happy so far” – Irv
When you attribute all the good to trump and blame failures on others, tells more about “the evaluator”.
At some point trump has got to own his failures too.
But, yes, if it were all merely about (short term) “results”, some good has definitely been accomplished.
@CV – thanks for the link.
If trump can so dramatically reverse himself, and so soon after election, what incentive is there for the House GOP to back trump fully?
“Unpredictability” (or more likely – lacking any base philosophy, principle, strategy, or plan – and just reacting to events) has a price that few are willing to acknowledge.
So now we might be seeing a swing leftwards merely because trump has his kids involved in some ill defined / opaque, but highly influential roles.
Sort of re-inforces the idea that trump hadn’t really campaigned on, nor won, a conservative mandate.
“Sharon, thing is, A LOT of would be GOP voters also stayed home.”- Big Maq
“Fortunately, the GOP DID retain the Senate majority (notably, most with better margins than trump himself did in those states under contention — i.e. no coattails).”- Big Maq
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Big Maq, how do you reconcile those two statements? It sounds like rather than stay at home, some GOP voters didn’t vote for Trump.
Maybe you have a analysis that if the same proportion of legislative voters had voted for the GOP presidential nominee, that person would have won.
Because if the GOP presidential nominee hadn’t won with the help of a new coalition of disaffected democrats what would have been the path to electoral victory? What states did Trump lose that a more mainstream GOP candidate would have won?
Trump did to the other Republican candidates what the MSM would have done to them in the general election. We should be thankful he exposed their weakness at street fighting, which is what it is going to take to beat the left going forward. (OK, you don’t have to thank him :)).
“Sort of re-inforces the idea that trump hadn’t really campaigned on, nor won, a conservative mandate.”- Big Maq
Precisely. He didn’t.
He won on a strong border/protectionist/economic growth agenda. He dragged conservatives along with him on a few conservative ideas (supreme court nominee) being the chief one.
That’s why the idea that conservatives feel short changed is wrong. It was very obvious that the repeal in Obamacare included a replacement that was sustainable (rather than the Democrat version that was designed to be unsustainable).
““Sharon, thing is, A LOT of would be GOP voters also stayed home.”- Big Maq
“Fortunately, the GOP DID retain the Senate majority (notably, most with better margins than trump himself did in those states under contention — i.e. no coattails).”- Big Maq
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Big Maq, how do you reconcile those two statements? It sounds like rather than stay at home, some GOP voters didn’t vote for Trump.”
Brian, they are not mutually exclusive statements.
GOP turnout as a percentage of the eligible voters was WAY down, and was one of the lowest historically.
GOP Senators generally won with a higher margin than trump within their states – trump didn’t “carry” them.
“trump hadn’t really campaigned on, nor won, a conservative mandate.”- Big Maq
Precisely. He didn’t.” – Brian
You are right.
Still used to the idea that GOP are conservative. They are no longer.
Should have said “ANY” mandate, as trump was so mutable.
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“He won on a strong border/protectionist/economic growth agenda.”
Yes, folks still dream he had some set of “promises”.
There have been plenty who were hard core for trump that are rather disappointed with trump’s turn on the ME.
I do see cracks showing up in the “trump can do no wrong” crowd.
Will see what they think of how valuable NATO is now, and how China is not really a currency manipulator anymore.
Maybe trump is listening to his son in law, daughter, or chief economics advisor Cohen, rather than bunion and is taking a more “globalist” view of economics (e.g. “freer trade”)?
Ah, what would his supporters say about his “promises”, then?
Would they care?
Would trump care?
If he broke most of his “promises” (or his measures prove far weaker than) his supporters thought he had made, will they continue to say “take trump seriously, not literally”?
Some folks just can’t seem to realize that, upon reflection, Trump was not only the perfect candidate, but the only realistic one for conservatives.
The thing to remember is that conservatives were as much against the republican establishment as we were the democrats. We felt that them winning with them would not be much better than losing. The end of the country would have just come a little slower.
There is absolutely no doubt that a world famous populist was the only possible candidate to beat them both. We just got lucky that Trump is also a pragmatist who happens to love his country and wants the best for it. The best will always be the conservative path, at least as far as economics and foreign affairs are concerned.
We don’t care where his heart or his morals are. What we care about are the policies that might have a chance of saving the country, which is truly on the precipice in almost every direction.
The fact that a lot of establishment republicans wouldn’t vote for him doesn’t diminish his accomplishment. He didn’t need them. And, since they didn’t vote for him, he owes them nothing. To me, this is the best possible outcome, with both the democrats and the establishment republicans losing and Trump leading the country debt-free.
Big Maq – Are you seriously suggesting that the healthcare reform failure was not Ryan’s fault? Isn’t that exactly what his job is, to get a plan that enough republicans would vote for to pass it? Excuses aside; the bottom line is his and his alone.
“but the only realistic one for conservatives.” – Irv
That is up there with the proposition that ONLY trump could have won.
Disagree vehemently, and have discussed this many times here.
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Look, SCOTUS Gorsuch – very happy about him getting there.
Happy with most of the cabinet picks.
Think he did the right thing on Syria (so far – but it is still a mystery what his principles are, given his about face – is it simply the images he saw on TV?).
Think his reversals on NATO, China, and taking Russia “more seriously” are the right moves.
There are a few other minor laudable things.
But overall, it has been a mixed bag, at best.
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Seems to be a need by hard core trump supporters to only want others to praise trump and “give him credit”.
Yet, many won’t countenance well-deserved criticism and skepticism around trump.
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Was the AHCA failure not Ryan’s fault?
Oh, Ryan certainly deserves plenty of blame, but trump hardly should be blameless.
Ryan is faulted with trying to guess at what trump would find acceptable and compromised the proposal to fit that and to fit arcane rules for passing the bill without any dem support.
The end product hardly looked like what the GOP had been clamoring about for some six plus years!
If we fear the G-March, this was hardly the proposal to do it, with one third of the economy affected.
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trump, on the other hand, is the POTUS who gets to set the agenda and priorities, the terms of what he’d agree to, and has the megaphone to sell the public on it.
On balance, given his ability to affect all these aspects and, thus, the probability of success on this (more than Ryan, IMHO), he takes the larger share of the blame for failure.
– His distracting tweets didn’t help.
– His lack of understanding or knowledge of key details didn’t help.
– His focus on convincing Congress rather than the public in making the sale didn’t help.
– His throwing bunion at the HFC to threaten them didn’t help.
– His timing and pace were off. Bad judgement, but forgivable in the sense that it was ambitious. Not so much when it proverbially gets to 11:59:50 from midnight when the plug is pulled.
His not taking ownership and blaming others for failure isn’t leadership, and certainly not one that engenders any coalition building, but that is the fashion in DC nowadays.
Irv:
Your saying there’s no doubt doesn’t make it so. I don’t agree with you.
We’ve been down this road many times on the same subject.
What ACTIONS has Trump taken of which our readership disapproves?
Please state which they are, and why.
Compared to Obama, both Clintons, Bush (sometimes), Trump is a breath of fresh air.
Neo – Sorry. I should have said there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind. I think any other candidate would have split the republicans in much the same way that Trump did. Add to that the fact that another candidate would not have been able to get the votes of the democrats in the critical states.
Big Maq – Trump wants a healthcare bill that will pass, period. He doesn’t care a whit what it says. He’s not ideological and he knows anything will be better than Obamacare. He just wants a win and he depended on Ryan’s expertise to get him one. He did everything he could to support Ryan in his effort. In spite of Trump doing everything he possibly could, Ryan failed. Trump won’t back a failure a second time.
I voted Trump because despite personal flaws the guy loves America, is there even one demo that will admit to that, heck even their minions are proud to hate this country plus he was educated around the same time as me so you can tell the guy has a decent grasp of how the country should and does work.He s bold, practically fearless and most important BEHOLDING TO NO ONE, when was the last politician we had with that on his resume. So govern away Mr Pres, I love gorsuch, and the 1 & 2nd amendments are in good stead, don’t forget Hillarys famous remark, ” I love the way they run the Internet in China”. Witch,witch, evil witch is all I can say abouther!
“Trump wants a healthcare bill that will pass, period. He doesn’t care a whit what it says. He’s not ideological and he knows anything will be better than Obamacare.” – Irv
Single payer it is then!
Foolish to put the focus merely and entirely on the “Win!!!” than on the substance.
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trump DIDN’T do everything he could – that is precisely the point, and is the subject of the short list I gave.
Putting it all at Ryan’s feet is a cop out.
That is not leadership. Period.
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trump is the one who campaigned on his competency.
trump is the one who staked his reputation on being a great deal maker.
Clearly, he proves neither in this case.
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trump owns the failure, as much or more than Ryan.
You may not want to accept that, but outside of hard core trump fans, it is very much the reality.
“BEHOLDING TO NO ONE” – molly
Forgive her Lord for she knows not the full implications of what she speaks.
The logic of your statement is that “No One” includes his voters, you understand.
And, this seems to be the case, as many hard core supporters express concerns, now.
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“the guy loves America”
As they say “the road to h*ll is paved with good intentions”.
If that is all it took to be POTUS, there’d be plenty of dems who’d qualify too.
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You are right, though. trump has fulfilled his one big promise that many justified their votes on…
On Nov 8, he wasn’t clinton.
Sorry but as I see it no special interests can subvert him and as I see it that she a good thing
Loving America and being on the road to hell are hardly equivilancies. Thank God.
Clintons name & Trump’s shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence!
@molly – neither do I want him beholding to “special interests”.
But trump is, as you rightly point out, evidently “beholding to no one”, even his voters, I’m afraid (or maybe that is a good thing – depends).
I certainly don’t want a POTUS who doesn’t proclaim love for their country. That does not make a POTUS, nor his actions, good for America, well intentions and all.
Wish neither clinton nor trump were names associated with the Presidency, but here we are.
I want trump to be a successful POTUS, after all, I, my family, friends, colleagues and partners, and community all will have to live with what he does.
HOWEVER, what he and I think are a “success” are probably very different things.
trump is the one who campaigned on his competency.
trump is the one who staked his reputation on being a great deal maker.
Clearly, he proves neither in this case.
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trump owns the failure, as much or more than Ryan.
You may not want to accept that, but outside of hard core trump fans, it is very much the reality.- Big Maq
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Hey Eyeore! It’s not all bad. It’s not even a failure. It’s just the first round of a 10 round fight.
As to not being responsive to his voters, yes the Syrian bombing made me nervous, but in total Trump has worked to keep his campaign promises. I rate him a nine at this point.
Someone in another thread wondered if he even had a strategy in foreign policy or whether everything in the last few weeks was tactical.
Remember, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. So in a sense all foreign policy is tactical, but how the events of the last few weeks seem to be a grand strategy– in its effect, feels almost too perfect to have been planned. To some extent that’s probably true. But Trump, like all president’s, receives advice from experts and hopefully makes the best decision from options.
Everyone seems to recognize Trump has selected very competent advisors (Bannon aside, and I’m not willing to concede at this point that he isn’t a good advisor in certain areas– after all he was instrumental in getting Trump elected) and they seem to be offering good options that cross conflicts and connect to a create a strategy.
And Trump seems to be making good policy choices from the options. Does this mean he’s softening his approach to China? Yes– but if the tradeoff is to contain North Korea in a way that the previous three presidents have been unable to do, that is a policy success. Of course, we don’t know the details of any “deal”, or if there even is a “deal”, but if there is and NK is contained, then Trump is a pretty good deal maker.
@Brian – Hey Pollyanna! It is hardly 9/10 either.
When people shift ALL the blame elsewhere for the AHCA failure, then they are missing what is trump’s contribution. It cannot be “nothing”. Yet, that is the argument.
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As a reminder, this is what I said after the AHCA debacle…
“Does it mean trump or the GOP’s agenda for this term is dead?
Hardly.
They just need a few legislative “wins” under their belt and tackle this one with their momentum and renewed support / trust.
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WRT obamacare, it still has its flaws, is in a “death spiral”, and has a public still primed for change. It has to, and will be changed.
This recent legislative failure, and obamacare ticking time bomb, leaves the door open to do something “bold”, if the GOP and trump care to handle it with more care.”
http://neoneocon.com/2017/03/24/no-vote-on-health-care-reform/#comment-2188634
So, yes, it is a “10 round fight”.
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trump may have a great cabinet, but it remains to be seen if they function cohesively and if trump actually follows their advice, or if trump remains trump and just plays them against each other and just reacts to world events (vs have a philosophy that provides direction and a guidance).
bunion playing a smaller role has got to be a help in this respect.
And for anyone thinking the AHCA was a great idea to tie trump and the GOP’s future to…
http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/14/we-have-to-earn-42000-every-year-just-to-fill-in-for-our-obamacare-and-gop-plans-wont-help/
A patched obamacare lite was never going to cut it.
Big Maq,
Yes, AHCA does increase the cost of health insurance for those over 55, but shouldn’t the folks that use the majority of health care pay more?
No doubt the senate will increase the subsidies for older folks.
“but shouldn’t the folks that use the majority of health care pay more?”
Well, now you seem to be getting the dilemma.
I would bet a good majority of these folks are trump supporters.
Will there be greater subsidies? Or, will it be credits? Can they afford to cover the year until they file their returns for the credits? How much higher will the deductibles be? Will the coverage over insure them (e.g. for birth control pills, fertility treatment)? Will preventative checkups be dropped from the plans?
The other aspect is if they’d even qualify for insurance if “pre-existing conditions” were allowed as a reason to refuse insurance (as time goes by, age effectively becomes the pre-existing condition). It might not be explicit, but it might be in the pricing to push folks into the high risk pools.
At the confluence of politics and economics, solutions get rather complicated.
At best, this was the makings of a political firestorm for the GOP.