ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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Over 7000 lies in 2 years is beyond pathological. He's lied more than any other oxygen breathing entity since the big bang.

My initial reaction to this was "wait a minute!". I knew a pathological liar when I was in high school. He would tell 10 lies a day, easy. Thinking a bit more about it though. The over 10 lies and misleading statements a day that Trump tells are only the ones he's told publicly. He probably tells at least three to ten times that amount in private. It seems that almost every time he communicates he has to lie or mislead. I can't seriously comment on beings from other planets but for this planet that is a shitload of lies and I'd guess is in the top 1% of pathological liars.

Regarding other politicians also telling lies, yes it's true that other presidents have probably told on the order of a few dozen lies over multiple years. That's nothing anywhere close to our current Liar-in-chief.

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鬼殺し wrote:

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erdelyii wrote:

I can imagine a "Democrat" Trump. If Trump's in for long enough, and followed by similar, then absolutely a Lefty with heavy "corrective" measures and fuckloads of charisma would be possible.

It wouldn't be pretty.

True but that's still going back to the broader elements I listed personality-wise. OTOH I didn't list charisma because I think charisma has standards and Trump's version of it is well below that. Then again, I'm not his poorly educated base (his words, not mine!), so I suppose it stands that someone who is well-educated would find his sort of 'charisma', tailored to those 'poorly educated'...uncharismatic and enigmatically so.

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Charan wrote:

[which were] rebellious, outspoken, unstoppable, divisive. These are too vague. So I can't do that because the elements of Trump that I find most defining are very much anti-left: big industry over environmental concerns, business over public works, self over others, misogynistic, prejudiced, etc...

A Lefty divisive attracter of blind acolytes might be environmental concerns over big industry, public works over business, collective over self, and ...
maybe that's what's difficult to imagine in the USA as it's fiercely individualistic. Get over thet hurdle though and for sure a Lefty Trump could come in.

Maybe the Second Coming would be more likely, and an actually good charismatic Lefty, to boot.

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Charan wrote:

You know, going back to that, I think that was a sort of test by him, the whole 'I love the poorly educated' call. One of his many in-the-moment button-pushing games. If he could get away with saying that to his own base, then he knew, 100%, he was in. He'd effectively destabilised the long-held equivalence between 'educated' and 'smart'. Which naturally rankled the well-educated because the implication then was that their education not only didn't make them smart, it potentially made them stupid. An accusation easily shrugged off by logic...until the President of the United States says it.

"Smart" being "winners"/ "picking the right side", then yes.

I'm not sure he didn't just genuinely mean he loves the poorly educated. He would have been on up upswell of positive emotion when he said it. It seems like a "Thank you".

The genius after the fact may well have occurred with help from advisers, or before. Who knows.

related.

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Charan wrote:

It was never going to be a smart enemy, or even a particularly good one. Big Brother was a dumb entity who took advantage of a moment wherein the world wanted nothing more than to doubt its own potential for unity.

Time to share this one I think.

Spoiler

It's no coincidence this What-if, in which a fake Cap who fought the communists in the 50s-60s and consequently establishes a fascist state in the US is taken down by the recently revived real one, was published in 1984.

Timely stuff.

Can imagine they enjoyed deliberately publishing that in 1984. 'Course, Orwell was just switching 1948 around.

1820: November 20 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex, a whaleship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, 2,000 miles off the western coast of South America. Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.

Captain America is a True Commie. Fake Commie take short cuts.

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Scrotie, you didn't answer my questions: what's your point of view on Trump's threat to close the border? What would, in your mind, be a reasonable response from the democrats?

Well, I'm a bit heretical on that front as far as Trump supporters go. While I think curbing illegal immigration and closing the "anchor baby" easy citizenship path are important priorities, I don't think The Wall would be effective against illegal immigration. If you let people enter legally to shop at my local El Paso, Texas Walmart, the tallness of your wall doesn't influence their decision-making to go home like good tourists or stay illegally.

The Wall would be effective against illegal entry, particularly the smuggling of drugs. But I think a better way to fight the cartels would be to empower their competition by ending the War on Drugs. Because I wasn't on Team Sessions, I don't want the Wall for anti-drug reasons either, which leaves basically just human smuggling (to include reentry by previously deported aliens).

Is human smuggling a huge issue to me? Not really. I care a little, I guess. But Trump's ask for funding is, by government standards, quite low. So my final, honest opinion on the Wall is: I don't much care one way or another.

But I love partial government shutdowns. As a small government guy I'm happy whenever one happens. I hope this one lasts a long time; maybe we get used to not needing certain government services and cut them permanently. I'm happy even if the rationale for having one is kinda bullshit. Trump demanding the Wall is by no means below my standards here.

However, government employees getting paid to block the border isn't a shutdown. It's essentially paid misbehavior. I think the courts would get involved if Trump actually tried it; no doubt they already have injunctions ready.

Overall, though, my advice to Democrats, presuming they must continue their wrongheaded support of illegal/mass immigration, is to just allow the Wall. Use the Shutdown as an excuse, but say that it's a bad idea, it won't be cost effective against illegal immigration, etc. Because in reality it won't be. The Wall is worth more to Trump as a dream Democrats stubbornly obstruct than as a concrete reality. Better yet, when combined with a lack of legislative reform, the Wall could convince Trump's base that serious accomplishments in illegal immigration prevention have been achieved when in fact nothing of importance has occurred — and if you give Trump the Wall, blocking him on such legislative reform will seem like compromise.

In short, by obstructing the Wall, Democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But of course they would, because in this case achieving their virtue in reality means signalling its opposite, which is the fundamental opposite of their modus operandi.

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Democrats aren't obstructing the wall, because it's not their responsibility.

I don't think you understand what "obstruct" means.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Democrats aren't obstructing the wall, because it's not their responsibility.

I don't think you understand what "obstruct" means.

Herewith some unsolicited free advice for the Democratic party. Force Trump give up his wall, Democrats Shouldn't Cave. Democrats don't run the federal government, Trump does. That is his problem. "Obstruct" all you want please, republicans did it when Obama is running it.