Donald Trump, the road that might not lead to the White House!

[Miss Caphat]

ok then. thanks for your time.

 

[Idris2002]

Just read that El Trumpo has spoken by phone with Taiwan's president. I'm sure Beijing won't mind.

 

[Miss Caphat]

btw, it still was only 25% of the population, and I don't think any of us is "freaking out." I think that on either side of the argument, looking at the actual data and not trying to make it fit some previously determined narrative is the logical thing to do.

 

[Miss Caphat]

Just read that El Trumpo has spoken by phone with Taiwan's president. I'm sure Beijing won't mind.

also, Palin now speaking out against the Carrier deal

Sarah Palin: Trump's Carrier deal is 'crony capitalism'


he's really on a roll

 

[CRI]

Donald Trump will be president thanks to 80,000 people in three states

 

[J Ed]

Donald Trump will be president thanks to 80,000 people in three states

Is Clinton a big opponent of the electoral college or someone who was unaware of how the electoral system of the US works?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Is Clinton a big opponent of the electoral college or someone who was unaware of how the electoral system of the US works?

Are those the only two alternatives?

 

[J Ed]

Are those the only two alternatives?

Clearly not because the answer to both questions is no.

 

[Yossarian]

Couldn't you apply this to people of all sorts of political orientations and socioeconomic backgrounds in all countries?

There are certainly British people who could be dismissed as out of touch and wrong on all hosts of issues by people not from Britain, I say have at it.

Not sure it would go down that well here if someone in Seattle was dismissive of what somebody in Dudley thought about the Brexit vote in the West Midlands, tbf.

 

[J Ed]

Not sure it would go down that well here if someone in Seattle was dismissive of what somebody in Dudley thought about the Brexit vote in the West Midlands, tbf.

I think it would depend on what was said, which is as it should be.

 

[DotCommunist]

Just read that El Trumpo has spoken by phone with Taiwan's president. I'm sure Beijing won't mind.

all this time and I didn't know china still bagsies taiwan.

akward move by the donald there

 

[andysays]

Not sure it would go down that well here if someone in Seattle was dismissive of what somebody in Dudley thought about the Brexit vote in the West Midlands, tbf.

Not really a valid parallel, given that although CRI is from somewhere in the mid-west originally, he's been resident in Britain for some time, and most of his info, including hysterical predictions of civil war, appears to come off the internet rather than from any direct experience.

And he's being criticised for what he's saying rather than anything to do with where he's from, originally or now

 

[bi0boy]

Just read that El Trumpo has spoken by phone with Taiwan's president. I'm sure Beijing won't mind.

Not his fault!

 

[TomUS]

I'm sure this will end well. He really is trying to incite civil war, isn't he?

He figures he's won the war & instead of trying to "bring people together" as is traditional for the winner, he's rubbing the "lib's" faces in it. He's drunk with the adulation of his crowds & delights in slamming the media "very dishonest people" (crowd cheers wildly) & Hillary still (''lock her up" chants the mob). In addition to the ego boost, it's useful to keep the base revved up for the turning back of the clock he & the Repubs are planning.

 

[The39thStep]

For those too busy to read that, I'll summarise:

White men are the real victims here.

Perhaps we should have less of them?

 

[CrabbedOne]

The thing is with Trump he actually might have a far bigger effect on someone living in Dudley than little ole Brexit. Whereas it's very unlikely anything the UK does troubles Americans who recklessly voted for the big eigit much.

Consider Obama's predecessor: Bush campaigned on a "humbler foreign policy" criticising Bill's interventionism over Kosovo. Yet yerman Lawrence Wilkerson reckoned the Bush administration started out pretty eager for a war over Taiwan. He reckoned that might have happened if it weren't for 9-11 making it easier to prioritise Iraq. And reading Chilcot the UK just discarded its policy preferences and trotted along behind Uncle Sam towards Baghdad in a quest for non-existent leverage in DC. It's unlikely IS would have facilitated UKIP in scaring a lot Brits witless about an incoming dusky tide if that daft war hadn't happened. Bush following on from Clinton also helped overheat the US economy with deregulation and lavish elite tax cuts. That wasn't the sole cause of the last global financial crash but it did ignite it. And there you have two of the important contributing factors to the Leave vote both made in the USA.

Trump made isolationist noises yet he's stacked his security team with Iran hawks that favour regime change. Trump has talked trade war with China such moves often lead to the real kind. He inherits a slow burn US-China confrontation in the South China Sea. He promises to make America Great Again like it was in Ike's day and one way to make Septics feel good is giving some other state a kicking. If the US gets into a war with Iran and or China the UK under May is very likely to participate. A war with Iran probably leads to a new order of terrorist problems. Trump makes very worrying statements about using nukes while we have a notably jumpy Russia that's likely to greatly disappoint him. Trump promises massive deregulation and a huge slash to elite taxes. His financial team looks to be packed by Goldman types eager to create a permissive environment of the sort that facilitated rapid asset inflation and easy profits before the crash. Add on top of that Bush++ package that he's a threat to the globalised neoliberal order if he makes good on his campaign bragging. Folk cheaply clad in the products of 3rd world sweat shops maybe going sour on globalisation but it'll get damn bumpy if it collapses and the US walls itself off playing a zero sum game. We are not talking about a percentages point or two off growth in a couple of decades Trump can make folk in Dudley unhappier to degree Brexit (whatever that means) was never predicted to.

 

[TomUS]

I expect with the tax cuts, increased gov spending on the military & infrastructure & deregulation, economic growth will accelerate.....some more jobs, fossil fuel boom, stock market up. National debt will skyrocket but nobody will care. He & the Repubs may be able to keep the prosperity built on debt going long enough to get reelected. Then the big crash will come & this time there will be no gov funds for bailouts. And probably a war with Iran just for fun.

 

[teqniq]

Not his fault!

View attachment 96505
View attachment 96506

I am guessing that your comment is somewhat tongue in cheek, however:

...Shortly after reports broke about the call, Mr Trump issued a tweet saying that Ms Tsai called him. However, according to a Taipei Times report the call was apparently "arranged by his Taiwan-friendly campaign staff".

"The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!" Mr Trump tweeted, but Alex Huang, a spokesman for Ms Tsai, said later: “Of course both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact.” ....

Donald Trump just ripped apart 37 years of US diplomatic protocol, and risks sparking China fury

 

[hash tag]

A serious diplomatic faux pas with serious political ramifications and his first dropped clanger or maybe a great move. Tis about time someone stood up to China and stopped worrying about upsetting them. As much I as I am not Trump's biggest fan, this has mixed blessings for sure.

 

[Idris2002]

A serious diplomatic faux pas with serious political ramifications and his first dropped clanger or maybe a great move. Tis about time someone stood up to China and stopped worrying about upsetting them. As much I as I am not Trump's biggest fan, this has mixed blessings for sure.

I had a colleague from the PRC. . . as a joke I said to her "so who's going to win the US - China war?"

In all seriousness she said "we will, of course, there are more of us".

 

[CrabbedOne]

In TNI China vs. America: Who Would Win the Battle of the South China Sea?

 

[CrabbedOne]

In PS Mag Weighing War Over Taiwan in a Time of Trump

...
Where Trump is directly involved, though, international media outlets have indicated potential conflicts of interest. Trump is looking to “build luxury hotels” in the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan, Taiwan News reportedearlier this month, citing the city’s mayor, Cheng Wen-tsan. The report highlighted concerns that Trump’s business deals “would make him more prone to conflict of interest than any other president in American history.”

Christine Lin of Glodow Nead Communications, which represents Trump Hotels, says there are “no hotel projects to report at this time, but we are exploring opportunities around the world for both our Trump Hotels and Scion hotel brands.” Lin did not respond to further requests to verify whether dialogue over Taoyuan projects was indeed underway.
...

Hey what's a little light nuclear warfare compared to expanding Trump's little hotel chain.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In Bloomberg China, Grappling With Trump, Turns to ‘Old Friend’ Kissinger

Still!

 

[Idris2002]

In TNI China vs. America: Who Would Win the Battle of the South China Sea?

You seem to know a thing or two about this sort of thing: might China just cut to the chase and do to Washington what Eisenhower did to London over Suez? I mean, might they just use their economic leverage to quash any hint of bad behaviour by the western barbarians? Do they have, even now, the sort of economic leverage that would allow them to do that?

 

[CrabbedOne]

You seem to know a thing or two about this sort of thing: might China just cut to the chase and do to Washington what Eisenhower did to London over Suez? I mean, might they just use their economic leverage to quash any hint of bad behaviour by the western barbarians? Do they have, even now, the sort of economic leverage that would allow them to do that?

Only what I can google.

They might be better contemplating a land war in Asia. They do have the numbers, nukes and the US appetite for casualties is low. I think the economic muscle is still with the US. It's a massive market and the Chinese sell a Hell of a lot to US consumers.

The US does owe the PRC ~$1.1 Trillion but they aren't the only big creditor. Incidentally USG persistently looting social security is a huge part of the debt.

However if Trump knows anything its that when a creditor has gone that long on your ventures you have them by the balls not the other way round.

And where else are they going to put their dosh for safe keeping? The US Dollar is still probably the most solid bet even if Trump wrecks the global economy.

 

[free spirit]

You seem to know a thing or two about this sort of thing: might China just cut to the chase and do to Washington what Eisenhower did to London over Suez? I mean, might they just use their economic leverage to quash any hint of bad behaviour by the western barbarians? Do they have, even now, the sort of economic leverage that would allow them to do that?

not really. China has a $365billion trade surplus with the USA.

The US also has a far bigger internal market to consume their own products, so foreign trade with China is a far lower proportion of GDP than with China.

Tbh I suspect Trump knows what he's doing here, it ties in with his narrative to target countries that the US has a big trade deficit with, and China's the biggest target. He'll (rightly IMO) be looking to raise trade tariffs with China - the US has already imposed big anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese steel, so it'd more be an extension of existing policy in the US rather that some big change if the Chinese did respond to this provocation in any way that might give him the excuse to take such an action.

Also the US debt to China is pretty much all in US dollars, so if they chose to the US could simply print more dollars and pay the chinese off with them. In doing that it would weaken the dollar against the Chinese currency, which would also benefit US exports and reduce imports from China, so all ties in the Trump's rhetoric and could well damage China far more than it damaged the US, and potentially could benefit the US).

China's basically been manipulating the currency market to keep their currency artificially low for decades to maintain their vast trade imbalance for as long as possible. Doing something about this would probably have more impact on US manufacturing than anything he does with Mexico and NAFTA.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War Is Boring The Closest Precedent to Trump’s Taiwan Phone Call Almost Sparked a War

...
John Bolton, a Trump adviser and secretary of state contender, argued in a 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed that U.S. ambiguity toward Taiwan is an obstacle to deterring China from expanding into the contested South China Sea, where China has built airfields and placed artillery on artificial islands.

Thus, the United States should climb a “ladder of escalation,” Bolton wrote, culminating in “inviting Taiwan’s president to travel officially to America … and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition.”

“Beijing’s leaders would be appalled by this approach, as the U.S. is appalled by their maritime territorial aggression,” Bolton added. “China must understand that creating so-called provinces risks causing itself to lose control, perhaps forever, of another so-called province.”

Curiously, Bolton visited Trump Tower on Dec. 2.

Opposite the neoconservatives are realists who see a confrontation with China as too dangerous to risk, particularly given the destructive power of modern weapons. Realists such as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger are also less prone to see China’s rise as a threat to be solved than as an unsolvable problem to be managed.

In other words, you’d be stark-raving mad to want a military confrontation with China — which might defeat you in a regional conflict, though not in a global one. But you still need the planes, ships and bases in the region to deter China from taking risks.

“A conflict with modern weapons might exceed the devastation of the First World War and leave no winners,” Kissinger told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg in an interview published in November 2016. “Hence in the modern period, adversarial countries must become partners and cooperate on a win-win basis.”
...

Some of the folk round Trump Tower are simply nuts.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The New Yorker THE REAL RISK BEHIND TRUMP’S TAIWAN CALL

...
Whether it says it or not, China will regard this as a deeply destabilizing event not because the call materially changes U.S. support for Taiwan—it does not—but because it reveals the incoming Presidency to be volatile and unpredictable. In that sense, the Taiwan call is the latest indicator that Trump the President will be largely indistinguishable from Trump the candidate.

Trump has also shown himself to be highly exploitable on subjects that he does not grasp. He is surrounding himself with ideologically committed advisers who will seek to use those opportunities when they can. We should expect similar moments of exploitation to come on issues that Trump will regard as esoteric, such as the Middle East, health care, immigration, and entitlements.

For a piece I published in September, about what Trump’s first term could look like, I spoke to a former Republican White House official whom Trump has consulted, who told me, “Honestly, the problem with Donald is he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” It turns out that is half of the problem; the other half is that he has surrounded himself with people who know how much he doesn’t know. Since Election Day, Trump has largely avoided receiving intelligence briefings, either because he doesn’t think it’s important that he receive them or because he just doesn’t care about them. George W. Bush, in the first months of 2001, ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden. Only in our darkest imaginings can we wonder what warnings Trump is ignoring now.

Trump knew nothing about the Casino business either. He lost the one guy in his team who did and his business in Atlantic City all went to shit as he tried to wing it. The man's often preposterous but not a fool. Fools don't recover from that sort of error. That may have taught him something.

This isn't a man used to running even a big corporation. He's just this born into well padded privilege mountebank from Queens whose family business owns a handful of hotels and flips luxury real estate. He's prone to rely on his adoring kids to advise him. Bush in contrast was a truly patrician former Governor of a major state surrounded by many of his Presidents father's people. Yet it took Bush a whole term to start to control Cheney and Rumsfeld and start to do damage control. The well connected and dangerous likes of Bolton might well lead a naive Trump a merry dance.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I don't think this really means a lot at all. I'm sure both the Chinese and Taiwanese governments are aware of how he's been running his campaign and the sort of behaviour they can expect from him, and what he has to do for show. They'll be waiting for actual foreign policy meat.

 

[Miss Caphat]

I think the problem is his arrogance. Not wanting to move into the white house, sneaking out without telling the press, making and accepting calls to foreign leaders without counsel, etc...he's clearly used to having things his own way and using his money and status to get whatever he wants whenever he wants and thinking he's above the rules and the system in place.
This is a problem when he is supposed to be representing US citizens. It's not supposed to be one person calling all the shots.