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

[Pickman's model]

The brag, blag, bluff and bluster shows no signs of abating.



Trump inauguration: President-elect pledges unity at concert - BBC News

Tell you who Trump really reminds me of, idi amin

 

[Pickman's model]

Bet you Trump would call himself king of scotland if the thought occurred to him

 

[J Ed]

On the subject of historical precedents, I don't think that we have discussed the origin of Trump's second fave slogan 'America First'



Donald Trump’s new favorite slogan was invented for Nazi sympathizers

During the early 1930s, as the Nazis consolidated control over Germany, the U.S. media baron William Randolph Hearst began touting the slogan “America First” against President Franklin Roosevelt, whom he saw as dangerously likely to “allow the international bankers and the other big influences that have gambled with your prosperity to gamble with your politics.” Hearst regarded Roosevelt’s New Deal as “un-American to the core” and “more communistic than the communists” — unlike Nazism, which he believed had won a great victory for “liberty-loving people” everywhere in defeating communism.

With the beginning of World War II in Europe and the Germans’ swift conquest of the continent, Roosevelt began to commit his administration more firmly to the aid of the those fighting Nazism. He incurred the ire of various anti-intervention constituencies, ranging from committed religious or principled pacifists to American communists, who supported the Nazi-Soviet pact and therefore the notion that the United States should stay out of the European war.

But the most prominent of his opponents were the founders of the America First Committee, formed in September 1940. The committee opposed fighting Nazism and proposed a well-armed America confined largely to the Western hemisphere. It soon afterward adopted the noted aviator and enthusiast of fascism, Charles Lindbergh, as their favored speaker. Lindbergh accepted a medal from Herman Goering “in the name of the Fuehrer” during a visit to Germany in 1938, and “proudly wore the decoration.” He thought democracy was finished in Europe, that the western powers could not effectively resist the Nazi war machine and that the United States had better make terms with Adolf Hitler.

Lindbergh wasn’t against wars per se; he could support fighting if it came to “a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion.” His definition of the white race apparently had little room for Jewish people, about whom he thought Hitler had a point: “We are all disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures,” Lindbergh believed, though he allowed the country could benefit from “a few Jews of the right type” — just as Trump would presumably allow Muslims who could pass a perfect and proper screen.

The famed automaker and celebrity anti-Semite Henry Ford also joined America First. Like many others, they fought against the “groups” who, Lindbergh said, were pushing the country into war: “the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.”

As with the Trump campaign, not all America First Committee supporters in 1940 were so egregious as their most visible spokesmen. But also as with the Trump campaign, neither did the moderate anti-Roosevelt anti-interventionists quite repudiate their fascist-friendly leaders.

 

[J Ed]

Missed this the first time round

Testing Trumponomics

Before Donald Trump was elected, stock markets went down every time he improved in the public opinion polls. Finance capital did not want him to win. But since his surprise election, stock markets have not slumped. On the contrary, they have risen substantially along with a strengthening dollar. It seems that ‘the Donald’ could be a good thing for Capital after all.

Much of this optimism will turn out to be wishful thinking. But wishful thinking can work the markets for a while. The thinking is based on the policies that Trump is proposing: in particular, tax cuts for the corporate sector and personal income tax cuts that will benefit the top 1% of income earners the most. Also, he claims that he will spend up to $1trn on new infrastructure and investment projects around the country and deregulate the banks and reduce labour rights (what’s left of them).

The stimulus measures are music to the ears of Keynesian economics, despite the general distaste that the top Keynesian gurus have had for the attitudes and rants of ‘the Donald’. Indeed, if these policies are implemented over the next year or so, Trumponomics will be the next test of the Keynesian solution for the world economy to get out of this Long Depression. Abenomics in Japan, following similar policies of public spending, tax cuts and quantitative easing, has miserably failed. Japan’s GDP growth has hardly moved, while wage incomes and prices remain transfixed.


But now some Keynesians are applauding Trump’s approach as ‘a break from neoliberalism’. The great historian and biographer of Keynes, Robert Skidelsky tells us that “Trump has also promised an $800bn-$1tn programme of infrastructure investment, to be financed by bonds, as well as a massive corporation tax cut, both aimed at creating 25m new jobs and boosting growth. This, together with a pledge to maintain welfare entitlements, amounts to a modern form of Keynesian fiscal policy”. So Skidelsky goes on: “As Trump moves from populism to policy, liberals should not turn away in disgust and despair, but rather engage with Trumpism’s positive potential. His proposals need to be interrogated and refined, not dismissed as ignorant ravings.” Well, liberals of the Keynesian persuasion may want to ‘engage’ with Trump and adopt Trumponomics, but those who want to improve the lot of Labour, the majority not the top 1%, will take a different view.

Indeed, let’s look at Trumponomics. Apparently, Skidelksy thinks that cutting corporation tax will create new jobs and raise growth. Well, there is no evidence that previous cuts in corporation tax have done so anywhere in the major economies. Corporate tax rates were slashed during the neoliberal period and yet economic growth has floundered. What has happened is a rise in the share going to the profits of capital at labour’s expense and a rise in unproductive financial speculation. Officially, the US has a 35% marginal tax rate on corporations but after various exemptions, it is effectively only 23%, among the lowest in the world.

 

[sleaterkinney]

We are going to close this embarrassment of a thread once the shit actually takes office, aren't we?

We need to change the title. FridgeMagnet

 

[Pickman's model]

Missed this the first time round

Testing Trumponomics

it's always skidelsky the biographer of keynes and never skidelsky the biographer of mosley.

 

[Pickman's model]

We need to change the title. FridgeMagnet

yeh don't ask weltweit what he thinks, let's change the thread title without reference to the op

 

[J Ed]

We need to change the title. FridgeMagnet

why

 

[existentialist]

Bruce Springstein played a farewell gig for Obama and his staff:
Bruce Springsteen plays farewell gig for Barack Obama at the White House

The Setlist seems to have been designed to settle a certain issue forever:

Heh, he wasn't making a point much, then

 

[weltweit]

yeh don't ask weltweit what he thinks, let's change the thread title without reference to the op

Thanks Pickmans, actually I don't mind if the thread title is changed, could be something like "Donald Trump, the next 4 years!" perhaps ... don't know..

 

[Pickman's model]

Thanks Pickmans, actually I don't mind if the thread title is changed, could be something like "Donald Trump, the next 4 years!" perhaps ... don't know..

let's start with 'the next four weeks', we can increase the timespan as required.

 

[crossthebreeze]

This title's good until at least 5pm GMT i think!

 

[belboid]

We need to change the title. FridgeMagnet

Naah, lets kill it. It's repute is worse than Hillary Clintons.

Nuke it from space.

 

[kabbes]

Corporation tax cuts don't work well to stimulate extra corporate activity because tax is only on profits, and the company has already set itself up to maximise profits anyway. It's not going to start making itself more inefficient and thus reduce its profits just because those profits attract less tax.

 

[bimble]

 

[Pickman's model]

View attachment 99048

more a paw than a hand

 

[brogdale]

We could just jump straight to the "Trump assassinated" thread?

 

[Pickman's model]

We could just jump straight to the "Trump assassinated" thread?

donald trump rip - could be requiescat in pace, could be rest in pieces.

 

[2hats]

We could just jump straight to the "Trump assassinated" thread?

Is it too much to hope that the assassin will pick off Farage at the same time?

 

[Pickman's model]

Is it too much to hope that the assassin will pick off Farage at the same time?

with a spot of good fortune

 

[CrabbedOne]

Tell you who Trump really reminds me of, idi amin

The last King of Scotland!

But look at the size of the hand.

 

[Pickman's model]

The last King of Scotland!

But look at the size of the hand.

his demeanour reminds me of trump, not the size of his hands.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Shame the Red Army Choir wasn't available really.

Note to Trump: never fly Tupolov even when defecting.

 

[CrabbedOne]

his demeanour reminds me of trump, not the size of his hands.

And his attitude to journalists. Amin used to joke about their place not being on the seating list but the menu.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Well Putin could have said that.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Mobuto of Zaire might be closer to Trump in the grabby little hand department. The man who stole a country. Looking at Trump's cabinet of kleptocrats that might be the plan.

 

[camouflage]

god, it's just not safe reading the thoughts and opinions of "my fellow liberals" anymore, you end up having to wade through all sorts of dodgy crap.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Bashar Assad on the other hand has quite normal hands. He runs one of the swampiest neoliberal regime's in history in terms of fattening up his elite chums and stamping down on the rural poor's meagre entitlements. The God bothering plebs did finally stage an armed revolt however.

 

[CrabbedOne]

But it's this guy that fits best and Trump might even look at him as a model:

The big clubby mitts say it all with fear mongering Bibi. A safe pair of hands and able career politician not often compared to Trump.

But he is a petulant player, often at odds with the Israeli security establishment, who gambles with his countries most valuable security relationship arrogantly rolling over US diplomats like a Merkava tank. Another islamophobic, lover of high walls and zero sum games with a very dodgy cabinet some of whom are rather suspiciously close to the Kremlin. Likud's brawler has done a great deal to raise Israel's Gini coefficient and shoulder Israel rightward. Quite likely to end up facing corruption charges in the great tradition of Israeli leaders.

 

[Wilf]

Just saw this on the Guardian's feed thingy, relevant bit underlined:

Sir Nigel Sheinwald former UK ambassador to the US has reflected a nervousness about Trump within the diplomatic community.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he questioned Trump’s ability to unify the US and stand up to Russia.

Sheinwald said: “There is a real question about whether Trump can unify his country. On the campaign trail he was a populist on the campaign trail he appealed mainly to division and prejudice. He has got to get over that and work out whether he can genuinely unify.

“I’m sure the tweets won’t end, but he’s got to find a way of getting a across a reliable sense of consistency in policy and leadership. And he’s got to listen. He has got a cabinet he doesn’t know very well. He hasn’t worked with these people. He’s barely spoken to most of them.”

I'd like to think there will be a surge of protest and industrial unrest that makes things ungovernable, but wont hold my breath. I suspect though that if anything does it will be stuff like this - utter utter fuck ups that arise out of his family business way of running things, along with all the swivel eyed incompetents in his cabinet - none of which is likely to play out well with the separation of powers. It may even be that Trump's biggest danger is being faced by a Senate and House dominated by his own party, none of whom want to lose their seat in 2 or 4 years. They might be the ones who make things 'ungovernable'.

Anyway... after all the (correct) focus on the fact that the Democrats and liberal elites created the conditions for Trump, fucking hell, Trump! Not the first sexual predator in the White House, not the first racist, not the first populist, not the first deregulator - but fucking hell, what a vile mix of all these. A lot of people are going to be hurt.