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The Trump presidency

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Noam Chomsky has warned the Donald Trump-fuelled rally in capital markets is coming to a close and another financial crash is on the horizon.

The economist, historian and linguist said the President’s “anti-estabishment” status was a “joke” given his establishment appointees and anti-regulation policies, which have encouraged the stock market.

“What's anti-establishment?” he asked, as reported by AlterNet.
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“This [cabinet] is drawing from the billionaire class, largely financial institutions, and military and so on; in fact, take a look at the stock market, that tells you how anti-establishment he is.”

He pointed to cabinet members such as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs alumnus. Gary Cohn, his Director of the National Economic Council, was the COO at the same bank.

“As soon as Trump was elected, and since, stock values in financial institutions escalated to the sky,” said Mr Chomsky.
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“Investors are “delighted he's going to eliminate regulations, let them make more profit; of course, it'll lead to another crash, but that's somebody else's problem. The taxpayers will take care of that.”
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Noam Chomsky predicted Trump's win. Now he's predicting something even scarier
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
“Investors are “delighted he's going to eliminate regulations, let them make more profit; of course, it'll lead to another crash, but that's somebody else's problem. The taxpayers will take care of that.”
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I wouldn't count on being bailed out again, at least not without riots in the streets. I went to a town hall meeting earlier this week with a Congressman and if things don't give a little, there's going to be riots. He seemed oblivious to that. In fact, he seemed to be using the tension in the room to make himself look "hard on the left". He came off rather tone deaf to me.
 



So....to distract from his Attorney General perjuring himself over not meeting Russians, Trump deadcat liables Obama over wiretapping. Then to distract fro the mixture of no evidence/ leading to evidence of his staff getting caught up on taps on Russian persons of interest, his old tax return appears... A Pulitzer winning journalist who has written books on Trump and Trump's pretending he's never heard of him....Trump leaked his own tax return as this weeks dead cat distraction.

I hope he never swallows a fly
 
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Johnny Canuck3 said:
Usually, the rallying happens when the politician is campaigning.

Once they've won, most of them try to concentrate on the business of governing.
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To be fair, Trump does seem to be trying to do that. Obviously he still Trumps up his usual Trump-grade nonesense, but in amongst all that he does like posting pictures of himself sitting behind his big desk surrounded by suits and caption including at least one upper-case instance of the word "JOBS" a lot. I call em Big Desk (plus Flock of Suits) shots. I've never seen a POTUS do that before, but then apart from Obama previous POTUS's didn't have twitter. You can see he's really trying to give the impression of getting on with the business of making America Great Again. In the future, Presidents might be thought of as not really POTUSing if they're not serving up at least one Big Desk shot per day.

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Seriously, don't bubble yerself... this stuff will be having an effect out in the hinterland.
 
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So, Trump paid a visit to the plantation where President Andrew Jackson bred and worked about 150 African American slaves, placed a wreath on his grave and saluted him on his 250th birthday. Yes, the same Andrew Jackson who signed legislation to ethnically cleanse all the remaining Cherokee from East of the Mississippi, sending them on a forced march West that resulted in 4000 of them dying from disease, starvation or exhaustion.

He has a picture of Jackson in his office - describes him as his favourite predecessor. Well, of course he does. :mad:
 
phillm said:
He's having a rally in Nashville - complete with orchestra and choir - Adolf would have approved.
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Adolf might have liked the rally but he wouldn't have been thrilled about the amount of dissent on display.

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The rally was apparently very badly organized, too - some Trump supporters waited in the cold for 12 hours and couldn't get into the arena until after he had finished speaking.
 
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On Crooked Timber Trumpism and religion
One of the striking features of Donald Trump’s election victory was the overwhelming support he received from white Christians, rising to near-unanimity among white evangelicals, where Trump outpolled all previous Republican candidates. In thinking about the global rise of Trumpism, I’ve been under the impression that the US is a special case, and that the rise of Trumpism in a largely post-religious Europe suggests that the link between Christianism and Trumpism is a spurious correlation.

But, on reading a bit about the Dutch election, I found the suggestion that there is a long tradition of confessional politics in the Netherlands (maybe Ingrid could explain more about this) and that support for the racist PVV is centred on Limburg, and inherited from the formerly dominant Catholic party there. And, re-examining my previous position, it’s obvious that being “largely post-Christian” does not preclude the existence of a large bloc of Christian, and therefore potentially Christianist voters.

So, I’m now thinking that Trumpism can be seen, in large measure, as a reaction by white Christians against the loss of their assumed position as the social norm, against which assertions of rights for anyone else can be seen as identity politics, political correctness and so on. As is usual, as soon as I formed this idea, I found evidence for it everywhere. Obvious cases are Putin and Russian Orthodoxy, the Law and Justice Party in Poland, and Fillon in France. Looking a bit harder, I found that British Christians voted strongly for Brexit. And, in my own backyard, all the Trumpist parties I described in this post (except, I think, Palmer’s) are strongly Christianist.
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Big surprise, the Godly tend to be a bit reactionary. Populations that shed formal religion often tend to retain the same need for self righteousness and communal cultic behaviour it just gets channeled elsewhere. Consider how hard wired authoritarian Russian Orthodoxy has proved to be or Catholicism powerful relationship with the French right despite vigorous attempts at secularisation.
 
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Trump's new budget proposal is a conservative wet dream - massive cuts to climate change research and other Environmental Protection Agency programs, foreign aid, public housing, public broadcasting, public transport, legal aid to the poor, heating assistance for the poor, after-school programs etc. etc. These cuts are being made to balance out the biggest increase in military spending since Ronald Reagan, along with more money for deportations, border wall construction, etc.

He's trying to do exactly what he said on the campaign trail - wonder if Hillary Clinton would have won if she'd done a better job getting the message across that "Not voting for me will mean that the poorest Americans won't be able to afford to heat their homes in winter."
 
Yossarian said:
Trump's new budget proposal is a conservative wet dream - massive cuts to climate change research and other Environmental Protection Agency programs, foreign aid, public housing, public broadcasting, public transport, legal aid to the poor, heating assistance for the poor, after-school programs etc. etc. These cuts are being made to balance out the biggest increase in military spending since Ronald Reagan, along with more money for deportations, border wall construction, etc.

He's trying to do exactly what he said on the campaign trail - wonder if Hillary Clinton would have won if she'd done a better job getting the message across that "Not voting for me will mean that the poorest Americans won't be able to afford to heat their homes in winter."
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Think you are wrong on the military spending. He's bullshitting it up as that but going up to $600 billion is a fairly small increase historically ~10%, Reagan's was more like 30%. Obama was spending rather heavily on defence already. Unhappy defence hawks were wanting double the amount Trump has increased it by. That would more reflect his campaign rhetoric.

This is slightly out of date but consider the Reagan bump and notice what also has happened in terms of % of GDP.
BG-defense-spending-FY-2016-chart-2_HIGHRES.jpg


Nicest part is eagerly Trump arranging about a very swampy 14% tax cut for likes of Trump. Maybe 2% eventually for his middle class base which is about as low as you can go for it to be noticeable. Talk of ending the minimum wage as well. It's a kick down hard regime but then that's what most of his voters wanted. The really poor folk tended to vote Dem. The group who may really regret voting Trump are the not so well off elderly whose healthcare may soon be gobbling up a far bigger wad of their income.
 
CrabbedOne said:
Think you are wrong on the military spending. He's bullshitting it up as that but going up to $600 billion is a fairly small increase historically ~10%, Reagan's was more like 30%. Obama was spending rather heavily on defence already. Unhappy defence hawks were wanting double the amount Trump has increased it by. That would more reflect his campaign rhetoric.

This is slightly out of date but consider the Reagan bump and notice what also has happened in terms of % of GDP.
BG-defense-spending-FY-2016-chart-2_HIGHRES.jpg
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Interesting - the Associated Press and others say the "$54 billion boost for the military is the largest since President Ronald Reagan's Pentagon buildup in the 1980s," guess they might just be using a Trump talking point without crunching the numbers.
 
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On IFLScience Trump's Secretary Of Defense Actually Understands Climate Change
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Mattis was confirmed by the Senate in January, but ProPublica managed to get hold of some unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing. It makes for quite interesting – and somewhat hopeful – reading.

“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” he wrote in response to one question. “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.”

One question posed to him by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen asked if he thought climate change was a security threat. He replied: “Climate change can be a driver of instability and the Department of Defence must pay attention to potential adverse impacts generated by this phenomenon,” adding that climate change required a “broader, whole-of-government response.”

And he also said: “I agree that the effects of a changing climate – such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others – impact our security situation. I will ensure that the department continues to be prepared to conduct operations today and in the future, and that we are prepared to address the effects of a changing climate on our threat assessments, resources, and readiness.”
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Funny, chap running the Pentagon not really as into climate change denialism as chap at the EPA.
 
Nylock said:
Mattis looks beside himself with joy there :D
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Yes you are correct, that is his actual "beside myself with joy" face, he probably looked exactly like that at the birth of his first child.

Here he is again, full of glee...

iu


This is as good as it gets for Mattis around civilians.
 
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CrabbedOne said:
C7CZwTlWsAAq-s4.jpg:large

What strikes me here is the wide range of cuts rather than the budget increases.
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Keeping the Military sweet though. I read that the US nuclear forces are managed by the Department of Energy, so not sure what the 6% shrink means when Trump said he wants to spend Trumpszillions on the best nukes ever.
 
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