The Trump presidency

[CrabbedOne]

I reckon your hatred and contempt for all things Russia and China plays too great a role in your understanding of Trump. I reckon Trump deserves to be understood on his own terms, regardless of what you think of other countries and their leaders. It's not like Trump erm... lacks character, and he's a true innovator. We'll be seeing things we've never seen happen before under the Drumpf Reich, things that simply aren't like anywhere else.

I would not call it contempt with Russia. I tend to see the place with some dismay as many Russians do. The US mistaking itself for Trump's imagined fallen dystopia may be engaging in a rather similar post-imperial march of folly. An echo of the USSR disassembling its empire only to have Mother Russia robbed first by the oligarchs and then by a bunch of securicrat hoods under Putin. It's admirable form of rapacious capitalism in its way; if you like that sort of thing.

It's not the domestic Great Loot Trump and his clutch of Goldman Sachs folk seems set on that's the interesting part but the wrecking ball he wants to apply elsewhere.

It's with the RoW and this game of empires where a President is least constrained constitutionally. It's where Trump is most dangerous and very evidently most at sea. It's a notable anomaly that he's so keen on pandering to Russia and seemingly set on rebuking China. But Obama also attempted a reset with Russia and failed.

Russia and China are the main enemies our new Great Leader poor old Trump has to compete with. Trump looks weak so far and will be tested. I think enough of Xi and Putin to see that as inevitable. They'll both do this probably not by tackling the US head on but by squeezing its friends.

DC's whims about how it deals with adversaries often dictates much of the UK's foreign policy as a reading of Chilcot reveals. May now approaches the God Emperor's throne no doubt in full grovel. Is he going to bugger NATO and sink what has been a US led project of globalisation? A project her free trade crazed cabinet actually seek to deepen along with Xi and an alliance they provocatively pushed to Russia's borderlands at DC's behest and regard as vital to British interests. The liberal British standing off from a dangerous continent have put themselves in a very interesting pickle.

 

[Casually Red]

President Batshit's full ABC News interview where he still can't stop obsessing about numbers - first the DOW but, more importantly, his imagined size of the inauguration crowd... (35m35s in)

Full transcript here

Full transcript of President Donald Trump's interview with ABC News

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I would not call it contempt with Russia. I tend to see the place with some dismay as many Russians do. The US mistaking itself for Trump's imagined fallen dystopia may be engaging in a rather similar post-imperial march of folly. An echo of the USSR disassembling its empire only to have Mother Russia robbed first by the oligarchs and then by a bunch of securicrat hoods under Putin. It's admirable form of rapacious capitalism in its way; if you like that sort of thing.

It's not the domestic Great Loot Trump and his clutch of Goldman Sachs folk seems set on that's the interesting part but the wrecking ball he wants to apply elsewhere.

It's with the RoW and this game of empires where a President is least constrained constitutionally. It's where Trump is most dangerous and very evidently most at sea. It's a notable anomaly that he's so keen on pandering to Russia and seemingly set on rebuking China. But Obama also attempted a reset with Russia and failed.

Russia and China are the main enemies our new Great Leader poor old Trump has to compete with. Trump looks weak so far and will be tested. I think enough of Xi and Putin to see that as inevitable. They'll both do this probably not by tackling the US head on but by squeezing its friends.

DC's whims about how it deals with adversaries often dictates much of the UK's foreign policy as a reading of Chilcot reveals. May now approaches the God Emperor's throne no doubt in full grovel. Is he going to bugger NATO and sink what has been a US led project of globalisation? A project her free trade crazed cabinet actually seek to deepen along with Xi and an alliance they provocatively pushed to Russia's borderlands at DC's behest and regard as vital to British interests. The liberal British standing off from a dangerous continent have put themselves in a very interesting pickle.

NATO is an odd one here. It's the single biggest military threat posed to many parts of the world, and has effectively usurped the UN (remember them?) in many of its supposed functions. Ask me a year ago if I wanted to see NATO crumble, and I'd have sad fuck yes. But I didn't imagine it crumbling in this way. I still find it hard to imagine that Trump really wants to bugger NATO, but that's not a good measure of what can happen atm.

 

[hash tag]

The Democracy is flawed. United States downgraded to flawed democracy for first time

"Americans like to think of our country as a bastion of democracy. But for the first time, The Democracy Index has downgraded the United States from a full to a flawed democracy, citing citizens' growing distrust of government, the media and elected officials"

 

[killer b]

It took them til now to notice?

 

[Casually Red]

But Obama also attempted a reset with Russia and failed..

No he didn't . He tried to glimmer them . He was doing his soft soap, hey I'm a nice guy stick , waving his nobel peace prize about while simultaneously ringing them with missile bases and overtly supporting a hoped for colour revolution . Thinking they wouldn't notice . His senior staff were out on the streets calling for Putins ouster . Just as they were later on Ukraine . It was a pr stunt trying to play on the Russians desire to have closer relations with the west as a means of getting in among them and fucking them over well and truly . A reset didn't fail simply because there was no attempted reset. There was instead an attempt to screw Russia over that simply didn't work .

 

[Lord Camomile]

"I have spoken with people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked them the question 'Does it work? Does torture work?' and the answer was 'Yes, absolutely'.

He's not even hiding it, for fuck's sake. He's calling it torture and he's ok with that

 

[Pickman's model]

He's not even hiding it, for fuck's sake. He's calling it torture and he's ok with that

yeh. well, i wonder how he'd be reacting if it was daesh saying 'we will torture prisoners. it works.' he'd go it's all barbarick and that.

i wonder how he'd react if faced with a few vietnamese and household tools innocent in many situations but not in this, as john mccain was.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On RSG Intel Brief The Moral Outrage of Torture

...
While other prospective Trump administration policies would undoubtedly be ineffective counterterrorism strategies—such as restricting access for refugees fleeing certain countries deemed extremist havens—none are as troublesome as the suggestion of a return to torture. Military leaders, experts, and policymakers on both sides of the political spectrum have long been united in the view that torture is not only illegal and immoral, but also fails to generate credible intelligence, endangers U.S. military personnel and citizens alike, harms American credibility around the world, and hinders successful prosecutions in terror cases. That view is supported by volumes of official documents that make clear the ineffectual, counterproductive, and harmful impact torture has on broader counterterrorism objectives. President Trump would be wise to heed those warnings.

But US voters programmed by 24 and Homeland are real keen and The Donald likes it and thinks waterboarding is for pussies so break out the cattle prods and secateurs.

 

[Pickman's model]

The Democracy is flawed. United States downgraded to flawed democracy for first time

"Americans like to think of our country as a bastion of democracy. But for the first time, The Democracy Index has downgraded the United States from a full to a flawed democracy, citing citizens' growing distrust of government, the media and elected officials"

for the first time? is the election of 1876 so soon forgotten?

 

[not-bono-ever]

Any moral high ground has been lost. not that it made any difference to the beardies anyway

 

[Casually Red]

DC's whims about how it deals with adversaries often dictates much of the UK's foreign policy as a reading of Chilcot reveals. May now approaches the God Emperor's throne no doubt in full grovel. Is he going to bugger NATO and sink what has been a US led project of globalisation? A project her free trade crazed cabinet actually seek to deepen along with Xi and an alliance they provocatively pushed to Russia's borderlands at DC's behest and regard as vital to British interests. The liberal British standing off from a dangerous continent have put themselves in a very interesting pickle.

Perhaps someday the British should accept they're a relatively small country who's interests would be better served by minding their own business a bit more and not interfering in the affairs of others, pushing for regime changes, starting wars and stuff . That stuff is the root of their pickle . Like the schoolyard bully's puny sidekick who was always egging him on to beat up , threaten and insult all the other kids . Now standing forlornly in the schoolyard trying to ingratiate itself with the new bully, and eying up new allies in case that doesn't work out .
It's funny how the previously deafening anti Russian rhetoric from no 10 seems to have tailed off dramatically now that the Clinton mare unexpectedly took a tumble at the final hurdle . Funny haha .

 

[Casually Red]

NATO is an odd one here. It's the single biggest military threat posed to many parts of the world, and has effectively usurped the UN (remember them?) in many of its supposed functions. Ask me a year ago if I wanted to see NATO crumble, and I'd have sad fuck yes. But I didn't imagine it crumbling in this way. I still find it hard to imagine that Trump really wants to bugger NATO, but that's not a good measure of what can happen atm.

NATO and the EU are crumbling . I'm a happy man all things considered . Didn't see it coming from this angle but I'd long given up any hope of it coming from a leftwards angle . The worlds changing and with change comes opportunity for those not afflicted by jazz handing etc . Nobody's going to intersection their way out of this one . There's a chance for a strong economically focused , anti imperialist left to emerge from the change that lies ahead . Progressive neo liberalism is being proven to be politically redundant now neo liberalism itself is in crisis, hopefully fatal . Obsolete politically and militarily . The blow dealt to the entire global camp that Clinton headed up and personified has been a fucking massive one . They can be routed . They're real failures now .

 

[gosub]

"I have spoken with people at the highest level of intelligence and I asked them the question 'Does it work? Does torture work?' and the answer was 'Yes, absolutely'.

Only if you want 'alternative facts'. Was he attacking them with a cattle prod at the time or something?

 

[CrabbedOne]

He's not even hiding it, for fuck's sake. He's calling it torture and he's ok with that

It does work, you can get evidence of anything you want to hear if you torture and terrify a population into submission. It's an essential part of the totalitarian tool kit. The NKVD were always unearthing huge plots that required five figure mass murder even of their own colleagues. You can easily create societies like the GDR or Baathist Syria where most everybody is suspected of being an tout.

Not regarded as so useful in intelligence or counter terror work as it tends to lead to "fake news". Even the macho Israelis maintain torture is not much use these days.

Which reminds me of a gag on SST The Intelligence Olympics.

 

[camouflage]

Russia and China are the main enemies our new Great Leader poor old Trump has to compete with. Trump looks weak so far and will be tested. I think enough of Xi and Putin to see that as inevitable. They'll both do this probably not by tackling the US head on but by squeezing its friends.

That's the thing though, Russia and China need not be enemies, a lot of work has gone into pretty much forcing them into that role. It's not even about whether they're 'nice' countries or corrupt countries. The "Chimerica" relationship certainly doesn't need to see China and the US at odds, they are so interdependant it's weird Trump wants aggro with them. As a land-power China can't go galavanting around the world building an empire, they don't have the luxury of two oceans and a cosy continent for their military factions to be happy with the idea of seeing resources poured into developing commitments in some far off country somewhere and as a coastal trading nation their main concern is that no-one has the ability to cut them off as a self-proclaimed Godfather of international trade (a sort of protection racket of the sea-lanes). Why conquer or militarily dominate what you can buy from anyway. You yourself pointed out that Trumps idea of "taking the oil" on balance wouldn't balance.... you think the Chinese are as dumb as the whacky suggestions Trump comes out with?

The idea that Russia has nothing better to do with its time than menace the far richer, far more populated and conventionally far stronger EU and West more generally is laughable. the only motive for Russia being "an enemy" lies in the NATO lobby and its attempt to reassign Western resources to itself and its tank-stacking gravy train. Why does Russia want an enemy of its main customer for energy? To do what, seize a Baltic nation or two? Then what... it'd be like robbing a bank without even bothering to wear a mask. RusChina the enemy serves only NATO brass and their suppliers. Even the oil lobby (yer Rex Tillerson types) and banking/finance can probably think of more productive uses for Russia than stacking tanks at them.

Like 24 and Homeland sought to normalize and make-defensible torture, so is this constant theme that Russia and China and for that matter Iran are obviously automaticaly 'enemies' because... obviously the world is a sort of Manichaen binary machine where that's just the way of the world. It's not... geopolitics is in my opinion built on the same forces that move markets- Greed and Fear, someone's pushing far more Fear into the equation and completely neglecting the needs of Greed imo. It's an unbalanced world veiw. Nothing wrong with parties pushing hard across a negotiating table, there's always a clash of interests somewhere, but that does not equate to enemies. Enemies want to destroy each other, an objective that's of fuck all use to any party.

 

[Crispy]

Which reminds me of a gag on SST The Intelligence Olympics.

I prefer the snappier cartoon version :

 

[CrabbedOne]

NATO is an odd one here. It's the single biggest military threat posed to many parts of the world, and has effectively usurped the UN (remember them?) in many of its supposed functions. Ask me a year ago if I wanted to see NATO crumble, and I'd have sad fuck yes. But I didn't imagine it crumbling in this way. I still find it hard to imagine that Trump really wants to bugger NATO, but that's not a good measure of what can happen atm.

Trump's been clear for a longtime that he thinks NATO obsolete. His intent towards the EU also appears destructive. It looks like he's going to defund the UN and he has complete contempt for international law. He wants a world of transient bilateral deals between nations where the US can loom over all others and use its great weight to bend things its way. His hatred of China, another heavy weight, rather fits with this view. It's not an irrational position if you have his aggrieved dystopian view of the US's position in the world and are really naive about the likely consequences.

The thing with these big institutions is they're fragile and will leave a vacuum when they go. Things will tend to implode.

Actually it's the Russian nuclear arsenal that's probably the single most dangerous thing on the planet. Massive and on a hair trigger like the US one but with a decayed early warning systems that gives Putin only a couple minutes to react. Far less than the Soviets had. The Russians remain really paranoid about a decapitation strike. If the Russian's and Septic's were rational actors they've had stood this shit down decades ago.

The Russians also have (since 2014) a doctrine of rapid escalation to tactical nukes if facing a conventional defeat. Russian commanders on exercises have reached for this options. When war gamed superpowers using tactical nukes usually escalates to a catastrophic ICBM exchange. The Russians seem to know this but haven't quite sorted that little detail out.

It's not that they want this to happen but it would be real easy to stumble into a conventional confrontation with a very burly US backed NATO if Putin explores Trump's weaknesses with a little bit of their cheeky Hybrid Warfare or things get a bit too clever in Syria.

Of course if you subtract the US NATO isn't really worth shit. The Russians would have a very high level of conventional deterrence and massive nuclear superiority. They might not try to stroll off with Warsaw again as my Polish friends are prone to suppose but the fairly rational Tzar Putin won't last forever and their are some really crazy types in Moscow just as irrational and jumpy as Trump is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Talk about what might happen if a nuclear war started always leaves me a little wtf. It also raises the obvious point: if this is the case, that's the best reason of all to get the fuck out of NATO, ditch the nukes, and kick every last US soldier out of the UK. That's the rational response.

 

[existentialist]

Clinton mare

So nothing about her gender, then?

 

[camouflage]

So nothing about her gender, then?

Aye, there's no need for that. She'd not be any less of a prick were she a man.

 

[camouflage]

Trump's been clear for a longtime that he thinks NATO obsolete. His intent towards the EU also appears destructive. It looks like he's going to defund the UN and he has complete contempt for international law. He wants a world of transient bilateral deals between nations where the US can loom over all others and use its great weight to bend things its way. His hatred of China, another heavy weight, rather fits with this view. It's not an irrational position if you have his aggrieved dystopian view of the US's position in the world and are really naive about the likely consequences.

The thing with these big institutions is they're fragile and will leave a vacuum when they go. Things will tend to implode.

Actually it's the Russian nuclear arsenal that's probably the single most dangerous thing on the planet. Massive and on a hair trigger like the US one but with a decayed early warning systems that gives Putin only a couple minutes to react. Far less than the Soviets had. The Russians remain really paranoid about a decapitation strike. If the Russian's and Septic's were rational actors they've had stood this shit down decades ago.

The Russians also have (since 2014) a doctrine of rapid escalation to tactical nukes if facing a conventional defeat. Russian commanders on exercises have reached for this options. When war gamed superpowers using tactical nukes usually escalates to a catastrophic ICBM exchange. The Russians seem to know this but haven't quite sorted that little detail out.

It's not that they want this to happen but it would be real easy to stumble into a conventional confrontation with a very burly US backed NATO if Putin explores Trump's weaknesses with a little bit of their cheeky Hybrid Warfare or things get a bit too clever in Syria.

Of course if you subtract the US NATO isn't really worth shit. The Russians would have a very high level of conventional deterrence and massive nuclear superiority. They might not try to stroll off with Warsaw again as my Polish friends are prone to suppose but the fairly rational Tzar Putin won't last forever and their are some really crazy types in Moscow just as irrational and jumpy as Trump is.

Thus the lunacy of making trouble where there needn't be any. Upsetting the balance of deterrence in Europe like the US has done and inventing the case for bigger NATO budgets by this "hybrid warfare" bollocks doesn't help. And pretending the Russian population in East Ukraine doesn't exist and is really just a secret army sent by the Russians for shits n giggles because Sovjet Glory times rah rah rah just isn't a convincing fix for anything.

One reason for the Russians new hair trigger is a response to NATO escalation. We should be working in the other direction, nuclear disarmament. Fat chance of that now, in this atmosphere. And I'd argue it's the West that got too clever in Syria, as they have in various countries recently, the Russians for all their flaws, don't see Syria as a far away game. Like Chechnya they see it is a very serious and existentially threatening mess that needs sorting.

 

[editor]

Me me me me me me

“That speech was a home run,” Trump told ABC News just a few minutes into his first major television interview since moving into the White House. “See what Fox said. They said it was one of the great speeches. They showed the people applauding and screaming. … I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl, and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time.”

The most powerful man in the world continued: “You probably ran it live. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it. … People loved it. They loved it. They gave me a standing ovation for a long period of time. They never even sat down, most of them, during the speech. There was love in the room. You and other networks covered it very inaccurately. … That speech was a good speech. And you and a couple of other networks tried to downplay that speech. And it was very, very unfortunate that you did.”

In his first major TV interview as president, Trump is endlessly obsessed with his popularity

 

[Pickman's model]

Me me me me me me

In his first major TV interview as president, Trump is endlessly obsessed with his popularity

he'll end up by being endlessly obsessed with his unpopularity

 

[editor]

He accidentally tweeted out his password. You're in safe hands, America!

 

[ohmyliver]

I worry that Trump, whilst dangerous in and of himself, is actually distracting from the CNP/Mercers linked Dominionists taking power.

I know neoliberalism is corrupt, corrosive and deadly, but I fear Christian Fascism will be worse.

 

[Idris2002]

The senior levels of the State Department have resigned en masse, in "a near-complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department, its overseas posts and its people."

On second reading, not quite as shocking as I thought at first (it doesn't appear to be an organized protest by a very large number of staff), but it is significant - and will be more so if these people can't be replaced.

Opinion | The State Department’s entire senior management team just resigned

 

[gosub]

 

[2hats]

View attachment 99442

He accidentally tweeted out his password. You're in safe hands, America!

Amusingly that and potus are linked to gmail accounts and not .gov accounts (or were, some very quick arse covering has been underway)...

 

[CrabbedOne]

Thus the lunacy of making trouble where there needn't be any. Upsetting the balance of deterrence in Europe like the US has done and inventing the case for bigger NATO budgets by this "hybrid warfare" bollocks doesn't help. And pretending the Russian population in East Ukraine doesn't exist and is really just a secret army sent by the Russians for shits n giggles because Sovjet Glory times rah rah rah just isn't a convincing fix for anything.

One reason for the Russians new hair trigger is a response to NATO escalation. We should be working in the other direction, nuclear disarmament. Fat chance of that now, in this atmosphere. And I'd argue it's the West that got too clever in Syria, as they have in various countries recently, the Russians for all their flaws, don't see Syria as a far away game. Like Chechnya they see it is a very serious and existentially threatening mess that needs sorting.

Such optimism in the face of rather a lot of prior bad behaviour does tend to lead to nasty surprises. I find very little of it in Poland but then they have very good reasons to be scared of their old grabby enemy.

Chechnya really was part of the Russian Federation so fair game for a long campaign of mass slaughter when it tried to leave. Not the first time the Chechen people have been brutalised by kindly Mother Russia. Attempting to mash the Chechens into submission has been going on since the 18th century. The GWOT malarkey is just window dressing for business as usual.

After the well documented Little Green Man shenanigans in their backyard the Ukraine Russian hybrid warfare is hard at work in Syria. They now appear to be engaged in carving into zones influence with the neighbours intent on leaving the awful Assad regime to thrash the useful bits into submission. It's basically Sykes-Picot II but because its got a Russian flag on it that's OK for some folks. Meanwhile Assad appears set on reconquering the place and goes off reservation every time the Russians try talks. Together with that the Iranians plainly fancy using the Golan for a bigger ruck with Israel which will probably bugger the Russian red handed version of "peace making". We made Syria much worse by interfering via proxies but that does not mean the other guys are not really awful cunts running up the butchers bill as well.

That's the Russian variety of imperialism in the 21st century multi-polar world. The Kremlin does not seem like a passive victim of doddery old NATO but a great power once more advancing its interests by all means possible. Dusky horde fearing idiots like Trump focus on annoyances like IS the Kremlin certainly doesn't. They quite correctly see the US as an existential threat whatever Trump's intent.