The Trump presidency

[CrabbedOne]

In LAT Not just 'bad hombres': Trump is targeting up to 8 million people for deportation

...
Also among those 11.1 million are about 8 million jobholders, Pew found. The vast majority have worked in violation of the law by stating on federal employment forms that they were legally allowed to work. Trump’s order calls for targeting anyone who lied on the forms.

Trump’s deportation priorities also include smaller groups whose totals remain elusive: people in the country illegally who are charged with crimes that have not yet been adjudicated and those who receive an improper welfare benefit, used a fake identity card, were found driving without a license or received federal food assistance.

An additional executive order under consideration would block entry to anyone the U.S. believes may use benefit programs such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, according two Trump administration officials who have seen the draft order.

The changes reflect an effort to deter illegal migration by increasing the threat of deportation and cutting off access to social services and work opportunities, an approach that 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called “self-deportation.”
...

Well it was a popular part of his platform. I was sceptical he'd act on it as so many have used the dog whistle and not followed through on it. Course it'll not be without opposition from the business lobby which gummed up previous efforts. This is probably economically damaging in some states.

I know more than one person who overstayed their visa in the US and went on to become high earning upstanding citizens/Green Card holders.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Trump's acceleration of advanced neoliberalism

Just making sure I understand the term.

Obama was a neoliberal.
Clinton was a neoliberal.
Trump... is a neoliberal?

 

[newbie]

Camelot

The thing about the clock is that it's a contemporary assessment. We now know more about the 60s than the 80s because more documents have been declassified, but surely it would be ridiculous to imagine we know everything. As for more recently, are you certain the American leadership didn't know about Perimetr before it became public? Or who knows what now?

Either way, the contemporary feeling of dread is ramping up.

 

[J Ed]

Just making sure I understand the term.

Obama was a neoliberal.
Clinton was a neoliberal.
Trump... is a neoliberal?

http://www.sok.bz/web/media/video/ABriefHistoryNeoliberalism.pdf

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It's just one of several incidents of near nuclear war; probably the worst..

The US Strategic Air Command has been taken to DEFCON 2 once: during the Cuban Missile Crisis. [The US Marines in the Middle East were put at DEFCON 2 just prior to the Gulf War].

Part of the reason that Kennedy and Kruschev worked toward a solution, was the realization that they were losing control of their respective militaries during the high alert situation, meaning there was a possibility that battlefield commanders could create events triggering nuclear war, without direct order from either the White House or the Kremlin.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

http://www.sok.bz/web/media/video/ABriefHistoryNeoliberalism.pdf

That paper is 256 pages long. Perhaps you can refer to the pages relevant to the question; or provide a brief summary?

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Trump and Brexit are being used as battering rams for fascism. And as the hoardes charge through the gates it is less the left who stand with jaws agape, but the centrists.The soft right are even more ignorant. Aquiessence is everywhere, including on the soft left.

It is the left, specifically dedicated anti-fascists, who analysed and warned of the nature of the "alt" right and the influence of far-right thinking in Brexit/UKIP circles, thinking and rhetoric that are actively promoted by the mainstream press.

It is the mainstream who endlessly promoted UKIP as "anti establishment", fete Le Pen and describe Richard Spencer as "fashionable".

The left have a habit of beating ourselves up which the right never seem to bother with, perhaps that should tell us something.

In fact, we have the analysis and the programs to offer solutions to the masses and avoid some of the possible horrors ahead. Sure, we lack proper access to the mainstream arena of "debate" which tends to be disgusting and stupid, and there are too many self doubters and factionalists in our ranks.

But in broad terms we should have more confidence and dignity in how we present our case, because people need to hear it now more than ever with liberals shown to be clueless, and the right to be a mix of pawns, appeasers and happy facilitators of the "f" word.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

A relatively succinct discussion of the Trump/neoliberal issue:

Trump and National Neoliberalism

(I understand the term “neoliberalism” to emphasize at its core the importance of private property rights, market-based social organization, and the dangers of government intervention in the economy.)

Interesting: at one time, not too long ago, people holding such beliefs would have been labelled 'conservatives'.

 

[brogdale]

Just making sure I understand the term.

Obama was a neoliberal.
Clinton was a neoliberal.
Trump... is a neoliberal?

No idea about their personal beliefs, but they all share(d) the role of advancing neoliberalism. Whilst, I'd imagine, they all have in common a propensity to deny that role, the latter (main contractor) differs from the 2 former sub-contracted 'professionals'.

 

[elbows]

The Soviet response to the fading of MAD was to created Perimeter. A semi-automatic Doomsday Device that would launch the entire ICBM arsenal at pre-assigned targets in the event of a decapitation strike. This was only revealed to be in place in the Yeltsin era. The crazy Soviets never told the Americans they'd built it cancelling out it's strategic value as a deterrent. It was more to be a last revolutionary act from the grave.

In 2011 a Russian official implied Perimeter is still in place. You might see that as the dawn of Cold War II. The beginning of the end of what will probably be looked back on as a very safe couple of decades of relative economic comfort.

Did they get that idea from Dr Strangelove?

 

[CrabbedOne]

The nasty reality is something like fascism might well be very popular. It doesn't take a Great Depression with folk starving in the street, an oil shock bringing scary inflation to trigger this sort of thing anymore. All that is needed is things failing to grow according to prior expectations set by long gone periods of manufacturing growth of the sort only possible in underdeveloped places like China. Recent feel good periods for most folks were based on reckless levels of personnel debt. It's a system like a US housing market predicated on permanently fast growth in real estate prices. It's rigged to explode.

It's so bad that nearly a third of Americans could imagine themselves supporting a military coup in a recent poll, 43% of Republicans. A reaction to what they saw as Obama's dictatorial abuse of Presidential powers. And this authoritarian mindset is rising with young folk.

Having had enough of experts after the bungling billionaires bring chaos where will the distressed and deplorable turn? It's really not that hard anymore to imagine a junta taking power in the US.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Did they get that idea from Dr Strangelove?

The movie was a satire of ideas current at Rand at the time. Craziness in nuclear doctrine is I'm afraid sort of normal. It's something beyond satire.

 

[brogdale]

A relatively succinct discussion of the Trump/neoliberal issue:

Trump and National Neoliberalism



Interesting: at one time, not too long ago, people holding such beliefs would have been labelled 'conservatives'.

They would, demonstrating that it's a rather deficient summary of neoliberalism.

 

[bimble]

The nasty reality is something like fascism might well be very popular. It doesn't take a Great Depression with folk starving in the street, an oil shock bringing scary inflation to trigger this sort of thing anymore. All that is needed is things failing to grow according to prior expectations set by long gone periods of manufacturing growth of the sort only possible in underdeveloped places like China. Recent feel good periods for most folks were based on reckless levels of personnel debt. It's a system like a US housing market predicated on permanently fast growth in real estate prices. It's rigged to explode.

It's so bad that nearly a third of Americans could imagine themselves supporting a military coup in a recent poll, 43% of Republicans. A reaction to what they saw as Obama's dictatorial abuse of Presidential powers. And this authoritarian mindset is rising with young folk.

Having had enough of experts after the bungling billionaires bring chaos where will the distressed and deplorable turn? It's really not that hard anymore to imagine a junta taking power in the US.

A junta made up of whom though, internet trumpers sitting around in their underpants talking about red pills and libtards and how much they don't like Soros? I'm a big fan of calamitous thinking and worst case scenarios but this is a stretch.

 

[J Ed]

That paper is 256 pages long. Perhaps you can refer to the pages relevant to the question; or provide a brief summary?

This may help Neoliberalism Is a Political Project | Jacobin

 

[CrabbedOne]

A junta made up of whom though, internet trumpers sitting around in their underpants talking about red pills and libtards and how much they don't like Soros? I'm a big fan of calamitous thinking and worst case scenarios but this is a stretch.

It's often some obscure Colonel who seizes control for the good of the country but there are an awful lot of prestigious US officers. The questions more if one of them might see himself as a necessary Man On A White Horse and cross the rubicon.

The French Republic has been up and down like a whore drawers but the American system has had at least one shocking political collapse before. Watching his flailing first weeks in office it's quite possible Trump is the start of that sort of Black Swan event. If Trump fails and creates enough American Carnage to be a one termer there's going to be a lot of folk in the military who voted for the twit who are going to be real disappointed. Trumpers aren't going to mainly blame the God Emperor of course but the establishment's laws, the protesting liberals and the lügenpresse that tore him down. Trump himself would go down howling and screaming infamy as he would have if he had lost the election only much worse. It could be a snapping moment like De Gaulle betraying Algérie française.

It's really no more absurd than a obviously unqualified failed Casino Magnate with no respect for the Constitution getting all the way to the Oval Office.

 

[bimble]

It's often some obscure Colonel who seizes control for the good of the country but there are an awful lot of prestigious US officers. The questions more if one of them might see himself as a necessary Man On A White Horse and cross the rubicon.

The French Republic has been up and down like a whore drawers but the American system has had at least one shocking political collapse before. Watching his flailing first weeks in office it's quite possible Trump is the start of that sort of Black Swan event. If Trump fails and creates enough American Carnage to be a one termer there's going to be a lot of folk in the military who voted for the twit who are going to be real disappointed. Trumpers aren't going to mainly blame the God Emperor of course but the establishment's laws, the protesting liberals and the lügenpresse that tore him down. Trump himself would go down howling and screaming infamy as he would have if he had lost the election only much worse. It could be a snapping moment like De Gaulle betraying Algérie française.

It's really no more absurd than a obviously unqualified failed Casino Magnate with no respect for the Constitution getting all the way to the Oval Office.

Chap in the middle here, with the quiff and the pointy fingered salute, he looks like he's ready to have a go I grant you.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Lawfare What Does Putin Want from a Bargain with Trump?

...
Putin, thus far, has not indicated interest in any of the trade-offs on Ukraine suggested above. If anything, the war in eastern Ukraine continues and pro-Russian forces are intensifying their push toward Mariupol. In Syria, the collapse of the ceasefire would leave in place the status quo ante, with Russian firepower directed toward shoring up the Assad government. And in Europe, allies wonder “whether Trump’s definition of a deal entails alignment with whatever conditions Putin may set forward,” Natalie Nougayrede wrote recently for the Guardian.

Putin and Trump spoke on Saturday, January 28. According to the White House, the call was a good start to improved relations. The Kremlin readout was more specific: it stated that the two underscored the importance of mutually beneficial trade relations.

Hard bargaining over Ukraine, clarifying Russia’s goals in Syria, and protecting our allies in Europe are all required before a deal can be cut. Staged sanctions relief could be part of a “reset,” but President Trump should be in no rush to lift sanctions without clarity and movement on these and other issues. “Getting along” is not a foreign policy and should not be a goal in and of itself.

Putin probably wants more than discussed here.

First safety: recognition of Russia's primacy in its near abroad. The strategic depth that is necessary to subdue old Russian fears of invasion. A restoration of the old Westphalian order. Never to wake up in fear again of being chased into culvert by NATO JDAMS and be dragged out to be butchered by a mob of angry serfs. A world were a Greater Russia is allowed to exist as a substantial bully if not currently the biggest one. A looming threat being out there is not a bad thing for an authoritarian regime out on the rob with a nuclear insurance policy. After all no one really likes the empty purposeless feeling of enemy deficit and that can't be filled with puny terrorists. Russians are many things but finally are not effete and that easily scared. In its way that would not be an unreasonable vision.

What the very transactional and treacherous Trump might want from Putin is harder to discern. They seem to have a joint interest in weakening European institutions so these countries can easily be picked off for a fleecing. In reality US influence substantially collapsed without the USSR to scare US allies. Perhaps it's Putin's part to play a tame villain in a global protection racket. What's clear is Mattis at DoD and Trump seem to have very different views on Russia as mentioned in this article.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

This is interesting: Breitbart on neo-liberalism.
Neo-Liberalism v. Conservatism: A Messy Divorce

Breitbart, Bannon's baby, appears to be rejecting neoliberalism. Bannon has the President's ear.

Seems premature, after a couple of weeks on the job, to be identifying the Trump Administration as 'neo-liberal'.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Chap in the middle here, with the quiff and the pointy fingered salute, he looks like he's ready to have a go I grant you.
View attachment 99997

What is that the chap to his left with the ring doing? It looks more like a gang sign or temple massage than a salute.

 

[brogdale]

This is interesting: Breitbart on neo-liberalism.
Neo-Liberalism v. Conservatism: A Messy Divorce

Breitbart, Bannon's baby, appears to be rejecting neoliberalism. Bannon has the President's ear.

Seems premature, after a couple of weeks on the job, to be identifying the Trump Administration as 'neo-liberal'.

Unsurprisingly absurd conflation of neoliberalism and social liberalism.
Tosh of the 1st order.
As for it being too early to call the Trump regime neoliberal; how about we agree to do so until it enacts anything that would lead us to believe the contrary?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Guilty until proven innocent?

Doing a bit of reading about Bannon's beliefs, he appears to disapprove of neoliberalism; but also holds various other unsavory beliefs and attitudes.

There are other potentially harmful political and economic viewpoints, apart from neoliberalism. It seems quite likely that the Trump Administration will import and try to implement a number of abhorrent political and social theories.

In other words, it's quite possible [probable, even] for the Trump Administration to prove to be both harmful and wrongheaded, without of necessity also being neoliberal.

 

[brogdale]

Guilty until proven innocent?

Doing a bit of reading about Bannon's beliefs, he appears to disapprove of neoliberalism; but also holds various other unsavory beliefs and attitudes.

There are other potentially harmful political and economic viewpoints, apart from neoliberalism. It seems quite likely that the Trump Administration will import and try to implement a number of abhorrent political and social theories.

In other words, it's quite possible [probable, even] for the Trump Administration to prove to be both harmful and wrongheaded, without of necessity also being neoliberal.

That's what they want people to think, notice, get angry about and protest...whilst they get on with agenda of accelerating advanced neoliberalism. The political programme to destroy the last vestiges of the 'social contract' that resulted from capital's fear during the post-war era of system competition.
But hey, don't let me stop you saying they're homophobes, misogynists and supremacists.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I don't recall saying that; I will say, however, that Bannon appears to be a Christian-oriented nationalist and isolationist.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Bannon does not run the Trump administration, let alone the government.

 

[Casually Red]

Zut Alors !! Trumps advisor Nigel Farage is in a spot of bother .

This French lady appears to have been staying in Nigel Farages London bachelor pad in Chelsea . She's an assistant of his apparently linked to funny business around EU expenses and the like . Ukip are in trouble for a load of alleged monkey business to do with their funding . Farage and the lady in question are firmly denying any suggestion of any hanky panky and jiggery pokery but the media aren't having it . Neither it appears is Nigels wife, a German, who's reported to have walked out of the house with wedding ring nowhere to be seen . Possibly due it being wedged up Nigel's bumhole.

Sacre Bleu .

Nigel Farage returns to home he shares with wife in Kent | Daily Mail Online

Nigel Farage's wife takes off wedding ring pouring doubts on marriage

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Bannon does not run the Trump administration, let alone the government.

No; all Bannon is, is Assistant to the President, and Chief Strategist. He also has a seat on the National Security Council.

 

[Casually Red]

Trump will be furious at this sordid impropriety from a trusted aide . It'll reflect badly on his image .

 

[FridgeMagnet]

No; all Bannon is, is Assistant to the President, and Chief Strategist. He also has a seat on the National Security Council.

Bannon is extremely influential (and is not a neoliberal, I'd agree, at least not judging by everything he's said and done) but it takes more than that to change the entire character of an administration. Neoliberalism is the accepted ideology of US politics at the moment in both parties, and the existing politicians are all necessary, at least at this stage.