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What stupid shit has Trump done today?

On Politico Trump’s Trade Pullout Roils Rural America
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On July 6, the EU, which already exports as much pork to Japan as the United States does, announced political agreement on a new deal that would give European pork farmers an advantage of up to $2 per pound over U.S. exporters under certain circumstances — a move which, if unchecked, is all but certain to create a widening gap between EU exports and those from the United States.

European wine producers, who sold more than $1 billion to Japan between 2014 and 2016, would also see a 15 percent tariff on exports to Japan disappear while U.S. exporters would continue to face that duty at the border. For other products, the deal essentially mirrors the rates negotiated under the TPP, which the United States has surrendered, giving the EU a clear advantage over U.S. farmers.

The EU’s deal is all the more noteworthy because American farmers were relying on the TPP — to which the EU was not a member — to give them an advantage over European competitors. But in a further rebuke to the United States, Tokyo decided within a matter of weeks to offer the European nations virtually the same agricultural access to its market that United States trade officials had spent two excruciating years extracting through near-monthly meetings with their Japanese counterparts on the sidelines of the broader TPP negotiations; the United States is now left out.

The EU, which also recently inked a deal with Vietnam, is now moving forward with talks with Malaysia and is in the process of modernizing a pre-existing trade deal with Mexico.

Meanwhile, a bloc of four Latin-American countries—Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia, known as the Pacific Alliance—is quickly becoming the leading force for free trade in the region, announcing near the end of June it would commence its own negotiations with New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, heedless of its neighbor to the north.
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US farmers getting done up like a kipper by their foreign competitors in Asian markets as a certain special someone many of them probably voted for casually ditched the tricky TPP deal.

Trump probably had no idea that he was hurting part of his base when he did this. Trump might have axed the well established NAFTA as well but here he's been much more cautious pushing sensibly for renegotiations. They're expected to be covering some of the same ground as TPP. Meanwhile US Asian allies are rapidly making other arrangements.
 
CrabbedOne said:
On Politico Trump’s Trade Pullout Roils Rural America
US farmers getting done up like a kipper by their foreign competitors in Asian markets as a certain special someone many of them probably voted for casually ditched the tricky TPP deal.

Trump probably had no idea that he was hurting part of his base when he did this. Trump might have axed the well established NAFTA as well but here he's been much more cautious pushing sensibly for renegotiations. They're expected to be covering some of the same ground as TPP. Meanwhile US Asian allies are rapidly making other arrangements.
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This is true, but don't be surprised when Trump supporters who depend on agriculture and agribusiness for their livelihoods still "stand by their man." Look, if people are content to get their information from Fox, right wing websites and now, Trump TV, they'll believe Trump or his proxies when they say it's not his fault. They'll probably figure out a way to blame it on Obama, or Hilary Clinton, maybe the Mexicans, or Muslims. They'll swallow it whole, even as the banks foreclose on their farms and businesses.
 
CRI said:
This is true, but don't be surprised when Trump supporters who depend on agriculture and agribusiness for their livelihoods still "stand by their man." Look, if people are content to get their information from Fox, right wing websites and now, Trump TV, they'll believe Trump or his proxies when they say it's not his fault. They'll probably figure out a way to blame it on Obama, or Hilary Clinton, maybe the Mexicans, or Muslims. They'll swallow it whole, even as the banks foreclose on their farms and businesses.
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Yep, I have seen this. When I went back home a while ago, an old classmate complained to me about "those idiots in Lincoln", who don't understand rural issues. He complained that they paid taxes and got little back. I wisely choose not to tell him that rural residents get far more back in services and grants, than they pay in. Its just damned expensive to provide services in counties, with small populations, that it takes an hour to drive across. (Well, that, and the fact they voted for candidates like Pete Ricketts, who's trying to implement the same slash and burn budgeting that you'd expect from a billionaire Republican.)
 
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On TSG IntelBrief: U.S. Politics in the Disinformation Era
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On August 5, the President of the United States tweeted out a thank you message to a pro-Trump twitter personality that was quickly proven to be a fake bot account. The fake account, with over 100,000 followers (most of them bots as well), was suspended by Twitter within a day. The episode is just the latest demonstration of the persistent reach of disinformation and ‘fake news’, even into the Oval Office.

President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, recently removed several personnel from their respective positions within the National Security Council (NSC); among them was Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the NSC’s 31-year-old senior director for intelligence. The firings by McMaster were viewed as an attempt to re-orient the NSC away from a foreign policy grounded in an ‘alt-right’ worldview—of which several of the dismissed employees were proponents—toward a more traditional, though still quite conservative, foreign policy. The reaction to the firings, and the subsequent disinformation campaigns designed to discredit McMaster, highlight the nexus of ‘alt-right’ and Russian messaging efforts.

Within days, the hashtag #McMasterFacts was a top trending hashtag among hundreds of accounts (both bot and human) that have been identified as either associated with Russian disinformation campaigns, or proponents of ‘alt-right’ ultra-nationalist messaging. The campaign against McMaster exhibits what is now a textbook strategy by those seeking to muddy the information environment: using armies of fake twitter accounts to amplify false or exaggerated ‘news’ stories and associated hashtags, thereby creating momentum around a largely manufactured, but politically convenient, grievance narrative. In this instance, elements of both Russian and ‘alt-right’ disinformation machines share a common enemy in McMaster, who is considered an administration stalwart against both Russian aggression and the influence of ultra-nationalist ideology in the White House. The campaign was so effective at portraying a growing—but largely exaggerated—sentiment of public anger and distrust against McMaster that the story was picked up by the mainstream media, prompting President Trump to make a public statement of support for McMaster.
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In bots we trust.
 
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In The Washington Examiner Why Trump clobbered Clinton in the rural Midwest
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These dramatic shifts had something to do with Donald Trump’s unique ability to attract the votes of working class whites. But after spending five weeks talking with people in Howard and Trempealeau counties, I found that they also had a lot to do with a Democratic Party whose values and priorities no longer resonate with rural voters.

The Upper Mississippi River Valley is full of agricultural communities whose residents value faith, family and a more traditional way of life. Many people in these places say the Democratic Party has become too liberal.

Trempealeau County resident Bob Kopp, a Republican, said you can talk to people in any bar in the county and their conservative values are quickly apparent. They value tradition, faith, hard work and law and order, he said.

Howard County resident Joe Wacha said that although he is a registered Democrat, he voted for Trump because today’s Democratic Party isn’t the party he knew growing up. Today’s Republican Party, he said, is “more like the way the Democratic Party was 30 or 40 years ago.”

I asked Laura Hubka, who chairs the Democratic Party in Howard County, and Kathy Vinehout, who for the last decade has represented parts of Trempealeau and eight other mostly rural counties in the Wisconsin state Senate, to talk about what Democrats must do to compete again in the rural Midwest.

Both mentioned guns and hunting as a crucially important to people in the region. Hubka lamented that many progressives want to impose purity tests on their candidates and worried that they will try to push the party too far to the left. “The people that are purists on the progressive side of the party [are] saying, ‘This is our platform, if you’re a candidate and you’re okay with guns, we don’t want to support you.’ [But] it’s Iowa. People have guns, you know?”

State Sen. Vinehout, who was a full-time dairy farmer before getting elected to state office, also identified guns as a crucial issue for most western Wisconsin voters. “Hunting is just a huge part of my world,” she said when I met her at her office in the Wisconsin state capitol.

“I heard over and over again from the election judges that if Hillary won, people would not be able to fill their freezer. This is really important in a rural area, because people do hunt for food, and they have for generations. It’s not just Republicans… .That’s the way people live, so I think that’s important part of the culture.”

I asked Vinehout whether the Democrats’ extreme stance on abortion alienates voters in her district. “Do we need to rethink how we talk about these issues? I think it would be helpful,” she replied. “I think it’s right to honor where people are, and these are conversations that I’ve had for 15 years with people who have a much more nuanced view about issues like choice and abortion.” Vinehout suggested that it would be advantageous for Democrats to return to Bill Clinton’s stated desire to make the practice “safe, legal and rare.”
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My bold, this is an accurate assessment of part of Trump's appeal to blue collar Dem voters. Echoes of roguish Dem politicians of old rather than the often prissy, lecturing 21st century variety, pandering to coastal elite preferences. The comforting appeal of a lost past rather than being nagged to embrace a risky future. The very liberal Obama apart from the odd slip was in fact rather careful of antagonising folk "clinging to God and guns" which was tactically shrewd as a fair slice of Dem voters are socially conservative.
 
In The Trace Right-Wing Militias Are Now Actively Supporting Some State and Local Pro-Trump Politicians
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In Texas, a governor’s stoking of conspiracies fires up a militia, which then appears by his side

Protesters outraged by Governor Greg Abbott of Texas’ anti-immigration stance were doubly shocked when they showed up at a July 16 rally in the border city of McAllen to see armed members of the Texas State Militiachatting up campaign staff.

The group, an independent volunteer organization with chapters throughout the state, has expressed solidarity with the Bundy family, Nevada ranchers who have lead two armed standoffs with federal agents. Abbott’s staff has rebutted claims that it had hired the militia or coordinated its members’ appearance at the event in McAllen.

Militias and patriot groups grew more active in Texas after 2015, when rumors swirled that a military exercise called Jade Helm being held in the state by the Army, Navy, and Air Force was actually a covert attempt by then-President Barack Obama to impose martial law. Abbott stoked the hysteria when he called on the Texas State Guard, a state-government-run defense force, to monitor the military’s activities.

Records obtained by Gawker showed that the attention Abbott brought to Jade Helm resulted in a spike in recruitment for the Texas State Guard. However, some recruiters were unsettled by applicants’ paranoia surrounding the military operation, and their eagerness to be armed. “I am getting a lot of calls,” one recruiter wrote in an email. “They want to join [the Texas State Guard] simply because they think they can carry weapons.”
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Texans: keeping it crazy since 1836.
 
CrabbedOne said:
In The Washington Examiner Why Trump clobbered Clinton in the rural Midwest
My bold, this is an accurate assessment of part of Trump's appeal to blue collar Dem voters. Echoes of roguish Dem politicians of old rather than the often prissy, lecturing 21st century variety, pandering to coastal elite preferences. The comforting appeal of a lost past rather than being nagged to embrace a risky future. The very liberal Obama apart from the odd slip was in fact rather careful of antagonising folk "clinging to God and guns" which was tactically shrewd as a fair slice of Dem voters are socially conservative.
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Very interesting article. I hadn't spotted it so thanks for posting this. I have extended family who live in and around Dixon (best known as the boyhood home of President Reagan) which is in this neck of the woods. The upshot of the piece is that many white rural working class voters felt the Democratic Party was becoming too left wing for their tastes, so many shifted to voting Republican. Although it's implied in there, I would also suggest that these white, rural working class voters, like the ones where I come from further down state, have moved further to the right in their views over the past few decades.

I started kindergarten in 1969 and graduated high school in 1982. Republicans held the White House almost all that time, apart from the Carter Presidency (1976-80). Compared to what came before and after, I think my education was relatively liberal/progressive - no pledge to the flag to start the day, we learned the metric system, lively debates in history, social studies, government, etc. classes, not overly jingoistic (apart from some of the Bicentennial overkill) and absolutely not a whiff of religion anywhere near school or any state institutions. During this time, there were further laws passed on the back of the Civil Rights Act related to discrimination. There was a surge of interest in protecting the environment. Roe v Wade happened and definitely, views on abortion were not as polarised as they are now.

One guy in the article talked about how the Democratic Party 30-40 years ago reflected his views more closely, but was too liberal now. My experience of the Democratic party at the time (my parents were still active in the local party then) was that it hasn't shifted to the left all that much. What has changed though is that the Republicans have shifted, dramatically to the right. Reagan reached out to some evangelical Christian leaders and some of their lobbyists did back him, but many were a bit iffy about his "morality," having been divorced. Sheesh, hard to believe now with fundamentalist Christians worshiping at the feet of Trump that a divorced president would have been a concern for them back then.

So, not only has the GOP moved to the right, I would suggest that the people living in the area the article describes have also moved to the right. Far more people in the US now oppose abortion than did 30 or 40 years ago. The right to bear arms and efforts to control sale and use of guns has always been a hot topic, but hasn't been strictly party political until the last couple decades. Plenty of Democratic legislators at state and national level and party members support the 2nd amendment, although many want reforms to reduce deaths and injuries. But, the party is portrayed as though it wasn't to repeal the 2nd.

Also, in the past decade or so, more states have introduced concealed and open carry laws. So instead of having to keep your gun locked at home or in your car when you're not using it to hunt deer or practice at the range, you can carry it with you all the time. In open carry states, that can mean slung over your shoulder. Honestly, 30 or 40 years ago, you'd have been hard pressed to find any Republicans supporting that idea.

In brief, in the past 30 - 40 years, the Democrats have moved a bit to the left, the Republicans have lurched dramatically to the right, and white rural working class people have also shifted considerably to the right in their values and views. I hadn't thought about it this way, but perhaps we're seeing another mini-wave of defections from Democrat to Republican in response to what are relatively small left-ward shifts within the Dems. (e.g. gay marriage and LGBT rights, universal health care, rethink on Anti Trust laws, reproductive rights and women's rights generally, etc.)

I find myself wishing the author had probed people more. Apart from what seems to be an irrational fear their guns will be taken away by the Democrats and a vague suggestion that Democrats might benefit from letting go of support for legal abortion, it doesn't say which policies or issues they think the Democrats have gone to far left on. I also don't think that one guy's memories of Democrat policies 30-40 years back holds water, either.

So the upshot of the piece is if the Democrats want to attract back these former Democratic Party voters, they most shift their platform to the right. That's what I've said many times here before. Although of course I think they absolutely should not do that. For those who insist that the people featured in this article, and millions like them, would have been knocking each other over to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate even more to the left policy wise than his closest rival? Not gonna happen.

The author was born and raised in England, and studied at University of Wisconsin (go Badgers!) But I find myself wondering if the people he interviewed and the questions he asked and didn't ask were influenced by who he was. The elephant in the living room ignored as the journalist talked with various white working class people about why they changed their vote was - you guessed it - race. The vote in November was sharply divided by race across the socio-economic, regional and urban/rural divides, but it wasn't even mentioned here. To be fair, neither were any of the other issues Trump and the GOP legislature have advocated (e.g. immigration and the Muslim ban, more powers to the police, curbing rights and opportunities for LGBT people, etc.)
 
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The only time the liberal media called Trump "presidential" was when he was killing people (Syria). He knows that low polls can be sorted out with a war, and all that has caused them will be distracted from.

A small consolation is that some of the principled isolationists on the right will peel away from him if he does that.
 
Pastor Robert Jeffress Says ‘God Has Given Trump Authority to Take Out Kim Jong-un’

“When it comes to how we should deal with evil doers, the Bible, in the book of Romans, is very clear: God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary — including war — to stop evil. In the case of North Korea, God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong-Un. I’m heartened to see that our president — contrary to what we’ve seen with past administrations who have taken, at best, a sheepish stance toward dictators and oppressors — will not tolerate any threat against the American people. When President Trump draws a red line, he will not erase it, move it, or back away from it. Thank God for a President who is serious about protecting our country.”
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Jeffress has thrown his support behind Trump, and in return was appointed to some religious advisory board. He was part of a delegation of Evangelical pastors to the White House in the photo below. It's been suggested that Trump's "ban" on trans men and women in the military, announced by tweet and which hadn't been discussed with anyone in the military, was a recommendation raised by the fundy folk who were invited to the White House a few weeks ago.

So, a fundy pastor says Trump has God's blessing if he attacks North Korea and hastens the much desired Rapture. But, he's not just some weirdo ranting on a street corner about the end of the world being nigh. He's a prominent religious leader in the US who's admired by the Prez.

We're doomed. :(
 
Presumably a strike on N Korea would succeed in killing countless starving, defenceless North Koreans while Kim lives it up in his luxury bunker.
 
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Streeck on Trumpism. The whole thing is a must read but the focus on the centre-left is very worthwhile in particular.

Trump and the Trumpists – Wolfgang Streeck – Inference

Over the past quarter century, the center-left made a historic commitment to internationalism, a movement both promoting and requiring economic and social modernization. Now it is declining into desuetude. It is against this background that Trump and Trumpism must be understood. In the 1990s, the center-left placed its hopes for restoring growth and consolidating public finance on liberalized international markets. A worldwide effort at industrial and social restructuring followed. International competition put pressure on national economies to become more efficient. Economic losers were punished by ever-lower wages and reduced social security benefits. Economic winners were rewarded by higher profits and lower taxes. Policies to this effect were hard to sell to center-left voters, so they were attributed to the irresistible natural force of globalization. In this way, the center-left hoped to escape responsibility for the pain inflicted on its constituents. The bitter medicine did not work; nor was the center-left granted political immunity. In all countries of the developed capitalist world, the number of losers increased until political entrepreneurs sensed their opportunity and entered the public scene.

The rise of the Trumpists was made possible by the decline of the center-left in the United States, Italy, France, the UK, Austria, the Netherlands, and even Germany, where the losers in the former GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), were among the earliest supporters of the new right-wing party, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). Those aggrieved by the accelerated internationalization of their societies felt abandoned by their national state. Elites in charge of public affairs were judged guilty of having handed national sovereignty to international organizations. These charges were largely true. Global neoliberalism has enfeebled the nation state, and with it, national democracy. Citizens most affected by these events had only their votes to express their displeasure. Trumpism took off, fueled as much in the United States as elsewhere by popular irritation at the vast public celebration of internationalization. Economic and cultural elites entered an international space rich in their rights, at ease both in and out of national states. If democracy is understood as the possibility of establishing social obligations toward those luckless in the marketplace, the global elites had entered into, or created, a world in which there was a great deal of lucklessness and not many obligations. For those plotting to take advantage of growing discontent, nationalism appeared as an obvious formula both for social reconstruction and political success. The winners and the losers of globalism found themselves reflected in a conflict between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. The old left having withdrawn into stateless internationalism, the new right offered the nation-state to fill the ensuing political vacuum. Liberal disgust at Trumpian rhetoric served to justify the withdrawal of the left from its constituents, and to explain its failure to help them express their grievances in civilized public language. Discontent grew fast.

The Trump presidency is both the outcome and the end of the American version of neo-liberalism. Having commenced crumbling in the era of George W. Bush, the neo-liberal regime managed to regain an appearance of vitality under Barack Obama. With his departure, it was bound to collapse under the weight of its contradictions, and, indeed, absurdities. Clinton’s daring attempt to present herself as advocate of those Americans “working hard and playing by the rules,” while collecting a fortune in speaker’s fees from Goldman Sachs, was destined to fail. So, too, was Clinton’s insistence that it was the historical duty of American voters to elect her as their first female president. Transgendered restrooms infuriated everyone except those seeking access to them, no matter the Obama administration’s attempt to depict bathroom access as a civil right.11 Deep down, no one cared.
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I don't agree with the last bit about the bathrooms infuriating everyone except transgender people, I think that was always a fringe issue even on the right, though I do agree that the way in which the centre-left has tried to replace bread and butter economics with culture war issues like that has been a total failure and is one of the causes of its decline.
 
TomUS said:
Are you equally outraged that Churchill and Roosevelt killed hundreds of thousands of German civilians?
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Yes

ETA: To clarify WW2 was a rare example of a just war in many respects but the inhumanity of the Nazis doesn't absolve the allies of their war crimes of which there were many.

Whereas you seem to believe mass murder is fine as long as it's presented tastefully.
 
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