The Economist on Trump’s America

The Economist has a long article on how American politics is changing.  The entire piece is worth reading, here are a few examples:

Back in 2011, white evangelicals were the most likely group to say that personal morality was important in a president, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. Since Mr Trump became the Republican standard-bearer, they have become the least likely group to say that, changing what seems like a fundamental issue of morality to accommodate their support for the president.

And this:

The president’s admirers describe him as “situational”, by which they mean he has no ideology to speak of and judges each decision that comes before him in isolation. That explains, they say, how he can denounce President Obama for bombing Libya to prevent its government from killing its citizens, then launch a cruise-missile strike against the Syrian government to do the same thing. The president often seems to be pursuing the Breitbart strategy, only then to head in the opposite direction. On April 12th he cancelled a federal hiring freeze he had ordered in his first week in office; decided against labelling China as a currency manipulator; endorsed the Export-Import Bank, which provides finance to big companies like Boeing; and declared NATO relevant after all, breaking three campaign promises and abandoning one favourite theme in a single day. A little over a month later he changed direction again, declining to endorse explicitly NATO’s article 5, which says that an attack on one member is an attack on all, and pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change. There is no consistent thread running through what he does; he can change his mind at any moment.

One of the president’s informal advisers says he cares more about getting something that looks like a win than about pursuing any particular policy. That would explain why he sometimes seems unaware of the details of policies he has advocated. When his administration on its 100th day in office got close to pulling out of NAFTA, it came as news to the president that some of his voters benefited from membership of the trade block. [emphasis added]

Interesting that it’s the “president’s admirers” who notice that he has no core values.

During the campaign Mr Trump offered to pay the legal costs if someone beat up a protester at one of his rallies. The ANES asked voters whether protesters who got roughed up for disrupting political events generally deserved what happened to them. Some 30% of Trump voters said protesters deserved it “a lot” or “a great deal”; only 18% replied “not at all”. As long as it is the other side that suffers, a degree of violence is acceptable, even welcome.

It is extraordinary that such a prosperous, peaceful, fortunate country, with such deep democratic traditions, could have arrived at this point, but it has. “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distractions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts,” wrote James Madison in Federalist Paper No 10. The Trump presidency could yet go in several directions. The one that seems definitely blocked is the route back to a land where it is rare to think that political opponents deserve to be beaten up. Perhaps that country no longer exists.

In the next post we’ll see how Trump’s incompetence will lead to a very bad outcome for healthcare reform.

BTW, I’m not surprised to hear that lots of people are comparing Donald Jr., to Fredo, but I wasn’t aware that Trump insiders saw this well before the rest of us:

Perhaps it’s no wonder that Trump’s inner circle has been calling him Fredo since the campaign.

It brings a smile to my face thinking about all of the Trump lawyers desperately trying to clean up the mess as one Trump after another makes a fool of himself.

I know, it’s just unsubstantial leaks that the Trump campaign was trying to collude with the Russian government to stop Hillary.  Why trust that crazy Fredo look-alike?


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17 Responses to “The Economist on Trump’s America”

  1. Gravatar of JG JG
    14. July 2017 at 07:02

    I changed my mind. I think Trump will be removed one way or another in his first term.

  2. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    14. July 2017 at 07:15

    JG,

    I wish I could be so confident, but Democratic leaders appear so incompetent and out of touch that Trump may well survive at least one term. It took about 6 years for even most Republicans to realize that George W. Bush was a failure and he didn’t feed a personality cult.

    I see no evidence Republicans have any desire to offer real resistance, even now that it’s clear beyond question that Trump is either a witting or unwitting tool of Putin.

  3. Gravatar of Benny Lava Benny Lava
    14. July 2017 at 09:07

    No, no any negative news about Trump is “fake”. Any negative rumors about the Democratic Party on an unsubstantiated blog is gospel truth. Not partisan. Ignore those tweets. Ignore reality.

  4. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    14. July 2017 at 12:46

    Sadly I think he survives his term but happily I think he declines to run for a second. Not that my predictions about politics have been very good lately.

  5. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    14. July 2017 at 13:04

    “I know, it’s just unsubstantial leaks that the Trump campaign was trying to collude with the Russian government to stop Hillary.”

    If we were to go out on a limb, and use EVIDENCE as the standard, then the truth is that it was the Clinton campaign that actually colluded with Russia to undermine the Trump campaign.  Read up on the Russian (Ukranian)  lawyer “Veselnitskaya” who Loretta Lynch let into the country in order to reach out to and attempt to set up Trump Jr.  Then learn that that Russian lawyer is a Democrat operative who has been working with the Democrat party for years, and is a rabid anti-Trumper who attended anti-Trump rallies.  Then learn that Lynch ordered Manafort’s phone to be tapped while in conversation with said lawyer.  

    The collusion with Ukraine is 1000 times worse because here actual money changed hands with foreign government agents to collude in the election.

    See, the Demcorat style is out of the communist Saul ‘s  playbook, which to accuse one’s opponent of exactly what one is doing themselves.  

    Then read about Clinton and Fusion GPS.

    You are reading fake news, Sumner.  

    The evidence is that the Clinton camp are the ones who colluded with foreign governments to undermine the opposition candidate’s campaign.  The monkey wrench as that they never expected Trump to win, so now they are following through on the lies anyway, but in every single big “muh Russia” narrative accusation that hits the dinosaur media, later turns out to be what CNN correspondent Van Jones admitted is a “nothing burger”.

    Democrat operative Warren Moon faked the “Russian fingerprints” in the “hacking”.  The DNC never had the FBI inspect their server that allegedly got hacked.  They hired a third party company to “vet” their claims.  All unproven and without a shred of evidence.

    The DNC and deep state are the much bigger bad guys Sumner, you are brainwashed

  6. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    14. July 2017 at 17:13

    JG, He could shoot someone in the middle of Times Square and if his poll number held in the high 30s the GOP would not impeach (convict) him.

  7. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    17. July 2017 at 03:17

    “He could shoot someone in the middle of Times Square and if his poll number held in the high 30s the GOP would not impeach”

    So kind of like the Democrats watching the many people ending up dead under suspicious circumstances after investigating the Clinton Foundation, and doing nothing about it, except there are actually people ending up dead under suspicious circumstances after investigating Clinton.

    This blog is also silent in the face of this. Hmmm….makes one wonder if murder for political purposes really is regarded as a wrong on this blog.

  8. Gravatar of Cory Cory
    17. July 2017 at 09:28

    Amazing to me how Major Freedom was always this “principled”, hardest of the hardcore libertarians for which any semblance of government (e.g. market monetarism) was authoritarian socialism and now he’s really just an apologist for Trump buying peddling conspiracy theories.

  9. Gravatar of Benny Lava Benny Lava
    17. July 2017 at 13:13

    Cory, isn’t it sad? Every hokum conspiracy theory the right dredges up is swallowed whole by this guy. I bet used car salesmen love him. Also, this is to me more proof of the intellectual bankruptcy of ABC economics. A big red flag to me is that the same people who embrace ABC also wear tinfoil hats and worry about water fluoridation, ancient aliens on Mars, and think the earth is literally flat.

  10. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    17. July 2017 at 16:01

    The Ukrainians ADMIT trying to help Hillary defeat Trump & are now furiously back pedalling.

  11. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    17. July 2017 at 16:12

    Corey and Benny you’re both brainwashed. To attack the deep state, the murderous and corrupt DNC, the communists, is not to “apologize” Trump.

    Principles take you to places you often don’t intend to go.

    Conspiracy theories? EVERYTHING you have been told on the MSM about “Russian collusion” are conspiracy theories, and yet you lap that up because it is consistent with your principle-less prejudices already.

    YOU are the swallower of conspiracy theories that have zero evidence, already exposed as lies, and are nothing but political tools designed to make a voter base feel like they didn’t lose an election.

    Everything I have referenced that you call “conspiracy theory” has sourced documentation, from the leaked emails, to recorded eyewitnesses, and on and on.

    You both pathetically believe whatever you’re told by the dinosaur media, you obviously don’t question very much, which indicates low IQ and critical thinking abilities. You’re a waste of space on this blog because you don’t post any substantive, documented explanations or evidence. You just shout the silly slogans and believe you have done your moral duty to your ideal authority.

    Benny, it is an absolute fact that among all the people who don’t understand ABCT, there are those who are child molesters, rapists, thieves, hoodlums, and truly horrible people. This you cannot deny. Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Andy Dick don’t understand ABCT. According to your immature spoiling of the well fallacy, this is supposedly evidence against the validity of ABCT. Hitler by the way once said 2+2=4, so obviously there is something wrong with arithmetic.

    Losers, the lot of you

  12. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    17. July 2017 at 19:29

    “Losers, the lot of you”

    Oh man I LOLed so hard. He’s like King Lear only crazier.

  13. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    18. July 2017 at 13:48

    The closer we look at the “Russia Collusion” narrative, the more it implicates Hillary, Obama, and the DNC.

    This is why they’re going crazy.

  14. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    18. July 2017 at 13:53

    The Russian lawyer worked for Fusion GPS.

    Fusion GPS works for the DNC.

    Her primary goal was getting rid of the Magnitsky Act.

    The Magnitsky Act applies sanctions to Russian oligarchs.

    Putin is particularly against the Magnitsky Act.

    Hillary Clinton is on record as opposing the Magnitsky Act, and Putin knew this.

    The Russian lawyer was given unusual, special permission to enter the US during the time the meeting with Trump Jr showed up.

    Permission was granted by Loretta Lynch (who by the way is the first AG in history to plead the 5th to Congress), at the direction of Obama.

  15. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    18. July 2017 at 14:06

    Chelsea Clinton & Victor Pinchuk in Kiev Ukraine. From NYT artcle about Clinton Foundation ties.

    https://i.imgur.com/WjwPXWb.jpg

    See, when Ivanka is discussing things not in a political position, its end of the world for the communists, but when Chelsea Clinton does, its great.

  16. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    19. July 2017 at 22:24

    Please keep attempting to define my posts as being conspiracy theories, really. It helps keep them on notice, which is all the better.

    Here is another one of my many “conspiracy theories” that, you know, actually have evidence:

    https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/23554

    These emails prove that DNC staffers wrote questions for CNN anchor Puppy Blitzer to ask the Presidential candidates at the debates.

    Remember when I wrote post after post after post of the deep state media complex?

    Hahaha, I laugh at you fools.

  17. Gravatar of Major.Freedom Major.Freedom
    19. July 2017 at 22:30

    Oh snap, we can also add questions for Blitzer’s sit down interviews with the candidates as well.

    No wonder the dinosaur news is so unbearable. It is thoroughly politicized.

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