Why Trump is Terrifying

[Pallas]

Trump is terrifying because he is showing everyone that the highest elected official in the most powerful country on Earth has no power. But then, who's really controlling things? I mean, the President doesn't autocratically control the government anyways, but the President is supposed to control the executive branch for "balance of powers". If he has no say, then that can't be how things are working, at all, and that raises the question of how things are really working. Trump's presidency isn't some comic relief to having some shady figure like Hillary Clinton or Mike Pence in control. It's a mockery by whoever is really running things (which has to be corporations).

[Raver]

Governments and corporations are just a front behind who's really controlling the world. The two work hand in hand though as a team almost. Government influences corporations by creating laws to benefit corporations to increase profit and corporations influences the government through lobbying to get what they want.

I'm not going to pretend to know what really goes behind the scenes because I don't, but there are theories floating around online. All I know is that it's definitely not the president of the U.S. as he has some power, but not as much as you would think. This is why changing political parties and/or presidents is not going to do anything when they're both controlled by the same entity behind the scenes IMO.

[Chae]

Governments and corporations are just a front behind who's really controlling the world. The two work hand in hand though as a team almost. Government influences corporations by creating laws to benefit corporations to increase profit and corporations influences the government through lobbying to get what they want.

I'm not going to pretend to know what really goes behind the scenes because I don't, but there are theories floating around online. All I know is that it's definitely not the president of the U.S. as he has some power, but not as much as you would think. This is why changing political parties and/or presidents is not going to do anything when they're both controlled by the same entity behind the scenes IMO.

Bringing this one back. The right and the left wing belong to the same bird ~~~~ThE PrOfit EAglE~~~~



What I find interesting is that that a corporate person is now no longer behind the scenes but in charge, no surprise this was able to get into motion. I just wonder whether the exchange between the two collaborators was now altered.

[Pallas]

Bringing this one back. The right and the left wing belong to the same bird ~~~~ThE PrOfit EAglE~~~~

To the Romans, the eagle was the vulture. The vulture only eats those who are already dead. If you're complaining, you're screwed.



I think the answer is to stop complaining and therefore stop being screwed.

[DavidH]

This is covered in Government courses and Political Science courses. The United States is a democratic republic. The people control the government with political representatives enacting the will of the people.

[Adam Strange]

Power flows from money.

Corporations aren't running things. They merely enable the men running them to control huge amounts of money, and the money is used to alter the environment in favor of the corporations and the men running them.

Different corporations have different goals, which means that there are differences of opinion as to which laws should be passed and which way the field should be tilted.

The country is really being run by a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires who buy influence with politicians.

If your government "representative" doesn't vote the way you want (if 95% of the population thinks we should be out of Afghanistan, why are we still in Afghanistan? If most of the population wants single-payer health care, why do we not have it?), then just ask yourself how much you've contributed to his re-election campaign fund. If the answer to that question is "nothing", well, why should he listen to you?

[End]

If your government "representative" doesn't vote the way you want (if 95% of the population thinks we should be out of Afghanistan, why are we still in Afghanistan? If most of the population wants single-payer health care, why do we not have it?), then just ask yourself how much you've contributed to his re-election campaign fund. If the answer to that question is "nothing", well, why should he listen to you?

Hahaha. Well now, you seem to grasp the fundamental problem Adam! The masses lack the cohesive resources to compel the ruling elite to actually address the fundamental problems the society faces up until it hits the inversion point of the more rebellious patrician class ingrates suddenly finding out that there's an army of underclass ghetto dwellers more than willing to fight a war against the bourgeois in the hopes of a better tomorrow.

They/We won't get that as, well, humans are pretty fucking vile and god help us all if the "left" actually wins out. Pinochet was the best case scenario if you catch my meaning. If Mao or Stalin had been reborn there, well, say hello to yet another 50 million dead innocents...

[Nanooka]

I think a huge element of what makes Trump dangerous, beyond the disaster inherent in his policies, is the nature of his rise to power and his movement. The thread's touched on this some.

This is a movement based first and foremost not around issues, but around a charismatic figure seen as strong and "like us." Actual policy issues were de-emphasized in his campaign, in favor of personal attacks and vague sloganeering. Criticisms of him were dispelled through proliferation of memes from the Infowars-Drudge-Roger Stone smear mill, whataboutist water-muddying, and an unnerving semi-postmodernist "post-fact society" outlook where you can't even have a rational discussion because there's no agreement on basic events. All of this combines to make for a pretty rabid and dangerous, though thankfully shrinking and likely to continue to absent some large terror attack, cult of personality around one individual.

It does nothing to solve real and pressing issues that legitimately do threaten people "like us," and that do exacerbate oligarchic control over our system. It's completely distracted from efforts towards a constitutional amendment ending Citizens United, which would allow us to take the kind of legal bribery Adam Strange mentioned out of politics. It's actively counterproductive to tackling climate change before atmospheric feedback mechanisms make it out of our hands, our President is a man who believes it's a myth made up by China. It's gutting protections against depredation through healthcare policies that amount to a return to the prior status quo, which will only further inflame class tensions and lead to exactly the kind of demagogic far-left movements that the right fears. It does nothing to solve security state overreach, considering Trump promised the NSA increased powers over the Apple/San Bernardino situation and has promised to execute Edward Snowden.

[trumpvoter]But nah, he's likable and says he's going to make us great again, whatever the hell that means. And look, Hillary Clinton opposes him, and she's obviously inhumanly more corrupt than every other bought and paid for politician alive. Issues don't matter, all is right with the world as long as some random unstable billionaire who makes me feel good stays in the White House. And people just stop criticizing him and let him screw me over even faster than the rest of them would, of course.[/trumpvoter]

[Tearsofaclown]

I think a huge element of what makes Trump dangerous, beyond the disaster inherent in his policies, is the nature of his rise to power and his movement. The thread's touched on this some.

This is a movement based first and foremost not around issues, but around a charismatic figure seen as strong and "like us." Actual policy issues were de-emphasized in his campaign, in favor of personal attacks and vague sloganeering. Criticisms of him were dispelled through proliferation of memes from the Infowars-Drudge-Roger Stone smear mill, whataboutist water-muddying, and an unnerving semi-postmodernist "post-fact society" outlook where you can't even have a rational discussion because there's no agreement on basic events. All of this combines to make for a pretty rabid and dangerous, though thankfully shrinking and likely to continue to absent some large terror attack, cult of personality around one individual.

It does nothing to solve real and pressing issues that legitimately do threaten people "like us," and that do exacerbate oligarchic control over our system. It's completely distracted from efforts towards a constitutional amendment ending Citizens United, which would allow us to take the kind of legal bribery Adam Strange mentioned out of politics. It's actively counterproductive to tackling climate change before atmospheric feedback mechanisms make it out of our hands, our President is a man who believes it's a myth made up by China. It's gutting protections against depredation through healthcare policies that amount to a return to the prior status quo, which will only further inflame class tensions and lead to exactly the kind of demagogic far-left movements that the right fears. It does nothing to solve security state overreach, considering Trump promised the NSA increased powers over the Apple/San Bernardino situation and has promised to execute Edward Snowden.

[trumpvoter]But nah, he's likable and says he's going to make us great again, whatever the hell that means. And look, Hillary Clinton opposes him, and she's obviously inhumanly more corrupt than every other bought and paid for politician alive. Issues don't matter, all is right with the world as long as some random unstable billionaire who makes me feel good stays in the White House. And people just stop criticizing him and let him screw me over even faster than the rest of them would, of course.[/trumpvoter]

What you are describing sounds exactly like Obama being elected. He was empty suit and charismatic figure. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literally nothing. The cult of personality around Obama was much bigger. And that may be why he is more dangerous. The devil isn't pretty. He is seductive. Obama said he would go easy on pot but did more raids than Bush, worst pot President. Bombed so many places. Wiretapping. Went back on nearly everything.

Climate change is irrelevant. Like NATO. Honor your commitments before you criticize. Canada for example pledged by the Kyoto Treaty to lower emissions by like 6%. They went up 30% in that time. Everybody does that shit. It is for suckers. At least the US is honest and up front about it.

Putin said it best. American leaders change but America never does. You are looking at window dressing. Obama is prettier and less crude. Again about true evil being seductive.

The media wanted a war with Russia so bad they are pushing Trump towards one. Just to show they are wrong about Russian meddling. We downed a Syrian jet the other day and Russia said our planes will now be considered targets. You happy now? Trump certainly has power and is calling the shot and gets very annoyed and reacts when people think people are pulling his strings. Like that Breitbart editor was demoted or fired because the media was saying he was in charge or something. You tell Trump he aint in charge and he will do something to prove he is.

[Nanooka]

What you are describing sounds exactly like Obama being elected. He was empty suit and charismatic figure. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literally nothing. The cult of personality around Obama was much bigger. And that may be why he is more dangerous. The devil isn't pretty. He is seductive. Obama said he would go easy on pot but did more raids than Bush, worst pot President. Bombed so many places. Wiretapping. Went back on nearly everything.

"Went back on nearly everything" isn't true, he actually kept about 80% of campaign promises per PolitiFact's scorecard.

His draconian marijuana policy and do-nothing stance towards calls for reform on the NSA's en masse surveillance policy were serious issues though, and the Nobel Peace Prize win was a joke. As I mentioned previously, I consider Obama's election another example of "style over substance," though one more (still dangerously) routine in its disregard for our republican principles rather than promising strong acceleration.

Jailing journalists who publish leaks and promising increased NSA powers from the near blank check Bush gave them (and Obama continued) is strong acceleration. Also it's much harder to maintain the confidence needed for authoritarianism without the image of strength, meaning a strongman type at the helm. I wouldn't fear it in this case absent a major terror attack, with that I would actually be worried.

Climate change is irrelevant.

I really couldn't disagree more. The costs involved in letting it get to the point where its feedback mechanisms become beyond our control are astronomical.

Canada for example pledged by the Kyoto Treaty to lower emissions by like 6%. They went up 30% in that time.

Yeah, Stephen Harper is also a climate change denier and represented Alberta's interests rather than Canada's as a whole. That a conservative government wanted Canada to become a Norway/Kuwait-style oil world power says nothing about Kyoto Protocol compliance globally, most countries complied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_..._and_emissions

All your argument really indicates is that it wasn't strict enough to prevent governments like Harper's from being enormously irresponsible, risking global security as a result.

The media wanted a war with Russia so bad they are pushing Trump towards one.

Based on what? Wanting containment continued is not wanting a war with Russia, it's boxing them in reacting to their own almost-certain espionage against us and open chronic illiberal defense of genocidal regimes (Milosevic, Assad). Letting them just continue to take inches shows weakness and is like giving a mouse a cookie, they'll come to expect more.

We downed a Syrian jet the other day

That was decided by the military commanders in the field. I don't know whether it was the right decision or not, it sounds like rapid and unnecessary escalation to me. I'd instead veer towards what (Aussie PM) Malcolm Turnbull has pushed for in arguing for ICC proceedings against Assad and replacement with a more boxed-in, more controllable, less likely to gas entire villages despot, thus still maintaining stability rather than total regime change. I don't know the info they have on hand that led them to that decision, though.

Like that Breitbart editor was demoted or fired because the media was saying he was in charge or something.

Steve Bannon holds the position of Chief Strategist, so Trump did actually give him pretty extensive power. Considering his extremist views, including support for the French far-right and open praise for the views of neofascist Aleksandr Dugin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_...Breitbart_News), I'm glad Jared Kushner weakened his power. That was less due to "the media" or anything vague like that, more a personal spat with Kushner, from my reading of the situation.

That you don't know whether he was demoted or fired also kinda calls how well-informed you are into question, no offense.

[Singu]

The US has been "totalitarian" for a long time... except that it's not the kind of totalitarianism that people usually think of, where you have people like ****** and Mussolini dictating everyone.

Based on what? Wanting containment continued is not wanting a war with Russia, it's boxing them in reacting to their own almost-certain espionage against us and open chronic illiberal defense of genocidal regimes (Milosevic, Assad). Letting them just continue to take inches shows weakness and is like giving a mouse a cookie, they'll come to expect more.

I don't think there's any evidence that Russia or Putin has any invasive or imperialistic tendencies. If anything, as far as I know they've been incredibly restrained. And how you can you say "almost-certain"? There's simply no evidence that the Russian government is hacking the US elections or whatever, they are merely "allegations" without any proof. When people are pressed on these questions, they merely say that there are "allegations" or "media reports". The media of course can make up anything. You are essentially saying that someone is guilty without any proof.

As for Assad, yes he is a "bad guy", but what do you think will happen if we take him down? Either someone who is even worse will step up to power, or it will simply destabilize the whole region and descent into chaos, creating more terrorists. It will only make a bad situation even worse. Just like what the US did to Iraq when it removed Saddam Hussein: It turned a bad country into a true living hell, where people constantly have to fear for their lives due to terrorists and extremists are running amok without any law and order present.

Just listen to people who have lived or are living in Iraq, before and after Saddam Hussein:

Is Iraq a better place or worse to live since the fall of Saddam Hussein?

This is why this, and all similar questions, are misguided. Iraq was safer and much wealthier before any American intervention. It was Americans, their support for Saddam, and later their war and sanctions on him that made Iraq such a terrible place to live. It then shouldn't come as a surprise that Iraqis had grown sick of their way of life. So much so that they sat back and watched America "save" them from its own doing.

And that, my friend, is the most hypocritical move in modern history! Furthermore, the war didn't improve things much anyway; on the contrary, it worsened the whole situation. Instead of living safely in poor conditions, Iraqis became somewhat wealthy, but lost all measures of personal safety. Where once they just had one tyrant to be afraid of, now they have hundreds more

It is a horrific thing, and an appalling indictment of our actions, but it does seem that conditions now are even worse then under Hussein and his awful sons.

WHAT DO WE HAVE CURRENTLY? A country split along religious chasms,
where Christians are preyed on, Sunnis and Shias are at each other throats, with no "first amendment" freedoms to speak of, where women are forced to adhere to the Iran-type dress code, where secularism had evaporated, where personal security is on par with the Wild West of yore. The government is basically impotent, the utilities are intermittent, petrol is in short supply, and to organize the Arab League summit, the Government wastes millions of US$ and shuts down Baghdad for a week.

And all this misery was earned at the cost of some 5,000
dead American soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqi dead? Does it make any
sense?

There are car bombs going off every single day in Iraq now. Saddam had a security apparatus that kept the vast majority of people safe, and as long as you did not go against the regime one was not bothered. Today you get killed for being you. IE people getting killed for being Sunni, or Shia or any other reason that anyone thinks of because there is no law in order. ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE thank the US government for that one. This is not one sided either, the Iraq war is damaging the US currency, the war cost the Americans 2 trillion dollars. This was bad for Iraq, and bad for the United States. Anyone involved lost out.

Western countries may complain of "terrorist attacks", but they are miniscule compared to the amount of terrorisms that are happening all over the world, where in Iraq, terrorist attacks are literally a daily occurrence:

https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/t...cks/?year=2017

So, this is the incredible hypocrisy of the United States. They have created this whole mess in the first place, yet they are complaining that they are the victims of terrorism. And wow they're saying, "Screw ISIS, we're bored of that, let's look to Russia and China for more conflicts!". The US is addicted to wars.

[Nanooka]

The US has been "totalitarian" for a long time...

I don't see any way in which it fits the definition of "totalitarianism." Certainly it's been getting steadily more authoritarian due to an out of control security state, but there is no all-encompassing totalizing ideology and we still operate under liberal democracy. Totalitarian regimes by definition have a totalizing state ideology (e.g. communism, fascism, various theocracies) and reject liberal democracy.

I don't think there's any evidence that Russia or Putin has any invasive or imperialistic tendencies.

The invasions in Georgia and Ukraine to aid Russia-aligned secession movements in violation of national sovereignty, playing chicken by flying military planes right off the coasts of Alaska (http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...kan-coast.html as just one example; it's pretty routine) and San Francisco (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-...-s-west-coast/), and almost certain espionage against the West speak otherwise.

And how you can you say "almost-certain"? There's simply no evidence that the Russian government is hacking the US elections or whatever, they are merely "allegations" without any proof. When people are pressed on these questions, they merely say that there are "allegations" or "media reports".

There is no definitive smoking gun yet, so I said "almost certain" rather than "certain." In the world of intelligence, there rarely is absolute certainty.

But Reality Winner's recent leaks show that Russian intel was snooping on election-related information via hacking, meaning they clearly took a keen interest in it and aren't averse to hacking sensitive election-related American targets. We also know that Guccifer 2.0's hacks are traced to Russia, he has consistently targeted enemies of the Russian state, and Putin's response is "if we did it then we did you a service." This all seems to imply that the Clinton/Podesta email leaks being a Russian intel operation is very likely.

"Hacked the election" seems like water-muddying to me, since the information pointing to the email hacks being an operation is pretty consistent, where the only people claiming the voting machines were hacked are moonbats with a long history of just making stuff up like Louise Mensch. I think the latter is super-unlikely and amounts to crazy people and/or opportunists hopping onto a legit story, sensationalizing it and getting a lot of attention in the process, which pulls attention away from legitimate inquiry. Similar to "we need to lean harder on Saudi Arabia to stop funding terrorism" getting less attention than "9/11 was an inside job" for a while, or the real issue of "rich people can scarily easily get away with pedophilia" being laughed away because Pizzagate was a hoax.

As for Assad, yes he is a "bad guy", but what do you think will happen if we take him down? Either someone who is even worse will step up to power, or it will simply destabilize the whole region and descent into chaos, creating more terrorists.

I don't support destabilization, that's why I support criminal charges against him and a respected general replacing him from within the regime rather than total regime change. Assad is emboldened, taking him down de-emboldens the Baathist regime. A replacement will, with ICC charges against his predecessor, be more careful lest the same fate befall him. Removing the Baathist regime entirely will probs be a rehash of Iraq and I'm vehemently against that, for a number of reasons.

Just like what the US did to Iraq when it removed Saddam Hussein: It turned a bad country into a true living hell, where people constantly have to fear for their lives due to terrorists and extremists are running amok without any law and order present.

Another situation where rather than military invasion, a coup using one of the many generals he royally pissed off should have been used to breed a somewhat more restrained despotism. The biggest problem in US foreign policy is abandonment of realism in favor of "we can democratize the world" naivete applied to countries with literally no history of liberalism, IMO. I think you're right that it leads to chaos and creates an even worse living hell than what existed before.

"Screw ISIS, we're bored of that, let's look to Russia and China for more conflicts!". The US is addicted to wars.

I see a drive for containment against both, Russia because it is a regional and intel threat, China mostly because it's an economic one though it also does bully Southeast Asia to encroach on their waters for oil platforms. The idea that the American leadership wants war because reasons makes less sense than the idea that, to preserve America's superpower status and prevent even worse (from a human rights/democratic rule perspective) replacements from replacing us, we contain rival powers as states have done for centuries.

[Tearsofaclown]

"Went back on nearly everything" isn't true, he actually kept about 80% of campaign promises per PolitiFact's scorecard.

His draconian marijuana policy and do-nothing stance towards calls for reform on the NSA's en masse surveillance policy were serious issues though, and the Nobel Peace Prize win was a joke. As I mentioned previously, I consider Obama's election another example of "style over substance," though one more (still dangerously) routine in its disregard for our republican principles rather than promising strong acceleration.

Jailing journalists who publish leaks and promising increased NSA powers from the near blank check Bush gave them (and Obama continued) is strong acceleration. Also it's much harder to maintain the confidence needed for authoritarianism without the image of strength, meaning a strongman type at the helm. I wouldn't fear it in this case absent a major terror attack, with that I would actually be worried.



I really couldn't disagree more. The costs involved in letting it get to the point where its feedback mechanisms become beyond our control are astronomical.



Yeah, Stephen Harper is also a climate change denier and represented Alberta's interests rather than Canada's as a whole. That a conservative government wanted Canada to become a Norway/Kuwait-style oil world power says nothing about Kyoto Protocol compliance globally, most countries complied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_..._and_emissions

All your argument really indicates is that it wasn't strict enough to prevent governments like Harper's from being enormously irresponsible, risking global security as a result.



Based on what? Wanting containment continued is not wanting a war with Russia, it's boxing them in reacting to their own almost-certain espionage against us and open chronic illiberal defense of genocidal regimes (Milosevic, Assad). Letting them just continue to take inches shows weakness and is like giving a mouse a cookie, they'll come to expect more.



That was decided by the military commanders in the field. I don't know whether it was the right decision or not, it sounds like rapid and unnecessary escalation to me. I'd instead veer towards what (Aussie PM) Malcolm Turnbull has pushed for in arguing for ICC proceedings against Assad and replacement with a more boxed-in, more controllable, less likely to gas entire villages despot, thus still maintaining stability rather than total regime change. I don't know the info they have on hand that led them to that decision, though.



Steve Bannon holds the position of Chief Strategist, so Trump did actually give him pretty extensive power. Considering his extremist views, including support for the French far-right and open praise for the views of neofascist Aleksandr Dugin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_...Breitbart_News), I'm glad Jared Kushner weakened his power. That was less due to "the media" or anything vague like that, more a personal spat with Kushner, from my reading of the situation.

That you don't know whether he was demoted or fired also kinda calls how well-informed you are into question, no offense.

You care way too much about details. lol. What does 80% mean? Nothing. Context is relevant. You fuckin got a page that breaks it down by number, which can be done, but doesn't tell us anything as some numbers are much relevant than others. For example, his war mongering and wiretapping may count as only 2 but those are huge 2s that are not equal to others in size.

Bannon was DEMOTED as I said. The terms are irrelevant. Semantics. He was put down. He was lowered. End of story. Call it what you want. Again, irrelevant semantics that miss the larger picture that Trump demoted the fuckin guy. Can we agree that he was thrown out in some way? Does the term really fuckin matter? That you hold onto such semantics tells me a lot about your argument. All I got from your post is you can read a chart, not much else.


Washington (CNN)President Trump's decision to remove chief strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council's principals committee suggests a potentially significant change in the power balance among the four top White House advisers.


oh, and fuck Canada. Your PM is the biggest fraud walking. Talks about womens rights while praying in a mosque. An empty suit who stands for nothing. Truly empty inside. Not one atom better than Trump. Tell me how this fuckin ****** reconciles islam with feminism. lol. a joke he is. Trump is an embarrassment but fag boy is worse. This is a fuckin guy who said if you kill your enemies, they win. lol. He is western weakness personified. A fuckin bimbo.

lol:

[Nanooka]

You care way too much about details. lol. What does 80% mean? Nothing. Context is relevant. You fuckin got a page that breaks it down by number, which can be done, but doesn't tell us anything as some numbers are much relevant than others. For example, his war mongering and wiretapping may count as only 2 but those are huge 2s that are not equal to others in size.

This I actually agree with. He numerically kept 80% of his promises, this included some huge things like substantive healthcare reform. But some of the reversals were huge too, first and foremost the PATRIOT Act. Its renewal is a major black mark on his legacy.

Bannon was DEMOTED as I said. The terms are irrelevant. Semantics.

You said "demoted or fired," direct quote, as if you didn't know what happened. Don't try to spin this like you said one definitively. Not knowing the situation you were talking about calls how well-informed you are, and therefore your credibility on these subjects, into question. People who ramble on about things they're not even really familiar with usually, by definition, don't have much to say.

oh, and fuck Canada. Your PM is the biggest fraud walking. Talks about womens rights while praying in a mosque. An empty suit who stands for nothing. Truly empty inside. Not one atom better than Trump. Tell me how this fuckin ****** reconciles islam with feminism. lol. a joke he is. Trump is an embarrassment but fag boy is worse. This is a fuckin guy who said if you kill your enemies, they win. lol. He is western weakness personified. A fuckin bimbo.

Not sure if you're still talking to me here or what, but contrary to popular belief, Alaska is not in fact part of Canada.

Trudeau is a pretty bad PM though and a vapid idiot who gets by on charisma alone. Speaking as a center-left/libertarian-leaning Democrat type, I'd vote for most moderate Conservatives over him. His "post-national country," "assimilation is a bad thing," "there's no such thing as Canadian values" talk seriously risks balkanization long-term if successive governments follow it. On net I think immigration is a good thing, but over the generations they do have to accept a society's prevailing values or that society will be divided on itself.

But I wouldn't describe him as "fag boy," he seems happily married to a decently attractive wife.

[Bertrand]

Trump signifies a radical attack on democratic values, and attacks on the legitimacy of information, apolitical agencies and positions, checks and balances, are symptomatic of a return to a more basic idealogical front opening up. it used to be we could agree on democratic values and argued about the secondary values stemming from that base. now the discussion is about the ideological foundations we used to take for granted. if you watch fox news you will see a radical revaluation taking place where things like the value and even existence of unbiased information is questioned (fake news), where law enforcement is viewed as an extension of executive subjectivity not above it (entertainingly we got to see the switch in real time when it was Hilary -> Trump on the pointy end), where checks and balances are not honored for their own sake but pushed to their limits on the basis of pure power [1] (Merrick Garland, etc). What's going on seems to be a discussion that centers on differing base values but that play themselves out along surface issues because people have yet to realize the full implications of what's happening.

This is probably a long time coming, because the US has gone a very long time on momentum, and its about time we forgot why we do the things we do because we take for granted the benefits those values and methods have achieved for us. In the end every epoch has to decide for itself how it will rule itself and what it will value and thus become self aware. the US is not very self aware right now, but depending on how this goes, is about to get a powerful wake up call. like Jung says, "mass hysteria calls for mass therapy" and I feel like a big dose of mass therapy is on the way

Trump himself probably least off all understands this, he's just giving the people what they want. in many ways he's just the expression of democracy that has lost confidence in (and self knowledge of) itself

[1] we got to witness checks and balances get revalued as not limitations on power but as power being the only limitation. I.E. "power is limited by definition" to "limits are defined only by power" which is in effect, there are no limits in principle, only power relations which is the diametric opposite from the state as envisioned by the founding fathers (who were setting up a system in an explicit effort to limit power and not let power define limits--now we are on the other side of the cycle)

[Nanooka]

Really solid post, Bertrand. I agree that the risks inherent in political dialogue that's "post-fact"/an unbridgeable screaming match, and a strongman with a movement skeptical of our basic republican principles filling a presidency that has already become imperial in executive power, is a wake-up call for the checks and balances of our system. It can be either the death of the American Republic, or cause for a rejuvenation of the tree of liberty.

Two quotes that I think are fitting:

"I tremble for my country when I think we may, in fact, get the kind of leaders we deserve." - Gary Hart paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran, often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson

[Pallas]

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran, often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Freemason and ex-Illuminati member (like most of the Founding Fathers)

"You think you have rights? You have no rights. Governments just say that." - My old history teacher, who doesn't call anyone "American" if they seem vaguely intelligent to her because "people don't belong to countries just due to having been born land some people claimed"

I'm considering just writing my philosophy somewhere instead of going to all the trouble to express ideas through fiction now, since it'd be enough to change things (which is pretty much a self-centered desire but everyone else hates the world too so why not). I still don't think that's really a good idea, since beliefs tend to really be expressed through myth rather than formula (the living organism vs. the dead, dissected organism), but I'm weakly considering it.

[Pallas]

This is a movement based first and foremost not around issues, but around a charismatic figure seen as strong and "like us."

Unfortunately, Trump is like all of us. He can do nothing but rant and scream and make a fool of himself, and so can all of us.

Power flows from money.

I've observed something personally a bit deeper than that that can control even money, but I need to hypocritically be quiet about it for the time being. Well, not quite hypocritically, since I said quiet rather than silent Really, there are two levels below money that money needs as a foundation. They might both be based in the same thing, like yin and yang on one level and I'm just considering yin as the lower, but that's irrelevant.

[DavidH]

No one I know cares about any of this. Hahaha.

[Singu]

I'm sure some people have already heard of the "Deep State"...

The so-called "Deep State" is just another way of saying that the bureaucrats (aka the "specialists") are starting to have more control than the government or the actual elected representatives, which isn't really anything new. The government and the elected representatives are starting to lose their power over to them. Sure, the bureaucrats are hired by the government and they're supposed to be under the control of the government, but with their sheer technical prowess and their all-encompassing access to data and information in a society, the power could easily revert and they would be the actual power-wielders of the government. It takes a special kind of a politician to take control of them and work together with the bureaucrats, and not against them or be controlled by them. In France, the bureaucrats are a highly respected profession, and it took someone like de Gaulle to clean things up a little bit and the balance of power would be more tipped towards the government and the elected representatives. But the politics becoming complacent and the government being nothing but a farce and the people having no actual control or dictates over policy-making, while the "technocrats" becoming auto-pilots of the decision making seems to be a common problem in modern, complex societies.

So yes, the unelected representatives could easily have actual power over the elected representatives, whether that be the faceless bureaucrats or the billionaires behind the scenes. That's really when democracies start dwindling.

I don't even think that Trump is the problem. All these problems didn't somehow arise the moment Trump became the president. The problems and symptoms were already there, and the entire situation necessitated someone like Trump to rise up. I think Trump signifies the wrestling of power between the government and the bureaucrats. The take-over of the American government has been a long time in the making, and it's no wonder that the people are becoming apathetic and apolitical because they feel that they have no actual control over it and they can't affect anything in a meaningful way.

Speaking about the dangers of "fake news" and how we can no longer have any rational discourse or be reliant on objectivity is rich coming from a forum that is dedicated to who can talk the most New-Age nonsense in the most convincing way . I think this forum has abandoned any rational discourse a long time ago, or it was never there in the first place. The entire forum is a gigantic Fake News. But that is off-topic, I guess...

[Pallas]

I don't even think that Trump is the problem. All these problems didn't somehow arise the moment Trump became the president. The problems and symptoms were already there, and the entire situation necessitated someone like Trump to rise up. I think Trump signifies the wrestling of power between the government and the bureaucrats. The take-over of the American government has been a long time in the making, and it's no wonder that the people are becoming apathetic and apolitical because they feel that they have no actual control over it and they can't affect anything in a meaningful way.

I didn't say that he was the problem, just that he was terrifying due to being an obvious and ineffectual sign of a problem and no one seeming to realize that ("Trump is good because he's pathetic! Imagine if Mike Pence took over! That'd be terrifying!").

Speaking about the dangers of "fake news" and how we can no longer have any rational discourse or be reliant on objectivity is rich coming from a forum that is dedicated to who can talk the most New-Age nonsense in the most convincing way . I think this forum has abandoned any rational discourse a long time ago, or it was never there in the first place. The entire forum is a gigantic Fake News. But that is off-topic, I guess...

"Fake News" is a bad idea. It's like asking "How often do you beat your wife?" to someone who doesn't. People should be able to evaluate whether or not news is real for themselves, and the idea of "Fake News" implies that they can't just from the name and they have to have someone else think for them. If someone else is thinking for you, it doesn't matter what they're thinking. I've found that the key to evaluating information is looking at the motivations of the person giving it to you (isn't this what they teach in high school with "critical thinking" anyways?), but that requires the kinds of cognitive skills that the Internet is just happening to decrease in the general population.

But this is a forum on a "pre-scientific" typology that isn't "pre-scientific" from a lack of ability to rigorously test it (I say this as a nod to things like plate tectonics that were pretty much crank theories that got accepted a long time after and worked as theories on some sort of off chance). I'm pretty sure that's why people complain about my "logic" or whatever (aside from the fact that I've done plenty of things that people get mad at in general and it turns into personal attacks fast from there).

Your name is Singularity and a lot of people would think that's nonsense, but if you (as in, general people) try to point out any aspects of New Age as being nonsense, apparently you don't really understand it and just get laughed out as someone who doesn't understand anything meaningful. Cosmetic features don't make your philosophy more worthy of discussions than everyone else's philosophies, especially if yours is a hyper-normative philosophy in disguise as a non-normative philosophy (like in Chae's paper on BDSM). If you meant your "spirituality" as anti-philosophy, then you should be able to say that when people don't get the point, but if it is anti-philosophy, that's hyper-normative. "Spirituality" is mostly just a buzzword anyways at this point. I'll stop before I drag us even more off-topic (although I think this is where all the topics come from).

[Skepsis]

I hope our Republic is strong enough to survive Trump, but he is the embodiment of what our founding fathers feared and why we have a republic and not a democracy. They were familiar with Plato's Republic, and the stages of regimes, where tyrants arise out of democracies. Most people aren't educated enough about the ideas behind our government and certainly don't seem to care as long as they have their guns and God is kept in the pledge. His supporters seem to have very narrow interests and they are easily manipulated by the news and talk radio.

[silke]

Trump is terrifying because he is showing everyone that the highest elected official in the most powerful country on Earth has no power. But then, who's really controlling things?

Dunno, I feel like the Earth has been managing itself for billions of years, ever before human beings appeared and started to create these delusions of having power and control, that essentially scale back to our reproductive hierarchy. I'm not seeing what is so terrifying about all of this.

[Adam Strange]

Dunno, I feel like the Earth has been managing itself for billions of years, ever before human beings appeared and started to create these delusions of having power and control, that essentially scale back to our reproductive hierarchy. I'm not seeing what is so terrifying about all of this.

Depends on how committed you are to intelligent life on Earth.

[The Reality Denialist]

He shows how is your future will be like or at least one scenario of that.

Grab you by the head.

[Adam Strange]

Here is a pretty good article on Trump. You can decide for yourself how terrifying he is.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...like_this.html

Incidentally, the State of Maryland and District of Columbia sued Trump on Monday for breach of constitutional oath, because...
You can have all the laws you want, but if there is no enforcement (by congress, in this case), the laws don't matter at all.
Perhaps the judicial branch will take action, because a Republican congress has turned a blind eye to Trump's alleged violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

[Singu]

Trump is terrifying because he is showing everyone that the highest elected official in the most powerful country on Earth has no power. But then, who's really controlling things? I mean, the President doesn't autocratically control the government anyways, but the President is supposed to control the executive branch for "balance of powers".

Well, it seems like things will only really start to look scary when Trump starts passing some bad laws that would expand and encroach his powers. But then that would require extraordinary loyalty from the Congress (who actually make the laws), which he doesn't seem to have due to his general unpopularity among Republicans, and not to mention the general public. He could use the "bully pulpit" to convince the people that the country needs to be heading into a certain direction, but again, that won't likely be successful due to his unpopularity.

What's more scary is when the Congress members are merely bought out by the corporations, billionaires and what have you (including the military industries), and by also making "you scratch my back and I scratch yours" deal with the bureaucrats and the Cabinets. They would make laws that are only beneficial to the corporations and the people in power, and not the general public which the laws are supposed to protect and benefit. And then the President merely becomes a complacent figurehead who signs "yes" to whatever laws that are passed by the Congress. And then even the Supreme Court becomes complacent and does not reject laws that are unconstitutional. Isn't this what has been happening since Obama, Bush and the like with passing of the PATRIOT Act laws and such? With the pretense of "fighting terrorism"?

THAT'S when things really start to get scary, because then the authority would be just "following the law" "following orders". And you know what? That's already been what's happening in the US for a fairly long time now...

The President can do either a lot or very little, depending on how popular he is or how skilful he is. It doesn't seem like the president has much control over the situation anymore.

How the US government works: https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government

How scary will Trump turn out to be, seems to depend on how crazy and insane the Republicans really are. Luckily, there still seems to be some small amount of sanity left among Republicans. But it's not just the Republicans that are crazy, but it's also the Democrats, who became complacent in being "bought out". It's also up to the Democrats to bring the Republicans back to sanity, and vice versa. But unfortunately, that's not likely be happening any time soon. Trump just single-handedly blew up the Republican party and showed the rest of the world for what it really is: An insane party that is seriously out of touch with reality. So I think, that's a start to "resetting" the Republican party and getting it back to its roots, of becoming the party of "good, sane conservatives".

[Adam Strange]

@Singularity, I think you got it.

[DavidH]

This discussion is strange.

[Skepsis]

[strangeling]

It's not Trump that I find terrifying; it's the foundation of the political system. I think Socrates explained it best:

[Pallas]

It's not Trump that I find terrifying; it's the foundation of the political system. I think Socrates explained it best:

The problem with any decision in who should vote is that the system that's deciding who votes, whatever it is, has pre-existing values. The video maker values the formally educated, and the current system values the masses (it's not really "everyone", it's the masses). And if you know the nature of those at a given time, and the rest of the circumstances, don't you already know the results? There's absolutely no way to have a neutral system. Voting is a facade no matter who's doing it.

[Grendel]

It's not Trump that I find terrifying; it's the foundation of the political system. I think Socrates explained it best:

Better to suffer from a political decision that I contributed to than at the hands of a stranger. Anyone who can take that micron of power away from you may as well have killed you already.

[Pallas]

Better to suffer from a political decision that I contributed to than at the hands of a stranger. Anyone who can take that micron of power away from you may as well have killed you already.

The problem is that no one contributes in a democracy. The demos contributes. People are not persons. Basically every language has a different word for a person and a group of people for that reason. Just telling you you can influence something because you're involved somehow doesn't make it so.

[Grendel]

The problem is that no one contributes in a democracy. The demos contributes. People are not persons. Basically every language has a different word for a person and a group of people for that reason. Just telling you you can influence something because you're involved somehow doesn't make it so.

You still have a greater share in the decision that's made than you ever would in a dictatorship. Which, in some circumstances, may translate into a slightly greater chance to save oneself.


Sure the outcome might be better for the largest demographic in a more efficient autocracy - but what about me? You can't call it a fair system when it, in theory, could stomp out the individual's last fledgling chance of defending himself.

Frankly fuck the common good.

[End]

Trump is in no way terrifying. Though I will say @Singularity, the "sane" Republicans you refer to are about to get primaried good and hard in the next midterm elections. We are in the middle of a paradigm shift and during those times the "moderates" get slaughtered. This is also explained by r/K selection. When the shit hits the fan both sides quadruple down and go all in. Thus, the ONLY winning strategy is to either go full rabbit or full wolf. Pick your side and go down with the ship if that's how the wind blows. Half measures just won't cut it. Compromisers will be seen as either pussies or cucks. Neither of those stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected into high office by the way...

[Nanooka]

Contra the claims of "race realist"/alt-right bloggers, r/K selection theory is basically outmoded and is rife with issues in application to humans. Even outside of homo sapiens, selection tendencies are far more complex, adaptive, and varying based on the specific environment a species finds itself in than this oversimplistic theory from the '70s accounts for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_se..._theory#Status

Basically this kind of thing is a result of laymen thinking something they vaguely remember from their high school science textbook fits their preconceived political biases about how the world works (plus it helps them feel macho; "rabbit/wolf" and all), unaware of what developments have been found since said textbook was written.

I agree that there's currently a heavily increasing polarization. Which I see as a hugely bad thing since it impedes constructive dialogue, fosters the rise of demagogues on both sides who threaten our basic republican processes, and risks eventual civil war. It has nothing to do with r/K selection or rabbits and wolves or cucks or whatever half-baked explanation /pol/ is tossing around today. It's mostly related to technological changes, economic development has unfortunately led to a dangerous growing class divide as automation triggers the bottom falling out on the blue-collar class. This feeds the growth in discontent-driven extremist movements, some with legitimate concerns and most without, as well as authoritarianism-skirting police-state measures in response. All further exacerbated by America's declining superpower status, foreign powers tossing kindling into the fire of the divide to hasten the fall through sophisticated social media machinery. Sputnik-originated stories get sourced by Infowars gets picked up by Breitbart, and then the story filters around as a meme for a good cycle.

Also given the President's downward approval trend and all historical data going back decades related to Congress' swing in the midterms, 2018 absent a major terror attack (which could make it more like 2002) is likely to be a good year for the opposition to the ruling party. In swing districts a non-moderate Republican is likely to lose, the party leadership knows this and probs won't devote any funding to primary challengers. Further impeding that kind of challenge, the Democratic base is also likely to be far more galvanized than the Republican one as they were in 1982, 1986, 1990, 2006. Republicans have been galvanized in 1994, 1998, 2010, and 2014; a.k.a. when a Democrat was in power. The hardliners who will keep their seats will most likely be from solid red regions regardless.

[Singu]

Well, it seems like the direction that this is heading is that Trump will likely be impeached.

Or at any rate, this whole "Russian hacking scandal" will be so constant and relentless that it will "suck out the air" of any productive discussion so that Trump will not be able to achieve anything.

Although some of the people that want him to step down as a president may have good intentions, I don't think that there's any legitimacy to this. Rather, it will only mean that the CIA, the FBI, the "Deep State" etc., with the cooperation of the media, will have the power to decide who gets to be the president or not, depending on whether the president's aims and policies will collude with their interests or not. It's pretty obvious that the Trump's attempt at normalizing relations with Russia colludes with the military-industrial complex's interests of requiring an "enemy" to keep its arms industries going.

As for the "Russians", which is basically a yesteryear's third-world country, "hacking" the election of what is effectively the "most powerful nation in the world" to implant a "puppet" president to take control of it... well, that's pretty ridiculous. You're telling me that Hillary lost not because she's a terrible candidate, and Trump won not because people were tired of the "business as usual" and simply wanted change, any change for that matter, but because of the "Russian hacking"... right.

I think that people should rethink over this, not that that will ever happen anytime soon until it's too late. What will likely happen is that the US will have at least a decade or more of rotating "weak" presidents who will go along with whatever that is approved by the FBI/CIA and the interests groups, or they will risk their presidency. There will be scandals after scandals for the presidents who will not toe the line with those groups. It's already happening with Trump. If you don't think that the same thing wouldn't have happened with someone like Bernie Sanders... then you're pretty naive. The president of the United States are no longer chosen by the people, but by a few elites, whether that be the FBI/CIA, the military or the corporations/billionaires. Democracy is dead, and that's not because of someone who was actually democratically elected, but because people want to undemocratically bring him down, and have the ability to do so.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/06/...-trump-coup-2/

[Bertrand]

inasmuch as they uphold the law consistent with the spirit of the constitution they get to "decide who gets to be president or not" as a matter of law enforcement. this is as it should be. the president is not an autocrat, which seems to be confusing for a lot of people

[Nanooka]

If he violated the law, there's legitimacy in prosecuting that, full stop.

I'm as concerned with the unchecked growth in the surveillance state as anyone, I'm in favor of a pardon for Edward Snowden. (Where our current President is in favor of his execution.) That some wings of said surveillance state oppose Trump does not make the growth in the imperial presidency that Trump promises, or allowing Trump to get away with violating the law, a good thing. The impression I get is that they dislike Trump not because he's some great anti-bureaucratic reformer, explicitly and repeatedly promising an increase in warrantless spying authority to the NSA is the furthest thing from a threat to their power. They seem to dislike him, first and foremost, because he's unstable and fosters increased national instability through pouring a ton of oil on the already-ignited fires of polarization. With regard to the CIA in particular, he's also near-killed America's strategic alliance with Europe which weakens cooperation against common threats. Nothing is more toxic to continuation of the prevailing system than instability, so destabilization is legitimately on many levels a threat to the bureaucracy's power. Unfortunately, that "prevailing system" also includes our basic republican processes and America's standing in the world community.

So, I'm not taking this as a black-or-white, either-or proposition of "Trump or the FBI's leadership" where we have to pick sides. Both are dangerous. Considering Trump aired the idea of jailing journalists who publish leaks, I do consider him currently the more pressing threat to our republic. http://thehill.com/homenews/news/333...jail-reporters This does not mean that the FBI can't also reach into dangerous territory, as they did in the days of J. Edgar Hoover. They're just a currently-lesser cancer on our system, one that should also be challenged when (not if) they overstep their legal bounds. The Senate's Church Committee did good work on that in the 1970s amid a climate of scrutiny on the CIA overstepping its bounds, there's no need for this kind of civil war-stoking destabilization or slash-and-burn gut-the-EPA authoritarianism-skirting government in pursuit of it.

With regard to the "military industrial complex," I can't think of a figure better emblematic of it than Henry Kissinger. He's driven the Russian rapprochement and has been a top adviser to Trump on foreign policy concerns, it's seen as a means of isolating China just as rapprochement with China isolated the Soviet Union. (ex. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...a-putin-232925 and https://www.the-american-interest.co...w-world-order/) These Hollywood-esque narratives peddled by Infowars and RT of "Trump vs. some monolithic 'establishment'" just don't hold up to scrutiny. "The establishment" consists of various groups, with various interests, often conflicting. Some consider Trump a danger for various reasons, others consider him a useful tool.

Also whether Russia committed espionage by hacking into a candidate and her campaign manager's email servers to phish for info weakening the standing of the odds-on likely incoming President (Putin claims he thought Clinton would win, I believe it since most people did), or even help the chances of a candidate who was more favorable to them (e.g. who will lift the sanctions), is not the same proposition as whether or not it was the primary cause of a given candidate's loss. That's a non sequitur, and has no relation to whether or not a potential act of high-profile cyberterrorism should be investigated. Based on the data-tracing results available at the time, his pattern of hacks consistently being against targets the Russian government has stated opposition to, and the hacking-related intelligence leaks that have recently come out from the awesomely named Reality Winner, Guccifer 2.0 very likely is a Russian intel cut-out. The current investigation should provide a more definitive answer though.