Higher Learning: On a scale of 1 to 5, rate Trump's first year in office

[bzb]

how successful trump's first year was almost has to be looked at in terms of how bad he hasn't fukked up rather than what was accomplished. imo he can't take credit for much because he's basically being told to do while being kept from fukking up the economic momentum he inherited from obama.

he's had more turnover in his cabinet than damn near any president before him. he's a such an idiot they basically said fukkit and put 3 military generals in charge of babysitting him at all times, which is another problem in itself.

it's clear no one in the government apparatus trusts him to govern. i'd wager he has no real decision making ability on anything of substance. probably doesn't even have the real nuclear launch codes (thankfully) and would likely be relegated to the sidelines in the event of a major military or domestic event.

there's a whole squadron of aides, an entire news network, countless internet bots running interference to cover up how inept and corrupt he is. his own people are constantly fixing/restating his fukkups and working to prevent domestic or international catastrophes as a result of his twitter eruptions.

did his first year turn out as bad as i thought it might? mostly. he pushed the fringe into the mainstream and more of those types into decision making roles. the only reason it wasn't worse is because he hasn't had to deal with any real international or domestic disasters. charlottesville and PR were just a taste of how bad it could be.

i think it's downhill from here for trump and i don't think he will complete his first term. he'll either quit, be impeached, have a severe medical/mental episode, or by some other method be removed from office. pence will be an improvement, but mostly for optics. trump has done a lot of lasting damage already in just one year.

 

[Colilluminati]

I gave him a 1

 

[Darth Nubian]

He hasn’t been able to start a new war, so I gave him a 2. He still has room to suck even more

 

[jerniebert]

11 people voted more then 1

People are so ignorant sometimes. The fool is an idiot and is mocking your ignorance. Keep supporting someone who keeps showing you their ass.


I don't even give you a pass if you're trolling either. You're stupid too if you support this man even in a poll.

 

[NZA]

I agree, but I think you're underestimating the importance of that "major difference" .

He may be a typical Republican in terms of the policies he promotes, but he's made us look like a joke to the rest of the world and ruined America's reputation (maybe permanently). And he's made being openly racist socially acceptable.

i'm not too worried about our perception. there are no security or economic concerns that i can think of that come from our "perception" due to trump. as a matter of fact, wall street is having a ball and ISIS is flabby and sick. our foreign policy and trade policy are far more important to me. and quite frankly, i will be glad if more countries perceive us as not being the enforcer. we may face less blowback and a smaller defense budget if we can get out of this persona

much of the world despised us before trump due to our actual policies toward them.

i like my racists more honest. it helps non-whites understand that c00ning will not save them. much harder to politic with people who think they can win something by opposing the rest of us...

 

[Meta Reign]

I forgot to add.

- Basically crushed ISIS in the ME
- Got us out of that stupid Paris climate deal.
- Got us out of TPP

Shyt. . . I cant front. Trump has had a great 1st year Especially considering all the noise. Might change my vote to a 4.

 

[Airtrack360]

I gave him a 2 because he was able to complete the first year at least.

 

[NoMayo15]

I judge him based on what he's accomplished, not by whether I agree on what he's doing.

As such, I gave him a 2. He and his closest allies have been so disorganized that they haven't been as effective as a more seasoned politician might have.

But maybe he really is worse than I'm imagining, and it's just the bar for expectations is so low it doesn't seem like a complete train wreck. Ironically, I'm also writing this on the day of the first modern gov't shutdown where one party held majorities in Congress and POTUS ... so maybe I'm looking at this with rose-colored glasses too.

 

[Darth Nubian]

I forgot to add.

- Basically crushed ISIS in the ME
- Got us out of that stupid Paris climate deal.
- Got us out of TPP

Shyt. . . I cant front. Trump has had a great 1st year Especially considering all the noise. Might change my vote to a 4.

- Basically crushed ISIS in the ME - By continuing the strategy started by the Obama administration
- Got us out of that stupid Paris climate deal- A deal that had no actual enforcement mechanisms and is basically just a statement that climate change is real
- Got us out of TPP- Ceeded hegemony over trade in the pacific rim to China. Thus accelerating their ascent to superpower status.

This list might be impressive over at the Hannity forums, but you gotta do better over here cuz.

 

[5n0man]

i voted 3 because obama got the economy out of bush's recession, and trump has not only kept that going but improved it a little. anyone voting 0 and 1 because of his stupid tweets and "good people on both sides" is lying to themselves

again, hes said and done some awful shyt but gimme a fukkin break

You give him a 3 because he has yet to fukk up what obama started properly?


So being a lame duck on top of being blatantly ignorant gets you a 3 huh.

 

[FAH1223]

It’s just not true, he got a truly despicable piece of shyt into the Supreme Court, he has been stacking the judiciary with all sorts of unqualified, radical pieces of shyt, and his cabinet has been stacked with folks that are pushing so much deregulation and instilling truly awful policies. Low key he has done more fukked up shyt that we will directly feel, very quickly. It’s just not up front, but we will be trying to fix this shyt show for the next decade, maybe longer, and in the case of fukkface Gorsich, 40 years

The cabinet will be gone when the Presidency is over. What executive agencies do can be reversed. Deregulations can be reversed.

He got the Supreme Court pick and Gorsuch basically replaces Scalia's spot... he may be even more right wing than Scalia. But that's the consequence of the election.

The longest term consequence of Trump is the Federal Judges he has appointed, he's done more in one year than most recent Presidents.

Reagan and Dubya Bush were far worse for the American people like @mastermind said. Reagan massively cut taxes for the rich, up ended 40 years of collective bargaining, had Iran/Contra, upped military spending and adventurism, drove up the debt with no regard. And Bush had the Iraq War based on lies, the Katrina fiasco, the two tax cuts for the wealthy which were/still are the driving points of the federal deficit for years.

- Basically crushed ISIS in the ME - By continuing the strategy started by the Obama administration
- Got us out of that stupid Paris climate deal- A deal that had no actual enforcement mechanisms and is basically just a statement the climate change is real
- Got us out of TPP- Ceeded hegemony over trade in the pacific rim to China. Thus accelerating their ascent to superpower status.

This list might be impressive over at the Hannity forums, but you gotta do better over here cuz.

Defeating ISIS wasn't even just the US Airpower. But the Iraqis and Syrian SDF were on the ground.

You also had the Syrian Army, Russians, Iranians on the other side hunting ISIS.

Leaving TPP was fine by me. It wasn't a trade deal.. and most labor unions and environmental groups had massive concerns about TPP.

 

[FAH1223]

If Trump is an authoritarian, why don’t Democrats treat him like one?
Corey Robin
@coreyrobin

There is a wide gap between words and deeds in American politics – on both sides of the aisle, notes Corey Robin


You’d think that Democrats in Congress would jump at the opportunity to impose a constraint on Donald Trump’s presidency – one that liberals and Democrats alike have characterized as authoritarian. Apparently, that’s not the case.

Despite being in the minority, Democrats last week had enough Republican votes on their side to curb the president’s ability, enhanced since 9/11, to spy on citizens and non-citizens alike.

In the House, a majority of Democrats were willing to join a small minority of Republicans to do just that. But 55 Democrats – including the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi; the minority whip, Steny Hoyer; and other Democratic leaders of the opposition to Trump – refused.

After the House voted for an extension of the president’s power to spy, a group of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans attempted to filibuster the bill. The critical 60th vote to shut down the filibuster was a Democrat.

With the exception of Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept, a press that normally expresses great alarm over Trump’s amassing and abuse of power has had relatively little to say about this vote (or this vote or this vote).

This is despite the fact that the surveillance bill gives precisely the sorts of powers viewers of an Academy Award-winning film about the Stasi from not long so ago would instantly recognize … to a president whose view of the media a leading Republican recently compared to Stalin.

It was left to the Onion to offer the best (and near only) comment:

Pelosi: ‘We Must Fight Even Harder Against Trump’s Authoritarian Impulses Now That We’ve Voted to Enable Them’

Last week, I wrote in these pages how the discourse of Trump’s authoritarianism ignores or minimizes the ways in which democratic citizens and institutions – the media, the courts, the opposition party, social movements – are opposing Trump, with seemingly little fear of intimidation.

But in the same way that discourse of authoritarianism misses the democratic forest for the anti-democratic tweets, so does it focus more on the rhetoric of an abusive man than the infrastructure of an oppressive state, more on the erosion of norms than the material instruments of repression.

Trump is all bully, no pulpit
Critics of Trump often worry about the power of his words, his ability to push public opinion and political practice in his ugly direction. Two reports from this week suggest that sometimes the main effect of Trump’s words is either nil or negative.

• Despite the rhetorical fusillade from Trump against Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Russia connection, despite Trump’s repeated calls to shut the investigation down, a new NPR/PBS poll shows that more than two-thirds of registered voters, including a majority of Republican voters, want Mueller’s investigation to continue.

• One of the effects of Trump’s misogyny – in word and deed – has been to provoke an unprecedented number of women to run for office. The leader of a party that has longed wanted to put women back in the home has potentially doubled the previous record (from 1994) of women entering gubernatorial races and increased the number of likely Democratic female challengers against House incumbents by 350%. Emily’s List reports that the number of women contacting them about running for office jumped from 900 in the year leading up to Trump’s election to 26,000 since that election.

Trump is weaker than we realize
Trump’s regime is far more vulnerable to democratic contestation and opposition than we realize.

In a major upset this past week, voters in Wisconsin’s 10th state senate district elected the Democratic candidate Patty Schachtner, giving her a 10-point victory in a district that went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 and has been electing Republicans since 2000.

Wisconsin has long served as a bellwether of the possibilities and potency of GOP revanchism. But since 2010, when the rightwinger Scott Walker was elected governor and began taking apart the remnants of progressivism in the state, Wisconsin has provided the national GOP with a toolkit of ever more reactionary programs and policies.

So one of the reddest districts in a red-leaning state has turned blue. Under Trump.

And it’s not just Wisconsin.

As Andrew Prokop reports, there have been 74 special elections for congressional and state legislative seats since Trump’s election. Democrats consistently have out-performed in those elections, improving on their record from 2016 by an average of 11 points, often making their biggest gains in red-state districts won by Trump. The Democrats flipped 14 of those seats (the Republicans have flipped only one). And that doesn’t count, as Prokop notes, regular statewide elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and elsewhere, where Democrats also have done well.

Republicans are losing ground in the war on spending
Meanwhile, virtually no one, save this political scientist at Georgetown, has noticed how much ground the GOP already has lost in its war on spending:

The part of the 2018 budget negotiation that actually deals with substantial money is basically over. Leaders appear to agree on the funding level boost for executive agencies, which since early December has remained relatively stable … Ironically, these numbers are basically the same as the FY2018 House Democratic Budget blueprint. They also represent a big increase over previous budget deals.

The 2013 and 2015 agreements increased the caps by roughly $30 billion. This new emerging deal appears likely to break the caps by an additional $20+ billion.

In other words, a Republican Congress will ultimately fund government at much higher levels than the divided governments did in 2013 and 2015 … House Republicans’ refusal to vote for any bill appearing to increase spending undermines their leverage. Republican leaders are, and have been, forced to rely on Democrats to pass budget deals even in the House.” ​

One part of the policy table may already have been set – to the Republicans’ detriment.

That’s potentially good news – and the basis not for complacency but a better politics.

If Democrats think Trump is an authoritarian, why don’t they treat him like one? | Corey Robin

 

[bzb]

much of the world despised us before trump due to our actual policies toward them...

true, but the bigger issue is with the trump admin pushing our allies away and fraying relationships with foreign assets that would do inside jobs or gather intel. i can see how it would make things more difficult for our intel agencies and add more risk domestically.

 

[Mook]

1

if i could vote lower i would.

when this investigation is done with i will say what i REALLY feel.

Oh bruh I'm gonna write 30 minutes of material going in on white people if this dude officially in the books becomes a traitor.

 

[818star]

3. He was average.