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3rd July 2017, 02:14 AM | #81 |
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I hope so too but I think it would be foolish of the Democratic Party to rely upon it for electoral success. Instead they need to find a candidate who is positively enticing, a Bill Clinton or an Obama. Perhaps someone who has learned from Trump to "own" past indiscretions rather than continually apologise for them and allow the media to bully them.
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3rd July 2017, 02:14 AM | #82 |
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3rd July 2017, 02:31 AM | #83 |
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(bolding mine)
That is a very good point, imo. Macron did just that. "J'assume", he repeatedly said when confronted about his supposedly unpopular policies. He owned his pro-Europe stand, his labor reform program, etc Compare that to Hillary Clinton, who, for example, changed her position on trade under pressure from Sanders. That made her look weak and unprincipled. |
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3rd July 2017, 02:31 AM | #84 |
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3rd July 2017, 03:45 AM | #85 |
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3rd July 2017, 03:55 AM | #86 |
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3rd July 2017, 04:13 AM | #87 |
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Trump might think that his "sticking it to the media" gains him something, but in fact the news-shows and comedy programs are playing him the same way he played them during the primaries and elections;
after all, Trump isn't running for anything in the next for 3 years, but TV hosts run for ratings constantly. The more he engages with them, the more he assures that they will get viewers. Luckily for them, Trump doesn't understand that his job as president isn't to get air-time: he truly is Zaphod Beeblebrox with his sense of style and humor amputated. |
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3rd July 2017, 04:21 AM | #88 |
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All of this is true but his approval rating among Republicans is at 85% according to Gallup, and has been rising the last few weeks. President Trump seems to be doing the right thing - at least as far as GOP supporters are concerned. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I've had a bit of an epiphany and come to the conclusion that the issue isn't President Trump, or the GOP's unwillingness to take him to task but rather the fact that for a significant proportion of Americans, he is exactly the sort of President they want and his policies are exactly what they want.
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3rd July 2017, 04:25 AM | #89 |
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3rd July 2017, 04:30 AM | #90 |
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The GOP pretended for 7 years that all the voters want is stopping Obama. Now that they are in charge, they can't get anything done.
Yes, Trump got elected as a giant middle finger to educated, progressive America, but also as someone "who can get things done": being nothing but a troll won't work forever. Or to put it another way: from 85% approval there is only one way to go: down. This support has a lot of expectations priced in, expectations that can't be met since not even the core GOP can decide what it wants: as long as Trump does nothing, he can't do anything wrong. But as soon as anything serious gets passed, half of the Republicans base will get pissed off. |
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3rd July 2017, 04:45 AM | #91 |
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I'm not so sure of that.
For example, the current healthcare proposals will immediately deliver tax cuts and lower premiums (albeit for effectively useless insurance) which will be massively appealing. The penalties, when the deficit once again spirals out of control, when people lose coverage, premiums for some groups start soaring or when people find that their cheap insurance delivers nothing in terms of benefits come much later, after the crucial elections. |
3rd July 2017, 04:50 AM | #92 |
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3rd July 2017, 04:55 AM | #93 |
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Wow, that is a lot of stupid people.
Voting for him, I may understand. Aside from spite or ignorance there may be legitimate reasons for doing that. But continuing to support him after the -- I dare say, objectively -- terrible presidency he's had so far can't be called anything else but idiotic. |
3rd July 2017, 04:58 AM | #94 |
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3rd July 2017, 05:01 AM | #95 |
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3rd July 2017, 05:03 AM | #96 |
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That may be your opinion (and one that I share) but that fails to take into account the completely different ways other people judge their political leaders.
Some people will approve of Trump continuing to rail against the fake media, liberals, elitists and the like. Even if he gets nothing done they'll approve of him for at least speaking for them. Others are so invested in having a right-wing Christian SCOTUS that even if Trump screws up every other single thing, from their perspective he is a huge success because he got Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court. Some simply think he's a "genuine kind of guy" (IMO similar to those who found Dubya "folksy") and so they'll still approve of him. |
3rd July 2017, 05:18 AM | #97 |
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The swings were enough to make four safe Republican seats, held with 20-25% margins, competitive with margins of under 5%, in just six months of Trump. This isn't a minor swing, a swing like that in a presidential election makes Texas go to a Democrat with votes to spare and make Democrats competitive in places like Alabama and Kansas.
Granted, these were just special elections where no doubt anyone not a fan of Trump wanted to make their voice heard, more so than Trump voters, so we shouldn't expect a Democrat clean sweep in 2020. Neither should we think Trump is unassailable in that election.
Quote:
McHrozni |
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3rd July 2017, 05:23 AM | #98 |
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3rd July 2017, 05:26 AM | #99 |
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3rd July 2017, 05:28 AM | #100 |
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Hopefully you're correct and we'll start seeing the Lame Duck Trump this time next year at latest.
That said, I have some experience with people who support him and people like him and it doesn't work that way. Supporting politicians like Trump was not a rational decision in the first place and cognitive dissonance makes them unwilling to drop support regardless of what he does or fails at. When he fails they'll double down on Democrat obstructionism or whatever other excuse Trump will throw their way and support him even more. It's as fascinating as it is dangerous. I hope most of GOP base isn't like that and his hard floor is substantially lower than 40% he's been at for the past two months, but I wouldn't hold my breath. He's already done about six major missteps that should disqualify him for presidency and they still support him. Every time they double down on him like that makes it harder for them to abandon Trump at the polls or wherever. The upside is he won't rise from the floor either I guess, but 40% is enough to avoid impeachment, so he'll be around until 2021 at least. McHrozni |
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3rd July 2017, 05:29 AM | #101 |
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And remember at this point in Bush 2's presidency he was viewed as a bland moderate.
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3rd July 2017, 05:30 AM | #102 |
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3rd July 2017, 05:33 AM | #103 |
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The rabid opposition to George W. Bush is biting Democrats in their backsides now. They went all out against him for eight years straight and now they got Trump to deal with.
Remember what happens to the boy who cried "Wolf!" in the end? Well, this happens. McHrozni |
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3rd July 2017, 05:36 AM | #104 |
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3rd July 2017, 05:43 AM | #105 |
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1. He'd never do that. 2. Okay but he's not currently doing it. 3. Okay but he's not currently technically doing it. 4. Okay but everyone does it. 5. He's doing it, we can't stop him, no point in complaining about it. 6. We all knew he was going to do it which... makes it okay somehow. 7. It's perfectly fine that's he's doing it. |
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3rd July 2017, 06:11 AM | #106 |
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3rd July 2017, 06:12 AM | #107 |
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3rd July 2017, 06:35 AM | #108 |
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I think the lesson from Trump is that changing your position when it's convenient is fine as long as your timing is good and you're sufficiently brazen about it. I recall Trump angrily insisting that he'd always been against the war in Iraq despite that being a lie. He also abandoned birtherism after he'd gotten everything he could out of it. Neither of those things seemed to hurt him much among Republicans.
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3rd July 2017, 06:39 AM | #109 |
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You may consider them illegitimate, and I may consider them to be weak, but AFAIK there's no ISO standard for legitimate political reasons
I know that a lot of my friends and acquaintances would consider both my political views to be utterly wrong and my reasons for holding them to be illegitimate - doesn't make them right. Personally I'm very uncomfortable that there seems to be a large majority of people in the US for whom having a Christian-leaning SCOTUS and/or protection against the government coming for their guns or indeed a President showing the middle finger to convention and reasoned politics but that has more to do with my misjudgement that "people should be better than that" when both Trump's success and IMO the success of Brexit given the campaign that underpinned it seems to show that they really aren't |
3rd July 2017, 06:58 AM | #110 |
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Yeah, that's not how it went down. W got a lot of benefit of the doubt up to and including the aftermath of 9/11, including from me personally. I was tentatively supportive of going into Afghanistan under the assumption that the President surely knows more than I do about what is going on. He completely lost me going into Iraq, which made absolutely zero sense. Then came the war crimes, etc.
No, W earned his opposition just like Trump has earned, and continues to earn, his opposition now. |
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3rd July 2017, 06:59 AM | #111 |
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3rd July 2017, 07:05 AM | #112 |
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3rd July 2017, 07:22 AM | #113 |
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3rd July 2017, 07:26 AM | #114 |
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3rd July 2017, 07:50 AM | #115 |
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3rd July 2017, 07:55 AM | #116 |
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3rd July 2017, 08:09 AM | #117 |
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I suppose a simple declarative statement that "this is good movie" could be interpreted by others that the individual making it has decided that there is a set of criteria that decides whether a movie is good or not and/or that their own personal judgement is such that it serves as a universal objective measure. This could be a faulty interpretation but then again I've encountered some on this board who certainly stray towards the latter interpretation in some, if not all, areas.
OTOH IMO if you say "I think this is a good movie" then any risk of such misinterpretation is removed and it's clear that you're merely providing a personal opinion |
3rd July 2017, 08:10 AM | #118 |
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3rd July 2017, 08:15 AM | #119 |
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3rd July 2017, 08:17 AM | #120 |
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