I read a very eye-opening view this morning of how (and why) Trump will end the year with a LOT of momentum.
Congress is likely to soon pass a tax reform bill. Judge Roy Moore is favored to win next week’s Senate election in Alabama with Trump’s support. The Supreme Court has acquiesced to Trump’s travel ban for now (while it waits for the lower courts to rule). The Supreme Court offers hope to social conservatives in the Masterpiece Cake-shop case, facilitated by Trump’s appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the bench. The economy is booming. Blue-collar wages are on the rise.
This isn’t to say that Trump’s presidency couldn’t still end in his removal from office. But even if it does, that day is still a long way off, and will likely depend on massive Democratic gains in next year’s midterms. (Which at this point is very unlikely).
Numerous big-time Democratic lawmakers and Trump antagonists who have long portrayed themselves as champions of women have been revealed to be not only serial harassers themselves, but also hypocrites.
Is Trump more of a “leader” and “go-getter” than we give him credit for?
The author ends with something I’ve long said…Trump will “succeed” NOT because of any great competence or leadership skills that he has (because he has very little of either…)
He will “succeed” because of the greater incompetence, and often hypocrisy, of his opposition.
More or less had me until here. I’m not sure why society is SO DAMN KEEN on removing any and all blame for Trump’s existence on the people that actually voted for him, and somehow placing the blame upon the Dems for some version of “not being good enough to stop him.”
It’s like blaming the Polish for WW2 because if they had just stopped Germany at the gate we wouldn’t have had the holocaust.
I mean, I’ve seen plenty of blame from “society” towards those who voted for him. I mean Michele Obama chided women who voted for Trump as if they were children. I think what you’re missing is the Dems are doubling down on the exact tactics that people voted against. There’s still blame being put on his voters AND blame being put on the Dems for being weak and narrow minded.
The Dems have admitted wrongdoing, apologized, and in some cases resigned. In contrast, the GOP is actively supporting bringing a pedophile into the US Senate. Moral high ground still belongs to the Dems on this issue.
Absolutely not. He’s a craven demagogue who is actively seeking to destroy public faith in the pillars of democracy (specifically, the notion of impartial Federal law enforcement, the media, and the electoral process) in order to bolster his hold on power. He grows more repugnant by the day.
I think he (and perhaps you) will be surprised by the energy the Dems will evidence in the midterms, and the next POTUS election.
Everyday that goes by, that becomes less and less of a possibility. My problem isn’t removing Trump and putting in Pence. In many ways I would prefer Pence. But Impeachment and removal is a heavy duty trauma to both the branches of government and the people of the country. And by the time the smoke clears and the bodies are identified and tagged, Pence will be a lame duck.
This may be the worst analogy in the history of analogies. You’re comparing a democratically elected leader to a dictator who forcibly annexed a country through war, he had no rights to in the first place.
It’s fine to blame trump voters, after all we voted for him. But given the choice of him or Hillary, I’d do it again and twice on Sunday.
Hillary had 2 Presidents, one of them being the incumbent president, a litany of congressmen including some republicans, all of Hollywood, $2 billion in campaign funding, and most of the media stumping for her and she still lost. This is how bad Hillary was, because even support by just one of the above mentioned entities could get a person elected. She had them all and failed. Sorry, with that much help all I can say is ‘tough shit’.
She stole defeat from the jaws of victory… And that is some kind of miracle…
The party that runs in opposition to the other party loses.
To his credit, Bernie was at least “for” some things.
If the Democratic party and its constituent politicians don’t find something to be “for” and simply run against, they will continue to lose.
They might be against Trump as a figurehead, but when they run in opposition to what he stands for, which is many things to many people- they have taken a position against things that a lot of their own voters are actually for.
You may want to read up on the bill that actually passed the Senate. Not saying this to be snarky; they tried to pass it so quickly there are a ton of mistakes and unintended consequences (see AMT).
I did see all that. Putting my info into the calculator on WSJ saved me $5k or so. So I win. I’m sure they’ll tweak it in reconciliation and it will be an entirely different bill before it gets to Trump’s desk.
The bigger point for me is that the US will be at least competitive with the other G20 nations on taxes. A “level playing field” isn’t too much to ask for.
On the unintended consequences part. The tax code is 70k pages of law and legal interpretations. It has been used for decades to reward political friends and punish political enemies. Of course overhauling it is going to be messy. Creative destruction lol.
So what does the cadence have to do with the mistakes and, especially, unintended consequences? not being snarky, but both of those things accompany any piece of legislation.
More specifically, the AMT disallows some deductions and credits, and shrinks others drastically. But it’s set at 20 percent, and the Senate bill would also set the top corporate tax rate at 20 percent.
If the alternative minimum tax and the top corporate tax rate are the same rates, that messes up this entire system — the AMT excludes many deductions or credits, so that would make a business’s AMT come out higher than its regular tax bill.
Of all those listed other than the Supreme Court pick the next president can wipe out with the swipe of a pen. As you said the tax bill is a long way from being a done deal. I would count as a success yet. Reconciling the house and senate bills is probably not going to happen.
As far as success, I guess that depends on what side of the aisle you are on. I see them all as disasters. Impeachment can’t come soon enough but I’m willing to wait to insure that Mr. Mueller does a through job.
So you are in favor of “living document” SCOTUS judges that look to international law and public sentiment in their rulings? Not flaming, just never understood supporting judges that look to things other than the law and the precedents.
Also, do you think we should have higher taxes and more regulations?
I hope they try and impeach him too. If he broke laws and did what his team is accused of string him up.
Is there any doubt that this train is rolling along because of the track laid by the last 8 years? The republicans haven’t put any substantive economic policy into place, and thus bear no responsibility for the current state of affairs, which are simply a continuation of the economy they were given. Thats my interpretation at least.
Except he lost by 3 million votes. People didn’t necessarily vote against it, its just the way the electoral college numbers favor smaller states. Its not like Hilary lost by 90%, she actually had more people voting for her.
As for congress, Elections are cyclical anyway. Give it a few cycles and the dems will be back in the majority. I will try to remember this when it happens. Very rarely does any party have a “Mandate” for sweeping change.
One more thing. The Reps are going after entitlements next. They will get demagogued no matter what they do. Maybe Trump is the guy to finally do something about it. Really, what could an outraged media do to shame him at this point? If he’s not ashamed of being attracted to his daughter what would he be ashamed of?
There’s no proposals out yet. But it looks like Reps are getting their heads out of their asses a little bit and trying to pass laws, because they know their majority may be done in 2018. It’s plain to see how easy it is to undo a legacy of executive orders when an opposing prez makes it in.
To do something about what? He is on record as stating he wont touch medicare, medicaid, and social security:
Although Trumps word has never meant much in my opinion. I honestly expect him to do a complete flip on this. The man has no integrity, no consistent political philosophy, and only wants to sign his name on the papers Congress slips on his desk so he can “win”
