Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

through the looking glass

On the bright side, this may mean no Secretary Palin.

which one's the heel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD2eKdQ1gqI

euphenism yo. new word for lie.

Somehow didn't realize until now that Trump actually tweets back at people in his threads, both supporters and detractors.

The Taiwan phone call seems overblown in the context of the US selling close to $2bn of weapons to Taipei over the last two years alone, though it is symbolic . The bigger issue will be Trump's aggressive stance on the valuation of the Yuan and whether additional tariffs will be brought in to try to force them to change it. It's easy to say when you want to boost the prospects for US manufacturing but less easy to do when China holds such a large proportion of US debt.

I think you've already thought this out far more than he has.

He's got hotel interests in Taiwan. The end.

I assume he's got hotel interests almost everywhere there are people, not least because "his" hotels are often just licensing his name, which gets slapped on front.

Duterte: Trump says Philippines tackling drug problem 'the right way'

Our president elect just endorsed police murdering suspects; death squads murdering informants, human rights activists, and journalists; and fathomless police corruption.

tbf there's no evidence trump actually said this, and if he did say it it there's no evidence he has any idea what's going on in the phillippines

There is no evidence Trump understands anything. That's not a defense of all the dumb shit he does. He took a job.

No defense, just saying the issue is "Trump has no clue" not "Trump loves murder"

The Duerte thing is troubling, but I think there's a better than decent chance that Trump never said anything and Duerte made it up completely

The Taiwan phone call seems overblown in the context of the US selling close to $2bn of weapons to Taipei over the last two years alone, though it is symbolic

The weapons trade with Taiwan has been going on for decades as well as the constant USN and USAF presence in key parts of the Pacific. It's not like we hide all that, or the existence of the AIT and TECRO. In fact, hey look it's all right here: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35855.htm

The phone call is symbolic of our President-Elect is a dipshit.

The Duterte thing is approximately as troubling and nominating an AG who cast a symbolic vote to allow the US armed forces to torture people. So whether he said anything about Filipino law enforcement techniques or not, he's been pretty clear.

I've had arguments with Trumpeters about Duterte on other forums. In their media echo chamber, Duterte has made the Davao City and the Phillipines safer places, which is pretty much the opposite of the facts on the ground. We know that the PEOTUS seems to pay attention to the same echo chamber, rather than ethical journalists or even his own intelligence briefings.

Given the Argentina, Pakistan, and Taiwanese phone call gaffes, Duterte's description of his phone call seems par for course.

The weapons trade with Taiwan has been going on for decades as well as the constant USN and USAF presence in key parts of the Pacific. It's not like we hide all that, or the existence of the AIT and TECRO. In fact, hey look it's all right here: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35855.htm

The phone call is symbolic of our President-Elect is a dipshit.

US policy on Taiwan has been to edge closer to treating it as a de facto state, while maintaining the official 'one China' policy and the idea that a phone call from a president elect is a huge change of course seems a bit of a stretch. As president elect, Obama was in direct contact with Ma Ying-Jeou, albeit via letter, to congratulate him on his election win - which came shortly after Obama's own and has pushed for Taiwan to be included in a number of international federations (in addition to the billions of dollars of defensive weapons sold).

It's a fairly easy bit of symbolism for Trump - cutting through the fiction that the US does not have contact with senior Taiwanese politicians, showing his base that he's not afraid of China and giving a domestic message that diplomacy will not be business as usual. Actually breaking with the 'one China' policy would be massive, Trump meeting with Tsai face to face as president would be big, but there's still a question mark over whether he would ever actually do either of those things.

The Duterte praise is pretty disconcerting to me, because I've already had a lot of images in my head of paramilitary/death squad type forces arising under Trump. Lots of armed right-wingers in parts of the country, could also involve Blackwater which has massive ties to the administration (Pence is a friend of Prince and DeVos is Prince's brother). A little cooperation/head-turning from sympathetic police departments, a justice dept that refuses to deal with it, it all seems plausible to me. As the brilliant Matt Stoller pointed out in a podcast I listened to the other night, it's not like it hasn't happened before in the US.

yes let's not forget the widespread FEMA camps and Obamacare Death Panels

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-risk-behind-trumps-taiwan-call

this is pretty harrowing

Would be great if China took it out on Trump and his family, personally.

No way that anyone who voted for Trump or the minority of #NeverTrump people are going to give a a damn about the "foreign policy establishment" being "appalled." That's why they voted for him.

And guess who approves?

https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=547

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/12/former_pow_bowe_bergdahl_asks.html

whoa, some of the shit trump has said about this

President-elect Donald Trump was particularly critical of the prisoner deal during the presidential campaign, describing Bergdahl as a "no-good traitor, who should have been executed." Trump has at times held up an imaginary rifle as if he were taking aim at Bergdahl and declared at a Las Vegas rally in October that "30 years ago, he would have been shot."

so obscene. as if trump could have withstood the psychological pressure of being a solider deployed in a combat zone.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/f826d223e1b6c029de46aa87165aac74/tumblr_ohmoi9H2l21qdmmiqo1_500.gif

A metaphor for the year to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh4jm0aYUPM

holy shit, that was a disturbingly moving video to watch on mute while listening to tim hecker's whitecaps of whitenoise II. thanks!

It's a fairly easy bit of symbolism for Trump - cutting through the fiction that the US does not have contact with senior Taiwanese politicians, showing his base that he's not afraid of China and giving a domestic message that diplomacy will not be business as usual.

You appear to be talking about a completely different person named Trump than the one who is currently the nominal US President-elect.

Also this, from the NYer piece linked above, is completely OTM

If you work in foreign affairs, you learn that a highly unexpected event is often the result of intent or incompetence. (You also learn that what looks, at first, like intent often turns out to be incompetence.)

I assume by now he knows what he's in for when he's actually the president, though I suppose it's possible that ... he doesn't.

i think he is consciously trying to act in a chaotic, unpredictable manner in order to evade accountability

steve bannon: "darkness is good"

Anybody suspecting Donald Trump of deliberately trying to produce something beyond the immediate first order effects of his actions is crazy.

A 140 character limit plumbs the depths of Trump's thoughts.

i strongly disagree with the idea that trump is not using lies, conspiracies, and gaslighting to manipulate the media and by extension public consciousness. people who are simply idiots don't end up being elected president.

he is certainly ignorant but he knows how to use language to suit his own purposes.

people who are simply idiots don't end up being elected president

I'm sure there's a modicum of reassurance in believing this, but history begs to differ.

Trump barely knows how to use language to get his point across. I direct you to Trump, explaining why he "saved" the Carrier jobs that he told people he would save.

idk bros. dissimulation starts to feel like a strategy when someones uses it to marshawn lynch his way through countless scandals all the way to the presidency

unsettling thought:

Her culpability prevented her from condemning the status quo, and her ideology prevented her from proposing a big fix. Unfortunately, much of the progressive movement also seems to be only vaguely aware of the concerns of, let alone the specific thoughts of, Americans who are suffering in the decline. And because of that, if Trump figures out how to lead his movement while governing—as Obama inexplicably decided not to do—then we’re in deep, deep trouble because we will be utterly defenseless against it.

http://inthesetimes.com/features/left_organizing_donald_trump_zack_exley.html

Coulter and Palin already getting ahead of the curve on former supporters criticizing Trump from the right - who else is up to bat?

idk, this is good stuff though. i was also a big fan of glenn beck's swerve to the center.

i strongly disagree with the idea that trump is not using lies, conspiracies, and gaslighting to manipulate the media and by extension public consciousness. people who are simply idiots don't end up being elected president.

― Treeship, Saturday, December 3, 2016 5:40 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

serious question: If everything we've seen so far is not enough to convince you that Trump is genuinely dumb, what would it take?

like, what are some things he would have to do/say that would make you reconsider?

i think he is genuinely ignorant and incurious but that he knows how to fuck with people to get what he wants.

my grandfather called people like this "dumb as a fox."

like, i don't think he has some grand, sophisticated diplomatic scheme, but i do think he knows how to use spectacle to distract people while he does stuff like leverage his new political power for profit

Trump believes what he says (he lacks conviction and consistency, but at the moment something comes out of his lips believes it) and is not intentionally gaslighting, imo

i think it just seems like he believes what he is saying because he is utterly shameless and comfortable with lying to an extent none of us can really comprehend

i don't think, for instance, that he ever thought millions of people voted illegally, or that ted cruz's father killed jfk, or that hillary clinton misplaced 6 billion dollars, or any of this infowars bullshit.