This is painful to watch.
RT @BraddJaffy: Wow. A searing assessment of the President of the United States by political editor @CUhlmann of Australia's ABC. https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/8...038784/video/1
This is painful to watch.
RT @BraddJaffy: Wow. A searing assessment of the President of the United States by political editor @CUhlmann of Australia's ABC. https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/8...038784/video/1
Last edited by Darrell KSR; 07-09-2017 at 05:47 AM.
Glad you posted this, this is the kind of thing I envisioned for this board.
Scathing, but I'm not sure it's very meaningful.
We knew the pro Paris Accord media and other nations would blast the US for ceding authority on this, but it was a horrible deal for the US. The fault of us losing face pulling out of it is that Obama was willing to do it. I do think it makes us at least appear isolated, but I can't put that on Trump b/c the alternative was worse, and in the end it doesn't prevent us from working with anyone on anything else. These things are always overplayed for their symbolism, but nations make decisions based on their best interests, and will always work with anyone that will advance that interest.
And I dont' think anyone expected him to be all that liked by other leaders. he's not a politician, he doesn't fit the mold or have the club tie, but it will be on him to live up to his "deal maker" pitch. So far I think he gets a "C" or so in that department, but it's early.
As for the G20 and the NK resolution, I really doubt they would have all been willing to sign on to such a thing, b/c Russia and China wouldn't do it, and I honestly can't remember the last meaningful thing that came out of any of these GX meetings. The geo-politics are the same. China benefits from the NK and has no intention of stopping them, and we have very little leverage to do anything about it, which is why every President since the 50s has kicked this can down the road.
Don't get me wrong, I think trump has a TON of issues, and his absurd personal attack tweets are very destructive to his agenda and goals, and he's too dumb to see it.
But this same media/political cabal fawned over the greatness of Obama and I'm still looking for what he accomplished diplomatically that was positive for the US, or showed any kind of serious leadership. He even coined the phrase "lead from behind."
I'm not sure how Trump can fast forward our decline as a world leader any more than Obama did during his tenure, and honestly a large percentage of Americans are truly tired of being the world's policeman so I think the world had better get ready for us to not come charging into every world crisis. Just like England, we've had the job, it gets old.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
Trump doesn't understand what the US gains from leading the world. He is simply the worst major candidate to win the presidency ever in my view.
Between incompetence and his desire to preserve election integrity through what I believe are real steps to suppress votes, trump may be the last president we ever know. That is how bad I think he is.
When Australia and England criticise the US, we have a real problem.
We have a school yard bully with a six grader intellect; a third grader vocabulary and a toddler's manners running this country into the ground.
We can agree to disagree and I would love to see the president prove me wrong. But his only accomplished seems to be comforting his supporters that he is neither Obama or Hillary.
Trump is Gillespie. But not as diplomatic.
Well, let's not forget that the Aussies have been becoming better friends to the Chinese here lately too. THAT has a lot to do with this nonsense. Right now the Aussies are playing both ends against the middle.
MOLON LABE!
Its easy to blame Trump, and it's no shock the media will do it, even a foreign one. I'm not one who follows the previous presidents game plan and blames everything bad on the last guy while taking credit for everything positive but any loss of the desire to lead the world sailed with Obama. Its no secret that his vision of the world was one where the USA was not involved in many things, was not seen as a leader unless leading from behind work, and he did all he could to exclude the USA as the leader. As a nation we elected that. As President that was one of his goals. I have no problem with that but to blame our lack of influence that now exists on Trump is sad. You have a group within this country (the democratic party) that is doing everything possible to undermine his creditibilty and make his presidency illigitimate, so why should other nations look to him for leadership when you have a bunch of babies crying within this country who won't look to him? Granted, that does not absolve "the Donald" from being the childish imp that he is. From his leadership by twitter, his obcession with the "fake news" to the point he can't let it go, to his childish personal attacks on people that don't matter, or his tissue paper thin skin.....he is only hurting his cause. But the US doesn't suddenly become what it is because of 6 months under Trump (or anybody else). It took years for that to happen. And regardless of your take on Trump, if America could survive 4 years of Jimmy Carter and turn it around, there is no doubt they can do the same after Trump.
Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.--David Bowie.
When he costs us 52,000 American lives in Southeast Asia in a meaningless exercise of politically correct war, then we can talk about him even being in the running for worst President. He's not even in the conversation at this point. Most boorish and crass yes, but until that starts costing us lives and wealth it's just an annoyance.Originally Posted by UKHistory
I get you not liking him, OK, but I honestly don't get how those on the other side of the aisle seem to see this as the end of America, democracy, the world, etc. So many seem convinced he's absolutely going to lead us to some level of ruin we've never even imagined, like your comment that the democracy and Constitution itself is at such risk we may never have another President.
I respect everyone's right to their views, and I don't know more than a few who like Trump's childish tantrums and petulance (credit to Doc for that word, still the best description of him), so I get that part.
But I do not get thinking he's going to end our nation and Constitutional process. Honestly it sounds just like those who were convinced Obama was scheming a martial law to insure he stayed in power.
The only difference is those who thought that about Obama, and even Bush II on the other side, were a tiny little segment, and this anti-Trump thing has overtaken a big percentage of the Democratic party. All the Halliburton conspiracies and such surrounding Bush/Cheney never made the mainstream even among the left, just as the "birther" stuff with Obama never became GOP dogma either. Only with Trump do we see any rumor, any claim, no matter how unsupported by evidence, embraced as an obvious truth by so many otherwise mainstream people.
IMO that level of reaction is no more warranted by the facts than those who thought Obama was staging a coup b/c Homeland Security stocked up on ammo. Remember that one? I do worry as to why we have so many so heavily armed government agents (like the Dept. of Education having an armed SWAT team as we've discussed and agree on), but the idea that was evidence Obama was going to overthrow us is IMO about the same as this view Trump is going to derail the Constitution.
If nothing else, we're a lot more resilient than that. We've tolerated the suspension of rights as basic as habeus corpus during war (Lincoln in the Copperhead states), internment camps of US citizens in WWII, even an early coup plot that was put down by Washington himself. Trump's tweets are annoying, but they aren't even a slingshot compared to a tank when it comes to the impact on our democracy.
Last edited by CitizenBBN; 07-09-2017 at 08:02 PM.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
Trump is no where near as bad as Carter or Johnson. 50,000 lost lives as Citizen said, several were classmates of mine, others who came home and have never been the same
As far as Carter, to coin the idiot senator from Tenn, what should have been up was way down and what should have been down was way up. High interest rates, high unemployment, long gas lines, U.S. Citizens held captive in a foreign country, a terribly failed rescue attempt
I look at Trump a little different. First he grew up in NY and the ones from NY I have been around are not clean of mouth and second he grew up in the construction business and those people don't drink their tea with their pinkie stuck out. He talks plain and straight, attacks back instead of like most republicans taking it like a wimp. Some that claim to be republicans like McCain attack constantly
Hard to get a lot accomplished when half your party is more interested in their power and money grabbing than getting something accomplished
And throw in the constant lies by the media, I am surprised he hasn't said screw it I am out
One person's primer on President Trump's foreign policy and methodology
I happen to agree with his take. The president is not a statesman nor a politician and that takes getting used to when analyzing his words and actions
seeya
dan
I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.
I meant to add that History did say "candidate" and not "President", and I wanted to address that, b/c I respect his distinction. It isn't the same as saying he's the worst President, just that we have the worst start.
No doubt he's the least polished in a long time, though not the least polished ever (Andrew Jackson had that honor), and his personality of attacking and such is difficult to swallow and I won't defend it, but while those traits are troubling and at least distracting, for those of us who believe in individual liberty I'll tell you that Obama's candidacy was a nightmare. Sure he has the polish and such of a politician, but I knew exactly what he meant when he promised to "transform America", and I know just how far from American ideology he is when he says things like "you didn't build that".
But I didn't think he'd end democracy. I did think he'd turn us down a socialist road as hard as he could, and he surely tried, but the American system by design is hard to move very far very fast, and we survived.
Trump is an ass, but he has yet to show he's incompetent. He's moved forward on his agenda as fast as about any President, if not arguably a little faster, and his biggest moves so far like the Paris Accord are supported by a lot of very mainstream, non-Russian agent connected people. Me included.
so far all the claims of his extreme threat to us and our system are based in nothing more than opposition attacks. There's just nothing there supporting those conclusions at this point. He's had a successful trip to the Middle East, is doing about as well as every other President on the NK (which is to say not doing much b/c there aren't many options), etc. He's doing fine on foreign policy, other than ticking off the Left and the media by walking out of Paris, which was a policy choice and not a sign of abrogating his role as a leader.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
One thing to note on the OP link. Notice how they edited the film. They show him by himself walking and such, clearly trying to reinforce that "isolated and alone" message.
Notice they don't show the new French President in the class photo moving all the way over to stand next to Trump and then inviting him to France next week, or show Trump meeting with Putin, XI, or the SK and Japanese PMs among others. They selected that video purely to help the message, just like a partisan political ad.
I could get the raw video of the G20 and edit together the complete opposite message, talking about Trump being an active leader on the world stage.
That's when you need to start to question things, when the supposedly objective media report is constructed with the editing values of a political ad. It's not a good sign for objectivity.
but he's right America probably won't be as far out there in front on a lot of issues. Being out in front usually means us writing the bulk of the checks, and American voters are getting tired of that relationship.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
One last thought for now. he' not wrong that other world leaders will be on some issues dealing with how to work around Trump and such, but that's not really unique to Trump. That's what happens when leaders and nations have different political parties in power. Merkel and others want to move forward with Paris as it's designed, so yes they'll try to work around Trump.
This is all a chess match, and Europe and the rest of the world only loves the US leader when he's on their side. Obama loved being on their side so of course they loved him.
Our rivals loved Tubby Smith too, and dont' like Cal. There's a reason.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
Somebody should have explained that to Barrach. His policies like leading from behind, the "apology tour", and a general reluctance to be involved in world affairs because he say America's reputation and actions as the worlds bully was the norm for the previous 8 years.
Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.--David Bowie.
We'll see.
In my view, Trump has received much unfair criticism. It makes it hard for me to separate the legitimate criticism from the other. For example, last week I read an article that bashed him for avoiding taxes through a part sale, part gift transaction to his son. (They didn't call it that, but that's what it was). It's a normal, common family transaction. It a) subjects him to gift taxation, if he has exceeded the lifetime gift tax exemption, and b) his son takes a basis in the property equal to what he paid, so the inherent gain is still there--no taxes have been avoided. I read the article and thought what an incredible waste of keystrokes.
For the G20 here, my concern is that President Trump hasn't learned how important optics are yet. The optics here aren't the U.S. pulling out of Paris. They are--as accurately stated by the political editor--the failure to seize the golden opportunity to put Team USA back on front as a leader with criticism of North Korea. Other countries stood at the ready to support President Trump and Team USA, should we have grabbed the moment.
We didn't, and that's a missed opportunity, and yes, it does lower Team USA down in world view. Optics matter.
My hopes had been that President Trump would surround himself with people better than he, who could prop him up. He's not a politician. For many, that was a huge positive. As I've seen the first few months, I don't think it is positive. But there's a long time left in his first term, and my opinion could change there. Somebody should have assisted President Trump with the idea of what he needed to do, and where he needed to go with the North Korea angle, and they (apparently) did not. I don't know why, and I hope that kind of thing changes in the future.
Nothing that has occurred so far has been catastrophic to the U.S., either world-wide or domestically so far in President Trump's tenure. I do agree that so far his best attribute has been that he has convinced everyone he is neither Obama nor H. Clinton.
I just spent too long on WildcatChat making my case that President Calipari...err, Coach Calipari...was better than most thought as an in-game coach and strategist. Here, I'm going to allow others to convince me the same of Coach Trump...err, President Trump. I do think he has room to grow as a President, and frankly, the country needs him to succeed as President. I never get the desire I see from many--nobody here, but MANY--to see our President fail. This isn't a basketball game. We're all on the same team. If you don't like our Coach/President, wait until the time comes to hire the new one, and do your best to get the one you want. But in the meantime, let's win some ballgames.
I'm not convinced Trump missed the opportunity on NK at the G20 b/c I'm not sure that opportunity ever existed.
Maybe it did, and I'm certain the UK and some other nations would get on board, but Russia and china were never going to agree, so then you have the G20 split and only some members issuing a resolution, and they don't do that.
So the hope is that you'd get some kind of language soft enough Russia and China would go along with some pressure from the other members, but is that really that big a deal? It would be nice, but in the end China is going to ignore it and keep propping up the NK. Decades of international condemnation and even sanctions had done nothing but modestly slow their progress towards nuclear ICBMs at best, and done nothing at worst.
I get the idea that even such tepid announcements have some meaning in terms of optics, but in terms of actually doing anything about the NK it wouldn't do anything, and we've had decades of good optics and bad actions. Clinton claimed a win when Carter came back doing his best Lord Chamberlain impression with the NK agreeing to not do what they then went and did, and Obama was the same.
Trump won b/c he promised to focus on actual results, and while that raw approach of his has drawbacks, if he can actually get any on the NK he'll have done better than any US President since the cease fire.
I agree completely it would be nice to have some of both, but Tillerson is very smart, and there are others there who are, so it may just be that the G20 wasn't really just there waiting for the US to lead.
personally I'm betting we have very little pull with them overall. Germany esp. is still seething over the Paris thing and Trump's immigration views, Russia and China will lobby against any such condemnation, it could be they just couldn't get something like that done. We'll have the same problem in the UN.
IMO Trump needs to focus on turning the NK threat into an opportunity. China has been currying favor with Asian nations, trying to supplant US influence. I'd be busily pointing out their leashed pit bull approach to diplomacy, where they use violent threats by proxy to drive people to their protection. They are a far more domineering and belligerent ally than the US will be to them.
use this to get SK, Japan, the Phillipines, etc. stronger into the fold.
Specifically, Trump needs to build the Middle east NATO with the US as a permanent member, and build the Pacific Rim NATO again with the US as a permanent member, and with Iran and China not invited, respectively. Take advantage of the threat, and tie China to that threat (which they are), and use it to advance our influence.
If he does that and is successful, he could be the best foreign policy President of the post WWII age. It's a tall order, and I'm sure he'll busily tweet nonsense instead of doing it, but I have faint hope.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
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