I read the news today (oh boy) - Current world events | Page 110 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Beatlebug said

The Hole Got Fixed said

While I can’t see him being reelected, the thought of him getting back in worries me. The damage

I’ve been living in the United States of America for the three years since Donald Trump was elected, and I don’t know, maybe I’m sheltered, but I really haven’t seen this damage that everyone predicted would fall out of the sky and have been crowing about ever since. Many make the argument that ‘OOOH HIS RHETORIC IS DIVISIVE!’ — which it is, I’m not gonna lie, but so is everyone else’s. One side is as bad as the other in that regard, but at least, at a concrete level, things have actually improved. People have jobs again. We make things, buy things, things that aren’t garbage from China. It’s better for everyone.

I’m not saying I agree with every single thing that President Trump has ever done, that would be ridiculous for any politician, but overall I approve of some of the major things, like NOT LETTING CHINA SCREW US OVER. I remember the economic stagnation of the Obama years, the general air of malaise. It wasn’t fun. Hillary would have just been more of the same. I’m so glad, in retrospect, that it didn’t happen that way.

But hey! I’m an American voter and you’re not so I’m quite happy to agree to disagree

  

An interesting take on things, and it’s good to hear someone who isn’t blindly allied with either side. I have a couple responses to your points, but I’ll get around to that another time.

Trump’s supposed rescue of the economy is a bit of a myth anyway. Firstly, it was Obama (for all his faults) who turned the economy around from the mess created by Bush, and Trump is continuing to reap the benefits of that steady growth that began in the early 2010s. If anything, Trump is going to do more damage to the economy through a combination of trickle down economics (been disproven plenty of times, they just enrich the rich whilst hammering the working and middle classes), reinvesting in dead industries like US-sourced coal (delaying their inevitable collapse and meaning that the jobs he’s created are only there until the coal runs out – there’s a reason they’ve been being abandoned for so long) and a refusal to invest in renewable energy, which the world is absolutely going to need. 

Basically, while Trump’s economic policies might provide a short term boost and result in the optimism @Beatlebug speaks of, overall they amount to little more than a bubble ready to burst (but probably not until he’s out of office anyway). 

Dark Overlord said

sir walter raleigh said

People like to point out idiots in america as if there aren’t idiots everywhere.

Not to mention, a lot of the idiots outside of the US can be even more stupid than they are here. A perfect example of this has to be the USSR but that’s a story for another thread.

Ron Nasty said

Let’s not forget there’s around another dozen investigations still going on into Trump, his business, family and associates…

I think it’s only fair that since Trump called off the investigation on Hillary, we do the same for him, especially considering some of those things are very petty like adultery and hiring illegal immigrants, the latter of which i don’t have a problem with.

  

That’s not really how criminal investigations work. You don’t stop investigating or prosecuting someone because they did you a favour. While I’m sure there are political motives behind these investigations to some degree, it’s not something you trade in like that. 

I think it’s important to make the distinction between your average idiot (like people who couldn’t point to the US on a map) and actually evil people like those in the USSR such as Stalin or Beria. Those people weren’t stupid, or they wouldn’t have been able to run that country with such an iron fist. What they were was evil and sociopathic, for all the horrendous crimes they committed. 

Dark Overlord said
But the Russians had a Revolution in order to get this oppressive communism.

  

There were two revolutions. The February Revolution , in which the Tsar abdicated, was a popular Revolution . Basically, the Tsar would typically suppress the huge strikes that would go on in the cities through the use of force, but this time the soldiers mutinied and joined the strikers. This is very different to what happened in the October Revolution , in which the Bolshevik Party took power at night and fairly secretly. USSR propaganda portrayed it as a people’s Revolution , but it wasn’t. 

Also, I don’t think you realise exactly how bad the situation in Russia was. The people there weren’t idiots for wanting to overthrow a corrupt, backward, oppressive regime. Look up Bloody Sunday in 1905, or “Stolypin’s Necktie”. Or the fact that the regime was so incompetent during the first world war that non-governmental bodies run entirely by volunteers did a better job than actual government departments, but were shut down and their leaders arrested because the Tsarina thought they were revolutionary. 

I think that’s absolutely terrifying too. I have little doubt that if he loses in 2018, Trump will refuse to accept it and probably put up some kind of struggle. 

https://www.newstatesman.com/w…..presidency