7 ms·

I suspect we actually know very little about Trump's intentions. I believe that, like Clinton, he was willing to say just about anything to get into office, re

I suspect we actually know very little about Trump's intentions. I believe that, like Clinton, he was willing to say just about anything to get into office, regardless of what he truly intends.

jrockway 10y ago
What were Clinton's outrageous promises? If anything, I think what killed her is that she is a very unexciting stay-the-course President. No major changes, just incremental improvements. Very likely what is actually happen in any Presidency. What's sad is that the American people punished her for actually being realistic about what a President can actually do. There's not going to be a new border wall and there's not going to be any more jobs for the middle class. Clinton knows that, Trump doesn't.
- nilkn 10y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if there will in fact be a new border wall. If there's anything I've learned from this election cycle, it's that many of us have repeatedly and consistently grossly underestimated what's possible in politics. Presidents generally do try to fulfill their campaign promises, and building the wall is the biggest, most concrete, and earliest campaign promise he made. Realistically, it's also one of the most straightforward of all his promises to achieve, and at $25-30B it's not very expensive in the grand scheme of a presidency. Its overall effect will be minimal, meaning that it won't wreak havoc, it won't do much good either (in fact it might ironically backfire by keeping people in instead of out), but it will satisfy his supporters.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    As job creation schemes go I'd much rather people build stupid walls than build bombs and weapons. I'd be interested to know the CO2 estimates for a 5,000 mile wall.
    - CamperBob2 10y ago
      Interesting question. Some say the carbon footprint of concrete production is pretty horrific, but I don't know much about the specifics.
- pstuart 10y ago
  I think she should have pandered more on jobs. I'd take her exaggerations over Trump's made up stuff.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Her losing the Rust Belt to Trump will probably be seen as one of the biggest election campaign blunders. I don't see making the case for her "experience" and "qualification" anymore. With all the resources, media, donations, etc she should have had this election in the pocket.
    - sprafa 10y ago
      True. Whatever happened there was a major fuck up. And Bill Clinton was right all along - the campaign had no message whatsoever.
      - pstuart 10y ago
        > the campaign had no message whatsoever. The irony of this failure is that heeding to the message "It's the economy, stupid!" was what put Bill in the White House to begin with.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > I think what killed her is that she is a very unexciting stay-the-course President. No major changes, Also lies and corruption, that's what killed her. But you're right that it would have still been "no major changes" from what she was before. She had major investors behind her, all that money from speeches, all the media, Obama, the DOJ, people at CNN passing her debate questions before hand. And she still lost. To a TV show star. I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She lost to Trump. That is a fact now. The argument of her competence, integrity, intelligence is very hard to make at this point.
  - foota 10y ago
    The money she's made from speeches is relatively trivial.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      Alright, let's take that off the table. How do you explain other stuff. How did she manage to lose this election?
      - foota 10y ago
        I don't really think I'm qualified to say, but that's never stopped anyone ;) I don't think she could pivot too far to the right, and so had difficulty attracting any conservative vote. I'm not sure why she couldn't get out the democratic vote more. Maybe she just wasn't charismatic enough. There's also sexism.
  - foota 10y ago
    Also remember all the free press Trump has gotten?
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She was a lawyer, first lady for 8 years, a senator, and secretary of state. She's incredibly experienced and qualified. Trump is nothing but lies and corruption. It's hypocritical to whine about Hillary and ignore trump.
mrfusion 10y ago
He's also a negotiator and he likes to seek out extreme positions as a starting point.
robotresearcher 10y ago
I honestly don't believe he has many intentions and is not motivated by a vision for the country or the world. He's a super-aggressive competitor and I think that's his sole motivation. President Obama ridiculed him to his face at the Correspondent's Dinner a few years back. The campaign is a Fuck You to Obama and the rest of the establishment that laughed at him as a lightweight. He worked very hard and won and now he'll be improvising. He'll have to pay back some people that supported his campaign, many of whom have specific political goals. He'll allow them to work towards those. But apart from a big tax cut for the very rich (strangely) I'm almost certain see that he doesn't care much at all about the rest of his platform. Certainly not the Christian-right stuff. Maybe he has a real conviction about trade deals. It'll be interesting to see if he moves the needle on any meaningful trade metrics. That's just my personal impression from listening to him talk.
- jrockway 10y ago
  Indeed. We rail on Facebook for making a pro-Trump echo chamber, but the powerful elite and well-educated also live in an echo chamber. In our echo chamber, everyone is equal, and we want to work together, and we incorrectly assumed that that's what voters think. Nope. That KKK endorsement probably helped more than it hurt. It was a wake up call from believing that humanity is mostly decent. It's not.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    Over the past few days I've been hearing much about the liberal elite, but I think most are disregarding that at least half of the wealthiest Americans are conservative. Many of these conservatives don't believe in what you stated. That said, Trump's candidacy was not enthusiastically received by most of the wealthy conservatives. Carl Icahn and Peter Thiel are the only billionaires that I can think of that supported Trump. Charles & David Koch didn't endorse or fund his campaign or use their political entities to support him. So your point remains and is good. I wanted to remind the HN audience that the elite is comprised of conservatives too, and they disagree with the liberal elite about much.
esturk 10y ago
Did Clinton really incite racial divide? Throwing Muslims and Latinos under the bus? While I give credit that Trump may indeed be well intentioned but the main difference between him and Clinton is that Trump does not understand his words have consequences. Clinton knew to attack Trump the persona and not attack an ethnic group.

I suspect we actually know very little about Trump's intentions. I believe that, like Clinton, he was willing to say just about anything to get into office, regardless of what he truly intends.

jrockway 10y ago

What were Clinton's outrageous promises? If anything, I think what killed her is that she is a very unexciting stay-the-course President. No major changes, just incremental improvements. Very likely what is actually happen in any Presidency. What's sad is that the American people punished her for actually being realistic about what a President can actually do. There's not going to be a new border wall and there's not going to be any more jobs for the middle class. Clinton knows that, Trump doesn't.

nilkn 10y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if there will in fact be a new border wall. If there's anything I've learned from this election cycle, it's that many of us have repeatedly and consistently grossly underestimated what's possible in politics. Presidents generally do try to fulfill their campaign promises, and building the wall is the biggest, most concrete, and earliest campaign promise he made. Realistically, it's also one of the most straightforward of all his promises to achieve, and at $25-30B it's not very expensive in the grand scheme of a presidency. Its overall effect will be minimal, meaning that it won't wreak havoc, it won't do much good either (in fact it might ironically backfire by keeping people in instead of out), but it will satisfy his supporters.
- DanBC 10y ago
  As job creation schemes go I'd much rather people build stupid walls than build bombs and weapons. I'd be interested to know the CO2 estimates for a 5,000 mile wall.
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    Interesting question. Some say the carbon footprint of concrete production is pretty horrific, but I don't know much about the specifics.
pstuart 10y ago
I think she should have pandered more on jobs. I'd take her exaggerations over Trump's made up stuff.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Her losing the Rust Belt to Trump will probably be seen as one of the biggest election campaign blunders. I don't see making the case for her "experience" and "qualification" anymore. With all the resources, media, donations, etc she should have had this election in the pocket.
  - sprafa 10y ago
    True. Whatever happened there was a major fuck up. And Bill Clinton was right all along - the campaign had no message whatsoever.
    - pstuart 10y ago
      > the campaign had no message whatsoever. The irony of this failure is that heeding to the message "It's the economy, stupid!" was what put Bill in the White House to begin with.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
rdtsc 10y ago
> I think what killed her is that she is a very unexciting stay-the-course President. No major changes, Also lies and corruption, that's what killed her. But you're right that it would have still been "no major changes" from what she was before. She had major investors behind her, all that money from speeches, all the media, Obama, the DOJ, people at CNN passing her debate questions before hand. And she still lost. To a TV show star. I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She lost to Trump. That is a fact now. The argument of her competence, integrity, intelligence is very hard to make at this point.
- foota 10y ago
  The money she's made from speeches is relatively trivial.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Alright, let's take that off the table. How do you explain other stuff. How did she manage to lose this election?
    - foota 10y ago
      I don't really think I'm qualified to say, but that's never stopped anyone ;) I don't think she could pivot too far to the right, and so had difficulty attracting any conservative vote. I'm not sure why she couldn't get out the democratic vote more. Maybe she just wasn't charismatic enough. There's also sexism.
- foota 10y ago
  Also remember all the free press Trump has gotten?
- serge2k 10y ago
  > I don't buy the idea that was "experienced", "the most qualified", "a good manager". She was a lawyer, first lady for 8 years, a senator, and secretary of state. She's incredibly experienced and qualified. Trump is nothing but lies and corruption. It's hypocritical to whine about Hillary and ignore trump.

mrfusion 10y ago

He's also a negotiator and he likes to seek out extreme positions as a starting point.

robotresearcher 10y ago

I honestly don't believe he has many intentions and is not motivated by a vision for the country or the world. He's a super-aggressive competitor and I think that's his sole motivation. President Obama ridiculed him to his face at the Correspondent's Dinner a few years back. The campaign is a Fuck You to Obama and the rest of the establishment that laughed at him as a lightweight. He worked very hard and won and now he'll be improvising. He'll have to pay back some people that supported his campaign, many of whom have specific political goals. He'll allow them to work towards those. But apart from a big tax cut for the very rich (strangely) I'm almost certain see that he doesn't care much at all about the rest of his platform. Certainly not the Christian-right stuff. Maybe he has a real conviction about trade deals. It'll be interesting to see if he moves the needle on any meaningful trade metrics. That's just my personal impression from listening to him talk.

jrockway 10y ago
Indeed. We rail on Facebook for making a pro-Trump echo chamber, but the powerful elite and well-educated also live in an echo chamber. In our echo chamber, everyone is equal, and we want to work together, and we incorrectly assumed that that's what voters think. Nope. That KKK endorsement probably helped more than it hurt. It was a wake up call from believing that humanity is mostly decent. It's not.
- linkregister 10y ago
  Over the past few days I've been hearing much about the liberal elite, but I think most are disregarding that at least half of the wealthiest Americans are conservative. Many of these conservatives don't believe in what you stated. That said, Trump's candidacy was not enthusiastically received by most of the wealthy conservatives. Carl Icahn and Peter Thiel are the only billionaires that I can think of that supported Trump. Charles & David Koch didn't endorse or fund his campaign or use their political entities to support him. So your point remains and is good. I wanted to remind the HN audience that the elite is comprised of conservatives too, and they disagree with the liberal elite about much.

esturk 10y ago

Did Clinton really incite racial divide? Throwing Muslims and Latinos under the bus? While I give credit that Trump may indeed be well intentioned but the main difference between him and Clinton is that Trump does not understand his words have consequences. Clinton knew to attack Trump the persona and not attack an ethnic group.