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You know, I haven't drank the "kek" koolaid and given Mr. Trump's historic cozy relations with the mob (Roy Cohn, Casinos), his strange manner of draining swamp

You know, I haven't drank the "kek" koolaid and given Mr. Trump's historic cozy relations with the mob (Roy Cohn, Casinos), his strange manner of draining swamps by filling it with the worst sort of toxic sludge from Wall Street, and his irrational and excessive love for Israel ("they will [never] pay for it"), am not willing to suspend disbelief regarding his being yet another distraction for the citizenry of this nation by the moneyed class, but you start off with: "In a best-case Trump scenario, he bumbles around for four years doing not much except embarrassing himself and the country." This guy does not have a history of bumbling around. He seems to be quite an effective man of action. I think you "embarrass" yourself by starting an analysis with that paragraph. Then a bit down below you say: "It can be fun to have secret, unchecked powers when your guy is in office, but is incredibly dangerous when the other guy does." It can be "fun" to have leadership with "unchecked power"? Man, get over your totalitarian urges before you decide to play cassandra for the rest of us who do not think it "fun" at all, under any circumstances, to have leaders with "secret unchecked powers" in our Republic. [fix minor typos]

okreallywtf 10y ago
Well hey, the right was terrified of Obama and he turned out to not be that bad so its basically the same thing right? The world is grey and fears about Trump are only as legitimate as fears about Obama and are all equally founded. /s
- wavefunction 10y ago
  That's a false equivalency to be sure. Right wingers were afraid of what they claimed President Obama would pursue in policy. Critics of President-Elect Trump are fearful of _his own stated policies._
  - okreallywtf 10y ago
    I was being sarcastic, not sure if /s was sufficient to flag it, I can't quite tell from your response. I agree and I've tried to explain that to my conservative friends and co-workers but it never quite makes it through. Because Sharia law and death-panels never came to be a lot of them feel fine in brushing off my concerns about Trump, despite the complete false equivalency between the two.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
acqq 10y ago
> This guy does not have a history of bumbling around. He seems to be quite an effective man of action. http://www.npr.org/2016/10/04/496596466/how-donald-trump-lost-916-million http://www.npr.org/2016/10/04/496596466/how-donald-trump-los... "How Donald Trump Lost $916 Million"
- adventured 10y ago
  You could write that story about a lot of billionaires that have been involved in numerous businesses. From T Boone Pickens to Jeff Bezos to Warren Buffett (he has lost very large sums of money on numerous occasions with poor investment decisions). Paul Allen lost $15-$20 billion across dozens of poor business decisions spanning decades. That doesn't mean he's an idiot or ineffectual. He also still has $20 billion. Trump lost $916 million? He has ~$4 billion. So that just makes him more effective than 99.999% of all business people on earth, right?
  - acqq 10y ago
    His success: getting banks to invest so much on him that they did all they can to keep him afloat. Borrowing so much to become "Too big to fail." Successfull as a con man can be. Giving the money of his father to an index fund would result in the same or more wealth today. But he got to be so "visible" this way... up to becoming a president for being a known TV face.
burkaman 10y ago
I don't think "effective man of action" is very accurate. His most effective skills are publicity and marketing, but now that he's reached the presidency I'm not sure how much more those skills can help him. He started with a lot of money and a family business and has done well, but the organization is not that big and not very remarkable if you ignore the marketing. I realize "he is the president" is a pretty good counterargument to "he's not an effective man of action", but hopefully you understand what I'm saying. I think his record is somewhere in between "bumbling around" and "man of action", probably a little closer to bumbling if you look at all his failures.
- eternalban 10y ago
  Yes, he susbtantially built up his daddy's money and business, and upscaled it by taking it across East River to Manhattan. I would also think it fair to add "opportunist" to the list of his effective skills. I also think it fair to point out that plenty of rich kids end up skating through life, doing zip, and ultimately blowing the family fortune. As to what constitutes effective "action" for a developer, sure he didn't lay bricks, but he made the deals, got the (opportunistic) tax breaks, and managed to fix up properties that were sitting stagnant. The Commodore Hotel, for example. And this same media that is ragging on him used to nauseate people like me who don't worship the shiny metal with its pimping of Mr. Trump. And failures in business are par per course. If failure in a business venture makes a person a bumbler, then what to make of our current business hero's statement that "failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough"? (That was Elon Musk, btw.)
  - burkaman 10y ago
    Well, I don't think Elon Musk would be a good president either. But I didn't mean to say failing makes him a bumbler, I meant his specific failures do. The details of his failures, not just their existence.
- fnovd 10y ago
  >His most effective skills are publicity and marketing, but now that he's reached the presidency I'm not sure how much more those skills can help him. Did you see his tweet against the GOP's gutting of the Ethics Office? He still has the ear of millions of Americans and will continue to have that ear for the next 4 years. To think that he isn't going to be able to use that to his advantage is naïve. This is someone who has literally been shaping US foreign policy over Twitter. The "he's at his peak and can't do much more from here" line of thought has been brought up since the Republican primaries and it is as wrong now as it was then.
knz 10y ago
> This guy does not have a history of bumbling around. He seems to be quite an effective man of action. I took the "best case" to mean that Trump is so caught up in his daily Twitter fueds (Arnold Schwarzenegger today) to push any significant legislative changes or start a war. Clearly Trump has had some degree of success in the business and marketing world. Personally I think Trump knows exactly what he is doing when he makes outrageous public statements or goes after someone (distracting from issues like Russia, his conflicts of interest, the repeal of the ACA etc), but it's not a great leap to see how that behavior could cause issues in the world of international diplomacy. He has already made comments about nuclear proliferation, nuclear arms races, the one China policy, and the role of Russia in our recent election cycle. The linked article alludes to how quickly normality can spiral out of control especially if everyone assumes "it can't happen".

okreallywtf 10y ago

Well hey, the right was terrified of Obama and he turned out to not be that bad so its basically the same thing right? The world is grey and fears about Trump are only as legitimate as fears about Obama and are all equally founded. /s

wavefunction 10y ago
That's a false equivalency to be sure. Right wingers were afraid of what they claimed President Obama would pursue in policy. Critics of President-Elect Trump are fearful of _his own stated policies._
- okreallywtf 10y ago
  I was being sarcastic, not sure if /s was sufficient to flag it, I can't quite tell from your response. I agree and I've tried to explain that to my conservative friends and co-workers but it never quite makes it through. Because Sharia law and death-panels never came to be a lot of them feel fine in brushing off my concerns about Trump, despite the complete false equivalency between the two.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

acqq 10y ago

> This guy does not have a history of bumbling around. He seems to be quite an effective man of action. http://www.npr.org/2016/10/04/496596466/how-donald-trump-lost-916-million http://www.npr.org/2016/10/04/496596466/how-donald-trump-los... "How Donald Trump Lost $916 Million"

adventured 10y ago
You could write that story about a lot of billionaires that have been involved in numerous businesses. From T Boone Pickens to Jeff Bezos to Warren Buffett (he has lost very large sums of money on numerous occasions with poor investment decisions). Paul Allen lost $15-$20 billion across dozens of poor business decisions spanning decades. That doesn't mean he's an idiot or ineffectual. He also still has $20 billion. Trump lost $916 million? He has ~$4 billion. So that just makes him more effective than 99.999% of all business people on earth, right?
- acqq 10y ago
  His success: getting banks to invest so much on him that they did all they can to keep him afloat. Borrowing so much to become "Too big to fail." Successfull as a con man can be. Giving the money of his father to an index fund would result in the same or more wealth today. But he got to be so "visible" this way... up to becoming a president for being a known TV face.

burkaman 10y ago

I don't think "effective man of action" is very accurate. His most effective skills are publicity and marketing, but now that he's reached the presidency I'm not sure how much more those skills can help him. He started with a lot of money and a family business and has done well, but the organization is not that big and not very remarkable if you ignore the marketing. I realize "he is the president" is a pretty good counterargument to "he's not an effective man of action", but hopefully you understand what I'm saying. I think his record is somewhere in between "bumbling around" and "man of action", probably a little closer to bumbling if you look at all his failures.

eternalban 10y ago
Yes, he susbtantially built up his daddy's money and business, and upscaled it by taking it across East River to Manhattan. I would also think it fair to add "opportunist" to the list of his effective skills. I also think it fair to point out that plenty of rich kids end up skating through life, doing zip, and ultimately blowing the family fortune. As to what constitutes effective "action" for a developer, sure he didn't lay bricks, but he made the deals, got the (opportunistic) tax breaks, and managed to fix up properties that were sitting stagnant. The Commodore Hotel, for example. And this same media that is ragging on him used to nauseate people like me who don't worship the shiny metal with its pimping of Mr. Trump. And failures in business are par per course. If failure in a business venture makes a person a bumbler, then what to make of our current business hero's statement that "failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough"? (That was Elon Musk, btw.)
- burkaman 10y ago
  Well, I don't think Elon Musk would be a good president either. But I didn't mean to say failing makes him a bumbler, I meant his specific failures do. The details of his failures, not just their existence.
fnovd 10y ago
>His most effective skills are publicity and marketing, but now that he's reached the presidency I'm not sure how much more those skills can help him. Did you see his tweet against the GOP's gutting of the Ethics Office? He still has the ear of millions of Americans and will continue to have that ear for the next 4 years. To think that he isn't going to be able to use that to his advantage is naïve. This is someone who has literally been shaping US foreign policy over Twitter. The "he's at his peak and can't do much more from here" line of thought has been brought up since the Republican primaries and it is as wrong now as it was then.

knz 10y ago

> This guy does not have a history of bumbling around. He seems to be quite an effective man of action. I took the "best case" to mean that Trump is so caught up in his daily Twitter fueds (Arnold Schwarzenegger today) to push any significant legislative changes or start a war. Clearly Trump has had some degree of success in the business and marketing world. Personally I think Trump knows exactly what he is doing when he makes outrageous public statements or goes after someone (distracting from issues like Russia, his conflicts of interest, the repeal of the ACA etc), but it's not a great leap to see how that behavior could cause issues in the world of international diplomacy. He has already made comments about nuclear proliferation, nuclear arms races, the one China policy, and the role of Russia in our recent election cycle. The linked article alludes to how quickly normality can spiral out of control especially if everyone assumes "it can't happen".