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For all of the hate that Trump gets (I personally think most of it is earned), he has touched on some really important issues that have been ignored for a long
by nscalf 10y ago
For all of the hate that Trump gets (I personally think most of it is earned), he has touched on some really important issues that have been ignored for a long time. Infrastructure is one of those.
- M_Grey 10y agoThen problem is not that he's 100% wrong, the problem is that when he's right it seems to be of the "Broken Clock" variety. When there is little rhyme or reason to the views he takes, he's bound to end up in a few positive places (such as today, condemning anti-Semitism). The problem with Trump is that they're only positive in these highly isolated, episodic ways.
- artursapek 10y agoThat sounds like a lazy way to dismiss a guy who maybe deserves more credit than he gets.
- macintux 10y agoIt's painful to extend credit to a man with no moral compass, no demonstrated capacity for learning, no comprehension of the damage he does, no understanding of history, no concept of loyalty to anything outside of himself.
- MegaButts 10y agoWhat does Trump deserve credit for?
- ythn 10y agoAre you going to try and find "the problem" with anything he deserves credit for?
- M_Grey 10y agoLet me get this straight... you want the person to whom you're replying, to guess at what achievements someone else might claim for Trump, and then guess at any problems there might be with them?
- ythn 10y agoNo, I was accusing OP of setting a trap wherein no matter what someone puts, they will attempt to discredit it.
- M_Grey 10y agoCan you at least see how that kind of thing isn't conducive to a useful discussion, but is really just a way to stop someone from saying things you don't want to hear?
- MegaButts 10y agoIt seems to me "the problem" is being criticized for asking a question. How can I expect to understand someone with differing views if I am unable to ask questions?
- ythn 10y agoI was just pointing out that your "question" was likely just a trap. If I say "Trump gets X right" you'll reply "The problem with this is..." and proceed to show why Trump doesn't actually get X right. It doesn't really matter what X is, you'll find some way to discredit it. It's not just you, either, republicans did the same thing to Obama finding problems with everything he did.
- MegaButts 10y agoI'm aware what you were doing, but you still seem unaware of what I was doing: asking a question. You're disparaging me for my curiosity. You seem to know everything already, but I'm not that sure of myself, so I ask questions to try to learn more.
- M_Grey 10y agoWhat do you believe he deserves credit for, that he doesn't get? Please be extensive, and specific.
- mikeash 10y agoTrump is the only person I've ever seen make three contradictions in a single sentence. The only thing consistent about the man is his inconsistency (and his love of Russia, apparently). He's the political version of how you can prove anything if you assume a logical contradiction. Of course he's touched on important issues. He has touched on all sides of virtually all issues. He wants to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, increase military spending, leave Social Security and Medicare intact, cut taxes, and balance the budget. This sort of obvious insanity does not deserve praise.
- artursapek 10y agoI agree that a lot of what he says and does makes no sense. I was just showing disdain for the "broken clock" insult which is so easy to throw around.
- mikeash 10y agoI don't get it. Sure it's an easy thing to throw around, but any brief criticism is. Shouldn't your assessment be based on whether it's based on something of substance, not whether it's easy?
- artursapek 10y agoIt's basically saying "I often disagree with this person, so when I agree with them I refuse to admit that they have some virtue and deserve credit for it - they are still broken and bound to be correct sometimes out of pure chance." You don't see how that's kind of pathetic?
- mikeash 10y agoNo, because that's not how I interpret it at all. I already explained how I interpret it: since he takes virtually every position possible, even contradictory ones, without any apparent thought or reasoning, any positions which are good are that way purely by coincidence, and therefore aren't worth anything. The proverbial broken clock isn't useless because you disagree with broken clocks and refuse to acknowledge when they're correct. They're useless because they have no actual connection to the information they purport to convey, so even when that information is correct, it's still useless. If I make a random number generator that prints out values between 15,000 and 25,000, I will sometimes correctly predict the closing value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the day. That fact is not worth a damn, though.
- ythn 10y ago> the problem Instead of enumerating all of "the problems" sometimes it can be healthy in a discussion to acknowledge that someone got something right with no strings attached. By always villainizing people you disagree with, you contribute to the partisan polarization issue we currently have
- M_Grey 10y agoI'm really tired of people trotting out this old, "Be positive, you're part of the problem!" crap. Be realistic about the society you live in, which is a fairly malignant plutocracy, and stop selling the notion that the only thing separating us is the separation between us. The problems we have are longstanding and systemic, not some recent attitude shift or problem getting along.
- mikeash 10y agoI'm happy to acknowledge the good things Trump does, in the unlikely event that such a thing ever occurs. I can't acknowledge that he got this right, when he has no real concept of what it would look like, no plan to get it done, no idea of how to pay for it, and there's pretty much no chance it'll actually happen.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 10y agoPretty much every President and Presidential candidate has talked about infrastructure for decades. Talking about the broad concept isn't new or useful, actually having a useful substantive policy proposal is what is needed (and not just in one office, since it takes a number of different institutions to get the kind of things done US infrastructure needs.) The problem isn't an absence of talking about infrastructure, it's bad plans, good plans that don't get passed in Congress or that get underfunded, and members of Congress not being interested in infrastructure outside their own district except to the extent that that it provides an excuse for pork-barrel spending in their district.
- stuckagain 10y agoYes Trumps loves some infrastructure. He loves it so much that the first act of his Dept of Transportation was cancelling a long-planned $700m project to electrify Caltrain. Sad! http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/02/17/feds-delay-caltrain-electrification-funding.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/02/17/feds-dela...