4 ms·

This is where Trump’s “give no quarter” tactics has really yielded fruit. I wish we could find a more normal and balanced guy who was still willing to throw aro

by paggle 7y ago

This is where Trump’s “give no quarter” tactics has really yielded fruit. I wish we could find a more normal and balanced guy who was still willing to throw around the weight and leverage of the US.

m0zg 7y ago
More "normal" and "balanced" guy would be eaten alive by the establishment and mainstream press, and would achieve nothing at all.
- paggle 7y ago
  Not at all, Reagan was a guy who managed to proudly use the strength of the US without being a moral degenerate.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Reagan too was called a total clown during his first election campaign and in his first term (he's in a good company, so was Lincoln). He was a much better public speaker, I'll give you that, but Trump is almost certainly a better negotiator, just from experience alone. I took some classes on negotiation, and did a bit of that myself, and I routinely see people misinterpret bog standard negotiation plays he does as his "missteps". Literally any book or course on negotiation will walk you through all of the techniques I've seen so far. It's getting tiresome. That's _the standard way_ of doing this shit, literally everyone who has successfully run any kind of business will see these tactics for what they are immediately. As to "degenerate", that's the label you use when you've lost the rational argument. All I see is a talented businessman with a bit of Aspergers, strong Twitter game, and a profound lack of public speaking skills. None of that disqualifies him from the job he was elected to do. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-once-donald-trump.html?gtm=bottom http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-onc...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - paggle 7y ago
      No that’s not what I mean by degenerate. I mean someone who says Mexicans are sending their rapists, their daughter is a “piece of ass,” that they like soldiers who weren’t captured, that pays off porn stars to cover their affairs, that tells foreign leaders to investigate their political opponents, etc. There are plenty of people who can get tough on immigration, China, and NATO without being a degenerate... perhaps a four star general. Yes, one can make the argument that a degenerate can be an effective President, and there is precedent for this (e.g. LBJ, Clinton) but I think that welcoming degenerates to the office is a bad long term idea.
      - m0zg 7y ago
        Litmus test time: does this look like degenerate behavior to you? This is a presidential frontrunner and (at the time) an acting VP. He got his cokehead son $1.5B in Chinese money, too, for his "investment" firm, how that continues to escape the front page of WaPo and NYT is beyond me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY Or are your morals selective enough to remain blind to this? Because it seems that the mainstream press is trying their hardest to not cover the story, and if it wasn't for Trump's "whistleblowing" (which I believe he orchestrated himself), nobody would know.
        paggle 7y ago
        On the Washington-calibrated President degeneracy scale, bounded by George Washington at 0 and Donald Trump at 10, I’d give this a 5, Bill Clinton a 7, and Lyndon Johnson a 9.
peteretep 7y ago
About the only area I can agree with Trump is in holding China's feet to the flames, and this is a particularly good example. Next up I'd like to see the Great Firewall declared as a trade-barrier and Chinese technology companies frozen out until it comes down.

by paggle 7y ago

m0zg 7y ago

More "normal" and "balanced" guy would be eaten alive by the establishment and mainstream press, and would achieve nothing at all.

paggle 7y ago
Not at all, Reagan was a guy who managed to proudly use the strength of the US without being a moral degenerate.
- m0zg 7y ago
  Reagan too was called a total clown during his first election campaign and in his first term (he's in a good company, so was Lincoln). He was a much better public speaker, I'll give you that, but Trump is almost certainly a better negotiator, just from experience alone. I took some classes on negotiation, and did a bit of that myself, and I routinely see people misinterpret bog standard negotiation plays he does as his "missteps". Literally any book or course on negotiation will walk you through all of the techniques I've seen so far. It's getting tiresome. That's _the standard way_ of doing this shit, literally everyone who has successfully run any kind of business will see these tactics for what they are immediately. As to "degenerate", that's the label you use when you've lost the rational argument. All I see is a talented businessman with a bit of Aspergers, strong Twitter game, and a profound lack of public speaking skills. None of that disqualifies him from the job he was elected to do. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-once-donald-trump.html?gtm=bottom http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-onc...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - paggle 7y ago
    No that’s not what I mean by degenerate. I mean someone who says Mexicans are sending their rapists, their daughter is a “piece of ass,” that they like soldiers who weren’t captured, that pays off porn stars to cover their affairs, that tells foreign leaders to investigate their political opponents, etc. There are plenty of people who can get tough on immigration, China, and NATO without being a degenerate... perhaps a four star general. Yes, one can make the argument that a degenerate can be an effective President, and there is precedent for this (e.g. LBJ, Clinton) but I think that welcoming degenerates to the office is a bad long term idea.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      Litmus test time: does this look like degenerate behavior to you? This is a presidential frontrunner and (at the time) an acting VP. He got his cokehead son $1.5B in Chinese money, too, for his "investment" firm, how that continues to escape the front page of WaPo and NYT is beyond me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY Or are your morals selective enough to remain blind to this? Because it seems that the mainstream press is trying their hardest to not cover the story, and if it wasn't for Trump's "whistleblowing" (which I believe he orchestrated himself), nobody would know.
      - paggle 7y ago
        On the Washington-calibrated President degeneracy scale, bounded by George Washington at 0 and Donald Trump at 10, I’d give this a 5, Bill Clinton a 7, and Lyndon Johnson a 9.

peteretep 7y ago

About the only area I can agree with Trump is in holding China's feet to the flames, and this is a particularly good example. Next up I'd like to see the Great Firewall declared as a trade-barrier and Chinese technology companies frozen out until it comes down.