4 ms·

Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. He is unique in that he seems to have absolute control over the Republican base which makes all

by khriss 5mo ago

Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. He is unique in that he seems to have absolute control over the Republican base which makes all internal party checks fail. The rest is provided by a hyper polarized media landscape and a conservative supreme court majority that seems to be open to radical upheavals. The combination of all three has rendered the constitutional safe guards ineffective. In other words, we seem to have run into an edge case in the US constitution. The supreme court won't change materially in the near future and likely the polarization will continue, but it's hard to image someone in the future with such an absolute grip on either party. So, hopefully a soft restart of the system in 2028 will be the last of this edge case for a while. That's the hope, anyway! The two countries have far more in common shared interests than differences, so odds are things will drift back to normal in the future.

dleslie 5mo ago
Trump did not rise to power in isolation. He has not remained in isolation while in power. Voter support for Trump is still reasonably strong, and Trump and his supporters have ensured that the mechanisms of Government are packed with loyalists. America chose this. America continues to tolerate this. America enabled this. This isn't something that Trump can be scapegoated for. This is what many Americans wanted, or at the very least, it is what many Americans are willing to tolerate.
- OrvalWintermute 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jleyank 5mo ago
    Erm, Apple gear, cheap stuff, and much of the generic drug market comes from those ChiComs. Or is it ok if the US does it?
  - YawningAngel 5mo ago
    As someone unfamiliar with the US-Canada trade relationship, it would be helpful if you developed this argument instead of stating it as a fact. I'm not well-placed to know whether your belief that Canada has bilked the US out of 46 billion dollars is well-founded or not.
    - dleslie 5mo ago
      It represents the trade deficit the USA has with Canada. To believe that this is a problem as a result of Canada's nefarious actions is to believe that Canada is preventing its citizens from purchasing American product. Which is a common refrain with respect to our supply management system for dairy; but to believe this you have to ignore that the USA has _never once_ managed to export enough dairy products to Canada to meet or exceed the import quotas set by the supply management regime. The truth is that Canadians simply don't seem all that interested in purchasing American dairy products.
      - SECProto 5mo ago
        > The truth is that Canadians simply don't seem all that interested in purchasing American dairy products Yup, taking this a bit off topic: I've always bought dairy products with the blue cow on it (signifies Canadian dairy). The US dairy industry only wants to export into Canada when they have excess, and leave us dry when they don't, so i strongly support Canadian dairy production.
    - fooster 5mo ago
      He’s not telling the truth. https://economics.td.com/ca-canada-us-trade-balance https://economics.td.com/ca-canada-us-trade-balance
  - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
    > We also take issue with them cozying up to the ChiComms. does everything possible to spite the Canadian economy. then has the gall to be surprised that Canada would cozy up to people who don't shit on them who would have guessed?
  - dleslie 5mo ago
    The trade deficit with Canada is because Americans are buying Canadian products. Enough Canadians (seriously, the vast majority) live close enough to the border that they could make a weekly trip to the USA and purchase American dairy and other American goods. In fact, prior to the tariffs many Canadians did make regular shopping trips across the border. So let's be clear: we were buying your products to the extent we wanted to, already.
    - 8note 5mo ago
      no the trade deficit is the US buying canadian oil at a deep discount. canada buys US products and services to a large trade deficit where canadians get stuff in exchange for dollars. its just oil that the americans are really buying from canada
      - dleslie 5mo ago
        True enough; but they want to make it about Canadian Dairy, Softwood Lumber, Steel, Aluminum and so on.
  - 8note 5mo ago
    meanwhile, the US is trying to get a much closer relationship with china than canada, and does a hell of a lot more trade with china than canada does. its literally just oil that makes up that trade surplus. if you want the taps turned off, that can be arranged
throwaway27448 5mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago
Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Trump - not a one time phenomenon, more of a natural progression.
red-iron-pine 5mo ago
> Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. unless the US extinguishes all of its billionaires and somehow convinces 1/3 to 1/2 of their population to not vote against their own interests it'll happen again
JuniperMesos 5mo ago
> He is unique in that he seems to have absolute control over the Republican base which makes all internal party checks fail. The rest is provided by a hyper polarized media landscape and a conservative supreme court majority that seems to be open to radical upheavals. The combination of all three has rendered the constitutional safe guards ineffective. In other words, we seem to have run into an edge case in the US constitution. The US constitution has absolutely nothing at all to say about political parties or the particular state of the media landscape, or for that matter the partisan alignment of justices of the supreme court. It's incoherent to suggest that there are "constitutional safe guards" that should have prevented the election of a president (or the exercise of power by that president), who is supported by about one-half of a very polarized electorate and opposed by a separate one-half. Everything about the Trump presidency is as constitutional as every previous US presidency, including the phenomenon of opponents of the president trying to claim that specific things they do are or should be unconstitutional.
Planktonne 5mo ago
> Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. Trump is already, on his own, a two-time phenomenon. Leaving aside broader cultural issues and patterns, "one-time only" has been clearly incorrect for a while.
crote 5mo ago
The problem is that it isn't just an "edge case" in the constitution - the whole thing is fundamentally flawed from the very beginning. The US isn't going to be trustworthy until it manages to reshape itself into a proper democracy with functional checks and balances. Considering the right-wing politicians are trying to turn the country into a theocratic nationalistic dictatorship and the "left-wing" politicians are content with getting votes by nothing more than not being right-wing and collecting corporate bribes: good luck with that.

by khriss 5mo ago

dleslie 5mo ago

Trump did not rise to power in isolation. He has not remained in isolation while in power. Voter support for Trump is still reasonably strong, and Trump and his supporters have ensured that the mechanisms of Government are packed with loyalists. America chose this. America continues to tolerate this. America enabled this. This isn't something that Trump can be scapegoated for. This is what many Americans wanted, or at the very least, it is what many Americans are willing to tolerate.

OrvalWintermute 5mo ago
[flagged]
- jleyank 5mo ago
  Erm, Apple gear, cheap stuff, and much of the generic drug market comes from those ChiComs. Or is it ok if the US does it?
- YawningAngel 5mo ago
  As someone unfamiliar with the US-Canada trade relationship, it would be helpful if you developed this argument instead of stating it as a fact. I'm not well-placed to know whether your belief that Canada has bilked the US out of 46 billion dollars is well-founded or not.
  - dleslie 5mo ago
    It represents the trade deficit the USA has with Canada. To believe that this is a problem as a result of Canada's nefarious actions is to believe that Canada is preventing its citizens from purchasing American product. Which is a common refrain with respect to our supply management system for dairy; but to believe this you have to ignore that the USA has _never once_ managed to export enough dairy products to Canada to meet or exceed the import quotas set by the supply management regime. The truth is that Canadians simply don't seem all that interested in purchasing American dairy products.
    - SECProto 5mo ago
      > The truth is that Canadians simply don't seem all that interested in purchasing American dairy products Yup, taking this a bit off topic: I've always bought dairy products with the blue cow on it (signifies Canadian dairy). The US dairy industry only wants to export into Canada when they have excess, and leave us dry when they don't, so i strongly support Canadian dairy production.
  - fooster 5mo ago
    He’s not telling the truth. https://economics.td.com/ca-canada-us-trade-balance https://economics.td.com/ca-canada-us-trade-balance
- red-iron-pine 5mo ago
  > We also take issue with them cozying up to the ChiComms. does everything possible to spite the Canadian economy. then has the gall to be surprised that Canada would cozy up to people who don't shit on them who would have guessed?
- dleslie 5mo ago
  The trade deficit with Canada is because Americans are buying Canadian products. Enough Canadians (seriously, the vast majority) live close enough to the border that they could make a weekly trip to the USA and purchase American dairy and other American goods. In fact, prior to the tariffs many Canadians did make regular shopping trips across the border. So let's be clear: we were buying your products to the extent we wanted to, already.
  - 8note 5mo ago
    no the trade deficit is the US buying canadian oil at a deep discount. canada buys US products and services to a large trade deficit where canadians get stuff in exchange for dollars. its just oil that the americans are really buying from canada
    - dleslie 5mo ago
      True enough; but they want to make it about Canadian Dairy, Softwood Lumber, Steel, Aluminum and so on.
- 8note 5mo ago
  meanwhile, the US is trying to get a much closer relationship with china than canada, and does a hell of a lot more trade with china than canada does. its literally just oil that makes up that trade surplus. if you want the taps turned off, that can be arranged

throwaway27448 5mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

pepperoni_pizza 5mo ago

Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Trump - not a one time phenomenon, more of a natural progression.

red-iron-pine 5mo ago

> Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. unless the US extinguishes all of its billionaires and somehow convinces 1/3 to 1/2 of their population to not vote against their own interests it'll happen again

JuniperMesos 5mo ago

> He is unique in that he seems to have absolute control over the Republican base which makes all internal party checks fail. The rest is provided by a hyper polarized media landscape and a conservative supreme court majority that seems to be open to radical upheavals. The combination of all three has rendered the constitutional safe guards ineffective. In other words, we seem to have run into an edge case in the US constitution. The US constitution has absolutely nothing at all to say about political parties or the particular state of the media landscape, or for that matter the partisan alignment of justices of the supreme court. It's incoherent to suggest that there are "constitutional safe guards" that should have prevented the election of a president (or the exercise of power by that president), who is supported by about one-half of a very polarized electorate and opposed by a separate one-half. Everything about the Trump presidency is as constitutional as every previous US presidency, including the phenomenon of opponents of the president trying to claim that specific things they do are or should be unconstitutional.

Planktonne 5mo ago

> Because Trump is a new, and (hopefully!) a one time phenomenon. Trump is already, on his own, a two-time phenomenon. Leaving aside broader cultural issues and patterns, "one-time only" has been clearly incorrect for a while.

crote 5mo ago

The problem is that it isn't just an "edge case" in the constitution - the whole thing is fundamentally flawed from the very beginning. The US isn't going to be trustworthy until it manages to reshape itself into a proper democracy with functional checks and balances. Considering the right-wing politicians are trying to turn the country into a theocratic nationalistic dictatorship and the "left-wing" politicians are content with getting votes by nothing more than not being right-wing and collecting corporate bribes: good luck with that.