The US Presidency 2019

[Brad Sallows]

>This is beginning to devolve into a tantrum.

Of course it is.  Few heed the wisdom of "avoid the unnecessary battle" or "never wrestle with a pig".  Confronted by one of Trump's irregular, insulting, or ridiculous demands, proposals, or claims, a prudent response is a diplomatically-phrased rejection followed by studied inattention while Trump wanders onto his next fixation.  Instead, we see...a host of irregular, insulting, or ridiculous responses.

Then the press winds itself up with long-winded denunciations of the irregular, insulting, or ridiculous item, when they could instead be writing about substantive matters concerning the administration and Congress.

Waste of fucking time, and it's all the "experts" and "elites" who are playing the game.

 

[Kirkhill]

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The United States in 1946 proposed to pay Denmark $100 million to buy Greenland after flirting with the idea of swapping oil-rich land in Alaska for strategic parts of the bleak Arctic island, documents in the National Archives show.

The $100 million was to be in gold. And even though the sale did not go through, the United States ended up with the military bases it wanted anyway.

Discovery of the documents, which have been declassified since the early 1970s, was first reported Sunday by the Copenhagen newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

W. DALE NELSON
May 2, 1991
https://apnews.com/9d4a8021c3650800fdf6dd5903f68972

Greenland for dollars
Bases for ships
Autopact for nukes

It is a transactional world.

 

[FJAG]

...
Waste of ******* time, and it's all the "experts" and "elites" who are playing the game.

That would be the "experts" and "elites" and "some very fine people" from both sides.

;D

 

[Infanteer]

>This is beginning to devolve into a tantrum.

Of course it is.  Few heed the wisdom of "avoid the unnecessary battle" or "never wrestle with a pig".  Confronted by one of Trump's irregular, insulting, or ridiculous demands, proposals, or claims, a prudent response is a diplomatically-phrased rejection followed by studied inattention while Trump wanders onto his next fixation.  Instead, we see...a host of irregular, insulting, or ridiculous responses.

Then the press winds itself up with long-winded denunciations of the irregular, insulting, or ridiculous item, when they could instead be writing about substantive matters concerning the administration and Congress.

Waste of ******* time, and it's all the "experts" and "elites" who are playing the game.

You're 100% right.  When kids have tantrums, the right move is to ignore it to prove that tantrums don't work.  Not escalate.

Too bad CNN has dedicated 99% of its bandwidth to having a tantrum back...it just feeds the flames that the President loves to stoke.  What would he do if nobody responded to his antics?

 

[Jarnhamar]

You're 100% right.  When kids have tantrums, the right move is to ignore it to prove that tantrums don't work.  Not escalate.

Too bad CNN has dedicated 99% of its bandwidth to having a tantrum back...it just feeds the flames that the President loves to stoke.  What would he do if nobody responded to his antics?

That's such a brilliant observation. They feed off each other so bad.

 

[Remius]

That's such a brilliant observation. They feed off each other so bad.

It borders on obsession. 

 

[FJAG]

Stephen Colbert's numbers have gone up dramatically ever since Trump announced his candidacy and his presidency.

One should never lose sight of the fact that these outfits are entertainment mediums first and advertising dollars matter.

:cheers:

 

[Brad Sallows]

NRO editor Rich Lowry, writing at Politico, has some observations about all the empty noise.

"Trump reportedly told aides before taking office that they should think of each presidential day as an episode in a TV show, a goal that turns out to have been too modest. Trump acts like he need to produce enough programming to fill a 24-hour news network, with outrages, internal melodrama, legal fights and endless plot twists that are, indisputably, ratings gold."

"What all these controversies have in common is that they fill the hours while nothing much really happens. Is Anthony Scaramucci actually going to organize a primary challenge against Trump? No. Is Greenland going to be sold, or Denmark fall off as a U.S. ally? No. Is Israel’s fate going to rise or fall on the travels of a couple left-wing backbench U.S. congresswomen? No."

 

[mariomike]

In today's news,

CBC
Aug 22, 2019
Trump's disloyalty slur is about shoring up support from evangelicals, not American Jews: Neil Macdonald
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/trump-disployalty-1.5255203
The attack was not really about Jewish American voters at all. Trump wrote them off long ago

For reference,

In 2018, voters who identified as Jewish voted 79% Democrat, and 17% Republican.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/07/how-religious-groups-voted-in-the-midterm-elections/

 

[Journeyman]

When kids have tantrums, the right move is to ignore it to prove that tantrums don't work.

Kids having tantrums is to be expected.  I have a hard time blithely accepting tantrums associated with compulsive lying, childish name-calling/bullying, trade wars, alienating allies, and embracing autocrats as "the norm."  Perhaps I had higher expectations of "the chosen one."  :

The media failing to report on it would be seen as tacit acceptance, rather than curbing such behaviours.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The media failing to report on it would be seen as tacit acceptance, rather than curbing such behaviours.

… or as censoring said statements/behavior due to media bias.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Kids having tantrums is to be expected.  I have a hard time blithely accepting tantrums associated with compulsive lying, childish name-calling/bullying, trade wars, alienating allies, and embracing autocrats as "the norm."  Perhaps I had higher expectations of "the chosen one."  :

The media failing to report on it would be seen as tacit acceptance, rather than curbing such behaviours.

Yet it is accepted from our PM.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Yet it is accepted from our PM.

I thought he meant our PM.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>The media failing to report on it would be seen as tacit acceptance, rather than curbing such behaviours.

Report, good; pitch a fit, bad.  Discourage, good; goad, bad.

Even kids manage to figure out when to stop pushing other kids' buttons.  Would that the adults of the international and media communities could figure this out.

Trump is a kid; various Danish politicians are kids; many media talking heads and writers are kids.  The way to defeat your foe is to become him - probably something they read in Art of War.

 

[Remius]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/business/china-tariffs-trade-war/index.html

So Trump is telling companies to immediately look for alternatives to China...

Canada?  Mexico?  Great Britain? France?  Europe?  How about Denmark?  He's managed to get into it with all the US traditional allies.  The good thing is that regardless of what he says, these countries are more than happy to do business with the US.  But he might not get the deals he thinks he can get now.

 

[Journeyman]

…. regardless of what he says, these countries are more than happy to do business with the US. 

As quick examples:
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) -- 10 ASEAN nations; no US.
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership -- 11 Nations; no US.
European Single Market -- EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway; no US.

More and more trade agreements keep coming into force, which exclude the US.  Why could that be?

 

[Cloud Cover]

There’s more than a semantic difference between treaties that “exclude “ the US and those to which the US has declined participation or ratification. In any event, there aren’t many countries that don’t do business with the US under some form of trade arrangement, regardless if the US is a signatory to other multi lateral trade treaties they may bind themselves to. Hegemony is alive.

 

[Journeyman]

True enough, business will go on since everyone looks to their own interests.  But the rates are unlikely to be as favourable outside of the various agreements' signatories;  ie - it will cost consumers more.... for which blame will be placed on those evil people taking advantage of American kindness and generosity.

 

[Remius]

In case anyone thinks the POTUS tweeting is harmless...

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-stocks-aug-23-2019

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/investing/dow-stock-market-today/index.html

:facepalm:

 

[Remius]

So the POTUS asked about nuking hurricanes in a meeting.

Just food for thought but it is an idea (although not feasible) that has been studied before.  And at least he didn't just tweet something about it.

CNN posted this fair op ed about asking that question.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/26/weather/hurricane-nuclear-bomb-noaa-wxc-trnd/index.html