Honestly, Trump is only half the issue. The WaPo article is wishful thinking because the Republicans don’t give a shit what Trump says and promises. They’re not stupid, they know exactly how awful he is, and they’re counting on it to create a media circus that conceals their own activities nicely. We’ve already seen a preview of this, with the clandestine midnight session to begin the repeal process on the ACA. They got busted by the media that time, but what happens when Trump is actually President and the media is blowing up daily with his latest scandal, Twitter war or colossal foreign relations blunder? They will ride that gravy train for as long as they can.
As for the ACA and healthcare, we’re all screwed, sick, healthy, old, young, doesn’t matter. The only insurance that is viable for the middle class under the Republican plans is the catastrophic High Deductible Healthcare Plan that gained prominence in the decade before the ACA. Those are the plans that put ALL of the burden onto the insured. Deductibles will climb just as they did pre-ACA, and you’ll see individual $10,000 deductibles before the next election in 2020 for sure. This is what Republicans think is “good healthcare”, making the insured the responsible party so that they have to negotiate their terms directly with the providers themselves, all while paying ridiculous premiums for the privilege of covering all their own costs.
By the time the senate and house pass measures to repeal all or parts of the ACA, does anyone honestly think Trump would have the balls to veto it because of some random words he said weeks or months earlier and doesn’t even understand the meaning of? Of course not.
He’s a fucking idiot. “Con artist” is too kind of a term for him. Being a con artist requires tact and thought and careful planning. Trump just says the first thing that comes into his head, doesn’t understand what he’s saying at the time, and since he doesn’t understand what he’s saying, he immediately forgets what he says shortly after.
So he’s not even breaking promises, because in his pathetic puny mind he doesn’t even realize he made something which amounts to a promise in the first place.
Given all this, and the fact that he’s a wimp who backs down and flails away at the slightest hint of a fight, there’s no fucking way in hell he’d then go and veto legislation he may or may not have previously said he disagrees with.
Why wouldn’t he? He would make himself look like a hero and simultaneously make Paul Ryan look bad. For a vindictive, insecure guy like Trump, that’s a double win. As a bonus, whenever someone mentioned the ACA he could blame everything on Congress.
Yep, as bad as Trump can be, Pence would be so much worse. It’s why we’re stuck with him- and why I’d oppose any Dem effort to impeach- better to just delegitimize him instead.
Trump’s idiocy might stop the GOP Congressional agenda or slow it down some. With Pence you’ll get it full bore. I fear the GOP Congress more than I fear Trump. They’re more competent lunatics.
It’s an argument that has some merit, if you make certain assumptions, and can ensure certain factors.
a) for the love of all that is holy treat him like a toddler trying to get at a knife, when it comes to military authority (especially nukes). Make it impossible for him to wield and take it out of his hands completely.
b) delegitimize him and disempower him so thoroughly that the international community essentially ignores him as the raving of a court jester, and that his words carry no weight of policy on their own
c) turn him into a moronic figurehead that is a millstone around the GOP. Basically the Queen of England, only embarassing, and can be removed in 4 years
d) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT GIVE HIM THE NUKES
e) keep him at constant war with the GOP congress, inciting him to every small slight and basically render cooperation between Ryan and Trump impossible
In a best case scenario @Alstein I could see the logic. A disempowered, ineffectual Trump is less dangerous than uncut GOPisms. But an enabled and pliant Trump is the worst of both worlds. You get the GOP social screw job, with the added bonus of Trumps international destabilization.
I would not bet on all the circumstances needed for the best case. I imagine the GOP will get most of what they want, with enough Trump stupidity to cut the hate with the horrible.
I’d take President Pence any day over a President Trump.
I don’t like most of Pence’s stances on issues. I think he’s a homophobic jerk. I suspect he’d be bad for the issues I care about and the country in general.
But, Pence is a normal human being that can be negotiated with, has a grasp of decorum and diplomacy, and understands that the US government is for the people. You may not agree with where and how he intends to take the country, but you’d have a sane start to any discussion.
Trump is a narcissistic moron that doesn’t seem to understand anything at all other than how to lash out on Twitter, act like a buffoon, and that when you’re rich the normal rules don’t apply to you.
I mean all these criticisms are true, but Trump will stand up to the GOP - because it’s Trump first and only - where Pence will happily go along with it. I mean Christ the first thing they did, literally, was try to get rid of the ethics board.
As would I and I think Pence is one of the most shitty human beings in US politics standing next to people like Steve King in their shittiness. But Pence is also not a literal crazy person. His beliefs are some crazy bullshit, but he, himself isn’t going to end the human race because someone made fun of him on Twitter.
And Trump wont stand up to shit. He’s so far out of his depth that he’s already giving up the reins. So basically the GOP is already running the show, only with the added benefit of possible nuclear annihilation and blatant control by a dictator.
Pence is slime, but he’s American slime. Putin wont influence him and he wont nuke someone in a fit of stupidity. He’s also not likely to declare economic war on random companies until everything is completely fucked.
In his business life though he is the bully, refusing to give up anything without lawyering up and making sure the other side expends a great deal of money to get what they want. You can look at any time one of his business ventures has been challenged to see that.
I think the difference here is that politician Trump just doesn’t care. He will say whatever he feels or thinks will work. And when something comes to him for a signature he will forget everything he said previously if he feels it is to his benefit.
Some states had one. Unfortunately it was also the basis in those states of Jim Crow disenfranchisement. Because designing deliberately confusing and contradictory questions with generous leeway for the test giver to deny the person the right to vote on a whim was a feature, not a bug, for the system of racial supremacy.
I have to agree with you here, @Timex. I get where @Alstein is coming from, but I just can’t agree. From a Left perspective, the country survived GWB and a Republican congress, it can survive Pence. The amount of damage Trump can do is… immense. He’s not even the President yet and he’s already destabilizing Europe.
This is the kind of thing I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of lately and it’s making me seethe with rage in the days leading up to the inauguration.
NBC’s Today Show (losers! fake news!) has been doing segments where they have interviewed Trump voters from around the country and asked them why they voted Trump and what they hoped they would see in his term as President. None of the people interviewed seem to be racists (some are minorities themselves), or crazy or stupid. But all of them seem to have one thing in common, they don’t seem to actually understand who and what Donald Trump is. They all seem to have this picture (different for each person) of what a good candidate for President would be like, and they’ve simply projected it onto Trump. There is no basis in reality.
My only explanation for this is that so many people simply hated Hillary Clinton so much that they deluded themselves into thinking literally anyone was a better choice for President. How else to explain how seemingly rational people could do more than 5 minutes of research on their own and NOT come to the conclusion that Donald Trump was anything but a terrible choice. My favorite was the guy who says “I just expect he will keep his promises.”. Really dude? Really? Or the woman who says “I would tell him to filter what he says, think before he speaks.”. Amazing. It’s like they’ve never actually seen Trump before.
America is fucking stupid. We’ve ignored Education Reform in the country for decades, and this is the result.
[quote=“SlainteMhath, post:1892, topic:126890”]
We’ve already seen a preview of this, with the clandestine midnight session to begin the repeal process on the ACA. They got busted by the media that time…[/quote]
I don’t think that’s quite the situation. Ryan convened the House at midnight so that he could show that the GOP was going to come out swinging on the ACA on the very first second they were allowed to do so. The timing was a well-publicized political stunt, there was nothing “clandestine” about it.
Yeah, I read that one this morning. I loathe those people. “I voted for Trump because he said he’d make America Great Again, not to do any of the things he repeatedly said that he’d do!”
