Donald Trump news and discussions

[firestar464]

How to Drink from a Firehose: A former Obama speechwriter on Trump’s week-one rhetorical strategy—and how you can help beat it

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/how-t ... a-firehose

[firestar464]

hegseth confirmed

https://apnews.com/article/pete-hegseth ... 149663e784

[caltrek]

What you Need to Know About Trump’s Tariffs and the Rest of Trump’s Madness
by Robert Reich
January , 2025

Extract:

(Robert Reich Substack)

Friends,

Understand this: The reason Trump has raised tariffs on Canada and Mexico is not to have more bargaining leverage to get better deals for the United States from Canada or from Mexico.

…What makes an abusive parent or spouse, or an abusive dictator, or Trump, especially terrifying? They’re unpredictable. They lash out in ways that are hard to anticipate.

…In 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli argued that sometimes it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness” (Discourses on Livy, book 3, chapter 2). In his 1962 book, Thinking About the Unthinkable, futurist Herman Kahn argued that to “look a little crazy” might be an effective way to induce an adversary to stand down.

…But much of what Trump is doing is either illegal yet will take months or years before the courts decide so, or is in the gray area of “probably illegal but untested by the courts.” Which suits his strategy just fine.

…Trump says he’s doing this for American workers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He’s doing this for himself and for the world’s oligarchy, which, in turn, is busily siphoning off the wealth of the world.

Read more here: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/wha ... t-trumps

caltrek's comments: This has obvious short-term applications for the near future. Less obvious are the implications for our long-term future. The question is being posed, are we going to allow Trump to continue to run our economy on behalf of "the world's oligarchy" or are we, as a collectivity, going to finally assert our own potential to run the economy on behalf of all strata of society?

The answer to that question will determine which of several different possible alternative futures will be realized. A dystopian future where technology is utilized in a highly oppressive manner, or a future in which technology is employed to strengthen democratic and just economic practices. A society in which oligarchs reign supreme above any sense of accountability, or a society in which the rule of law prevails, and no set of elites can place themselves above such a rule of law.

[wjfox]

...which of several different possible alternative futures will be realized. A society in which oligarchs reign supreme above any sense of accountability

This seems inevitable now, unfortunately.

[Vakanai]

A dystopian future where technology is utilized in a highly oppressive manner
A society in which oligarchs reign supreme above any sense of accountability

I thought it was obvious, this has been the plan all along. We were in a chess match we were never told we were in, and they just placed us in checkmate.

[caltrek]

Will Donald Trump Make Karl Rove’s Dream a Reality?
by Michael Kazin
February 4, 2025

Introduction:

(Politico) Why has Donald Trump become an ardent admirer of a predecessor most Americans know little or nothing about? “President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent,” Trump claimed in his inaugural address. And it’s not just William McKinley’s hawkish trade policy that Trump seeks to emulate. In his yearning to annex Greenland, the 47th president also echoes the zeal of the 25th to expand the American empire (though it took a bloody three-year war to vanquish the Filipinos fighting for their independence).

Additional extract:

During George W. Bush’s first campaign for president, his top adviser, Karl Rove, boasted that he aimed to be the Mark Hanna of the 21st century. Hanna was McKinley’s campaign manager and a wealthy industrialist, and like him, Rove planned with Bush to create a durable Republican majority. Rove and Bush sought to do so by appealing to groups that had previously voted Democratic — particularly Hispanics and white Catholics. The new era of GOP dominance would be conservative but “compassionate” too.

During Bush’s first term, Rove seemed to have a good chance of achieving his goal. The president’s resolute response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, helped guide the GOP to victory in the 2002 midterm election and convinced most Americans to back the overthrow of Saddam Hussein a few months later.

But the botched war in Iraq and the feckless response to Hurricane Katrina set back that dream, and the 2008 recession destroyed it. Suddenly, Barack Obama and the progressive coalition that rallied behind him seemed primed to own the political future. History has a way of changing the terrain and rules of the political game, frustrating those who think they have unlocked the key to winning it.

Trump’s hopes for an enduring majority are likely to fail as well.

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine ... -00202096

caltrek’s comment: Trump’s policies are not particularly popular with the American public. It was really a sort of collective amnesia regarding Trump’s first term combined with an all things to (almost) all people campaign rhetoric that propelled Trump to victory. Admittedly, a favorable media landscape for Trump and the success of voter suppression tactics also played their part. Even with all of that, Trump only won a plurality of the popular vote.

Trump’s actual policy thrusts will be harder to rationalize away than his more extreme campaign rhetoric. There will be some who are fully signed up to continue to belong to Trump’s cult, but an adventurist foreign policy combined with an extremist attack on popular domestic program has at least the possibility of undermining his popularity. Democrats may also need to figure out how to minimize the effects of voter suppression tactics through voter education and successful court battles.

Success by the Democrats is certainly not guaranteed, but it is a little early to call checkmate. Especially when it comes to a relatively long-term view of things.

[wjfox]

Andrew Coyne, of the Toronto Globe and Mail:


"Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be... atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them."

[raklian]

2029 after Trump unilaterally forces a 3rd term.

[firestar464]

Andrew Coyne, of the Toronto Globe and Mail:


"Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be... atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them."

France and the UK got nukes. I'm not sure if Russia would risk it over Poland.

The ROC will be able to defend itself if it invests in sea drones (Russia continues to be pummeled at sea by Ukraine, and the only reason it's been able to succeed somewhat in its invasion is its land connection. The PRC does not have such a luxury.)

I'm concerned about nuclear escalation over Ukraine as Putin will eventually get impatient, and France has threatened to intervene should Odesa or Kyiv suffer an assault by Russian forces.

One wonders when AGI and Trumpian authoritarianism will force a revolution.

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

The Time of Monsters
by Ray Acheson
February 7, 2025

Extract::

(Counterpunch) As writer John Ganz points out, “Musk’s total idiocy is structural: it goes back to the very origin of the Greek term idiotes, a person who cannot understand the shared political life of the city. These people cannot understand that their wealth and power are not their sovereign creations but the shared product of the wider state and society that supports and sustains them.”
…
But nothing is inevitable. And as has been demonstrated with Trump’s capitulations in various ways to Canada, Colombia, Mexico, and in relation to the attempt to freeze all federal funding, even things that do occur can be undone, delayed, mitigated, frustrated. Due to their structural idiocy, Musk and Trump and their lackeys do not understand consequences for their actions. “Their theory of change seems to be that they are going to do stuff and then it will be done,” writes Rebecca Solnit. “Like they’re moving furniture around, like you and I and the trans and immigrant communities and federal workers and Canada and Mexico are just so many sofas and chairs that are going to sit where they place us. Like we’re inanimate objects.” But this, she warns, is a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.

We have the capacity to make fascists feel the consequences of being fascist. We have the capacity to revolt, oppose, slow things down, challenge every order. Many are already engaged in this work, led by immigrant, trans, and Indigenous communities. Teachers in Chicago prevented ICE from entering their school, students in Los Angeles walked out of classrooms to protest detention and deportation, school systems across the country have declared they will not comply with Trump’s anti-trans executive orders, lawmakers and community members are holding hospitals accountable for refusing to provide gender-affirming care, unions have launched a lawsuit to prevent Musk from accessing the Department of Labor.

…monsters are what we make of them. While their actions are monstrous, the men performing them are human beings. We should be wary of giving them the power of monsters, of affording them mythical, unopposable status. They are men. They can be defeated.

Read more here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/0 ... onsters /

[caltrek]

What Happened Here
John Ganz
February 4, 2025

Introduction:

(Unpopular Front)

It's Very Simple Dialectics
…
So I had this moment with a senior executive, who I won’t name, but he said to me with a sense of dawning horror, “I think some of these kids are joining the company not with the intent of doing things for us but destroying us.”

They’re professional activists in their own minds, first and foremost. And it just turns out the way to exercise professional activism right now, most effectively, is to go and destroy a company from the inside. All-hands meetings started to get very contentious. Where you’d get berated at an all-hands meeting as a C.E.O., where you’d have these extremely angry employees show up and they were just completely furious about how there’s way too many white men on the management team. “Why are we a for-profit corporation? Don’t you know all the downstream horrible effects that this technology is having? We need to spend unlimited money in order to make sure that we’re not emitting any carbon.”

They (the wannabe oligarchs) understood more clearly than the protagonists themselves and so struck first. And perhaps too early. I don’t think the technological advances—the forces of production—are quite to the point that makes the types of people—the relations of production—they need to help administer and accumulate their wealth simply superfluous. They are going to engender a counterattack of some sort.
…
Trump recently said, “We all have certain hatreds.” His political future depends on it. But where do these things come from and why? Try to think in terms of relations, not static categories. For the sake of comprehension, we have to use fixed notions, but in reality, no one occupies one simple role in their life. People have multiple roles and interests in society and their opinions and politics will reflect the needs of and the contradictions between those roles. And things change: people can go from being reactionary to progressive to revolutionary, sometimes all in a single day! Look at how Silicon Valley is changing. Why do the vibes shift? Because capital moves. But so can your mind. You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Read more here: https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/what ... here-c9f

[caltrek]

We are in a time of crisis. Still, remember how the Chines form the word "crisis". They combine the words "danger" and "opportunity." Yes, there is a great danger manifesting itself with the election of Trump and the elevation of his unelected co-president Elon Musk. Yet, there is also a great opportunity for those in opposition to seize the moment. It would be wise not to overlook that opportunity.

[wjfox]

From Reddit:

Folks, it's taken a few days to trickle down, but I'm seeing post after post after post in the ag community social media channels of massive issues impacting U.S. farmers and the U.S. ag economy from Trump's DOGE efforts, tariff wars and the USAID shutdown.

Here are a few:

*Cotton and grain growers are losing contracts to long-time Canadian buyers because, even with the tariff pause, Canadian buyers don't trust the stability of U.S. export commerce with Trump in office. Plus, Canadians are just flat-out pissed and avoiding U.S. made/produced goods, including farm products.

• Chuck Grassley, of all people, is pleading with Trump to exempt potash from any Canadian tariffs because U.S. potash (a major fertilizer in agriculture) mainly comes from Canada. Impending tariffs will shoot farmers' fertilizer prices sky-high.
• Corn and soybean farmers are upset because Trump cancelled all of Biden's Climate Smart grants that were supposed to help them offset their adoption of soil health improving new practices like no-till and cover cropping.
• USAID's cancellation cuts $2 billion straight out of U.S. farmer's pockets from the Food for Peace program which purchased rice, wheat, corn and soy from U.S. farmers and distributed them to hungry nations. In some states and for some crops, USAID was their primary buyer.
• USDA NRCS is cancelling conservation contracts and leaving farmers holding the bag. These are things like fence improvements and upgraded water lines that boost farmer efficiency while also conserving the environment. Plus, the way they work is the farmer has to do the work first, then once they are done, the NRCS reimburses them. So now farmers that have spent the money to do the work are being told the NRCS won't honor their contracts.
• California farmers are PISSED because his "turn on the taps" PR move did nothing to combat California wildfires and instead wasted 2 BILLION gallons of water being held in reservoirs for summer irrigation.

[weatheriscool]

CBS News poll — Trump has positive approval amid "energetic" opening weeks; seen as doing what he promised

By Anthony Salvanto, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus, Kabir Khanna
February 9, 2025 / 9:00 AM EST / CBS News

With most describing him as "tough," "energetic," "focused" and "effective" — and as doing what he'd promised during his campaign — President Trump has started his term with net positive marks from Americans overall.

Many say he's doing more than they expected — and of those who say this, most like what they see. Very few think he's doing less.

His partisans and his voters, in particular, say he's got the right amount of focus on matters like ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and deporting those who are in the country illegally.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/trump- ... -2025-2-9/

[firestar464]

[firestar464]

Rolling Stone- Trump on himself: Long live the king!

https://archive.is/k8IMb

[weatheriscool]

Trump administration plans mass firing at office that funds homelessness programs

Source: NPR

The federal office that funds housing and other support for homeless people across the country is slated to shrink dramatically, a prospect that advocates warn would make record-high homelessness even worse.

The Office of Community Planning and Development, within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is slated to lose 84% of its staff, according to a document seen by NPR. That target is the deepest of any office in the agency.

"That proposed cut is massive. And the potential for adverse impact at the community level and at the national level is also massive," said Ann Oliva, who spent a decade at HUD and is now CEO at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

The same office also funds disaster recovery and programs that help local communities build affordable housing.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/22/g-s1-501 ... g-programs

[firestar464]

Rolling Stone- Kristi Noem Says $200 Million DHS Ad Campaign Thanking Trump Was His Idea

https://archive.ph/3hGAl

Also a poll done by WaPo and Ipsos suggests that people in the US are tiring of Donald. The only things supported are mass deportations and tariffs on the PRC, and just barely, and if you look closely, people support only the deportation of those accused of crimes. They're fine with anyone else staying in the country.

https://archive.ph/427Ww

[caltrek]

GOP Lawmakers Face Growing Backlash to Trump-Musk Agenda
by Julia Conley
February 23, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump told his Republican supporters that, having overseen the firing of roughly 30,000 federal employees and backed proposals to slash the Medicaid and Medicare programs that millions of Americans across the political spectrum rely on, he has "not yet begun to fight."

But his promise came as Republican lawmakers across the country faced the wrath of voters over the Trump agenda and the president's own pollster warned that moving forward with GOP plans to hand out $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy—an endeavor that would require cutting crucial public programs—will be perilous for the party.

As Common Dreams reported on Friday, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) was asked at a town hall this week why the firing of federal employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been so "radical and extremist," and with federal lawmakers back in their districts this weekend for their first recess of Trump's second term, McCormick wasn't alone in hearing from angry voters.

Right-wing commentator Erick Erickson claimed McCormick's experience was an anomaly and the result of Democrats mobilizing their voters, but Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the progressive advocacy group Indivisible, asked him to explain "why there have also been furious crowds" in several other states since the congressional recess began.

The New York Times reported that in his solidly Republican district in East Texas, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) heard from voters from both sides of the aisle who wanted his guarantee that the GOP will not make cuts to the social safety net.

The article also notes frustrated voters, some of them Republican, addressing comments to Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska), Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), and Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Oregon).

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-town-hall