Can somebody give me a balanced view on Trump?

dooderooni said:
As a result of conversations at work I can categorically tell you that the lack of political engagement is the reason that people will vote for chancers like Trump, Johnson and Farage. Stupidity plays a part, but I'll guarantee that what I know about Trump, his history, his ability, his misdemeanours, his lack of character etc is way more than most American voters know. There'll also be some who know about what he is and simply don't care or agree with him. A simple YouTube search will show you plenty of his hardcore supporters that'll simultaneously use twisted logic to defend him while revealing what is, if you're generous, a lack of critical thinking or if you're not being nice, absolute stupidity.
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I see it all the time in Boro, especially when going to a couple of my locals. I always use the my locals as an example as I always chat to regulars, bar staff etc. and think there are lot of your “average punters” in there - me included.

Actually get on well with a lot of them. Since Brexit, the political chat and conversation is now just not worth having with certain people. These are lads I’ll happily have a beer with and chat football & family to etc. We agree on many of the same issues. But there’s that 15-20% where we don’t see eye to eye. They’re very emotive subjects - often immigration etc.

I actually believe we should have a better controlled immigration policy but no government has ever truly got to grips with it for decades. Brexit was never going to deliver those results either. It’s not delivered what they were promised. It still needs addressing.

People want simple solutions to complicated issues but the world is so intertwined these days that there’s never a simple solution. All interventions will have other negative impacts elsewhere - that’s how life tends to work 100% the time - compromise.

You need to know enough of the information to understand positive and negative impacts. This is where the lack of political engagement creates issues, as well as politicians hiding information from the electorate as well.

The Right have been suckering in that audience for a long time. All slogans, no substance.

Get Brexit Done
Oven Ready Deal
Stop The Boats

People buy into these things as they’re sold as simple solutions to complicated topics. Their foundations are built on rhetoric and not always detail and good governance. Brexit turbo charged it as we were left with a load of clueless buffoons running the show because they supported Brexit and got in on Johnson’s mandate.

Politics is broken in a lot of ways and does not work for the average person. This is why some people get disillusioned and look for other solutions, often which can be quite extreme. You also have even more extreme people at the other end of the spectrum. But education and deprivation often plays a big part in that too.

In general I avoid politics in the day to day real world. It’s simply not worth the effort or time.
 
MidlandsBoroFan said:
I think this sums it up well.

I personally agree with the majority posting on here about how ridiculous / crooked / unbalanced / dangerous an individual he is. He will create havoc and I’m fearful about how things will turn out.

But he gets plenty of voters because of basic policies. You’ll always get the zealots who support him whatever nonsense he says (scary folks). But I suspect that most of the people who voted for him take him with a pinch of salt - maybe would even prefer a different leader - but the fundamental policies he stands for are what they want to hear.
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This ^

Most of my neighbours voted Trump. They are genuinely nice people and I have had nothing but positive interactions/parties/gatherings with them. They said they simply see past his behavior and voted for him because they feel his campaign and policies were more in line with their day to day life, and that they found Harris uninspiring. Rightly or wrongly. But that's the feedback I got from them. I voted Harris BTW!
 
Been there lots and lots of times.
Plus Sides
The music was incredibly good (not any longer imho) but there is still lots of old stuff to work through yet.
Lots of cutting edge science innovation.
Some really beautiful places in the states.
Some decent old films, lots now are just vengeance films with the same old same old plot.
Occasional good comic they still have a sense of humour, Had some really good sitcoms. But a lot of the Netflix stuff most is just crazy sickening violence.

Negatives.
They don't mind who gets machine gunned down at Nursery, Secondary or Uni, its a pretty lawless place, get a gun and look after yourself and family, Its safer on Baghdad high street than it is going to school in the USA.

There's plenty of money washing around and the politicians are openly corrupt, especially senators, governors, police, judiciary on both sides and the also the new president. I think its accepted as the norm. Its very near to becoming like that here.

Any decent inspiring people like MLK get wiped out.

The nutso Baptist and Christian churches are just money from mugs, as long as they can pray and sing they are happy.

It seems on the face of it, its like the UK without guns, if we did have them I think wed be worse than them.
 
dooderooni said:
Try asking for a balanced view on Jimmy Saville and see what replies you get.
Trump is an abhorrent being and the very fact that huge amounts of Americans would rather vote for him than for a black woman tells you all you need to know about them.
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Bit of a daft statement that, for me. A lot of the electorate, including black and Hispanic people, chose not to vote for her because of their perceived ineptitude of Joe Biden, an old white man.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
He is a deeply flawed but charismatic gangster who manages to take advantage of the ignorance and naivety of an electorate that politicians have long taken advantage of, and taken for granted. With the help of a huge misinformation network and the likes of Putin, he has successfully sewn distrust in institutions and more generally the truth and reality. He has convinced fed up, decent, but not very bright people that up is down and left is right and he will use his newly gained powers to remove any of the things, be it people or mechanisms of government, that reigned him in last time. He is a narcissist who serves only himself and the interests of his family. Perversely, his winning might hasten a time where politicians stop taking the people they serve for granted as the discussion around ‘how can this happen’ begins, and a new era of politician may emerge but it will most certainly require one step backwards and a period of global instability and turmoil and pain before things can move forwards. That’s if there is anything left after he’s done, given his climate denialism and simple lack of giving a **** about anyone or anything.
He is incredibly politically astute in terms of knowing what buttons to press but he is simultaneously a lazy, unintelligent convicted felon.
He likes golf, cheeseburgers, property and rape.
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I thought the discussion about 'how can this happen' would have taken place during his first term.

I thought that following a time when Trump, Johnson and Putin were all in charge there would be a sea change where we would finally see politics being cleaned up and those at the top being held to account for their words and actions. Unfortunately not.
 
Colgates_shaving_foam said:
He's a sexual predator but people are OK with that if he can make their 'gas' prices a bit lower and make the country whiter.
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Yup.

Seems like we need to reassess the Germans who voted for Hitler. They were better off under him so seems they were being perfectly reasonable to back the evil **** after all.
🙄
 
dooderooni said:
Try asking for a balanced view on Jimmy Saville and see what replies you get.
Trump is an abhorrent being and the very fact that huge amounts of Americans would rather vote for him than for a black woman tells you all you need to know about them.
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Imagine if towards the end of this parliament Kier Starmer turns round and describes a large portion of the electorate as garbage. I can't see that going down well in the polls. Also bear in mind that this came out of the mouth of the current president not just someone on the campaign trail.
I don't feel Trump has won this election, more that the Democrats have thrown it away, starting with the baffling decision that Joe Biden was a suitable candidate. Looking from the outside with impartial disinterest I can't believe a major democracy started out on a presidential campaign with two such appalling candidates.
 
I don't think you can make a balanced view. He's a fascist, egotistical, narcissistic, has absolutely zero knowledge on foreign affairs, if he doesn't benefit somehow from something, he isn't interested.
 
It's happening! Let's fecking go!!

MolteniArcore said:
Part of me would like Trump to win just to see what he does. It is going to be mental if he starts locking up his opponents, deports millions and whacks 20% tariffs on stuff. It may well be the end of US democracy or the end of the Republican Party!
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Yes, my imp of the perverse would like to see a cheeky bit of full-blown fascism just for shiits and giggles.

Trade war with China, then likely the EU and Japan.
Handing Ukraine to Putin, collapsing NATO, putting Poland and the rest of eastern Europe in Russia's sights.
Emboldening China to invade Taiwan.
Millions of immigrants in detention camps in US border states, then being herded to the Mexican border.
Millions of Trumps 'enemy within' fleeing to Canada and other countries they hope are beyond his reach.
Overthrow of UK government and declaring it a US overseas territory.
The collapse of the US empire and the fragmentation of the imperial homeland into Gilead and a rump democracy.
Boro winning promotion.

See - it's not all bad
 
Balanced view ..... He's cnut. He's also charismatic. He's dangerous. He also can be funny. I'm struggling now to be fair, I don't really care about american politics either.
 
It’s done. He’s there until the next election. Be interesting to see if the vote goes against him, will he leave, even more interesting can he last that long?
 
See I don't see how he can even remotely be considered charismatic. He's vile, he makes my skin crawl. So glad I knocked all social media on the head, probably won't bother much with the news either, something to be said for blissful ignorance at times 😉
 
1finny said:
He has promised to end the Russia/Ukraine conflict and the Israel/Palestine conflict.
If he does that with support from both sides it will be a huge legacy
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His version of "ending them" won't be a good legacy, and it's all going to be one sided of course.

His one sided version will be extremely damaging.

It could have been similar to if the US had said to us "Just let Germany have your land" in WW2 and them not deploying troops and committing funding etc to help us and Europe out.

It wouldn't have stopped the war either, as it would have just carried on in a different place, the same way Russia will if we let them walk over Ukraine and if Israel decide they want to take over Palestine and the world lets that happen. The Ukraine situation is a lot more clear cut than the Palestine situation mind.

If the US hadn't helped us and Europe in WW2 we possibly would have lost and the whole of Europe could have been one massive German empire, which would have probably had similar or more strength than USA has now, but in a much worse way. Effectively fighting and funding was a good investment for them, it took away some potential monopolised competition.
Sure the EU came about, but it was a fair bit later and has lots of countries still trying to pull in different directions, but that wouldn't have happened as much if Germany had basically taken over the lot, the EU is nowhere near that level of economical threat to the US, as it pulls in various different directions and is nowhere near as right wing as the republicans, or even the dems for that matter.

Trump will likely just pander to Russia and China, that won't help the US long term, and it's not going to be good for his supposed allies the EU and NATO etc.
 
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snowman1962a said:
For a factual response 62% of Americans hold stocks.
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Yeah, of course, and ~10% of the people hold 93% of that value.

So, very roughly, ~10% share 93% (9.3% per percentile), ~52% have 7% (0.13 per percentile), and 38% have 0% (0% per percentile, and probably a lot of debt).

You could put the value of the stock up 50% and it won't make barely any difference to 90% of them, compared to doing what they and society actually needs would. It's not like he's going to get a 50% better return than the dems would either, the difference would probably only be +/- 10% over the term, and it could go either way.

Even 10% better off for the rich will barely make a difference to their lives
either, as the laws of diminishing returns effectively prove that QOL doesn't really improve when the already rich become richer, especially if public services get worse, poverty gets worse etc.

Better to be a rich man in a decent country where things function, than a king of a steaming pile of crap, especially when your extended family, friends and 90% of other folk are wading through that crap every day.
 
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I tell you what else about Trump and misogyny in the US. Imagine a bloke had stood against Trump and circled him like he did to Hilary Clinton in that TV debate last time round. There would have been hell to pay. Trump would have sh*ted himself.
 
Andy_W said:
If the US hadn't helped us and Europe in WW2 we possibly would have lost and the whole of Europe could have been one massive German empire, which would have probably had similar or more strength than USA has now, but in a much worse way.
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I dunno. We are arriving at the same point, just a few decades later. That's German efficiency for you.
 
PhillySpecial said:
This ^

Most of my neighbours voted Trump. They are genuinely nice people and I have had nothing but positive interactions/parties/gatherings with them. They said they simply see past his behavior and voted for him because they feel his campaign and policies were more in line with their day to day life, and that they found Harris uninspiring. Rightly or wrongly. But that's the feedback I got from them. I voted Harris BTW!
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It's the double standard hypocrisies isn't it? Trump gets a pass for his character and everything that comes with him as its all about pragmatic policy, but 'they found Harris uninspiring'.

A lot of Americans are going to get what they deserve in the coming decade, and another large number of Americans are also going to bear the consequences of their compatriots decisions.
 
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