So what do you Brits make of Trump ?

[peejaye]

Brilliant piece that Stavros & very informative. It also happens to be very true.

[Stavros]

Jonathan Chait has written an article for the New York magazine (I first came across it in today's Guardian) which argues that if elected, President Trump's domestic policy would look exactly like the policy agenda Paul Ryan and other Conservatives have been developing since 2008 and that is why Ryan has soaked up Trump's mockery, knowing that the President needs Congress and vice versa, and that Trump in reality lacks the ideological vigour that the Conservatives have, and can be bent to the will of the party in Congress. On issue such as tax and health care Trump and the GOP in Congress agree, just as they are hostile to same-sex marriage, abortion and environmental policy. I am not sure I agree with the 1950s as a turning point that saw an encroachment of Conservative thought in a party that was not always entirely comfortable with it, I see the 1960s as the pivotal decade not least because of Johnson's Great Society Programme and the War on Poverty which took the welfare state to levels not seen before, indeed Chait says this of a Trump Presidency -

It is the tantalizing prospect of crippling the welfare state that has lured Republicans into endorsing a president who has threatened to jail his opponent, go after the business interests of news outlets critical of him, and praised dictators in North Korea, Russia, and China for crushing their opposition. They are willing to give Trump control of the military, the Department of Justice, and the domestic-security apparatus as long as Ryan controls the legislative agenda.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...ust-begun.html

-The problem is Trump by nature is volatile and difficult if not impossible to manage, and is capable -we assume- of making reckless decisions, not least those which could lose the Republican Party votes in the mid-term elections in 2018. It also assumes a degree of consensus within the GOP in Congress that might not hold if revelations about the links between the party and Russian hackers or some other scandal involving Trump takes shape, or the authoritarian trend Chait sees in contemporary American politics going unchallenged even in the Republican Party.
As with Brexit, it is too early to say what will happen, but it is nevertheless a thought-provoking article.

[buttslinger]

Trying to predict what a Trump Presidency would look like is like a trip to fantasyland, if fantasyland was uncertain.
As I've mentioned before, if by some miracle Trump pulls this off, you would have a Republican Senate, House, Supreme Court......
EVERYTHING!!!!!
Trump may have fooled Republican voters, but he didn't fool the actual GOP, trust me, they spotted the wolf in their hen house on Day One. He's more dangerous than Rush Limbaugh to their cover story of legitimacy.
Even Trump knows that as President, his only real power would be at State Dinners and Ribbon Cuttings.
As a disgruntled WRONGED John Wayne, he can create his own TV Network, and keep the TRUMP brand on it.
At least Mitt Romney would have gone through the motions,
Briefing a President Trump on real World Affairs would take four years.

[flabbybody]

"Democracy is the worst form of government...except for all the others". Churchill
"When you keep telling people lies, they'll eventually believe". Goebbels

On Tuesday we'll find out which of these gentlemen of the last century called it right.

[Stavros]

"Democracy is the worst form of government...except for all the others". Churchill
"When you keep telling people lies, they'll eventually believe". Goebbels
On Tuesday we'll find out which of these gentlemen of the last century called it right.

Both statements are wrong, though to be fair to Churchill this is what he actually said:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
-the source: Speech in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947

Donald J. Trump with his alleged links to/sympathy for the Russian leadership may have heard the quote attributed, at second-hand (a claim made in a book written by one of his secretaries), to Stalin-

"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes."
-A sentiment that fits nicely into the 'Democratic Centralism' of the Communist Party!

[flabbybody]

just trying to capture the essence of two historical figures with totally opposite approaches towards the role of government.
IMO Churchill would be gravely troubled by BREXIT referendum.
Goebbels would admire Trump's raw, emotional know-nothing campaign style.

[peejaye]

Is it me or does anyone else think the US and here in the UK; we are hearing more and more hostilities towards Putin and Russia? Almost blaming them for everything (we)don't like? I know Putin is no saint but shit! STAY CLEAR, surely?
We hear on UK TV that Russia keeps "coming-up" in the US elections as Clinton seems intolerant towards them both yet Trump is accused of being a friend?
I'm sorry but reading between the lines...I can't help being concerned!

[broncofan]

Is it me or does anyone else think the US and here in the UK; we are hearing more and more hostilities towards Putin and Russia? Almost blaming them for everything (we)don't like? I know Putin is no saint but shit! STAY CLEAR, surely?
We hear on UK TV that Russia keeps "coming-up" in the US elections as Clinton seems intolerant towards them both yet Trump is accused of being a friend?
I'm sorry but reading between the lines...I can't help being concerned!

Russia is no longer a communist country and so antagonism towards them is no longer reflexively right wing (it wasn't always previously either). Much of the antagonism towards them is related to and proportional to how toxic their behavior is. It is a country that does not have free and fair elections. It murders journalists who are hostile towards the regime, sometimes using nuclear material in other western countries. It has been carpet bombing Syria in order to stabilize the Assad regime, which has used toxic nerve gas to murder civilians. I am beyond shocked that there is not more of an outcry against Russia. The defenses and apologetics I see of Putin and Assad on the British left are beyond terrifying; it is the worst case of identity politics gone bad. Is it that somehow defending a despot can be progressive if his country was formerly associated with collectivism?

[peejaye]

I hear/read right-wing rhetoric like this everyday on the BBC or SKY news & in the UK's far right "dirty" press.
You seem to forget who/which countries provide them with ammunition to commit all their atrocities.
But you people don't mention that!
I know what happens in Russia, that wasn't my point. I was with a native of Russia for 7 years.
Personally; I think we could be heading for WW3 if all this rhetoric far-right nonsense doesn't stop.

[hippifried]

I doubt we'll see world war III.
But maybe Cold War II is here now.