Reckon @Benny40 is closest to the pin here. Trump is clearly playing his deranged base IMO. Typical demonisation of immigrants with the usual rhetoric, ignoring the fact that undocumented immigration has drastically reduced in recent times. It’s the whole “they took my jerbz” shtick.
Does anyone even think Trump actually wants the wall? This has been his go to for the past two years, I seriously don’t think he cares either way if it’s built or not. He uses it to play up to his base and really without it, he’s really not got much at all.
Your whole post focuses on the illegality of the Trump campaign getting dirt on HRC to help them with the election - I’ve just torpedoed this in two seconds, it’s sleazy but not criminal to get dirt on political opponents, if this were true the investigation would have been over in about 5 minutes. I should mention it’s also ■■■■■■, but not criminal to pay someone to go to Russia to get the dirt on Trumpcough HRC cough.
All I’ve been hearing from “Russiagaters” the past two years is that Russia subverted the democratic mechanisms of the U.S electoral systems by way of colluding with the Trump campaign. All I ask is “show me the evidence”.
Let’s look at the indictments of Mueller so far
The most high profile, Manafort, has not been charged with anything to do with “collusion”, rather a raft of tax, bank and lobbying violations with his business in Ukraine. Manafort’s business in the Ukraine has mostly been lobbying the Ukrainians to side with the E.U, not Russia, an inconvenient fact that most somehow don’t acknowledge.
Next up is Cohen on perjury, who lied about the timelines about his business dealings RE: Trump Tower, a deal that went nowhere - again, nothing RE: collusion
Next up, Flynn, who was indicted on lying to the FBI after the election, again completely unrelated to the election, he lied about his role in trying to persuade the Russians to veto a UN measure on Isreal condemning Israeli settlements in Palestine
I would expect emails, wire taps and the like from Trump campaign officials to clearly show that they were working with either the GRU or other Russian Government officials with the intent to sabotage the U.S election to say with confidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 general election.
Nothing that we’ve seen over the past two years really comes close to that.
Yeah, having alienated everyone outside his base through 2 years of presidency, he needs them more than ever - particularly with the year to come. The “Wall” itself probably doesn’t matter to him much beyond that - its most powerful hold on him would likely be how much he misses being at his rallies doing the call and response schtick and basking in adulation.
Agree with most of that but I reckon there’s a bit of monument vainglory going on too. He wouldn’t know who Hadrian was but the notion that he could leave something behind called Trump’s Wall of that magnitude would tickle his little mushroom no end. To see that glint of immortality extinguished would be wonderful.
No, this isn’t about the wall.
It might have started that way, but now it’s about Trump’s refusal to be seen as ‘losing’ at anything.
And the Democrats saying, DILLIGAF.
This is, in fact, your Presidency. And if you want to spend the second half of it like this over a single issue then that’s your call.
I’m very interested to see how this ends.
At the moment it seems like most Americans are blaming Trump but things can change, although apart from a ‘Mexican’ blowing up a building I can’t foresee how that shift would happen from here.
The problem here is that at some stage one side has to blink. They can’t allow this to go on for another couple of weeks of federal workers not being paid as they will start to default on loans etc etc. Additionally they can’t risk air traffic controllers and airport security not coming to work - they are coming in for no pay at present but that won’t continue forever.
Because they’re the adults in the room who won’t want this to happen, it will be the Democrats that blink IMO. In addition they know they are miles in front in the 2020 race and they won’t want to risk any blame being sheeted back to them that could jeapodise that.
I think we all expect the Democrats to blink, because they’re ■■■■■■■.
I don’t agree that there’s any risk in holding firm.
There’s only one man with the keys.
Things are unpleasant now but the longer this goes on, the more Trump objectively becomes the. worst. President. ever.
If things were reversed everyone would expect the Democrats to take it on the chin and get on with it.
The problem here for the Dems is the timing. This hasn’t come out of the blue, it’s happened right after they took over the House. That means that Trump can push a narrative of “it was all going so well until those stupid Dems came along and stopped it all”.
That obviously isn’t true, but it’s a good narrative he can use to energise his crazy base again and he knows it
It’s perfectly true, but it would seem so far that enough voters are mature enough to understand the situation.
He doesn’t have the votes.
That’s it.
He’s not the first President not to have the votes, but he is the first President to take it this far.
Now if it were me, I’d be pointing out that Trump doesn’t understand the US system of government.
At best.
At worst he’s trying to subvert it.
That he doesn’t want to be President, he wants to be King.
There’s also an argument that the Presidential election is the main contest of ideas and that it’s the job of congress to get the fk out of the way of the President’s mandate.
Now I think that argument is sh/t, because I understand how the system is designed to work, but regardless for a large percentage of the population I think it’s a persuasive argument.
The last thing that the Dems should want in 2020 is for Trump to make the argument that he would have implemented his amazing perfect huuuuuuge MAGA agenda if not for those pesky Dems. An argument that he needs another term to finish the job. That would be disastrous.
Far better, in my view, to allow him to implement his sh/t agenda, get to the end of four years and be able to say “well look at this, turns out his ideas were garbage, vote for our ideas instead”.
Yeah, I don’t agree with that at all.
I think most Americans are still quite proud of their democracy.
Cult of personality to get elected, sure. Every time.
To trample over the founding fathers and make yourself King? Nope.
I have no such faith, which is why I called a year out from the election on here that Trump would win (and made a fair bit of coin on futures markets as well).
The average American voter is way way way dumber than you think. It’s painful, but that’s the way it is