President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

TRUMP TOOK A LEGAL TAX DEDUCTION!!!!

There were like eight days spent on this.

There were a million of these types of stories (TRUMP ADMITS TO SEXUAL ASSAULT!!! TRUMP SAYS OBAMA FOUNDED ISIS!!!), but that was the big one. That was the one where a lot of Americans started tuning out negative stories about Trump because a lot of Americans thought, "What the hell is wrong with doing that?"

Was it Claire McCaskill who was going on the Sunday shows arguing that she doesn't take "every single tax deduction I can find"?

It was a total shitshow. The Democrats and media came off as idiots.

 

I'd love to believe that. But I think it's wishful thinking.

 

You need a more diverse group of friends.

Would be well less than 50% for me. And, the Trump voters are mostly grade school "friends" who I haven't seen in 30+ years.

 

At the midpoint of their first/only term, there was no way George HW Bush was going to be defeated, or that Bill Clinton would be re-elected.

It's way too early to tell what will happen. A lot will depend on how the economy is doing and on who the Dems nominate. (And does a credible republican primary Trump, and how does that go?).

If Trump can ask people if they're better off than they were four years ago, and the answer is yes, he wins.

 

Australia’s Prime Minister Slowly Realizes Trump Is a Complete Idiot

The transcript of Donald Trump’s discussion with Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull obtained by the Washington Post reveals many things, but the most significant may be that Trump in his private negotiations is every bit as mentally limited as he appears to be in public.

Australia’s Prime Minister Slowly Realizes Trump Is a Complete Idiot

 

So in other words. Trump can win because he will again win a minority of voters, but his voters are so well distributed in places I wouldn't live on a bet, he can govern despite majority opposition. Maybe so, but it sounds to me like saying that because he filled an inside straight once, he's a cinch to do it again.
Vombatus, anything's possible, but Trump scoring a major foreign policy success strikes me as 100 times as unlikely as him being re-elected because of good economic conditions.

 

It took a while, but Laurence Tribe found someone to hold his beer:

 

@YankeeFan, what is your take on Trump's number of golf and vacation days so far?

(Answer without invoking Daniel Pearl, please.)

 

The most absurd aspect of all of this is how so many who voted for him identify with him as the "underdog" or some common man who would fight for them.

The man has openly expressed his distaste for underlings, resides in a literal golden tower, and mostly hangs out at his own country clubs.

 

Just one final reminder on the futility of guessing what will happen in 2020, or 2018 for that matter, in August 2017. Up until 8:30 p.m. or so on Election Night, among the people who thought Clinton was going to win was Donald Trump. Are there reasons why he can be re-elected? Sure. But there are also reasons why he might not be. To carry a sub-40 approval rating when unemployment is 4.3 percent is not normal. It indicates the incumbent has a hard row to hoe.

 

You guys are like the people compiling 2018 NCAA football Top 25 lists in September 2017.

 

We discussed this quite a bit during the election campaign, as you'll recall. Everything you say is true. But he does come off as down to Earth. They find his rough edges endearing and authentic. He acts like people think they would act if they were rich. You know how Trump pretends to disdain celebrities, but aches to have one acknowledge him? I think a lot of "common" men and women pretend to disdain the rich and powerful, but ache for one of them to believably identify with them. And that's Trump. It doesn't hurt that he had a TV show in which "common" men and women vied to work for him.