President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I guess you could say he wants to put the elf on a shelf.

 

Beleaguered is a first-class newspaper word.

 

How convenient for Fucko to pack his cabinet with doddering old fossils; nothing suspicious if they suddenly wake up dead one fine morning.

 

Robert Reich:

Throughout modern history, tyrants have sought to turn the public against expertise and science. Trump is ramping up his attacks on:

1. The intelligence agencies. Making his debut on the Sunday shows, former hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci said yesterday Trump still doesn’t accept the consensus of professionals in the intelligence community that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election.

2. Housing experts. Last month he appointed party planner Lynne Patton, who helped plan Eric Trump’s wedding to head HUD’s office for the region that covers New York and New Jersey.

3. Agriculture scientists. Last week Trump nominated someone who is not a scientist to be the Agriculture Department’s chief scientist. Sam Clovis has described himself as “extremely skeptical” about the expert consensus on climate change.

4. Climate scientists. Trump will nominate a prominent coal lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, to serve as the No. 2 at the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has already removed several agency websites that contained detailed climate data and scientific information, including one that for nearly two decades has explained climate change.

5. Economists. Knowing the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the revised Senate Republican health-care bill would be awful, Trump’s White House placed an op-ed preemptively dismissing the economist's forecast as “fake news.”

And on it goes. Trump wants no experts and no facts so the American public will believe his lies. It’s an attack on democracy.

 

Nice of Rob Reich to crib from the Post.

Analysis | The Daily 202: Trump marginalizes experts, debases expertise

That said, they drew (credited) inspiration for the article's theme from a new book that hits it dead on the screws.

 

I used only his post, but he posted that story with it.

 

I don't think they like him ...

 

Arch-liberals decrying Trump's dismissal of the dismal science is pretty fucking rich ...

 

Makes sense. I figured that had to be what he was drawing from. It's a hell of an article.

 

And to be fair to the other side, on the left we tend to think many of the same simplistic things about corporations and business. We just assume they have an unlimited amount of profit and they're withholding it without looking at market forces and just how quickly it can all go away. We forget that the people running those corporations are people and assume the worst about them and their motives. We dismiss the global forces that pressurize and weaponize those decisions way beyond their control, too.

So not only are both sides getting dumber, we're also getting less empathetic, less understanding and more conspiratorial.

And a great number of politicians and business leaders live up to the very worst of our notions all along the political spectrum and reinforce them.

I've come to the conclusion that we've reached a level of complexity as a society beyond what we can handle. I don't know what the breaking point is, but it feels like we're reaching it.

 

Ain't no pencil neck geek kollege smarty guy gonna tell me what to do. I was one of the smartest kids at Billy Bob's Jumping Jesus Bible Academy. Seventh grade was three of the greatest years of my life.