Are people already regretting their choice?

[Swammerdami]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"? There are a variety of other U.S. exports that help balance the trading deficit. For example

• Foreigners who arrive to study at U.S. Universities bring dollars for tuition and other expenses. But Trump's policies (anti-education, anti-DEI, anti-free speech) are causing such "education tourism" to plummet.
• The U.S. has been a major tourism destination. Foreigners want to see the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Manhattan, Las Vegas, Yellowstone, Niagara Falls etc. Trump's policies are causing tourism to plummet: Foreigners (and even U.S. citizens) are in fear of ICE. My sister -- a U.S. citizen -- will no longer travel abroad. She hears of citizens upon return being forced to unlock phones so their social media posts can be checked for anti-fascist content.
• Movies, TV content, software, financial services are examples of services exported rather than material goods. The U.S. runs a big trade SURPLUS on services compared against goods. But it's easier to switch services compared with goods. China has announced a boycott of U.S. movies; expect more countries to follow. RV's hero ranted that he would increase "respect" for America. The truth is the opposite.
• Even after the recent plunge the S&P500 P/E is 23½, with NASDAQ even higher. U.S. Assets, e.g. bonds and high-priced stocks have provided a parking spot for foreign-owned dollars. For almost a century U.S. assets have outperformed foreign assets. But Trump's policies will weaken U.S. assets, weaken the dollar, and speed the rush away from the dollar as premier reserve currency. It remains to be seen to what extent lost U.S. strength will pass to democracies like France, Germany and Canada, or pass to totalitarian states.

Can the Destruction of America be slowed? The awakening of ordinary Americans is the prerequisite. That's why it is disappointing to see our own "canary in the coal mine" parrot Trumpist propaganda and thoughtlessly blame all misfortunes on "the democrats."

 

[bilby]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"?

Because it's the era of heavy manufacturing they dream of. 1850-1950 was the best period in all of history.

As long as you were wealthy, white, male, and exempt from military service, obviously.

 

[Toni]

US heavy manufacturing is necessary to maintain military dominance. Because once a war is established (other than nuclear) the side who can maintain weapons logistics will win.

The US has no shortage of military manufacturing; She is a large net exporter of weapons systems, particularly heavy weapons systems.

Building automobiles (or refrigerators, or televisions...) is not relevant to that industry.

Yes and no. Resources currently devoted to military equipment could be utilized in other less violent purposes. Monetary resources, intellectual resources, mental, including those necessary for electronics and data, off the top of my head.

What if the world quit having wars?

If the world quit having wars, we would still need advanced weapons of war to maintain that condition.

An armed peace, in which nobody dares invade anyone else, can at least theoretically be stable; An unarmed peace collapses the instant anyone anywhere sees how vulnerable their unarmed neighbours are, and starts secretly building weapons.

The longest and most significant period of peace in history is the Cold War. It wasn't hugely peaceful in absolute terms, but by comparison to the rest of history, it really was. Particularly once the USA got a draw and a loss out of her South East Asian efforts, and the USSR got their arses kicked in Afghanistan, showing the superpowers that even non-nuclear proxy wars were bad strategy.

And that’s why we still have wars. We believe that the only way to avoid war is to be prepared to win a war.

It is, in a way, not at all different than teaching little girls self defense, in case someone tries to rape them. Instead of teaching little boys not to rape.*

* I know full well that boys abd men are raised as well as girls and women and that sometimes the aggressor is female, regardless of the gender of the victim abd yes, I know that there are more than two genders and that all marginalized persons are more likely to be victims of sexual assault. But that’s far less pithy.

 

[RVonse]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"? There are a variety of other U.S. exports that help balance the trading deficit. For example

• Foreigners who arrive to study at U.S. Universities bring dollars for tuition and other expenses. But Trump's policies (anti-education, anti-DEI, anti-free speech) are causing such "education tourism" to plummet.

Swammerdami thank you for helping me see an angle of the colleges I had not considered. It was always a curiosity to me why our colleges had become so racist and hating of white men. After reading your post this practice makes perfect sense for business reasons. I do still wish colleges were not so racist but their racist DEI practice at least makes sense for their promotion and world wide advertising.

And I'm willing to admit when your right. Trump should just leave them alone for now. And let them bring in this foreign capital the US so desperately needs right now.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The best argument against MAGA is a Democrat solution. If Trump is nuts, how do you believe manufacturing can be brought back to America? Doing nothing is no longer survivable because $1trillion+ deficits are not survivable. And not having our own heavy manufacturing is incompatible with remaining a reserve status exceptional country.

So I ask again. Do the Democrats just want to sit around and die? Tell us what you would do and find someone with the balls to put forward that solution and make that happen. That is how you convince MAGA to become Democrats again. MAGA is loyal to Trump as long as he is seen to be our only and last hope for survival.

In other words, you have no answer. You are proposing to jump from the frying pan to the fire.

We aren't going to be making America great again. We are rapidly turning it into a hellhole. The Republicans have no solutions, everything is about hate and harming the liberals.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Forget about Trump and his tariffs for a moment. What is your solution to get rid of excess debt and still keep US dominance? What is your better solution to reduce housing costs but also increase employment in low skilled high wage jobs?

Just because he says it's a solution doesn't make it so.

You can cure your headache with a handgun. Does that make it the right thing to do?

 

[bilby]

And that’s why we still have wars. We believe that the only way to avoid war is to be prepared to win a war.

Do you have a suggestion for another way to avoid war? I am all ears.

As far as I can see, we still have wars because the methods used to pick national leaders tend towards picking beligerent assholes.

Unilateral disarmament is an invitation for any nearby asshole to send his army to enslave you and steal your stuff; Multilateral disarmament is an invitation for any nearby asshole to send his secretly built army to enslave you and steal your stuff.

We still have wars because it's better to go to war, than it is to let any nearby asshole send his army unopposed to enslave you and steal your stuff.

If you want to get rid of wars, and of the weapons of war, then first you need to rid the world of assholes, or at least find a surefire way to prevent assholes from obtaining any power.

Good luck with that.

It is, in a way, not at all different than teaching little girls self defense, in case someone tries to rape them. Instead of teaching little boys not to rape.

We already very successfully teach little boys not to rape. Most men never rape anyone, just as most men never declare war on, nor invade, a neighbouring country.

The problem is that to prevent either war or rape by teaching people not to do it, you need a perfect, 100% guaranteed way to ensure that nobody will ever become a rapist or an invader.

A 99.999999% success rate won't cut it; That would still leave around forty men worldwide who will rape a woman (or send an army to invade her country) if they are not adequately defended against.

 

[Toni]

You are making the perfect the enemy of the good.

And also assuming that all aggressors, all rapists are male, all victims are female and all leaders are assholes. None of that is inevitable.

But if the only tool you can conceive of is a hammer, the whole world looks like a bed of nails.

So much evil can be stopped by being willing to see it and stopping it, usually with non-lethal methods. I cannot even remember how many times I stopped rape—my own and other people’s before things got that far. By being willing to fight back, speak up, sound an alarm. But first you have to recognize shit and calling by its name.

 

[laughing dog]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"? There are a variety of other U.S. exports that help balance the trading deficit. For example

• Foreigners who arrive to study at U.S. Universities bring dollars for tuition and other expenses. But Trump's policies (anti-education, anti-DEI, anti-free speech) are causing such "education tourism" to plummet.

Swammerdami thank you for helping me see an angle of the colleges I had not considered. It was always a curiosity to me why our colleges had become so racist and hating of white men. After reading your post this practice makes perfect sense for business reasons. I do still wish colleges were not so racist but their racist DEI practice at least makes sense for their promotion and world wide advertising.

“Hating white men”? Where do you get such ideas?

 

[bilby]

You are making the perfect the enemy of the good.

No, I am just pointing out that in this case - the attempted prevention of war via disarmament - the perfect really is the enemy of the good.

And also assuming that all aggressors, all rapists are male,

Assuming otherwise just makes things worse for your position. I was giving you a break. Of course things are actually worse for your position than I suggested.

all victims are female

I did not make that assumption. And the subject is war; Rape is just an imperfect analogy you introduced.

and all leaders are assholes.

That's not an assumption, it's more of an observation. And it needn't be all; One is sufficient. That's my whole point.

None of that is inevitable.

OK, so I repeat:

Do you have a suggestion for another way to avoid war? I am all ears.

I hope you are right; But you have a lot of work to do if you are going to convince me that you are.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The 25% who agree work in meat packing or some other worse jerb.

And what about people like me? I used to work for a factory, now I work with a factory. Occasionally I used to end up on the factory floor dealing with the software. Do I work in manufacturing?

 

[lostone]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"? There are a variety of other U.S. exports that help balance the trading deficit. For example

• Foreigners who arrive to study at U.S. Universities bring dollars for tuition and other expenses. But Trump's policies (anti-education, anti-DEI, anti-free speech) are causing such "education tourism" to plummet.
• The U.S. has been a major tourism destination. Foreigners want to see the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Manhattan, Las Vegas, Yellowstone, Niagara Falls etc. Trump's policies are causing tourism to plummet: Foreigners (and even U.S. citizens) are in fear of ICE. My sister -- a U.S. citizen -- will no longer travel abroad. She hears of citizens upon return being forced to unlock phones so their social media posts can be checked for anti-fascist content.
• Movies, TV content, software, financial services are examples of services exported rather than material goods. The U.S. runs a big trade SURPLUS on services compared against goods. But it's easier to switch services compared with goods. China has announced a boycott of U.S. movies; expect more countries to follow. RV's hero ranted that he would increase "respect" for America. The truth is the opposite.
• Even after the recent plunge the S&P500 P/E is 23½, with NASDAQ even higher. U.S. Assets, e.g. bonds and high-priced stocks have provided a parking spot for foreign-owned dollars. For almost a century U.S. assets have outperformed foreign assets. But Trump's policies will weaken U.S. assets, weaken the dollar, and speed the rush away from the dollar as premier reserve currency. It remains to be seen to what extent lost U.S. strength will pass to democracies like France, Germany and Canada, or pass to totalitarian states.

Can the Destruction of America be slowed? The awakening of ordinary Americans is the prerequisite. That's why it is disappointing to see our own "canary in the coal mine" parrot Trumpist propaganda and thoughtlessly blame all misfortunes on "the democrats."

I grew up in NE NC in the 1950s. The most valuable things that I ever learned in college about life about people who came from other backgrounds, even in NC, came from my contact with people from other areas of NC, the US, and foreign nations studying in our university. Even then, the Conservatives in NC resented those people not from NC who broadened my exposure to people in other parts of the world. They still do. People from rural and small towns fear the influence of outsiders from cities and foreign nations. There is a word for it - xenophobia.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't know if Garcia should have been deported without due process because I am not an attorney. I do know that "due process" for illegals depends greatly upon a number of factors such as how long they have been in the US and what their current status was/is.

The point of due process is determining whether the person really is guilty of the wrong. The administration has admitted they were wrong but The Felon remains convinced of his guilt.

"Morally" I agree with you that this is an injustice, showing good example of someone simply caught up in US politics. But that happens all the time in our country.

No, it doesn't.

Democrat supporters like yourself never seem to mind injustices when your side does this. How is this case any different than all the lawfare and court appearances for Trump that would not even have taken place without a political circus? The vast majority of Trump's convictions and charges all took place in highly biased settings by Democrats.

Which only reflects the fact that Republican areas weren't interested in prosecuting his crimes.

The closest I see to "lawfare" is charging the business records as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Those laws exist specifically to go after those who hide dodgy financial matters, using them against someone who hid dodgy financial matters isn't one bit out of line.

That did not seem to bother you or other Democrats at all. Hopefully you are honest enough to see a similarity with this. Because in the better world, Trump would not have been convicted nor would Garcia been deported if the world was not caught up in politics.

In a better world The Felon would have been convicted of a lot more crimes than he was.

So yes I believe Garcia got a raw deal but I also feel the Democrats had their hand in this too. As I have repeated many times over, Biden and Democrats could have and should have kept the borders secure.

And you have never addressed the facts.

1) You can't make them secure. Period. And a nation that makes a serious effort at it is not a place I want to live.

2) The Republicans deliberately scuttled all attempts to address the issue.

But they didn't because they wanted more voters. Trump has proven to us all that had Biden and other Democrats truly wanted border security they would have done it.

Proven what? By deporting citizens? By deporting permanent residents simply because he doesn't like them? (Hint: You need to be convicted of a crime that could carry a year in jail to be deported for your behavior.)

There is only one notable feature of The Felon's actions: deliberate evil. He's not out for justice, he's out to be the biggest bully ever.

People like Axulus will tell you Trump is not giving the illegals proper due process. But when you let in massive amounts of people who should not be in this country to begin with, just how well could any country expect to give them due process? We don't have enough courts and judges to possibly hold appearances for all these people who have over run our borders. To give each and every one of them the due process Axulus wants, we would have to tie our courts up for the next 400 years or so.

And what happens when you get deported? We've already seen guilt is irrelevant.

As for Comcast and others, I believe media should be split up (as it was before Clinton) so we might hopefully get more balanced news.

Balanced news doesn't exist because it would lose readership to unbalanced news. However, for the most part the imbalance is towards stirring up controversy. It's not biased against the Republicans--the "bias" is simply a refusal to repeat the propaganda piece of the day. They don't report what Faux reports--because Faux is lying. While I do not listen to Faux I have at times been around a TV tuned to it--and it's often hard to see the connection between what they're saying and reality.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

People like Axulus will tell you Trump is not giving the illegals proper due process. But when you let in massive amounts of people who should not be in this country to begin with, just how well could any country expect to give them due process? We don't have enough courts and judges to possibly hold appearances for all these people who have over run our borders. To give each and every one of them the due process Axulus wants, we would have to tie our courts up for the next 400 years or so.

You seem to be justifying dictatorship here. We just need to take the President's declaration as fact. Incredible how you fear government tyranny, yet are embracing the fuck out of it!

How do you want to give court appearances to so many people? People who should not even be here to begin with?

If he can't give them all court appearances he shouldn't have been grabbing them in the first place. Note that he's already grabbed US citizens and held onto them even when they were identified as citizens.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

• Should Garcia have been deported without due process?
• Do you think El Salvador would return Garcia (assuming he is still alive) if Trump asked them to?
• Do you agree that Comcast should have its licenses revoked for claiming that Garcia is not a criminal?

Life can suck if you get unlucky.

So why the concern about losing manufacturing jobs? Those workers were unlucky because they picked the wrong sector. After all, life can suck if you get unlucky!

If it were only one person, I agree you have a valid point.

But in the case of manufacturing, we are talking about a massive amount of people who legally live here to begin and also having legal voting rights. In a democracy you can not ignore such a massive block of people.

So slavery is ok because you can't ignore a bunch of slaveowners.

 

[Swammerdami]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"? There are a variety of other U.S. exports that help balance the trading deficit. For example

• Foreigners who arrive to study at U.S. Universities bring dollars for tuition and other expenses. But Trump's policies (anti-education, anti-DEI, anti-free speech) are causing such "education tourism" to plummet.

Swammerdami thank you for helping me see an angle of the colleges I had not considered. It was always a curiosity to me why our colleges had become so racist and hating of white men.

"Date rape" has been a major problem on college campuses. (A study from a decade ago showed over 100,000 young American women being assaulted annually.) Rapes are condoned by Donald "Grab their pussy" Trump. Although many of the rapists are black, defense of men protesting innocence ("My word against hers"), White supremacy, and the Incel movement all feed on each other. I am NOT suggesting that RV is affiliated with any of these groups, but their propaganda pervades right-wing media.

After reading your post this practice makes perfect sense for business reasons. I do still wish colleges were not so racist but their racist DEI practice at least makes sense for their promotion and world wide advertising.

“Hating white men”? Where do you get such ideas?

It's a natural backlash against the empowerment of females and people with dark skin. RV may get it from OAN and FoxNews ... or Jimmy Dore? I don't think RVonse has told us where he gets his "news" and opinions. Facebook and Xwitter are full of white supremacy, directed at users algorithmically.

Timothy McVeigh was a white supremacist though never affiliated with any neo-Nazi group. It was the rise of social media that made it easy for neo-Nazis to find each other. This accelerated the spread of racism (and viewing Democrats as an "out-group") until such thinking now dominates the GOP.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, WHY are RV and DJT(?) so focused on "heavy manufacturing"? There are a variety of other U.S. exports that help balance the trading deficit. For example

• Foreigners who arrive to study at U.S. Universities bring dollars for tuition and other expenses. But Trump's policies (anti-education, anti-DEI, anti-free speech) are causing such "education tourism" to plummet.

Swammerdami thank you for helping me see an angle of the colleges I had not considered. It was always a curiosity to me why our colleges had become so racist and hating of white men. After reading your post this practice makes perfect sense for business reasons. I do still wish colleges were not so racist but their racist DEI practice at least makes sense for their promotion and world wide advertising.

And I'm willing to admit when your right. Trump should just leave them alone for now. And let them bring in this foreign capital the US so desperately needs right now.

They are neither racist nor man-hating.

Rather, what we are seeing is a common flaw of the left: assuming disparate outcomes is discrimination. They are trying to fix what they see as the effects of discrimination. (Even if they were right it doesn't work! You need to fix the problem where it's occurring, not downstream.) It's stupid, but it's based on good intentions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are making the perfect the enemy of the good.

And also assuming that all aggressors, all rapists are male, all victims are female and all leaders are assholes. None of that is inevitable.

But if the only tool you can conceive of is a hammer, the whole world looks like a bed of nails.

So much evil can be stopped by being willing to see it and stopping it, usually with non-lethal methods. I cannot even remember how many times I stopped rape—my own and other people’s before things got that far. By being willing to fight back, speak up, sound an alarm. But first you have to recognize shit and calling by its name.

I see the exact reverse. You want the problem completely removed and object to approaching it by minimizing the risk.

 

[Swammerdami]

Rachel Maddow presents some Trump orders that would each be front-page news in saner times, but now get "lost in the sauce":

• All Americorps operations are to cease immediately.
• Head Start budgets are to be zero in every state.
• Cuts at NOAA are so deep that accuracy of weather forecasting will be severely degraded. (Apps are being installed on NOAA employee devices to detect if they report the degradation to outsiders.)
• Almost all (90%) of employees of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau were fired. (This may be delayed by a judge who finds this violates her earlier order.)

 

[ZiprHead]

I don't know if Garcia should have been deported without due process because I am not an attorney. I do know that "due process" for illegals depends greatly upon a number of factors such as how long they have been in the US and what their current status was/is.

No, it doesn't.

"Morally" I agree with you that this is an injustice, showing good example of someone simply caught up in US politics. But that happens all the time in our country. Democrat supporters like yourself never seem to mind injustices when your side does this. How is this case any different than all the lawfare and court appearances for Trump that would not even have taken place without a political circus? The vast majority of Trump's convictions and charges all took place in highly biased settings by Democrats. That did not seem to bother you or other Democrats at all. Hopefully you are honest enough to see a similarity with this. Because in the better world, Trump would not have been convicted nor would Garcia been deported if the world was not caught up in politics.

Can you point out some of these injustices brought about by Democrats? If you mean the actions taken against Trump, you do understand he was convicted by a jury, not by biased Democrats.

So yes I believe Garcia got a raw deal but I also feel the Democrats had their hand in this too. As I have repeated many times over, Biden and Democrats could have and should have kept the borders secure. But they didn't because they wanted more voters. Trump has proven to us all that had Biden and other Democrats truly wanted border security they would have done it. And had Biden and other Democrats not had border issues combined with their carefully crafted safe cities, letting in MASSIVE amounts of new people, they probably would not have lost the last POTUS election and Trump would not have to return such a huge number of people. I blame this more on the Democrats than I do Trump. At least Trump wants existing citizens to vote for him fair and square, he does not have to import illegals to cheat.

People like Axulus will tell you Trump is not giving the illegals proper due process. But when you let in massive amounts of people who should not be in this country to begin with, just how well could any country expect to give them due process? We don't have enough courts and judges to possibly hold appearances for all these people who have over run our borders. To give each and every one of them the due process Axulus wants, we would have to tie our courts up for the next 400 years or so.

It is also important to point out that our legal system sucks to begin with. The US has plenty of innocent people sitting in jail right now who are only there because they took plea bargain instead of proving they were innocent. And that does not count all the people who were proven guilty by a jury even though they weren't. Life can suck if you get unlucky.

The border are and always have been secure. Trump is lying to you.

If a migrant reports to the border and makes a claim of asylum, by both US law and iirc international law, we are required to accept that person and have their asylum claim tested in court. The bipartisan immigration bill would have brought on more border patrol agents to increase catching those that cross the border and try to evade officers and also would have increased the immigration courts to help speed asylum claims through the courts. The border patrol themselves approved of this legislation. Trump stopped it because he selfishly wanted the issue to run on. Trump put himself above the good of the nation.

And the notion that Dems wanted these people to make more Dem voters is just absolutely ridiculous and a conservative bullshit talking point. First off, it takes many years for an immigrant to recieve full citizenship. As long as eight years. There is no mechanism in the process to steer anyone towards a certain political ideology. Most migrants from central and south America are quite religious and lean conservative. Cuban refugees are especially Republican voters. Making Dem voters is a conspiracy theory of the highest order.

As for Comcast and others, I believe media should be split up (as it was before Clinton) so we might hopefully get more balanced news.

This I agree with. Clinton deregulated the media and made huge media conglomerates possible. It also created the right wing AM radio river of bullshit and lies it now is.