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Trump Approval ~40% - And post Trump America

 
 
 
ronburgundy said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
It is a 24/7 job.
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No it isn't. It means technically being on call 24/7, like many other jobs, including tech support. But the president works a lot fewer hours than many Americans who make much less. Obama has said that almost every night he eats dinner and spends time with his kids, reads, gets almost 8 hours sleep, and works out for an hour every morning. Presidents typically take far more vacation time than the vast majority of Americans. Plus, all the they time they spend campaigning and trying to get re-elected doesn't count as part of the job.

It is a stressful job to be sure, but so is being a cop and we pay them about $30k per year.

I can see justifying even up near $200k, but not $400k, especially when you consider that all housing and other expenses are covered.
Is it a good thing for democracy if the president is in the top 1%? Is it a bad thing if being president was made unappealing to those already in the top 1%, especially those so greedy that a slight temporary reduction in income was unacceptable?
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The Presidency is paid much less than many other jobs. And, if the pay were significantly lower, who could afford to be President?
 
He's still not a politician, and that carries a lot of weight in the minds of many. Going forward, there will be the rationale in the minds of these not a politician Trump supporters that everything he screws up is necessary to get the country on the right track.
 
Can someone provide an article that describes why Pence would be worse than Trump?

I've heard inklings that Pence is batshit, but my intuition tells me that he would at least make an effort to not destabilize things, where in that vein I'd think Trump is more of a risk.
 
rousseau said:
Can someone provide an article that describes why Pence would be worse than Trump?

I've heard inklings that Pence is batshit, but my intuition tells me that he would at least make an effort to not destabilize things, where in that vein I'd think Trump is more of a risk.
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I'm starting to agree with that sentiment. I don't have any articles, but the prevailing opinion seems to be that while Trump doesn't really know what he believes and has gone both ways on many issues, Pence is a hardcore religious conservative with the political know-how to get his terrifying agenda enacted. But it seems to me that it's almost worse not knowing what Trump will do or say next; at least Pence would be somewhat predictable.
 
laughing dog said:
ronburgundy said:
No it isn't. It means technically being on call 24/7, like many other jobs, including tech support. But the president works a lot fewer hours than many Americans who make much less. Obama has said that almost every night he eats dinner and spends time with his kids, reads, gets almost 8 hours sleep, and works out for an hour every morning. Presidents typically take far more vacation time than the vast majority of Americans. Plus, all the they time they spend campaigning and trying to get re-elected doesn't count as part of the job.

It is a stressful job to be sure, but so is being a cop and we pay them about $30k per year.

I can see justifying even up near $200k, but not $400k, especially when you consider that all housing and other expenses are covered.
Is it a good thing for democracy if the president is in the top 1%? Is it a bad thing if being president was made unappealing to those already in the top 1%, especially those so greedy that a slight temporary reduction in income was unacceptable?
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The Presidency is paid much less than many other jobs. And, if the pay were significantly lower, who could afford to be President?
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Adding just the covered expenses that a typical person with that income would spend if not president, it pays over $500,000 per year. That doesn't include any income of the "first" spouse for various speaking gigs, etc. So, less than 1% of adults have a higher income. That doesn't qualify as "many other". 100% of the population could afford to be President, even if the pay were dropped by 60% to about $150k.
 
He is batshit. However, he is a responsible man who actually cares about doing his job, has relevant experience, is not a spoiled child trapped in an old man's body and has some inkling of how difficult it is to be president.

The big question is how batshit one has to be before one prefers a useless libertine to an otherwise responsible batshit person.

But yes, he's the perfect embodiment of the republican who really believes the lies republicans say. When he was in Congress, a journalist commented that there were salads in the cafeteria that were smarter than he was. He eliminated a needle exchange program on the idea that it encouraged drug use, and ended up with a massive HIV epidemic. He doesn't believe in evolution. He believes that gays can be cured. He had trouble getting into law school because of his test scores.

Searching on Google: Mike Pence Stupid or anything equivalent will get you lots of hits.

And the problem is, Trump is clearly the person I'd rather be setting the country's social agenda. As horrible as he is, he's a libertine, and so is fairly socially permissive. When it comes to who I'd rather have with the nuclear codes, Pence is the clear favorite.
 
Sarpedon said:
Trump is clearly the person I'd rather be setting the country's social agenda. As horrible as he is, he's a libertine, and so is fairly socially permissive. When it comes to who I'd rather have with the nuclear codes, Pence is the clear favorite.
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Problem is, you cross Trump and Pence and you get Dunce.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Tom Sawyer said:
Nobody's going to control him and he's just going to do what he wants without any consequences. The GOP aren't going to cross him and the Dems have less power and influence than John Hawkes. If your first question upon hearing that is "Who the hell is John Hawkes?" then you got the point. This is what your country's lack of concern about the electoral process got you.
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John Hawkes was a US soccer player. I made him get a PK once... oh wait... that's John Harkes.

But back to the original point, the GOP won't turn on him? Who do you think put the Russian accusations out there in the first place?
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Yeah this is something I've thought for months and it could very well still happen, the GOP could still be setting up Trump to slit his neck at the last hurdle to prop up the far more amicable President Pence and it seems more and more likely with each passing day.

Remember, the GOP voter base might see this as a betrayal, but you know what's worse than that? Letting Trump actually be president, thus ruining the GOP's credibility down ballot. At least if you never give Trump the chance he wants, you can always continue to speculate on the efficacy of his platform.

In the abstract sense, DJT was the GOP voter base calling the GOP's bluff. The reality is that the GOP cannot afford to let Trump put their theoretical platform into practice because it will inevitably fail and discredit the republican party for a generation.
 
rousseau said:
Can someone provide an article that describes why Pence would be worse than Trump?

I've heard inklings that Pence is batshit, but my intuition tells me that he would at least make an effort to not destabilize things, where in that vein I'd think Trump is more of a risk.
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While I think the worst that could come of a Trump presidency is worse than the worst that could happen under Pence, I think that barring the worst possible outcome, Pence is much more likely to make things worse for the average American. In other words, there is always the possibility that Trump will get us involved in a nuclear conflict over someone insulting him, but virtually everything Pence would do in office will serve to take us 2 steps back from any progressive gains to date, while moving us 1 step toward theocracy. Trump is already throwing the Republican controlled Congress into disarray, Pence would have been in lockstep with them from the word "go". Trumps cabinet picks are terrible, to be sure, but they are all capitalist conservatives. Pence would fill his cabinet with evangelical conservatives.

Pence would champion anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, anti-anything-not-Christian issues, and Americans would pay a steep price in loss of liberty. Trump is unlikely to care about anything that does not result in increasing his bottom line. When people bitch about the shit Congress is trying to pull, as long as it doesn't affect his wallet, Trump will side with the people, because he wants the people to like him. Trump may be making us the laughing stock of the world right now, but at least he cares about how he is perceived. Pence won't give a shit. He is a righteous man of God, and he won't let the little people, or anyone else in the world, get in the way of enacting his Christian agenda, and congress will gladly follow him.
 
I'm sorry, but my paranoia is starting to kick in.

Does anyone think if the Congressional GOP did try to remove Il Douchebag from office that he wouldn't call out his alt-right "Brown Shirts" to try and stop it.

Later,
ElectEngr
 
ElectEngr said:
I'm sorry, but my paranoia is starting to kick in.

Does anyone think if the Congressional GOP did try to remove Il Douchebag from office that he wouldn't call out his alt-right "Brown Shirts" to try and stop it.

Later,
ElectEngr
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Maybe what's needed more than anything is for all hell to break loose like that. If he did anything along those lines, it'd be a huge mistake, the sort of mistake that'd wake more people up to how stupid it was to vote for him. And the message "don't do a thing like that again" to those voters matters way more than trying to stay safe and comfy and stable, where no such lesson is learned.
 
ElectEngr said:
I'm sorry, but my paranoia is starting to kick in.

Does anyone think if the Congressional GOP did try to remove Il Douchebag from office that he wouldn't call out his alt-right "Brown Shirts" to try and stop it.

Later,
ElectEngr
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Yes, but by "call out his alt-right "Brown Shirts" to try and stop it", I'd mean "let those representatives know they'd be voted out in the primaries". Trump is a lot more popular amongst the GOP primary voters than any particular representative is and has demonstrated that he can get his people out to the polls - and the congress critters know it. They're not going to be intimidated against doing anything anti-Trump due to extra-legal methods being employed against them, they're going to be intimidated against this through the legal use of the democratic process which determines whether or not they keep their jobs.
 
KeepTalking said:
But then Pence would be President, and that outcome may be worse than a Trump presidency.
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From a practical standpoint I think we are going to get a Pence presidency anyway, just with Trump's insanity on top.

- - - Updated - - -

ElectEngr said:
I'm sorry, but my paranoia is starting to kick in.

Does anyone think if the Congressional GOP did try to remove Il Douchebag from office that he wouldn't call out his alt-right "Brown Shirts" to try and stop it.

Later,
ElectEngr
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I would expect him to try. I would not expect it to work.
 
ronburgundy said:
RavenSky said:
If he resigns, he won't get the $450,000 for life, will he? I think he will try to stick it out for the 4 years, then not run again.
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Actually, former presidents currently "only" get about $190,000 per year, for life. Still too much though. Their salary while President is $400,000 and should only be about $100,000k. Being president shouldn't make you a millionaire, and given all expenses are paid for the whole family, that means they currently walk out of an 8 year term with $3.2 million before taxes, getting another $1 million pre-tax every 5 years just for existing.
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IOW, make them even more prone to corrupting influences such as $250,000 speeches from banks after their term ends, so long as you don't piss them off during your term.
 
I think there's definitely at least two factions in the GOP. Trump is now de-facto the leader of one of them. If the other faction tries to dethrone him and put Pence up there instead, it absolutely will cause a power struggle. The reason that Ryan can't put forth an Obamacare replacement is that he can't get all the GOP factions to agree on one. To impeach Trump, Ryan's faction would have to enlist the Democrats. This would be seen as a betrayal by Trump supporters, and would cause a problem for some time.

Now, would the monied faction really risk their congressional majority for a Pence Presidency? As long as they can keep some semblance of unity, they have all three branches. If they take down Trump, they risk alienating his supporters and having to rely on Democratic support for any action they want to take.
 
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