Proclivities wrote: 
Any negative ones are fake news, you know. He's the greatest.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
Yes, there are so many different polls it's hard to tell.  There aren't as many details on the methodology and sample sizes as I'm used to seeing - I guess one would have to dig deeper into each polling entity's website for that.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
maybe, maybe not

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
Good observation! You're not going to get that from Orange Julius Caesar.

His actions as a businessman are pretty revealing here. His main asset is not anything tangible he owns—his real net worth may actually be negative—but his brand. "Trump" means "successful". Collaborators are willing to pay him to slap his name on their assets because that projects an aura of success and lets them inflate the price of the asset.

He is almost never the sole owner of anything—that would tie up his meager capital and keep him from doing new projects. He has to have some skin in each of his games to make his participation appear credible, but it's usually minimal. What does that mean for governing?

Since the Trump brand means "success" anything he does will be recast by himself and his lackeys as successful. Didn't get Mexico to pay for a wall? That was just a negotiating tactic—a successful one! Didn't build a wall at all? He got X more dollars for border security out of Congress, which is almost as good and still a win. Trading partners cut a deal—that excludes us—with China because we walked away from the TPP? China took advantage of them, it was a bad deal, you'll see. Allies abandoning us? Who needs those freeloading losers!

If the news is bad it has to be buried, denied, denigrated as the partisan actions of a hostile press. Sadly the press has spent decades making this last gambit credible and they bear a good deal of the blame for his ability to get away with outrageous things, but the sheer pace at which he produces fresh outrages allows him to stay ahead of its short attention span.

All modern politicians have spin doctors but none have mastered the game like Trump. Not even Slick Willie was this good at deflecting attention from his actions. It looks exhausting, and I hope it is—Trump stays out of trouble by being a moving target, and if he slows down the flying debris from the accelerating tornado of chaos he's causing may catch up.

Still, just as a general point:

the modus operandi of the new administration is to polarise. If they succeed at this, they will have won. 

When the supporters and the detractors stop looking for common ground you are in deep shit.
It is not a question of convincing die-hard Trump supporters. It is the ground in the middle that needs to be contested and won.
Polarisation from either side is not going to cut it now and only serve the purposes of Trump. 

This doesn't mean making concessions or icky compromises. It is time for the decent people on all sides of the spectrum to stand up quietly but firmly for their principles.
This includes Republicans as much as it does Democrats or any other political parties. 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
Gotta be a lot of noise in that data set.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
It's called the honeymoon phase. Probably happens for every newly installed president.

I suspect his polls are still historically low if compared to Obama, Bushes, Clinton during their first weeks. 

 Proclivities wrote: 
according to anonymous polls his popularity has gone UP since he came into office.

Houston, we have a problem.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
It may be more of a noisy (slight) minority - he did lose the popular vote.

 Proclivities wrote: 
It's not Trump I am interested in. It's the silent majority supporting him.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
So far, it seems to be a scorched-Earth, "tip-over-the-checkerboard" approach.  Anyone calling their accountability into question is simply a "very, very dishonest", traitorous media elite.

 aflanigan wrote: 
true. 

but if they reject customary values then you gotta at least find what values they are actually pursuing.

Constant shifting of the goalposts removes any accountability. I just wanna peg some fixed coordinates.

 aflanigan wrote: 
it should be universal

(i mean if we're being honest/serious)

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 
Trying to hoist Trump supporters on their own petard for believing Trump's BS is like , , , 

what's the metaphor I'm looking for?

 

look at it from a different point of view
after World War II Germany built a wall and the Soviet Union paid for it 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 

It's a trap! lol
Seriously, I think we both know Trump has and will fail miserably on these 2 points, but to be fair any Democratic representative would be just as useless and counter productive it would just manifest itself in different ways. Result is the same, spinning wheels and unsustainable debt.

 kurtster wrote: 
Cool, we have two more points for the manifesto:

2. Problems should be addressed by the administration with the speed and alacrity commensurate to the problem.

3. Ballooning government debt poses a significant risk.

Agreed?

 

 kurtster wrote: 
I think I've only said it a couple of times when you pushed for it. You brought it up again here. And honestly, I don't think your a David Duke kind of racist, more of an Archie Bunker. The world changed around you and things aren't like you thought they were going to be.  I actually agree with some of that. A lot of the changes haven't helped a lot of people. But I see the answers differently, and I don't think that reacting against people who are on the low end of the power differential does any good for the majority of us.

And to be fair, I have my own biases and issues with certain groups as well.  This is a big part of my issues with Trump and why I hate that he is our representative. I'm really not comfortable with people thinking that America is cool with his statements/actions. So I'm happy to see the protests and willing to lend my support to those who oppose him. I'd be willing to 'give him a chance', but the only things that he is following through on are the vile statements and the ridiculous crap. He also said some things about being presidential and reaching out to unify the country. Unless he's trying to get everyone to unify against him, I think he's failing on that mark.  But hey time will tell.  

 islander wrote: 
Once again, as in the last time we had a similar exchange which wasn't all that long ago, I thank you for being honest.

Oh and you can stop sitting on your hands now.  I'm over it.

edit  with our history an all  its easy to see why I would take that remark personally.  Conditioning, hearing it so often.  How it usually happens.  
 

 kurtster wrote: 
Yep that was me. I do generally think of you as more of a generic bigot, but there is the occasional racist source or eyebrow raising language. That particular comment wasn't directed at you though, just the trump crowd in general (but you are in that group).

I don't care much whether you stay or go. I actually like Bokey better than you when he wasn't being all ranty. If you'd bother to read back I was frequently stepping out on the ledge with him to try and coax him back in the window - I wouldn't do that for you.

As to you last paragraph - HAH!. he has been rewarding donors and championing their causes all week. He's pledging to build a 20+ billion dollar wall (maybe funded indirectly by tariffs that will damage our economy), and you are talking about him as the fiscally responsible guy?  see that myopic comment above. Glad your guy won and all, claim your victory while you can. Everyone else sees the hypocrisy. 
 
Edit: I actually liked bokey when he wasn't all ranty. If you'd go back and read, I was frequently trying to get him to come back in from the ledge. I used to sort of feel the same about you, but these days I'm happy to leave the window open - fly away if you want, it's less birdseed we need here.