Your criticisms of Trump are ridiculous. It's all a bunch of nitpicking personal foibles - actually alleged foibles because we don't the truth of these things - that could be concocted and assembled against anyone, including you or me.
Actually Eric, we do know the truth. There is a mountain of public record. Its a fair comment that we can interpret it differently, but let's not begin by denying it exists.
And its not about nitpicking personals foibles, though I do grant you that goes on, and I have read stuff I know is OTT. But the depth of detail, the consistency of issues raised and the credibility of the authors is sufficient to induce me to believe that where there's smoke there's fire -Trump's pants. Now you may disagree, which you evidently do - so come back with something substantive.
I grant there is bias in anti and pro Trump camps - but it does strike me that one camp delivers evidence and the other only apologetics. I am not invested in this. I got curious about Trump because he was a phenomenon I wanted to know more about. I think the guy has a genius, but pubic good is not his goal. in saying I am not invested, I have to confess I have a bias against him as a business person and a politician. But its not an animus. I am openly left of centre and I have no issue at all with folk who are right of centre. I get that we differ.
You say that the allegations agains Trump could be "concocted and assembled against anyone, including you or me." Well, I have clearly misjudged you, because the following cannot be contrived against me - and I have lived no blameless life by any means. I have done things I am deeply ashamed off and regret profoundly. Here are things for which public record is asserted:
- Trump has underpaid workers, or refused to pay them [many were, apparently, undocumented]
- Trump has simply decided he has paid enough to a supplier, and the aggressively counter-sued when action to recover debt has been taken.
- Rather than repay a loan Trump sued the bank for reckless lending - not because it had done that because he adopted a strategy of aggressively counter suing.
- Trump lied when he said he was loaned $1m by his father, which he paid back. It is claimed he benefitted to the tune of $400m.
- Trump is a rotten deal maker, but comes out, often, with personal profit while investors take a bath. He has a history of business failures that are out down to reckless decision making [including bankruptcies] - Trump steaks, his airline, his 'university' for e.g.
- Trump said that the New York social scene was his "Vietnam" because he avoided getting a STD. Yes, its on record, on video and on YoTube. Did you disrespect your comrades in arms like that? I will bet my house you did not.
- And the "Access Hollywood" tape? Is that how you talk in your 'locker room'? Not in mine.
- Trump does not understand economics. China does not pay the tariffs - US customers do. Didn't understand how casinos worked either. That can't be said of me - you?
- Would you, as POTUS have had, contra every protocol, private solo conversations (2) with Putin in which he alone had a 'translator'?
These are not foibles, they are manifest and gross failings that render him unfit for office (yes, I know that the office of POTUs can be claimed to be occupied by one crook after another - but that does not make crooked conduct okay). And you can't do the deflecting back to Clinton trick endlessly. Clinton was a lousy candidate for a variety of reasons. Its not a case of saying Trump is okay because compared to the alternative.....
Trump racked up a cartload of deficits because being POTUS was never a realistic option. There are doubts he entered the 2016 race with any prospect of winning - but he certainly assembled a talented team to aid him - so I don't buy that. The problem is that Trump's politics were/are crude. He saw globalism as having a negative impact on US industry and he thought US military extension around the globe a bad thing. We can debate that. I see both sides of the debate and have no bias one way or another - save I used to be vehemently anti-US from a military and economic and cultural perspective. Now I have a more moderated POV - which you still won't like.
But when we look at who Trump has engaged to enact his political vision they are a worrisome lot of mostly crackpots.
Trump has poor business, economic and political judgement. He has no good sense of geopolitics. You may care to confess such foibles of yourself, but I do not - even though I know you will disagree.
Many great businessmen have experienced bankruptcy. A huge % of businesses fail. Bankruptcy code was established so people wouldn't be to afraid of total financial destruction to try new things.
No dispute. Its the American business equivalent of redemption and forgiveness. But do check out why Trump went bankrupt and come back to me with the same argument if you can.
A lot of what you refer is just plain "fake news". Someone makes up a story or an angle on a story and the media runs with it and you foolishly believe it.
There's video of Trump saying quite plainly that he was dissing CN and MSNBC for the precise purpose of discouraging his fans from believing negative reports on him. You can go find it and come back to me as to whether you think this is a Trump impersonator employed by CNN (they get all the blame) or not.
Trump is doing great things for America and America is responding well as a result.
?? Find me a credible economist who will back you up here. The US economy was recovering under Obama, and continued to do so under Trump. In Obama's case there was a clear policy foundation for him claiming some credit. Trump claimed the tax cut, but that is disputed by most, if not all, serious economic commentators. The China tariffs have benefited some US manufacturers but harmed others. I have no idea what the net effect is, but I have seen no evidence its a wrong positive. Soy bean farmers have lost the China market probably for good, whom knows. Can they access alternative markets? It ask doubtful if there was spare global capacity ready to take up the China market. These are early days, but the signs are not good.
Trump did the usual POTUS thing of claiming credit for economic performance even when they had nothing to do with it. Current figures suggest a cyclical downward trend.Is he going to claim credit for that as well?
To be precise, what great things is he doing? Please list them so I can understand.
I remember liberals saying that Bill Clinton's personal life was no one's business when he was accused of rape and got caught lying about sex with an intern. Why is Trump's personal life our business?
Totally agree with you re Clinton. Trump's personal life is pertinent, just as Clinton's was, because it attests to two important things - competence and character. You don't want an incompetent POTUS and you don't want one deeply compromised. The White House does background checks on WH staff. You okay with that? But you think the POTUS should not be subject to such scrutiny?
As for impeachment, you are 100% delusional. On what grounds? Answer, there aren't any or the Democrats would have done it already. But you tell me. What grounds? What? Cite the Constitution because that is the law.
Sure, Domestic and Foreign Emoluments clauses - from Wikipedia for convenience:
The
Emoluments Clause may refer to the following clauses in the
United States Constitution:
- The Ineligibility Clause, Article I, Section 6, Clause 2, also called the Incompatibility Clause and affects members of Congress
- The Foreign Emoluments Clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, also called the Title of Nobility Clause and affects the executive branch
- The Domestic Emoluments Clause, Article II, Section 1, Clause 7, also called the Presidential Emoluments Clause and affects the President's salary
Trump has just handed the Dems his arse on a silver platter. The sticky complexity, thanks to Barr, over the Mueller Report, isn't an issue any more.
I love it when foreigners think they know all about America. They never do. You would d well to allow yourself to be brainwashed by the scurrilous media.
I don't think I "know all about America". I am an outsider, often a deeply concerned one bothered about US policies, dragging us into stupid stupid conflicts. I have a deep interest in politics and history. We have been sitting up and paying attention because Trump seems to us to be the loonier of your presidents. And we are entitled to an opinion, because when you guys sneeze we catch a cold.
Oddly, we have a vested interest in good quality information. By comparison, and I do no mean to be unkind, there a standing joke that most Americans think the Middle East is Virginia. We all cop it on YouTube, but do please search Dumb Americans. I am not trying to be cruel here - just pointing out that the US is not only problematic for the rest of us, but it is in the news so much we end up knowing a damned sight more about you than you know about us. So we are entitled to an opinion.
Is it worth much? You know the expression, 'you can't see the forest for the trees'? It applies here. You may not agree with our POV. but you have to cop it. We see stuff you can't, don't or won't.
Scurrilous media? I go back to Trump's admission he set up that contest so his fans would not believe criticisms of him. But because the converse is true you are equally quarantined from the mountain of adverse commentary. You cannot claim the media that says no good of Trump is scurrilous unless you own the truth that the media that 'speaks no ill' is just as scurrilous.
All media is biased. That's a given. But here's a fact to consider. Trump won a vast majority of people who do not have a college education and a small minority of those who do. He won mostly rural districts. Media biases play to these cultural extremes because they are markets first, and targets for political manipulation second. Mostly white, male. lower educated rural folk are a market segment. Commercial and political interests know how to exploit them to a fine degree - as they do all other market segments.
I am concerned that you say my sources are scurrilous media. This is what I hear from others, singing from the same hymn sheet produced by manipulators. Its Trumps's songsheet, not one of an independent mind. Sure, some of my sources are CNN, MSNBC and Fox, the BBC, NPR, SBS and ABC. But let's add academic historians, sociologists, economics, political scientists, reputable journals and sundry other commentators. All scurrilous? You get dangerously close to the sentiment that "all the world's against us, save me and thee" - and that starts to get paranoid.
My brother, a former fundamentalist Christian, observed to me recently that he sees Trump's "movement" (that term's a worry in itself) as a cult. He is intrigued by cult's since his escape, and, like me, he has become fascinated by the Trump phenomenon.
You can think what you like as an American. But you cannot say its none of our business, because we are the ones hurt by idiotic US policies. We don't think Trump is fit for there office of POTUS, and I think I can speak for 80% of the rest of the planet on that matter. You can laugh and deride us, but we are not the ones who's head of state is comically and satirically routinely portrayed as a buffoon around the globe (let alone at home).
If you are right and I am wrong you have a hell of an image problem that is getting worse by the week. You don't care? Then this conversation is a waste of time. The point is that Trump supporters are a heroic minority, and whether you are right is immaterial. Virtually nobody else agrees with you - and that's a problem. That's an image problem. That's a credibility problem.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying you ARE wrong. I am saying I do not agree and I am open to rebuttal that is more than implied insults and cheap shots. Come back to me with specifics and I will do you the courtesy of reading and assessing your counters with intellectual honesty.