100% Voting Trump 100% America First

Not sure why this shitpost was treated as anything but.

Just a quick reminder though that Trump grifted 250 mil from his followers to "stop the steal" but the fund didn't actually do anything and it all went to a slushfund.

Trump and Trump support is not American first, he does not give a single ounce of a shit about any of us. He'll gladly scam even his most devout followers.

I'm not sure why this blog isn't locked.

Most likely because we can turn it into something useful. Namely trying to understand the right's worldviews.

As far as right wingers go though, I would be far more interested in hearing Nirgal's positions. His views seem to be pretty comprehensive and most likely well thought out. Very little celebrity worship (he is pretty critical of trump) and avoids other political pitfalls (most notably tribalism).

I havent seen the typical rejection of academia from him, so I have a good chunk of respect for him, even when I disagree with him.

As for the TC, he isn't a bad person, but I do worry he is being dragged down the YouTube pipeline, which is not healthy.

Before crazy world happened with the 2016 election I could understand where the right was coming from for the most. And I also understand the left sucks at messaging so much so that the truth of policy never makes it to those they need to convince. Most Americans are uninterested in politics, unfortunately, and keep voting by letter. A better civics, economics, and social education is needed. The Right believes their party is small government, pro life, and against taxation. None of which is true but the message is there. Trump used fear to gin up hate against so many other people. His message was Us v Them and he made Americans think the other ideology was an enemy. Now they've dug in and refuse to even entertain the facts. Just look at some of the right wing users here.

I would recommend these users start looking at independent sources/other side. It might open their eyes.

When has hate brought something good with it in peace time?

Hate never does anything positive. I'm not advocating that it does. trump was very divisive. He never represented everyone which he was supposed to do. His campaign rallies which he started pre 2016 election up to today still divide.

I am saying trump used hate for votes.

I would argue they do look at independent sources. And SargentD seems to follow Jimmy Dore, who is a left winger.

Problem is, the sources that are followed are dubious ones. Like Jimmy Dore.

I am also not sure how media literate and experienced he is with politics. If he started with Trump. He may not be all that experienced. But there is nothing wrong with this, experience develops with time.

Speaking from a personal journey, the more experienced I got with politics the more indepth my positions became. A journey for someone might look like this

1. Culture Wars/Left-Right Partisanship
2. General Vibes (America First, Green New Deal)
3. Policy Focus (Can point to specific laws, but not a deep understanding)
4. Political Technicalities (Comprehensive explanation of how certain policies will affect or do affect current societies, societal engineering, comprehensive explanaiton of law)

The barrier for entry in the culture wars, left-right tribalism is nonexistant, anyone can do it. And because the area is mostly subjective, it is difficult to be completely proven wrong.

Vibes do require at least a passing interest or following of politics. The barrier of entry is higher, if only due to the fact that the vibes keep changing. While some people here can be expected to point out some bills here, they probably wont have a deep understanding of it. It mostly revolves around buzzwords.

After that, we can generally see people point out how specific laws, affect society but not much in terms of how. The barrier of entry is higher here because it requires knowledge of laws.

At the technicalities things get far more objective. Barrier of entry is high, as it requires not just knowledge of laws but also a good understanding of them, alongside other fields such as soft sciences, and even occationally hard sciences and engineering based on the policy in question.

With the internet is much easier to see various sides of an issue and also to fact check. Not talking about OP or anyone in particular but right now so many Americans believe fact checkers are biased and any media that doesn't confirm their bias are fake. If the issue is economic, they can check what economists say if they have no experience. Climate/medical, check the science/medical fields. But they don't do that. That is wilful IMO.

I never intended for it to sound like it does. I just hadn't thought about the aspect when it comes to fight in a war, hence why I specified for peace time.

And yeah that is my impression as well. A policy born not from the hope of doing well and improving, but rather to make things difficult for some.

You think climate change is fake, Jan 6th was "awesome", said America should become a Christian nation again (whatever the hell that means), all abortion should be banned, against even the most common sense gun control that over 90% of Americans want, and think illegal anti-vaxxing blockades are cool.

You're ultra extreme far right, of course you're voting for Trump. Why even make this thread, everyone already knows.

I have seen a few people here laugh at people for using fact checkers and even academic sources.

And these are also the people who call us post modernists... smh.

Hell, one of these people even laughed at me for using mathematics... in a SCIENTIFIC debate.

@eoten: no, something being illegal is not reason enough to be against it. It could be illegal for unfair reasons.

In china its illegal to speak against the government.

Trump isn't America first. He is Trump first, in all scenarios. If you truly believe that he cares about America there's very little discussion to be had (ignoring our past conversations and self identified beliefs).

Trump decided that he could try and decertify an election he lost, where AMERICANS resoundingly said NO to his reelection. If we were 'America first', he would have accepted his loss instead of trying to throw out country into a constitutional crisis and subverting our democracy.

@LJS9502_basic: blocking the point of view of others doesn't make them disappear. If you talk about things at least you can understand where they are coming from, even if you don't agree

There are reasons it's illegal. Someone skirting the legal means likely has reasons they wouldn't qualify legal route. The legal route which exists for a reason. Do you know what those reasons are exactly? Surely you know immigration laws exist in every country, and they have a purpose. What do you think that purpose is?

You can apply that to any politician. Obama was incredibly divisive, as is Biden today. Divisive basically means "he doesn't say and do what I want." Right now, you sound like the one who is consumed with hate.

What are you babbling about?

@eoten: i already told you i agree with immigration laws. I am just saying not all laws are fair and make sense. Something being illegal doesn't make it immoral.

@LJS9502_basic: dude, you asked just now to lock the thread for zero reason.

Tribalism… All you gotta do is tell a group of people they’re special, and they will do ANYTHING for the team. The GOP turned politics into sports, and got millions of people who never paid attention to politics involved.

The hypocrisy from the right is the worst part. Trump and the GOP went HARD at Obama claiming he wasn’t born in the U.S. Yet we’ve had 2 GOP members that weren’t born in the U.S. run for President, and most on the right have NO IDEA. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it…

It's a blog and I stated that.

Only one question I have: how can anyone say with a straight face that Trump is “America First” (much less support him) when he’s gone, and continues to go, to great strides to sow doubt and disrepute in the pillars of our democratic system?

There’s only two options:

1) someone believes in voter fraud, something that has been repeatedly disproven, and is hence delusional

2) someone doesn’t and supports him regardless because they don’t care or is so taken in toxic tribalism, and hence isn’t an American or cares for the country

Trump’s merit as a “president” vanished the moment he valued his ego and desires for power over the Constitution he stood in front of the nation and swore to protect, yet ended up betraying the moment it inconvenienced him. I’ve no idea how anyone who calls themselves Americans can even glance in that man’s direction without total and absolute disgust, much less how it’s even allowable for him to be near such power after he’s demonstrated such contempt for its fundamental processes.

how do you reconcile the promises to hire the best and brightest for his senior leadership staff / cabinet with the absolutely abysmal performances of senior leadership in place resulting in far more resignations and firings than is the norm for a presidential administration?

is it he just lied about hiring the best people, or is it his ineptitude at attracting actual talent that didn't spring from his ex-wife's loins?

@LJS9502_basic: I don't see it as a blog, but an explanation of a position, but in order not to derail the thread, i will just let it be.

It amazes me how many Americans praise Trump, despite the face he left office with a recession, 3 million fewer jobs than when he took office, $8 trillion more in debt over 4 years, the worst GDP growth since the Great Depression, and Iran enriching uranium for nukes again because of failed foreign policy.

They are willing to excuse every failure and and want Trump's failures and attacks on democracy because they're paying $1.08 for things they used to get for $1. For all their BS talk about the economy being bad blah blah blah, Biden is still averaging 5.5% GDP growth and 9 million new jobs.

Republicans don't vote from a position of reason. Their votes are 100% emotion-driven. That Trump, despite being a threat to the peace and security of the country, and a complete failure on every measurable level, is somehow viewed as a legitimate solution is a wonderful example of how easily and readily the right votes against their own interests. They're the lowest information voters in the world.

You forgot his tariffs increased costs to Americans and helped create the baby formula shortage.

outside of his crazy debt spending ways, I feel like trump was fantastic. We need him back.

However, I could use less of his drama. No more malania, no more of the trump family baggage. The security cost of his family protection alone cost way too much money. We need to put a limit on the spending for the protection of family of the president. They were protecting, Donald Trum Jr, and his kids, and his kids kids. Jeeze. It got way out of hand. The money spent on mar a lago security, the weekly trips there. Its just way too much money spent. Compared to that, Biden has been far far more fiscally responsible.

Honestly, I would be happy if trump said he would be willing to cover his familys security out of his own pocket instead of shafting the tax payer.

Plus the 10 trillion or so spent in 4 years, its frankly ridiculous.

Outside of the money spent, all his other policies were fantastic.

I would be happy to see him back if he could get his spending way under control. If he can't, id rather stick with biden.

You'd be happy with someone with that many issues you don't like? What policies did you like? Tariffs only hurt American consumers. His tax cut for the wealthy was unwise. His trade act with Canada helped cause the baby food shortage.

And I can't stress this enough.......HE TRIED TO STEAL YOUR DEMOCRACY.

Yup. Tariffs added $57 billion per year to the cost of goods Americans buy overseas. I'm not sure about the formula shortage. I though that was due to dirty equipment in a factory.

Yes. But no imports could come in from Canada to supplement the loss due to the filthy factory.

LOL, sorry that last part was funny. 😂😂😂

He had tons of great policies, his crackdown on the uncontrolled immigration. His attempts to build the border wall. We had tons of open discussion about immigration, and honestly with the dems blocking the wall so hard, we couldn't get more done. The tarrifs on china, which was needed. We even discussed with north korea and russia with real discussion, instead of threatening. He even tilted the supreme court, which may or may not be good according to who you ask, but he got stuff done.

The best part was, trump bashing the snakes in congress and senate on the daily LOL. His bashing of the FAKE news media, which was very welcome. His climate policies were so bad, that other countries went full tilt to support it and took the lead. Even China decided to do more after trump took us out of the paris accord. Russia came to the table too. Its ironic how that works lol. Everyone started being hysterical because of trumps stance on global warming. Say what you will, but sometimes you need a villain figure to get real shit done on some policies.

Appreciate the response and insight. An yes, I made a bad assumption in assuming you were strictly GOP aligned.

The student loan situation seems like such an obvious issue to tackle regardless of party. Free that money up to be used elsewhere in the economy. Make the country more competitive for the future by making higher education more attainable, but that's a separate issue.

This is a great example of how people who support Trump and his policies do so out of emotion instead of rational thought and critical examination of evidence.

It was nearly universally accepted by historians, think tanks, and even border patrol that the wall was a completely idiotic idea.

There was no crackdown on "uncontrolled immigration". Border crossings hit a 12 year high during the Trump admin.

The media Trump routinely bashed wasn't "fake".

The tariffs on China weren't needed, didn't work, and only cost Americans more money. This is also universally accepted. The trade deficit grew with China every year during the Trump admin.

Trump was played by both Russia and NK. lol

Tilted the Supreme court which is now ending constitutional rights for Americans.

Trump's allies in congress are the snakes.

Paris accord? Our air, food, and water were dirtier under the Trump admin due to regulation cuts.

While he is certainly a villain, he was more of a bumbling idiot in office with a track record of failure and the most damage to our country since Reagan's corruption.

You are completely missing the mark here.

America First is not a "Brag". Its not claiming other countries are bad and America is the best...I'm not pulling a Ricky Bobby here with the "if your not first your last" lol

Its more about enhancing production here in America. More self efficiency and growth domestically. Deregulating here in America so we can grow industry domestically, instead of outsourcing everything to places like China. Producing more energy domestically so we don't have to rely as much on places like Saudi Arabia. Its about being more self efficient. Over the last few decades America has outsourced a lot of our industries, which hurt the people here at home. Especially working class people because those industries provide good jobs. Big corporations like outsourcing because paying for labor outside of the US allows less taxes and cheaper labor, less regulations. They make more money. But its not good for the country as a whole.

A lot of our political elites here in the US have not put the interests of the American people over their donors, specials interests. (I guess this is why people say get money out of politics). A couple things that caught my attention.

I really don't get your guys obsession with your own country.

Its not an obsession, I live here and I want America to be strong a stable country. I want the people to have the opportunities to succeed.

Basically everything you have is from other countries

I agree, a lot of it is. Id like America to be more self efficient especially on critical resources like Medicine/Energy. Produce more of it ourselves domestically.

your inhabitants come from all over the world

Yeah I know and its pretty awesome. There is a lot of opportunity here and it attracts a lot of people.

It's big enough to be many different countries

It sure is and we under utilize it. We have ALOT of resources here. A lot of farm land, technology, minerals, fuel.

Currently I believe we buy more food over seas than produce ourselves, which I think we should be ramping up production domestically and not rely as much on other countries for Food. Same thing for Fuel and Medicine.

Id like America to produce more of its Fuel, Food, and Medicine domestically.

I know this wasn't a question but I just wanted to explain a little bit about America first. Its not a Brag... Its more of a "we have been shitting the bed and we need to be doing a better job".

You get it. I'm agreeing with you 80% here.

But I don't think you are seeing that we can have both Self Reliance and Specialization at the same time here in America. You are saying it^^^^ but still kind of denying it....

We are a huge country. We have the technology and resources to produce. We can specialize while also being more self-reliant (particularly with the important stuff, food, energy, medicine)

America is big enough to do both. I get your reasoning with specialization and for much smaller countries id agree that would be a much better way to go about it, but for America I just don't think it makes sense when we can do both.

Was asked this question earlier in this thread.

2. What are some bad things you see from the party/person you support? For example, what is something you would change?

My answer.

2. Trump I think did a bad job picking cabinet members when he first got in. First year it was a revolving door. I do think this was due to his inexperience to politics. I hope lessons were learned. He needs to pick his administration more tactfully if he gets a 2nd chance in. I think he will.

Not to mention he lost them the Senate, AND the White House. What it is exactly that is owed? It is a testament to the cultish servitude towards Trump that despite all of this, they frame and treat him like a god.

It amazes me that there are actually people out there who believe Trump is about America First or anything else other than himself. Trump is for Trump, it's all he cares for, and to actually buy into his sales pitch is pure political naivete of the highest order.

I didn't start paying more attention with Trump. Id accredit my 8th grade Civics teacher Mr. Wright who was one of my favorite teachers growing up. This was During Bush's presidency before Obama. He got me interested. Awesome teacher, sadly passed away from cancer. He used to have the national debt projected on the whiteboard everyday while he would teach. Had us memorize the bill of rights/constitution. He would constantly make us recite parts of it at random. He had his own bill he tried to push to get the US constitution put on the US dollar. He would actually bring us to DC to talk about it. Great teacher.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930605050703431933

As far as my political "journey". I've always been fairly anti-establishment. I felt like the status quo was broken. Especially after seeing the wars in the middle east and the lies used to perpetuate such wars by the Media and Political Elites here in in the US. I was disgusted.

End of high school found interests in libertarianism

even flirted anarchy/an-cap stuff (which I quickly realized was not practical)

First Politician to actually get my attention was Ron Paul.

To this day... this is still my favorite speech given by a politician and unfortunately it was his farewell speech. But it was a damn good speech.

That's a fairly lousy excuse. Trump ran on that screed, politician or not. Are you saying the self proclaimed 'best businessman' was bad at choosing people? Secondly, it's not like it stopped in 2017. Sh*t, it may have even accelerated towards the end.

I mean these people left and are usually all saying how terrible Trump is too. That's something else unique to Trump. People are not only leaving in record numbers, they're public about their distaste for the man.

I don't see the point in discussion with someone who supports or tolerates overturning a legitimate election. Productive discussion presupposes some sort of common principles. That used to be possible with Republicans but seeing as democracy is now up for debate, I see this thread as about as useful as conversing with a brick wall.

Thankfully the die-hard MAGA folk remain a minority. With the exception of potentially prosecuting Trump for his attempt to commit fraud in Dec 20/Jan 21 I do hope the Democrats re-focus their discourse away from Trump and toward the economic issues that concern the middle 33% of voters.

I see it the same way. Conversations are about taxes, immigration policy, education reforms, infrastructure spending, debt management, environment regulations levels.

But once you go, I don't care about elections. If i loose its fraud. Specially from a president that even when he won, he was not voted by a majority.

Then that's all.

Republicans should bring back a pro business, socially moderate candidate, with strong constitutionalist and federalist views. Also cut the populist bullshit. Populism used to be the reason people shunned away from the democrats.

@sargentd: well, I'd like to ask your thoughts on trumps out of control spending. I did like alot of what he did, but unlike some people here who are all over his nuts and see trump as a messiah, I felt he had a lot of baggage. The security spending for his weekly trips to Florida to his Mar a Lago resort, then the security spending for his kids, and grand kids. The spending for his dumb mf wife who couldn't bear with staying in the white house, and instead insisted on moving to NYC of all places.

Not to mention his out of control spending. We were at 20 trillion before trump, and 28 trillion after he left. And he was literally only in office for 4 years.

I did like a lot of what he did, but I have to question whether he would have driven the country to bankruptcy with his poor money decisions.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on his spending. Honestly I feel like the right has shifted too far from the core principles of paying down our debt. We need someone who is willing to do whatever, raising taxes, cutting spending, and paying down the debt. Our next president better be a bean counting mf of an accountant.

Oh, man! I really hope trump runs in 2024. It's a great way to ensure a second Biden term.

@tjandmia: people said the same when he was running against Hillary...

But biden is in a very poor health state and experiencing some evident cognitive decline. He is not a good option to keep in the Whitehouse.

Honestly the best choice for the US would be a macron style center right Candidate running as an independent sweeping the moderate vote. But i guess that's only a dream.

A moderate running for the republicans sadly also seems unlikely, but i i would love a "rino"

If not, the only remaining choice would be a very centrist democrats at least not to **** things up too much.

Exactly, people are too soon to forget. I’m praying Trump won’t run, because I think if he does he has an excellent chance of winning.

@tjandmia: man, you really believe a lot of nonsense. He did a great job while in a lot of things. The Russia and NK relationship were great under trump. There was dialog and discussion. Nowadays with biden, you have hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a sht hole called Ukraine, which btw is pretty much just another name for Russia. It's like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan. They're all just Chinese at the end of the day. The war happening now is pretty much a civil war. Trump would never have spent so much on Ukraine, the war if it happened would be over by now, our gas prices would probably have stabilized, inflation wouldn't be so bad.

Your other points about the border are also nonsense. He needed to build a 30ft border wall, and manned it with drones armed with tranquilizer darts. The UK has a great plan. They paid money to some country to take back illegal immigrants to be deported. We should be doing the same. Come in to the country legally. I won't say a damn thing about that.

@blaznwiipspman1: trump is great because he would loose faster in Ukraine and give up TSMC and democratic Taiwan before even trying?

Short term i guess that would help with inflation. Reminds of Chavez who would deal with inflation by legally forcing business not to rise prices. That worked great (in the short term)!

And he was great because he had an amazing relationship with Russia and North Korea (while having a terrible relationship with Europe)? So having a bad relationship with your strategic allies that share your government system and values while having a great relationship with totalitarian regimes that pose a security threat makes you a good president?

The immigration control plan of England is indeed better than the ones from the USA. Many European countries do the same, but they dont want admit it.

As of now, the US can't.

US farmers cannot stay afloat, and the ammount of area that has the rare earths necessary to mine the resources for and refine computer chips, might only make up 1% of hte US's needs (not to mention water consumption), which is already an issue in the US as is.

@sargentd: Your teacher was certainly interesting. Based on that video I think we agree on a lot of similar issue but place the blame in different areas. Your concern seems mostly anti-establishment, while I blame the unsustainable systems that allow the establishment to exist as is in the first place. Both arguably perpetuating eachother.

In regards to how he mentioned sanctions to bully other nations.

My country of sweden has been threatened not once, but twice in recent memory. The first time was over a certain... unsavory website. Our country tolerated it due it falling under free speech. The US threatened sanctions, so Sweden caved in and took legal action, arguably undermining our own constitution. This time the US threatened us with Sanctions.

The second time was when ASAP rocky was imprisoned for assault. The Trump administration threatened negative consequences. Although what these negative consequences would entail we do not know, however considering the so called "Invade the Hague" act, the culture could be deeply troubling. Either way, the US bullied us, to once again, look the other way when it comes to enforcing our own laws.

However, none of this means the US cannot negotiate with other nations. But they need to be far more cooperative and far less belligerent. Rejoin the ICC.

So why Trump?

Trump is arguably the most pro-establishment president there was. Being anti-establishment in rhetoric doesnt mean he wasn't pro-establishment in action.

• Under Trump fatalities from Drone Strikes increased dramatically, so much so that Trump even pushed for a bill removing it.
• Trump was arguably the most corrupt administration since Nixon.
• Several policies pushed for by Trump worsened economic inequality.

Moderate democrat > moderate republican.