We are closing in on three months of Trump-o-Matic. It has been a wild and crazy ride. Crisis, to calamity, catastrophe to cataclysm. Except instead of the fascist state we feared, we got the Keystone Kops. Which we did not expect.
As we spend our energy trying to dethrone the morons, I want to believe someone is paying attention to the briefings Trump-o-Matic ignores. I read somewhere today he wants to get “raw” briefings. That would be raw intelligence data which hasn’t passed through any intelligence agencies for analysis. If you think his inability to read a piece of legislation is a hoot, think how boisterously merry we’ll feel when he tries to wend he way through raw intelligence briefings. Yes, I know he won’t do it himself. So let me rephrase it: what do you think Bannon will do with those raw briefings? Shiver me timbers, what a terrible idea.
NOTE: In a developing story happening now (April 5, 2017), Bannon has been removed as the White House chief strategist and removed from the National Security Council. This restores the director of national intelligence, CIA director, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to full participation on the NSC’s inner circle, its principals committee. It doesn’t mean Bannon is “out” … but no one seems to know exactly what is going on.
We will have to check back with sources and see how this develops. Mildly encouraging, don’t you think? Even if he is still part of Trump’s “team,” at least he isn’t going to decide on whether or not we push a button and nuke the world.
Trump-o-Matic managed to get elected, yet he is so incompetent he has been unable to cobble together a cabinet or a viable piece of legislation. We didn’t get the awful “version” of healthcare because his own party hated it. Well, to be fair, everyone hated it. It also turned out trying to strong-arm his party from far right to center didn’t work. I cannot begin to say how happy I am about that.
Considering one thing and another, I’m currently more worried about how much damage he will do to our environment than how many bills he’ll push through congress. You can undo a piece of legislation, but a polluted aquifer is forever.
TO DATE?
He tried to declare the constitution obsolete and invalid. His followers cried Lock them up! Shoot them down! Ban them! We said: “Can he do that?” We thought he could.
It turned out, he couldn’t. The judicial system worked. Who knew? I’m always surprised when something works. Call me a skeptic. Overall, the system worked better than I expected. It hasn’t (yet) made Trump-o-Matic and his disgusting cronies disappear (which would be my best choice), but it has made them less terrifying and far funnier.
You know how you laugh hysterically when a thing isn’t really funny but it’s too awful to think about — so what can you do but laugh? That is our government. It is so disgusting and so far off the deep end of reality or surrealism, if you can’t laugh you’d have to hide under the bed until we turn this thing around. I seriously considered the whole hiding thing, but I’m too old. Under or over my bed, this is my life. I want to live it. Even with Trump-o-Matic in power.
If you skipped history because it was irrelevant,
you are getting it in real time today.
Know that if Trump-o-Matic were even nominally more capable (and literate), he could have bullied his way into something like a dictatorship. Instead, he’s powering his way to an insane anarchy and utter chaos. I wouldn’t mind because sometimes, madness works for me. Except not all the folks in the “rest of the world” are USA-friendly. I am not a subscriber to believing everyone is out to get us, but some groups are out to get us.
While Trump-o-Matic is worrying about blocking Mexican immigrants and stealing the remaining few dollars left to the poor, the real bad guys are having their own bout of hilarity. Assuming those guys know how to laugh.
We have a president who can’t read briefings. He has no understanding of how anything — including the military — works. So, who’s on guard? Who is on the ramparts?
Meanwhile, back at the White House, they want raw intelligence data briefings. Yeah. That’s what I think too.
Comments
Get ready for the backlash of the WB Trumpetts!
Maybe Trump will get his footing but for now the man is lost. The neocons are taking a bite out of his ass, ditto for the far left and the far right. The man has very, very few friends in town. Even less than Obama when he came into office clueless and naïve.
Clueless, lost, and so busy rattling sabers ... I don't think he has any thought-out plans. Nothing. I'd like to come out of this alive!
If he accomplishes only this, it will be sufficient.
Trump will work to maneuver the system to the advantage of his empire and the fortunes of those who are the backbone of his operations.
I stated this the minute I saw that he became a candidate. It has constantly been proven since he was elected.
It will continue until he is removed. In the mean time, everyone (especially his most dedicated supporters) will suffer and wonder why their boy turned against them.
It's obvious Trump is not going to turn around and become a "real" president. Meanwhile, the whole "straight up, straight down" vote for judges can easily turn around and bite the GOP in the butt. This is a Pyrrhic victory.
They won't be in power for all eternity. A few years, hopefully not many. After which, they will start whining -- again.
I feel obliged to point out that this piece was not a research piece. And wasn't written for this platform. It's how we feel here, based on what we see.
Are we liberal? Yup. Are we going to stay that way? Yup. Have we ever been any OTHER way? Nope. For all that, we had at least a bottom line of respect for previous presidents -- of either party.
The Bush's were not our favorite guys, but we didn't doubt they were Americans and trying to do what was right. We don't see that today.
Is this an AMERICAN president? Or someone else's? Does this person and his pals have any regard for us, the people he is supposed to serve?
I don't see that. Talk about sad. That's about as sad as it gets.
He may be turning the financial end of this to his and his friends' gain, but I don't think (I fondly hope) this isn't going to be a permanent situation. There's so much pressure on the administration -- between Russia and financial collusion and so many levels in between.
As Watergate wore down Nixon, this will wear down this administration. They believe we'll just forget about it. We won't forget.
I have trouble understanding why ANYONE who wasn't already rich could possibly believe that this person was going to help THEM. He's never helped ANYONE outside his immediate family. Not a real "helpful" guy.
Don't expect an economic plan. There is none. If he tried to push one through, it will be just like the so-called "health care" disaster. A big pile of nothing.
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I do believe we are entitled to nationally funded basics. We pay taxes. We should be able to go to a doctor when we are sick. No one should be dying because they can't go.
Shame on us.
Social Security? Do you KNOW how much money I socked into that plan? It will be a miracle if I live long enough to get half of it back. When you PAY INTO A PLAN, it's not an entitlement. You should get back what you paid for.
We also should be able to get -- you know -- paved roads. Decent schools. Police protection that isn't brutality incarnate. Life should be getting BETTER, not worse.
The truth is a rigged tax system, a growing impoverished workforce and endless wars and conflicts, and a high cost/low value healthcare system are doing just fine by them. Since they control the political process lock, stock and barrel the two party will never pass legislation for any of these things and others to happen.
Now, the dirty secret is this is all part of a massive and unsustainable bubble ready to burst. And its the mother of all bubbles. The smart ones see the implosion coming and have built super homes on remote islands and invested in hard currency. The dumb ones, most of those residing in the bubble continue to live large on their paper wealth clueless to the economic axe about ready to chop of their head.
Possibly, we could change the system by voting Independents into national office but that would take 8-12 years to effect change. That is time we no longer have.
The next meltdown will be 1930s style or probably worse. The damage will be tens of trillions not just a few trillions that can be bailed out or digitized away. Central Banks might not be able to contain the disaster next time and what will happen if bailouts go into the multi trillions? More so in Europe than the US social upheaval will occur. Too many Americans are so lost its incredible to contemplate.
Central Banks might call on the IMF for funding. However, the IMF will move too slow weighted down by a Central Bank trying to suckle on its every teat. In the meantime asset prices will nosedive and the great downsizing will occur. Downsizing will lead to more downsizing. Large multinational corporations will end up in size where they were decades ago. The toll on ordinary citizens will be striking and ugly.
Assuming the human race avoids a nuclear conflict, there will be an eventual rebirth of entrepreneurship and commerce. The hard lessons of unfettered profit and excess will be learned and business will take into account the needs of market demand. That is until a few generations later the lessons are forgotten and the human spirit of unbridled greed takes over again.
So your arguments of HRC or Donald Trump are futile. The elites are commanding this show and the show is going right into the sewer.
Will that gigantic bubble burst soon? If we don't wind up glowing with radioactivity or bombed flat? No idea. Glad we are retired.
I'm not arguing for anyone or any candidate. I have a vain hope we might all go for a level of sanity. Maybe a hint of kindness and a dollop of generosity. We are on the edge of calamity, but it isn't beyond belief that we could pull back, if the powers that be decided to so do.
The big money makers are on a mad course to suck up every good thing on earth and spit it out as profit. What can they possibly DO with all that money? They too will die. Maybe we have to explode before we recognize this life is unmanageable. I don't know. I'm past answers.
Retired is better than working, but we are poor. Pensions aren't what they should be. Neither is social security. Medical care comes at a price and you need more medical care as you age. And of course, fixed income gets smaller each year and will NEVER grow. There are no raises for the elderly.
This country does not treat older people as "real" citizens. We are waste, leftovers from a working force. It's still better than battling to survive out there. It's an ugly world.
And where are our public and private leaders in this crisis? Nowhere. In fact its by design. Its the Final Solution 2.0. The goal is to have as many people possible self abort before retirement so there is no need to take care of them. We might not have Hitler but his spirit is alive and well in the US economy.
Hillary lost-lost because she is incompetent and a pathological liar.President Trump will do great things for the people it will not be easy. The Establishment corrupt politicians from both party's fear him, they see a man who will upset their corruption.
We could not continue the way we were going, what Clinton would have done, more of the same. What we got is Trump, more of the same on steroids. It's no different than the run up to the Iraq war when all kinds of fake reports were presented as factual and read into the record on capital hill. Our system is crazy, has been crazy since Andrew Jackson decided that the Cherokee had to go despite their willingness to abide by the treaties they signed, despite the Supreme Court's ruling that he had no authority to remove them. What does law mean, our word mean, civility mean if it has no merit in the hearts of men? If because we have power we believe we can run roughshod over anyone who gets in our way?
Trump has done this his entire time in business, run roughshod over anybody who got in his way, using his wealth and influence to buy the right people. He bought the votes of the angry Americans by pummeling them with messages of hate and promise. Turns out he's not going to give them either. He'll just use the office to do what he's always done, feather his nest and then he'll disappear into the urinal of history, like Bush 2.
Tell your children, your friends, everyone you know not to despair. Times are tough right now as wealth flows up an ever ascending sluice of economic disparity, but gravity has a way of making such situations short-lived. Trump is the instrument for that change.
Micahel Dolan: Let me know when one of the great things happens. I would be delighted to see it. In the meantime, excuse me while I do not hold my breath.
George N Romey: I think Trump IS a wake-up call. I would have preferred someone else, but this kind of thing is usually something nasty. Even the newspapers are back in business. We got a Sunday Globe this week that was like the old days. A full sized newspaper for the first time in a couple of years. That's huge.
People are WRITING and others are (gasp) READING.
The light at the end of the tunnel is that maybe this is what it takes to wake up the country and get it reunited again. Hopefully this will help generate a new party that will actually work for the people that it is supposed to serve in the first place and not sell out to Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Data, or the betterment of one's own empire leaving most of us treading water just to stay above the poverty level.
It's going to take something fresh with the best interests of real, live people on its agenda. Right now, it seems to me that they are all up to their chins in personal agendas on which I have no place. Parties have formed and reformed more than a few times in our short history. I can only hope we do it again, but better. Intelligent. Inclusive. Happily diverse. Knowledgeable. And genuinely democratic!
The driving force is obvious.
Having friends who live in Switzerland, Germany, and New Zealand, I wish we had just a taste of what they tell me about their governments. I always hear from them that they feel sorry for us and wish us well because they believe that the citizens of the United States are good people, but their leaders always suck the big one.
I can't agree more!
I suggest that we all get off our dead asses and demand change.
Or we can just sit back and let our computers and devices tell us what to do.
And guess who controls this medium? You guessed it, the corporations who digitally control us.
Sucks, don't it?
Time is running out, folks.
Central Banks might call on the IMF for funding.
Which central banks and why?
Central banks don't go the IMF for their own currency. They go there to get SDRs (the only credit the IMF can create) to exchange for foreign currency.
Republican leadership has cultivated and "grown this conservative cancer" from a small core of Congressional ultra-conservatives concerned with the legitimacy of "big government" and the New Deal stimulus and redistribution programs and determined to roll back the social problems necessary to accommodate the needs of "human development" to laissezfaire economics.
The "New Deal" was our social revolution. The discontent that had been simmering in the public conscience since the days of the "Robber Barons", the "Panic of 1893" and the brutal suppression of labor movements was finally addressed as a matter of circumstance in the Roosevelt administration. The solution was called by Roosevelt and his supporters, the "New Deal".
The social costs of failure to anticipate social disruption along with the unavoidable realization that markets could not be counted upon to self-regulate, led to massive growth in Federal Government stimulus spending in the 1930s and inevitably, with the "Second New Deal" to Federal ownership of "social policy". (The final spurt in Federal government expenditures came with the Lend-lease Act of 1940. For the most part these expenditures were addressed through massive efforts to publicly finance the deficit through "war bonds" and not by inflationary measures.)
Yes, it might have been otherwise. States might have enacted their own "fairness legislation", "environmental standards" and "safety and health" legislation, but they did not, and history was in a hurry.
So Trump and the 115th Congress are what we have to work with today. And we still do not have a vision to what we want "down the road".
Is a Federal Democracy a sustainable alternative? The answer is not a given and must not be taken for granted.
Anyone who knows how our government is organized, knows that the President cant do very much on his own. If he does not have the support of his party and the voters, he will get little done. Trump got elected WITHOUT the support of his party, therefore how could anyone expect he could get things passed in Congress?
All this talk about Trump being a dictator was and is nonsense. The Constitution wont allow it and changing the Constitution is effectively impossible.
However, it gets worse. Even with his executive orders, people are taking them to court, why ? because they know Trump has no real political support, there is no down side for an Attorney General in some state challenging an executive order. If Trump's orders were really popular with the voters, the AG's would be more careful about challenging them. But the orders are not really popular because Trump didnt bother to sell them to the people first, he just tried to rule by edict. Expect EO's to be challenged more often as this proves to be a successful strategy to stop him.
The entire government is set up to thwart the rule of kings, and dictators. Electing someone to office who wants to be CEO, or dictator, will not change how the government works. It just will make that person ineffective and frustrated.
Unless he learns how to sell his plans to Congress and the voters, nothing much will get done. This is unlikely because his whole career he has been a CEO, and could just say it and make it so. If people didnt see this possibility at election time, then they dont know the difference between how a company is run, and how our government is run.
Trump, despite his missteps on Syria, is still allowing that war to come to a close where Assad stays, Russia wins, and the rebels are defeated. And the U.S. intelligence community with Saudi Arabia loses. I'd argue that is good, let the war end. Then the refugee crisis can come to a stop. And ISIS can finally be defeated.
Thus we are set up with all the conflicting and to many, confusing checks and balances. They seem inharmonious and contradictory, but they do the job. The only way anyone could "take over" this country would be in the long-standing traditional manner: with the military at his back. Since THIS president doesn't seem to have anyone outside his immediate family at his back ...
We have said many of these same things within our own groups and to each other, so your response was interesting as it was a summary of what we have been saying for several months. Especially the "slowly" part. About the only thing we seem to do quickly is invade and bomb other countries. Somehow, our presidents have slipped the leash on that one.
I do not see anything like a revolution in this country. Not only is the government slow to move, but we -- the people -- are slow too. I live in a small town. People argue while waiting in line at the grocery store, but that's pretty much the limit of local revolution. No one is going to war.
I am far more worried about destruction of the EPA than of legislation. Should Trump actually pass legislation, it can be undone. If you destroy the aquifer and turn clean water to sewerage, that destruction can be permanent.
What are we headed for? Just take a look. We have $11.3 trillion in student loan debt with a default rate of over 11%. This mirrors the dollar amounts and default percentages of subprime mortgage loans in 2008. We also have imploding subprime auto loans but with so much securitization no one has a good grasp on what systemic problem that could pose. Over the past ten years Wall Street banks have only gotten bigger with more leverage and risk and now this time with FDIC protection. Derivatives which serve as an insurance product on an asset (like loans or real estates) are estimated at between $700 trillion and $1.5 quadrillion. A 10% default rate would be catastrophic.
Since so much of this financial betting is opaque no one really knows the risk of widespread default. Really smart and successful people such as Jim Rickards, Harry Dent, Peter Schiff, Gerald Celente and Max Keiser see another meltdown coming and they predicted the meltdown of 2008, even when the mainstream financial press made fun of them.
You will never hear any of this being spoken about on MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox, networks. This does fit with the narrative of either bashing or praising Trump.
I can not see a rebellion. I just don't think so. If I'm wrong, I guess we will both find out.
1) Borders: A
2) Environment: F
3) Trade: B
4) Currency exchange: B
5) Foreign Policy: A-
6) Debt: F (no one can fix this)
7) Immigration: A
As for debt, you know Clinton left us with zero national debt and a positive balance. Bush blew the whole damned thing to pieces in just months. He blew it up. And it has been down hill since then. Obama moved it up a little bit, but not enough.
Now? I'm tired. I'm old. I've seen this ALL before in one way or another. Trump is more racist and personally despicable than other presidents, but he is probably what a lot of Americans deserve. They wanted a good, old-fashioned hater who would put a foot down on all those "other" non-white people? They got him. May they soon learn what hate really means on an immediate and personal level. Because Trump doesn't love them, either.
I hope I live long enough to not see him as our last president.
This will never happen because as I have said over and over the money elite want an impoverished workforce. Anyone that thinks we will ever get an effective infrastructure program with the two parties in charge has rocks in their head. The money elite really do not care at all about deficits or debts despite the appearance they do.
So he can fire a few missiles at Syria, but he cant invade Syria because that would cost a lot of money. He can stop the TPP because that costs nothing. He can amp up ICE, but he cant change the rules on getting visas, and letting people visit.
It will be a hodgepodge of what he can do. If he chooses to not make nice with Congress, then not much will get done. Certainly nothing that will change the trajectory of the country. Congress spends the money, and if he cant persuade Congress to do things, nothing will get done.
George, I dont know if the money elite wants an impoverished work force, or like everyone else they just want things as cheap as they can get it, including labor. This is what they have always wanted back into the 1800s, so really nothing there has changed. People had to fight for the 8 hour day, the 40 hour week and so on, because employers had workers over the barrel. Employers always wanted labor costs as low as was possible, they were not generous saints in the 50s and 60s.
At the same time EVERYONE wants things as cheap as they can get it. Walmart doesnt succeed by using force to close down the small shop competitors, Walmart succeeds because everyone wants lower prices, and will sacrifice the local stores, and ironically their own jobs and salary, to get the lower prices. If the consumers want constantly lower prices, how can we complain that the employers have to pay less, and provide less service ?
It's like the fisherman here in New England who will, despite all warnings, continue to fish until there ARE no fish. They will cut down the forests until there are no trees. We will pollute the earth until it is poison. Trow trash everywhere because we are too lazy to put it in a bag and wait until there's a receptacle.
We are not innocent victims in this mess.
I was working in the sixties. I had to look under "women" to find a job and if you were black, you didn't bother to look at all. Jobs were underpaid, women were treated like crap. I don't know why people think it was so terrific. It's easier if you weren't actually there.
It wasn't great. Not even close. That's what got all those protests started, though now everyone thinks it was "just about the war in Vietnam." There was a lot more at stake.
Now, everyone wants to get rid of unions so they won't have to pay union dues. If they succeed, they will discover why unions were formed in the first place.
People are stupid. There's no other possible reason for a lot of our crap. That being said, we need to try to make the best of it and hope that somewhere along the line, it gets better. Probably not in my lifetime, but maybe before my granddaughter gets old.
Or not.
I am NOT a native American. I wrote a book called "The 12-Foot Teepee." The blog got its name "in memory of" the book that did NOT become a best seller.
People believed the bankers that they could vastly improve their lives through subprime mortgages and credit card debt. People that do not think the elites are impoverishing us on purpose are the same kind of people that can be taken easily. And that's most stupid Americans.
That's funny. All of those guys are in the business of selling gold and silver. And they've all been predicting meltdown/hyperinflation for 5 years at least.
Peter Schiff is one of the dumbest people on the planet..
Clinton's surpluses caused a recession and then an explosion of private debt which culminated in the GFC.
You have to be aware of the paradox of thrift. If everyone saves, the economy crashes.
None of this is new. Back in the 1930s Russell Long said " dont tax you, dont tax me, tax that other guy behind the tree". Similarly Ben Franklin said that when people realize they can vote themselves money, the Republic is in trouble.
Human nature has not changed, we are not more dumb, or more greedy than we used to be. Employers didnt used to treat employees fairly and now dont. Remember in the early 1900s children used to work, because they were cheap. People worked long hours for low pay. Employer greed is not a new thing.
George is right that we are "serfs" to the employers, except that we live WAY better than the serfs ever did. The real serfs died at the age of 40 ( if lucky ), and never traveled outside their village. So its all relative, and now it is better than 200 years ago. The thing George doesnt get is that it always was this way. When the country was crazy rich the serfs made a bit more, and now they dont. Simple.
We had a few decades where the US was very rich compared to the rest of the world, and we thought that was the normal state of affairs. It wasnt. It was just a passing period in time. The rest of the world became industrialized, and things returned to how they were in the early 1900s, more competition, and a lower standard of living in the US.
Things dont stay the same. No one is looking out for our best interests but ourselves. No one ever was. When times are good it is largely an accident, its not that government USED to know what it was doing and now forgot. It NEVER knew.
The problem is that Americans had a good taste of the somewhat good life and they don't want to let go. Where this will lead who knows, much of will depend upon just how bad things might get.
When humans feel overly threatened they have a habit of turning from polite gentlemen and women to animals. Remember in the end we might have a brain but we are still mammals.
Most likely, the people will adjust, for now we still have it way better than most. Though its always possible there will be miscalculations and the wheels will come off.
It's pathetic.
Unions are worthless if you are competing against someone overseas in a country with a less valuable currency. That means the company can pay them less to do the same thing. In many cases they don't work harder than the American. They probably work just as hard or less. Their workday might be longer. But that doesn't even matter.
Currency is what matters. India, for instance, has a considerably weaker currency so the Indian worker is cheaper even if he's crappier than the American (which he usually is--no offense--thinking of I.T. here). And he doesn't work harder. But they can throw 30 people at a problem that the American company would only be able to throw 10 people at--and they are still cheaper. And the solution is often crappier, takes more money over time to maintain. But the companies still don't care because it works today (mostly) and is cheaper because the Indian Rupee is much, much weaker than the U.S. Dollar.
"What can you NOT do today that you are legally forbidden to do before Trump got elected"???
Grow up and act like adults! The election is over - the direction of the nation is shifting away from socialist "the government is suppose to fix all my problems and take care of my every need" policies to pro-economic growth and a higher standard of living for working people. If people who are fully capable of working but just don't want to work don't like it, that's life.
Progressiveism-{ moochers electing electing looters to steal from the producers!}
The Left have no problem blaming Russians for the hacking of the election, but the leftist refuse to admit voter fraud is a regular habit of the Democrat Party.
There is zero proof of voter fraud. It has not only NOT been proved, it has been repeatedly UNproved. IF it really existed, TRUST ME, Trump would NOT be in office.
The man WON. He's still running, still bashing his previous opponent and former President. He doesn't seem to "get" that he won the damned election. Now, shut up about it and govern. Like an actual president. For ALL the people. You don't get elected in this country to manage the world for the people who voted for you. We are ALL Americans. ALL of us. Me and you and the moron down the road -- ALL AMERICANS. Whether you like me, approve of me or not. Americans. Born, bred, raised HERE.
Your constant spewing of hatred does not do this country proud and does not do YOU proud.
Why else would Democrats want NO PHOTO ID for LEGAL CITIZENS to vote and yet demand that ILLEGAL ALIENS be given Drivers Licenses??? Could it be so that illegal aliens with DRIVERS LICENSES can vote in the 26 states that only require that a Drivers License (no Voter Registration check) to vote???? Here's Obama ADVOCATING ILLEGAL VOTING AND PROMISING NOTHING WILL BE DONE IF YOU'RE CAUGHT VOTING ILLEGALLY:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVR1ZrR0Iu4
Come on - you're not that naïve? I can tell you that anyone who lives in a major city is aware of voter fraud - and I mean massive fraud. The fact that the Democrat Precinct Captains haven't caught anyone committing voter fraud should not surprise anyone! As we say every Election Day in Chicago:
VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN!!!
No one has asked me for proof of my identity in more than 15 years. WHY? Because I live in a small town and WE ALL KNOW EACH OTHER. Wow, I know. What a shock! Imagine that. People knowing each other and their histories and stories and TRUSTING each other.
Hard to believe, eh?
The illegal voting song and dance was one of Trump's typical responses when his ego is damaged. Similar to when he is questioned or proven wrong on one of his many lies, he will simply label it as "Fake News".
So is the case for Trump taking credit for jobs that were actually created during the later part of Obama's presidency.
My hunch is that he had no idea how to turn political slogans and promises into actual workable detailed plans. He doesn't have the chops to play political chess with the various political segments. Add to that the Deep State bearing down on him and we get four more years of failed dreams and hopes. Obama II.
What do you do when you have "a top guy" who doesn't seem able or willing to learn anything? Not even how the constitution is written. Has he even READ the Constitution? Or ... you know ... a book?
Is he really going to keep blowing smoke out of his butt for his entire term?
That's why I wonder if he is mentally normal. He's been around this region a LONG time. He never seemed stupid. Everyone thought he was a jerk, but no one thought he was stupid. But these days, he seems dumb -- very different than he was 15 years ago. Something has happened to him and I keep thinking ... dementia. Because he is the right age and he would NOT be the first. Or second.
So yeah, family members would be a very good choice. Maybe the only choice.
Your statement:
"Trump is a REAL ESTATE developer"
indicates that Trump actually ran a large business, employed thousands of people with high paying jobs, built projects that benefit their owners and tenants, paid millions in personal, business, property taxes . . .
"Obama was a Community Organizer"
which tells us that Obama never held a "real job", never stayed in one political office long enough to find the bathroom (Illinois State Senator for 15 minutes/no accomplishments, US Senator for less than first term/no accomplishments) never had his own money invested in anything, . . .
Who would you bet your retirement fund on???
"What can you NOT do today that you are legally forbidden to do before Trump got elected"???
What does that mean? Or, more correctly, what do you think you mean?
What can we know is true when the people who run the show start each program with a loyalty oath? Yeah, that's what we have here with climate change, with Russian hacking, with everything, a man saying that he is the only one who tells the truth and if you don't believe him you're the enemy.
Srendipity, you nailed it. This is the exact definition of a cult, and it exists in so many areas of American life, cultism, that we don't even find it strange. We laugh about it, and harangue about it, but what do you do about it? In the classic cult concerns of the 1970's the approach was kidnap and deprogram, but can we do that with the American public?
Of course we can. All we need to do is follow the examples of the people who've been running our entertainment outlets. Look at the tangled web they've weaved. Girls who talk about women's rights sing lyrics of songs about ho's and such without appearing to get it, that just because someone got rich doesn't mean they got justice for their gender. If that was true all women would be worshipping Catherine the Great and Queen Victoria.
As I see it, what drives people to cultish behavior is the mixed messages that these modern propagandist tools push. Women are equal, but their sex objects too. The poor deserve something, but it would just be better for them if they got rich. All it takes to get rich is hard work, and thus all rich people are the kinds of people we should be supporting. Nature's fine without our help, just look, it's still there.
I read, The Blue Nile, recently and the most striking aspect of the book was how little the world has changed in three-hundred years. The actors are still the same with the same motivations, but the tools have changed. For us, anyway. We think we can buy anything we want. People in other parts of the world still fight the old-fashioned way.