Q: Why is Donald Trump so damned popular? A: "The Apprentice!"
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As stated before, they are finding ways to put the blame on anyone but themselves - Russia, Sanders, Comey - not the fact that Hillary was just a worse candidate - and people like Brazile and co are doubling down.
Well, everyone, including both the presently-clueless and the presently-gloating, had better be spending a lot of time trying to discern what sort of a person this person actually is.
What we have seen so far ... is theater. A "pied piper," if you will.
Now, we have an elected Federal officer with considerable authority. There are many disturbing precedents as to what such a national leader, having gained power from this power-base and in this particular way, might actually do upon gaining office.
As a general strategy, Trump put on a show for disaffected people who didn't necessarily know how the mechanism of political power actually operates, and who have been completely insulated from the gruesome consequences of the USA's fifteen-year long war in the Middle East. (A war that failed to give Dick Cheney & Co. his oil pipeline to the Caspian Sea, and which, as we can see even if he never will, is never going to give him one.) These people are gullible enough to accept the notion that the President of the United States can rule by proclamation, and the campaign achieved its immediate objective by pandering to them ... millions of them.
They don't know and they don't care how it happens: this man promised to "Make America Great Again,™" all by himself, and "critical thought" was never a requirement. (It still isn't.)
Initially, Republican members of Congress might consider themselves to be "victors," and/or unwilling to counter the vitriolic style of a person who, at least at first, is likely to adopt that style simply because he expects that his constituency expects him to do so. We do not yet know how many multi-hundred page pieces of legislation (such as the PATRIOT Act) have been written in anticipation of this moment. We cannot expect that lawmakers will read them, even if they could. (Many bills that were supposedly written in great haste have a word-count on the order of War and Peace.)
So ... an extremely volatile situation, which has been brewing for decades, and what gets tossed on top of it but a lighted match.
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 11-27-2016 at 10:48 AM.
Your Texas CHL would have been honored there as it gives you the right to protect yourself. If you didn't have a CHL you could have spent a mandatory year in jail.
Your Republican elect provided you a way to acquire a CHL. The Democrats don't believe you have a need to protect yourself.
Well being a pragmatic sort of dude with some common sense.
I'd rather spend a year in jail than bleeding out on the sidewalk.
I've spent time behind prison walls. Punching a time clock. So nothing like that makes me afeared.
As for all the doomsday scenarios, even though I share some concerns (mostly because the US is a really big and powerful country), I don't think it will happen.
Most Western EU countries already faced a similar (last ten years) right-wing creep on top and they usually start crashing even before the end of their presidency.
Populism only works during campaigns.
In a world where everyone can access any information, you'll need more than a Trump to start a new disaster (IMHO).
Everyone in the United States is "deprived of proper medical care."
The US does not consider medical care to be "an inalienable human right." Medical care is a for-profitbusiness. You're not entitled to "a local community hospital." If the hospital in your town is "unprofitable," it will be closed. You'll just have to travel farther to a hospital, assuming that you have enough insurance to pay for the ambulance ride, and if the insurance company agrees that you need to ride in an ambulance.
Meanwhile, your insurance company is also a for-profitbusiness. So, the first thing that's gonna happen when you get to the hospital is that the Revenue Management department of the hospital is going to call the Actuaries at the insurance company ... assuming of course that the hospital decided that it is profitable to accept your insurance. (If they don't, then you get packed up and taken somewhere else. If you're still alive. And of course, if you're not, that's okay, because death is always the least-costly alternative.)
The doctor patches you up, carefully counting every inch of suture, every cut made, every tool he picks up, because all of that will be charged-for. He renders his diagnosis and prescription. But, now, Revenue Management must determine if you can have what s/he prescribed, if anything at all. (I repeat: "your death is always the least-costly alternative.")
The Federal Government's role in all of this is that of bill-collector: to punish you financially if you don't buy insurance from someone. But at no point does either the health-care facility or the insurance company have to deviate from their for-profitbu$ine$$model.
The next objectives are two-fold: to eliminate the remaining two ways in which the Federal Government now interferes with this business model:
Medicare, obviously, must be eliminated. The Federal Government has had the audacity(!) to impose price controls and service standards, which cut deeply into profits. And, it provides the insurance itself, which deprives insurers of their rightful revenue.
The Veterans Administration is a competing health-care provider. Only Veterans with actual combat injuries (which obviously would be unprofitable to treat ...) should be treated by this system. Uninjured Veterans, and the families of all Veterans, must be served by the for-profit system. The Federal Government should also pay billions to the private insurers to compensate them for their "lost business," and these monies should be payable directly to those insurer's shareholders as windfall profits.
Remember: "there is nothing that Government can do, that private industry, pursuing a pure-profit motive, cannot do better." The Interstate Highway System should be privatized and converted to toll roads, and the same should be done for all private streets within all cities. And, so on. We'll deal with the public schools later, but once again: you must pay for education if you can afford it and if it can be profitably supplied to you, and you simply don't get any if this is not the case.
Welcome to the new vision for America: "Pay to Play." ("Am I my brother's keeper?")
And, mind you, this isn't a "Republican" nor a "Democrat" ideal. This state of affairs has been inexorably advanced since around the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency.
I do believe that these are some of the things which Trump supporters are now very angry about. The question before the house is whether or not this man can do anything about it ... and, if he particularly wants to.
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 11-29-2016 at 12:18 PM.
I do believe that these are some of the things which Trump supporters are now very angry about. The question before the house is whether or not this man can do anything about it ... and, if he particularly wants to.
So far. To qualify as a cabinet member on his staff. You must be on the public registrar of being
Anti-Obama in some way or fashion.
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