The Good that Men do - Donald Trump?

Urmstongran, I know we sometimes agree, despite being on what could be easily dismissed as opposite ends of the political spectrum. Your post at 17.25 gives me hope that many Americans will share your disappointment in Trump. He behaved as a bullying cheat in business. One of few promises he kept was to act as President as he had in business.
I hope the Republicans will find a moral compass. Trump isn’t really a republican, he’s a despot.

I thought it was Hitler that got the trains to run on time. Is that just an urban myth?

This has been a bit like saying that at least Mussolini got the trains to run on time (though in fact he didn’t).

I'm glad to hear you admitting you were wrong to allow yourself to be misled by the Trump propogandists UG

I wonder how long it will be before you can admit you were wrong to be conned by the brexit propagandists?

Hi everyone - back from my walk, phoned a friend & back on here!

Well my musings when out & about didn’t amount to anything about Trump. I suppose if I could be bothered I could search the internet, but then again, we could all do that anyway and make these discussions redundant.

Your post Jane43 was poignant. Yes, I finally have to admit defeat over Trump. I did support him I admit so. I truly thought he was giving the disenfranchised hope but I can see he turned rogue.

So - No more cheers from the sidelines from me for this man. I cannot in all conscience defend the indefensible. That’s not who I am as a person.

I suppose in all honesty I feel sad that he failed his supporters and so abjectly.

I hope Biden & Harris do a good job. The good people of America deserve it don’t they?

Whitewavemark2

It seems that Trump wants a big send off party.

I suppose he’ll hold it on the 20th.

A question of mine’s bigger than yours

Sad little man.

Timothy Leary had a good send off. I’d quite like to see Trump have a similar one.

Unfortunately FPTP does tend to lead to a confrontational two party system which is profoundly undemocratic.

I think the main reason Trump's vote rose was because many more republicans came out to vote Republican, which is not the same as backing Trump. They did this because they could see that the Democrats were really getting their vote up, running registration rallies and pushing the postal vote for those who couldn't physically vote and that there was a good chance they would get more votes than the republicans in the election, so the silent republican party got up and voted.

You must remember that the US is a two party state the way Britian was in 40s,50s, and 60s, when party lines were rigid and the average voter would vote for a donkey, and frequently did, providing the ribbon round its neck was the right colour. This is what they did in this election, Vote republican and have a republican President, no matter what kind. This is not republicans voting for Trump.

And I am sure his final flourish will be to pardon himself, his family and supporters. plus some really nasty people from their crimes, should they be convicted after they have left office.

CNN today reported that in the last few days (and since the riots) the Trump administration has opted, as part of its final act, to hand Biden a whole new set of international diplomatic dilemmas; they have just:
Named Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism;
Designate Yemen's Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organisation;
Upended decades of US-China diplomacy by lifting restrictions on contacts between American officials and representatives from the self-governing island of Taiwan.
Trump just being Trump. No surprise there. What a bitter man.

It seems that Trump wants a big send off party.

I suppose he’ll hold it on the 20th.

A question of mine’s bigger than yours

Sad little man.

‘he was there’ in the penultimate line of my last post.

I'll be interested to see how Biden fares with the Middle East after he and Obama were both in agreeance to the attacks which took place in Iraq in 2003.

Urmstongran

“I suppose the main thing he brought was hope”

I think you have hit the nail on the head there. There will be a tremendous amount of anger when these people finally realise that they were lied to, there never was any hope and it is in the interests of people like Trump for there not to be any hope, for the majority to be kept suppressed, without prospects, so that the minority get richer, so that people like Trump can defacate in a gold toilet. Possibly it will begin to dawn on them that their desire to answer the call of who they perceived as their saviour on January 6th will cost them dearly. A father and son have been jailed for 10 years each, the father is the one who carried the confederate flag inside The Capitol, what are the prospects for their families? Off duty police who joined in will lose their jobs, pensions and possibly go to jail and veterans who joined in will lose their pensions and probably go to jail. The man who cost a police officer his life by hitting him on the head with a fire extinguisher will probably go to jail for the rest of his life. All that for a man who has no conscience and no loyalty to anybody except himself. Within a very short time he was referring to the people he professed to love as ‘low class’. Even if the verdict of the impeachment trial in the senate doesn't go against Trump I really hope there is some kind of federal or civil action which will hold him accountable. The lawyer acting for the Shaman QAnon person has said today that he there because he was answering the call given by President Trump, I’m sure many more will give the same response.

How on earth was Trump ever allowed to get away with not releasing his tax returns?

Urmstongran

Corruption pretty much Lucca. People in power taking backhanders. Misappropriation of taxpayers dollars. Money collected that didn’t produce results.

I think that you are confusing it with the U.K.?

There is an issue about the people who he 'spoke' to and how unrepresented they feel, but Trump was never interested in them anyway.

So, who is Galaxy? These people are still there. Waiting.

That made me laugh NSpag! I’ll have a think I’m off out for a walk with Himself now.

As you say it’s hard to think of any GOOD he may have actually done. ? Bringing troops home from the M.E. perhaps.

I suppose the main thing he brought was hope.

"No, it’s not the economy, stupid. Trump supporters fear a black and brown America."

www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article211963789.html

Two points stand out about these Trump supporters -

Here, then, is “Robert” with a comparative analysis of the 44th and 45th presidents:

“President Trump has accomplished more positive things for this nation in less than two years than the last three have accomplished in twenty plus years. After the past eight years of a Muslim Marxist in the White House this nation could not survive another demwit in the White House. … Could you please list one thing the demwit party has done for the black people in America other than hand out government freeies for their continued votes?”

Does he really truly believe that Obama was either a Muslim or a Marxist, let alone both?

The writer concludes-

"I’m sure some of you think those emails were cherry-picked to highlight the intolerance of Trump voters. They weren’t. They are, in fact, a representative sampling from a single day in May, culled by my assistant, Judi.

It’s still an article of faith for many that the Trump phenomenon was born out of fiscal insecurity, the primal scream of working people left behind by a changing economy. But I don’t think I’ve ever, not once, seen an email from a Trump supporter who explained himself in terms of the factory or the coal mine shutting down.

I have, however, heard from hundreds like “Matthew,” who worries about “immigrants” and “Gerald,” who thinks people of color have an “alliance” against him. Such people validate the verdict of a growing body of scholarship that says, in the words of a new study by University of Kansas professors David N. Smith and Eric Hanley, “The decisive reason that white, male, older and less educated voters were disproportionately pro-Trump is that they shared his prejudices and wanted domineering, aggressive leaders …”

He had access to every social media and used it well. That was his dog whistle. And the fact that people listened to the whistle is nothing new, history shows that. I am certainly not celebrating the fact that Twitter etc banned him when they enabled him all along. As I have said in other threads the last person I want to have the power to decide which day/month is the time to stop Trump whistling is the owner of Twitter.
There is an issue about the people who he 'spoke' to and how unrepresented they feel, but Trump was never interested in them anyway.

Ok, so, I’m happy to agree with you Urmstongran that he has a big whistle (!).... but the point of the thread was what good has he done? and not how far into the dark corners of the web will his dirty fingers reach?

The things I thought of were:
1. Not preventing the banning of bump-stocks
2. He donated his salary to charity.

It would be nice to think there’s more than this...

But as you point out, 70+ million dogs needs one helluva whistle!

Quite right NotSpaghetti.

Urmstongran, you say he “achieved some good things (which is why he garnered more votes this time around)” but I think this is not why they voted for him.

I believe he is a demi-god. He has a cult following. Ok, so it’s a big cult, but he is working the dark areas of the web to pull people in, this is well documented. He is also alternately patting and dog-whistling his supporters. He uses emotive language, implies unity and success, speaks in broad themes that it’s hard to pin down, links himself to the underdog, repeats loudly and firmly the untruths so that they are normalised. This is why he garners more votes.

He did not, however, garner as many more votes than his opponent did though. For that I think we should be truly grateful.

Lucca I started to write an explanation then I found this link and thought - it explains it better than I ever could!

metro.co.uk/2018/01/20/what-does-drain-the-swamp-mean-and-why-did-donald-trump-say-it-7245279/