Who remembers the Soap Box? Where you had to request in? That was a good idea.
Now that he's a lame duck I wonder if he'll be more open and honest about his real beliefs over the next four years, or more likely after that. I doubt it, but it's possible.
I think the trick is he doesn't have any actual beliefs. He doesn't think big government is good, or small government either. He doesn't have an opinion on prayer in schools, or minimum wage, or anything else that doesn't directly interact with his life. The only things he actually believes are that he should get what he wants when he wants it, and people should adore and respect him for getting it. I think that's the only belief he's ever had and as far as I can tell, he's never hidden it at all.
Nothing he's ever said or done in decades has lead me to any other conclusion than that. The man is an island. If it's not happening to him, he can take whatever opinion he thinks you will love him for having. Even then, you can tell he doesn't put any effort into these outside opinions. It's not like he's actually come up with an alternative to ACA or even has an idea of why he thinks it doesn't work . He just keeps saying it's bad and he'll fix it. He has no idea how, he doesn't care to learn. It's not like he's on that system of healthcare anyway. He's not actually worried about the border, nor does he have any real notion how to fix it. He just knows it's a hot button and so he parrots the shibboleth.
I think you're saying he's not an ideologue, and I agree. The only belief I'm sure he has that goes along with the narcissism you're describing is that lowering taxes on upper-income people like himself is great. That's why I never had "Trump derangement syndrome"--he may desire authoritarian power, but I'm not all that scared of what he does with it. He's got no crusade he's on like all of the actual scary politicians of the past had. ALL of what scares me with him is the example he sets for others to follow. We've now got a generation or two many of whom now realize just how easy it is to tell bold-faced lies, get a third of the population to believe it, and become the most powerful person in the world. He's a high risk to inspire some truly ideological horror-show a decade or three from now like Martin Sheen was in "The Dead Zone" movie.
But we all have opinions and beliefs. They're not enough for him to act on for the most part, but I'm sure some of what he does that doesn't directly benefit him he actually does believe in. We'll just never know what those things are since most of what he says and does is political gaming.
Who remembers the Soap Box? Where you had to request in? That was a good idea.
Yea, my bad. Huge tangent.
My main forum used to be the CGC comics forums for the past 20+ years, but they closed all of their forums not related to comics last week so I'm suddenly without a place to discuss miscellaneous topics.
In this case, the tariffs are directly related to the collecting. It's hard not to get into the politics of it when the why of these potential tariffs is so completely baffling, but you certainly can't say it's not relevant. This could potentially have huge impacts on our hobby.
I'm enjoying the discussion and inputs from everyone, for what it's worth. Interesting to see the perspectives on it.
It's nice though seeing a thoughtful political discussion online that hasn't just devolved into name-calling and personal attacks. It's funny that a toy forum is one of the few places having grown-up conversations ha ha
Most polite the Fwoosh has been ever? I haven't been involved in any dust-ups in at least a year.
It's nice though seeing a thoughtful political discussion online that hasn't just devolved into name-calling and personal attacks. It's funny that a toy forum is one of the few places having grown-up conversations ha ha
I was thinking the exact same thing and really appreciating the discussion. Kinda makes me feel a little better about what's to come.
I think you're saying he's not an ideologue, and I agree.
I think it's a bit more than that. I think he's a sort of solipsist. I think he lacks the ability to model internal lives of other people to such a degree that he legitimately thinks everyone out there is doing exactly what he's doing, thinking what he's thinking, they're just worse at it. I think he believes every opponent he's ever had is just as myopic, and he can't fathom why any one of them would hold a sincere opinion on anything that didn't affect them except to con the rubes who it does affect. The only emotion from other people he seems to take at face value, whether warranted or not, is adoration of himself.
I do agree, he has a belief on tax policy, because that affects his bottom line. He definitely has newfound beliefs about presidential power. I also agree that he's less likely to be an authoritarian emperor because he doesn't have any ideological aims to speak of except enriching and congratulating himself (and it takes an awful lot of energy and coordination to keep a country this large under your thumb). And yeah, the worst part of him is how he's opened the door for other, much scarier people (Stephen Miller for example) who absolutely DO believe things, and at some point previously might've been cowed by social norms.
You could tariff everything to the point where everything costs as much to make overseas as it does here. I'm sure some short-sighted politician will eventually try that like Trump proposed during his campaign if we're indeed headed towards something like Mike Judge's idea of an "idiocracy" because the idea of bringing crappy jobs back to America sounds good if you don't think through how bad those jobs are or you don't know who ends up paying tariffs. But long-term that's a HUGE competitive disadvantage. Everything costs more, and you can't do as much. It would erode America's strength to a dramatic degree that would eventually lead other nations who are willing to use cheap Third World labor to catch up to America's competitive advantage. So I'm certainly not suggesting that we do it. We're far more competitive using cheaper labor in foreign nations to our own advantage--but we COULD bring manufacturing back here. But nobody would buy those goods besides us because they'd be among the most expensive goods in the world that almost every other country could easily undercut in cost.
Exactly. Theoretically it's possible, but you would destroy the country to get there.
I never assume anything he does or says is because he actually thinks it's a good idea. He mostly acts and speaks in ways his base will THINK is a good idea, so most things he does are to gain political capital that he can cash in later. Very few people really know what he actually believes himself these days beyond the few bits we get from people he's close to. If you want to know what he actually believes you'd have to go back to his public comments from 40+ years ago before he had political aspirations that were first widely revealed when he was going to run as a Reform Party candidate in 2000:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential_campaign
But even in the 1980s and 1990s much of what Trump used to say publicly was what he thought make for good PR so I can't really tell when he was fully honest about his own thinking in public--if ever. Even if you can pull some of his actual beliefs from early public comments he's almost certainly changed his real ideas over those decades so who knows what he actually believes now.
Now that he's a lame duck I wonder if he'll be more open and honest about his real beliefs over the next four years, or more likely after that. I doubt it, but it's possible.
This is the million-dollar question. If you want an internet stranger's one-sentence opinion of Trump, I think he's a two-bit moron who's easily led by those around him (and more often than not, by those on Fox and Friends). Even more so now that he's mentally declining. (If you don't believe me, watch a video of him from 2016 vs. now. Different guy.)
His beliefs, in so much that he has them, are about making himself richer.
He's a political genius by complete accident. He's the era's defining politician without standing for anything. Republicans and the rich are all too happy to take advantage of that. A splintered media ecosystem, false equivalency by the news media, and Biden/Garland not prosecuting him for the coup led to a second term.
ALL of what scares me with him is the example he sets for others to follow. We've now got a generation or two many of whom now realize just how easy it is to tell bold-faced lies, get a third of the population to believe it, and become the most powerful person in the world.
You cannot have a functioning society if pathological liars are not punished. The truth has to matter.
I'm petrified of mass deportations, tariffs, and how he'll reshape the courts again, but I think you're exactly right. Although our institutions proved weak during his first term, U.S. federalism does make it difficult for an authoritarian to operate as an authoritarian. The second or third authoritarian might not find it so difficult, though.
But that's a pretty specialized thing, chip manufacturing being such skilled labor and its output having so many potential governmental buyers. That kind of manufacturing is somehwat resistant to consumer behavior when you can just make chips directly for the DoD or whoever. When you're talking about bringing manufacturing of consumer goods back, it seems like it would be tough to find markets for those goods, either here or abroad. Even with widespread wage stagnation, the labor's still going to make the goods more expensive than what our consumers can or will afford. Action figures aren't magically going to be cheaper if Marvel Legends are being made in your town, unless you personally steal from the factory and call it a doorbuster deal. There's a pretty relevant thread about this here.
I deleted my Twitter account last week, and apparently you can't read replies without one. I assume it's the same thread he posted to Bluesky the other day about American Apparel? If so, I almost linked it in my post but didn't want to go through the trouble of finding it.
Most polite the Fwoosh has been ever? I haven't been involved in any dust-ups in at least a year.
As we've seen with Bluesky, the banhammer works. Get the assholes and obvious trolls out before they can start.
You cannot have a functioning society if pathological liars are not punished. The truth has to matter.
I'm petrified of mass deportations, tariffs, and how he'll reshape the courts again, but I think you're exactly right. Although our institutions proved weak during his first term, U.S. federalism does make it difficult for an authoritarian to operate as an authoritarian. The second or third authoritarian might not find it so difficult, though.
The other day a friend of mine said, "No system can survive a moral collapse," and I keep turning that over in my head. It feels like a lot of where we are now is because people with the power to say no keep refusing to say it. And that remains true even when it's your own people. Trump's "border czar" was an Obama-era ICE appointee who first started openly recommending splitting families as a deterrent during that administration. A year later, Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama gave him an award. Meanwhile, I'm some schlub who once turned down a job when I found out the company was making facilities for the detention camps at the border.
I think I blame Trump less for being a robber and grifter, and even for being an authoritarian demagogue who fractured our discourse, than I blame the people who were fine with it, abetted it, enriched themselves off it. Feels pointless to blame the shark for feeding when he wasn't the one who kept the beach open.
I think the thread you linked is inherently right, though. He's had much better luck taking advantage of open things like judicial appointments or cutting things that have a lot of money against them like regulatory agencies. And Lord knows Musk is going to talk himself right out of that administration just by being an annoying little pissant who takes up all the oxygen. Everyone with sense knows you survive a Trump administration by saying yes and keeping your head down. Demanding too much attention is bad because then you have the attention of a man who loves to demonstrate power. Trump firing the almost-richest man in the world is going to be the moment of his life, the best reality show anyone's ever lived.
I deleted my Twitter account last week, and apparently you can't read replies without one. I assume it's the same thread he posted to Bluesky the other day about American Apparel? If so, I almost linked it in my post but didn't want to go through the trouble of finding it.
This was the one about the closing of the Garland Shirt Factory that Brooks Brothers used to use. I don't know if he's put that up on Bluesky yet, I really gotta get on there.
As we've seen with Bluesky, the banhammer works. Get the assholes and obvious trolls out before they can start.
The block on bluesky is really magical. And after years on twitter, I'm very VERY liberal with it. Bad vibes? Boom! I banish thee to the Phantom Zone. I don't even mind when people block me. Go on, protect your peace.
Most polite the Fwoosh has been ever? I haven't been involved in any dust-ups in at least a year.
As we've seen with Bluesky, the banhammer works. Get the assholes and obvious trolls out before they can start.
To be honest 50% of all the boards problems were bc of that one "alpha male" guy that was at war with cardboard razor packaging. Still not convinced that wasn't performance art.
@derrabbi that's funny, this conversation made me remember him as well! I haven't thought of him since the last time I opened a box with that treacherous packaging.
but I never claimed to be as smart as Donald Trump.
Sure you did. It's right there in your name.
*Sorry, I know we were just applauding a political conversation that didn't devolve into name calling, but I refuse to pass on that setup.
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