The General US Politics Thread

This all reminds me of that supposed ancient curse of "may you live in interesting times". Well, I sure will be living in interesting times.

edited 27th Jan '17 9:38:39 AM by LinkToTheFuture

Looks like like the 20% tariff on Mexico was a fumble by Spencer during an interview picked up by another reporter.

Basically, Spencer was trying to explain the standard Republican tax plan, lower corporate tax rate on any international imports.

^^Names of pathogens in real life can be amazingly arbitrary (in-universe, the name is derived from lab animals, as humans spread the bug between them).

Back in the real world: I don't think such a scenario is likely to happen in Real Life unless Mexico or some other country decides that the way to handle Trump is by way of a biological weapon.

I'm going to wait 4-8 years before calling it a work of fiction with any confidence. It might accidentally end up being a historical record.

Every Democratic senator will be opposing Betsy DeVos's nomination. Because it would be nice to continue to have public schools. That aren't full of guns.

And he's still the press secretary why? Because he's had nothing but embarrassing failure after embarrassing failure.

Granted, having a competent press secretary would make a lot of this harder to see.

edited 27th Jan '17 9:42:42 AM by Zendervai

That was not a fumble by Spencer-that was a deliberate ploy to test the waters for an actual tariff. "That is not what I meant to say" while gauging response is a very old political trick.

This, basically.

edited 27th Jan '17 9:46:19 AM by ViperMagnum357

Spicer is a whipping boy for the press; he acts like a moron and distracts from Bannon, Kushner, and Pence squabbling over the strings that make the President dance.

Also, this was clearly a "trial balloon" to see what the reaction would be, and possibly to try and pull the classic Putinesque "it would be a shame if this were to happen" veiled threat towards Mexico.

edited 27th Jan '17 9:44:58 AM by CaptainCapsase

Reportedly Trump doesn't like Spicer and prefers Conway's ways of handling the press, though.

@Trump's strategic scandals, if you wanna call them that, sadly works for him due to the bullshit our media likes to latch on to. When the Russia dossier dropped and rumors started flying pretty much the only thing people even cared to read was the sexual bullshit.

Anyone still believing in hope unlike the other two guys?

I still have some hope that things will turn out alright in the end, and if not, oh well.

Things will always turn out to be alright, no matter the cost from the other years.

edited 27th Jan '17 10:08:49 AM by Luigisan98

Not necessarily for the human species, but in the grand scheme of things we are fairly inconsequential; that's something I can take some stoic comfort in.

I for one know that letting yourself give in to despair would automatically preclude any chance of things improving (barring someone else intervening... if that's possible in the first place, of course). So no, I will not lose hope, even if it's really tiny at the moment.

My own fictional scenario is, ironically, merely a backstory element for my take on the Neon Genesis Evangelion setting, to flesh out the largely featureless space that is the history of the Evaverse prior to 2015, and provide a common template for almost every possible Evangelion fanfic idea whose premise requires it to be mainly set in a version of the canon world rather than, say, a completely mundane world with no god-like Cthulhu-esque aliens, biomechanical mecha, or ancient conspiracies. Note that this common setting template employs the Setting Update trope by shifting all canon dates forward by 15/16 years, so that Trump becomes POTUS after the Valentine Treaty was signed off in the halls of the United Nations HQ in Geneva^note The NYC headquarters was destroyed by a tsunami that hit the city. to end the global strife that erupted in the wake of the Second Impact (see this article if you want canonical details of the Cataclysm Backstory for Evangelion).

... Anyway, the idea is that Trump's presidency ultimately proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back for the USA, and caused a Second Civil War to erupt almost immediately after a sham election in 2020 (Shattered Union is an inspiration), ending in the country splitting into at least three major successor states (with the one dominated by Trump-loyalists becoming progressively worse economically, politically and militarily due to being effectively a pariah in the world community; everyone ignores it in favor of the other two successor states). There were compounding factors, though; Seele (Evangelion's Ancient Conspiracy) had been setting up said civil war for decades, maybe even as far back as the first Civil War, to serve as a trump card to wield should a POTUS end up not doing what they want (basically punishing him by tearing apart the country he worked so hard to serve). And no, it's not Obama whom Seele were pissed at; it was Bill Clinton. Obama's presidency was merely Seele using the well-meaning man to set off the last few steps in their plan, simply by letting him do what he wanted to do.

edited 27th Jan '17 10:16:18 AM by MarqFJA

You words make it look if there are other beings present in the Universe and we are the inferior ones...

I get the impression that we are currently sitting in a Doomed Timeline.

A joke you mean?

Or at least a Mirror Universe.

you know, for many troper here who wants to be writer this must be really frustrating: we all trying our best to make good villians that dosent look stale or stupid when really decide we need saturday cartoon villian from the damn 90, I mean....damn

Trump is holding a press conference alongside Britain's PM on CNN.

Trump: Defense Secy doesn't "necessarily" approve of torture. Defense "will override" his orders. "Don't know" if he will talk sanctions with Putin. And so on

Also I've seen "diaspora" used in the Honor Harrington series exactly as Capase used it, as people leaving Earth for greener planetary pastures. Earth was kinda shitty, but now ruined and eventually bounced back.

edited 27th Jan '17 10:23:22 AM by sgamer82

That's very interesting...

I have something similar with my Anime-inspired E-novel, in which portrayed the proposed Eurasian Economic Union expanding into a military alliance to NATO in late 2017, with the decadence of THE US under Trump being one of the main factors. As for the US, the worsening social and economic situation, combined with pro-right wing uprisings in liberal places like Chicago and Germany leads the outbreak of a world conflict simply known as the 40 month conflict, which is akin to a world war but not directly, it's mostly a large conjunction of conflicts combined together, including a second civil war being fought between Trump loyalists, National forces (Moderate Republicans and Democrats united together), fascist anarchists and even the EEU itself. The second civil war ended with the division of the US in 2 nations, the normal one and a small remnant of hardline GOP and white supremacists ruling the 4 republican states of Arkansas, Lousiana, Alabama and Mississippi while calling itself the Greater American Nations...which is basically a North Korean-esque government only much dysfunctional. Also, the moderate Republicans re branded themselves as the Federal Party as way to dissociate with the Republicans, just like what Germany did at the end of WWII.

edited 27th Jan '17 10:27:56 AM by Luigisan98

I don't necessarily think that the situation's hopeless, but I'm not particularly thrilled that years of my life will be spent living under this monster's thumb. Life is finite and irretrievably lost once it's spent. I would rather spend it living in a country I can be proud of.

In that case, it might be best to move if you're able. I'm starting to consider it.

On congress-I really want to emphasize just how much people are starting to despise republicans. Many of his voters are already furious and it's been one week. Multiply that by several months and even the reddest districts could turn purple.

Try Oman, it's truly paradise there.

edited 27th Jan '17 10:36:00 AM by Luigisan98