The General US Politics Thread

They'll never explain it to him, he's beyond true learning or any other form of personal growth. He's the human manifestation of our various national cancers thus the longer he stays in office the more damage he causes, hopefully the damage will increase the chances of Democratic majorities or super-majorities in Congress and thus increase the chances of his eventual removal.

Any attempt to explain this to him will end in failure. Trump isn't willing or able to learn, especially if it means acknowledging he was wrong.

And this is how the world ends, not with a bang, but with a "Hold my beer."

Don't be alarmist, the worst this will cause is massive amounts of chaos and suffering. This is not a existential threat.

Can someone please buy the Donald a game on Steam so he can spend his time pretending to be an omnipotent dictator somewhere where he wouldn't ruin the world.

"Yes Mr. President, Houston is building the Great Wall. Meanwhile, you can see this little nuke icon moving into North Korea and it just blew up their capital. The UN has submitted to your demand that they pay tribute. And you can see this score here showing how much you're winning."

Nah, he means that literally. Do you honestly think that those Jeans which are sold in the EU are produced in the US? The EU will carefully pick products they can symbolically put a tariff on, but which won't really impact the EU itself. If they were serious, they would threaten to put a tariff on oranges. (For those not in the know, this actually is an important export article for the US, and a really good way to ruin an election for a president is to ruin the business in orange county).

edited 3rd Mar '18 12:15:59 PM by Swanpride

I should have potholed to Joking Mode, as I was trying to make a funny.

I actually believe that fucking up Republican election chances by Tariff is a brilliant idea and the EU should totally do it for the good of mankind. Valencia makes enough oranges for everyone anyway.

They will pull this card when the time is right. They have done so a few times in the past. Ironically usually to protect the interests of the UK.....

Well, what the EU does is of importance to the US because it is one of the few entities that can genuinely match them in the arena of trade.

I happened to have an interest in following the negotiations around TTIP when that was still a thing and one of the most striking impressions I got was the inability of US diplomats (and they were not Trump guys) to understand that there are entities they can not just bully around or ignore. They just don't have that much experience with it. (Besides the EU, it's mostly China that has the same status, fourth should be India, but a good bit further down).

The other two are more attuned to the view of the underdog as they weren't as powerful for as long as the USA.

Canada and Mexico have the edge that, because the North American economy is interdependent, and they are net exporters, they can make life really miserable for the US quickly. Especially if they start taking trade actions on food and energy.

Now, both Ottawa and Mexico City historically prefer to take the US to trade court (and their win/loss ratio is pretty good, especially on tariffs), because trade conflicts suck for everyone involved. But if they have to bring enough pain to get Congress to override Trump on this, they probably will. Better a short trade war than a long one.

Further, retaliation is good politics more or less everywhere, no foreign leader wants to be seen as submitting to Trump.

edited 3rd Mar '18 12:31:25 PM by Rationalinsanity

"They're laughing at us, folks."

Hey, Trump wanted the world to fear America again, and its worked. We are afraid of the US now...in the way that one is afraid of a drunk driver in a tractor trailer.

I highly doubt any intelligent people are laughing at the possibility of a trade war with one of the world's major economies.

edited 3rd Mar '18 12:40:15 PM by Fourthspartan56

Not about the trade war, but I am laughing about the notion of putting tariffs on German cars, for the already mentioned reasons.

The whole steel matter is more serious. Trump is in the process of interrupting important supply lines.

Then we're in agreement, parts of it are farcical but the thing as a whole is just worrisome and sickening.

Precisely. SOMEBODY STOP THIS MADMAN!

The last time Trump raised this subject, wasn't there an American analysis done that suggested the states that will be most impacted by Trump engaging in a tariff war with the EU over cars were going to be Republican states? I think South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama were mentioned as three states heavily dependent on assembling EU car parts, providing a lot of jobs for American workers.

He'll be disproportionately hurting his own voter base if he pursues this.

edited 3rd Mar '18 1:03:53 PM by Wyldchyld

If the European economic community could kindly fuck us up right around election season, that'd be much appreciated.

And NAFTA collapsing hurts border states the most, which are a mix of blue, swing and red states.

Come on, it's no fun when you guys ask for it!

edited 3rd Mar '18 1:10:47 PM by Rationalinsanity

x3 So, it'll be history repeating itself, as the Southeast has almost always suffered the worst under Tariffs. There's a reason Succession almost happened because of the Tariff of Abominations in the 1830's...

edited 3rd Mar '18 1:22:21 PM by DingoWalley1

Reminds me of an old SNL skit: "Friends don't let friends drive steamrollers drunk."

edited 3rd Mar '18 1:37:24 PM by pwiegle

The steel trade tariffs are an incredibly stupid idea.

Basically, the US importing cheap steel makes its own internal market and exports more competitive by getting cheaper resources and then making finished goods with aggregated value. Given the reactions from the markets with this announcement, everyone but Trump knows that. Even Cohn threatening to resign is a reaction to how fucking stupid that idea is.

And Trump should have known better since his own business used foreign steel to build his contracts heavily. So he should know how much increasing the costs for steel in the US impacts business from construction to auto industry.

I don't know if that is just another empty threat for the ratings or if Trump is actually stupid enough to forget even base economics and shoot himself in the foot even harder.

I don't know how you can ask, he's absolutely stupid enough to do this.

By all accounts, Trump is in a panic or frustration induced rage. He's acting erratically, even by his standards. Everyone who he is close to is in some sort of trouble, Jared and Ivanka are under investigation, Hicks is gone, Melania is pissed with him, etc. Trump is utterly dependent on this inner circle, and its imploding.

This particular case is what we were all worried about, that a man with no logic or impulse control would do stupid shit if backed into a corner. Hence, why I strongly prefer Pence over Trump.

edited 3rd Mar '18 1:37:03 PM by Rationalinsanity

I guess the intention was to pick a fight with China, but he accidentally picked a fight with the US allies instead and now he does what he always does when he does something incredible stupid, he is doubling down on it.