Quote (gnarjay @ Dec 4 2024 02:21pm)
he's already planning to overturn the 14th Amendment, is he not?
I'm not certain he will succeed, but he will try. he isnt smart or capable enough to be a dictator but that's what he wants to be, he's said as much himself ! do you not believe his words?
look at who he is surrounding himself with, not people of merit but dyed-in-the-wool Trump sycophants. he and his cronies love to whine about bureaucrats but its nothing more than the pot calling the kettle black lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRzpqCfGMuI
Vivek and Elon are not only both immigrants (who would otherwise be deported if Trump does plan to repeal the 14th amendment) but theyre both unelected bureaucrats!
do you want to go down the list of his horrid cabinet picks? they will almost all put Trump's agenda before their duty to their country
absurd tariffs, mass deportations, cutting social safety nets (medicare/medicaid/social security), the blossoming trade war....do you think this country will be better off as a result? honestly?
I see his second term as a revenge tour and nothing more. hopefully, and its a big hope, I will be proven wrong. at first I was trying to see the possible positives that Trump could bring but he's done an about-face on nearly all the topics I cared about - most notably the de-escalation of the Israeli genocide
I appreciate a full reply, so i will lay out my thoughts as well.
14th amendment and immigration:obviously this is 2 pronged, 14a/legislation and deportation/border security.
Trump can not act unilaterally to change let alone eliminate the 14a. He could, but i doubt will, try and guide ICE practices based on a faulty interpretation of 14a. but without legislation backing it i dont expect it to stand long so i doubt he'd go there. he may lean on congress to draft legislation limiting 14a, but i doubt they get much movement there and i find that to be campaign talk. they have their hands full with the 2nd aspect.
the 2nd aspect is deportation and ICE. a lot of people claim he'll roll into cholo town and just start rounding up brown skinned people. this is fear mongering imo, and born out of the idea trump and the GOP hate latinos inherantly, rather than the issues they think latino people can cause. if we take the 2nd view the trump path is pretty clear, the biden administration repurposed a shipping app to let migrants register for border crossings and file for asylum. this brought in millions, however it also gave the trump whitehouse what amounts to a gun registration list for migrants. they have the list, they know who has skipped out on asylum cases, they know and now hold in jail many who comited crimes, etc. Trump likes easy wins and the first 100 days he needs them, so he'll deport people off the list from the top down. not roofers or fruit pickers, but the highest issue targets. why? because he's smart? no. because this is by FAR the easiest approach and cheapest approach with minimal economic impact.
trump dictatorimo complete and total waste of time to consider. he cant make himself a dictator, we have too many checks and balances. he could say he wants to learn to fly, doesnt matter, he cant fly. he will surely issue MANY executive orders and the mainstream media will say "SEE WE TOLD YOU". this is just more down the road of invalidating what words like "dictator", "authoritarian", etc mean. every president since Bush 2 has massively increased the number of EOs per term, i hate it personally and wish it would stop, but its not a dictator.
cabinet and those closei have a heavy mix of reactions on those around trump. while i dont support many when we look back at what happened with Mattis, Bolton, etc it makes sense. on the other side of the coin we had Biden bring in people who clearly didnt allign with him in an attempt to appease the fringe left, and that wasnt good either it served no one but optics. i dont hate vivek, elon, or RFK. i actually like most of them in many ways and disagree in many ways also. im more curious to see what they do than to castigate them as simply sycophants out of hand. in any case i have my eyes more squarely on the dept of education, that's where we could see a lot of damage imo.
sidenote: this year the interest payment on the national debt accounted for something like 15-20% of the entire national budget of 7 trillion. no principal payments, just interest. this is a looming disaster. we of course can never have and shouldnt strive to have no debt, we should find a way to pay it down somehow. curious to see if DOGE can make literally any movement there given trump calls for less spending but is a big spender himself as POTUS.
Tariffsi dont hate all tariffs, and i dont think trump will blanket tariff like he said in campaign. its terrible economics and not even steven miller can convince him otherwise, imo. but some targeted ones are literally the only non-violent weapon we have against china who is a massive problem for the USA not just militarily in the future but economically in the present. id hope we can sabre rattle them and get movement there, but we'll see. it could be an issue that gets out of hand, and i hope canada escapes most of the heated talks without large tariffs.
as to better off? short term no, long term hopefully. long term status quo we lose the trade war, we lose almost all real world productivity, and we're relegated to an importer super power tottering towards collapse unless china collapses first. big gamble for a nation.
medicare, medicaid, social securityits been threatened for 20+ years and no one pokes the bear. however, i do expect him to try, something. it will most likely be shifting decimal points in an attempt to lower deficit, it will get blown out of proportion and drive the media cycle, and i wont think it will put any elderly into the streets. but those programs do need some increased efficiency, even if not reduced payments. its long overdue, and social security is doomed on its current path.
foreign policyby far trump's best track record imo from 2016-2020. abraham accords, strikes without instigating wars, normalizing relations with adversaries (russia and NK).
now in 2024? harder task. needs to end 2 wars through diplomatic means, neither one easy or even similar. i hope he can get both arbitrated because the continuation of either is a disaster for all parties involved and we're far too involved.
imo ukraine cedes territory to russia and doesnt get NATO membership, he gets labelled a russian shill, and 100k or so ukranians lives are saved without having to sell their country to blackrock.
gaza best we can hope for is an end to the war, that literally it. there will be no 2 state solution, the palestinians wouldnt accept one anyways, and we can reinvest to try and build them back to at least not rubble. maybe restart the abraham accord talks.