I'm not sure I agree with the rest of your characterization. People didn't know what to expect. They knew Trump was unfit, unhinged, ignorant, etc. You can't assign every crazy prediction to everyone who opposed Trump.

I figured once he got into office he would try to act like a serious person. I was wrong. Frankly it's amazing he's accomplished as much as he has. He shoots himself in the foot every morning and his aides/Mitch McConnell manage to get things done anyway.



This guy won a Nobel Prize.

This post was edited by IceMage on Mar 5 2020 03:26pm

Iirc, stocks went up right after Trump struck relatively moderate and reconciliatory tones during his victory speech on election night.





Trump didnt run on reliable Republican orthodoxy though. He ran as an unpredictable insurgent. His main campaign themes on the policy front were a hawkish stance on immigration ("build the wall") and free trade/globalization (withdraw from NAFTA, cancel TPP, put TTIP on ice). Those policies were not in the interest of the oligarchs, not at all. During the race, the oligarchs/donor class simply couldnt be sure about how serious Trump was with his campaign promises.

It was reasonable to bet on him delivering tax cuts and deregulation, but the other stuff would have far outweighed it if Trump had really pulled through with it. Which brings me back to main argument: despite obvious upside, a Trump presidency was a risky proposition for the donor class. In retrospect, we know that it turned out quite fine for them, but they couldnt possibly be sure of this outcome ahead of time.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 5 2020 03:30pm

Krugman failed to read the signs, many didn't. there's a lot of grey area between "i knew Trump would hit historic highs in his first term" and "it will be a global recession unless we get lucky".

economics dont care about racism, or even really tough talk that much. when trump announces actual changes it effects the market. chinese tariffs = soybeans plummet, military spending bill = MIC stocks raise, etc.

anyone listening to Trump's platform should have been at least confident we werent heading for a global recession. just based on tax cuts alone it was a neutral to slight dip at worst situation, and he's done far better than that.

If it was Trump vs Bernie, who do you think the "oligarchs" would prefer?

Trump in a heartbeat based on the information they have now, in 2020, after 3.5 years of the Trump presidency.
Trump, but with more reservation and reluctance if they had to make this decision in 2016, and based only on the information available at the time.

You think the multinationals didn't know trump was lying?
LOL
Serious?
You think he was saying the same thing behind closed doors to ceo's as he said to the plebs on the street?

That's some next level naivety.

Bezos owns WP, it would be incredulous for them to do some journalism on how Amazon is destroying main street and if the government cared for the middle class small business owners, they'd do something about it. You wont ever see those types of scoops out of most MSM outlets even reputable ones because it's self cannibalizing. No, they don't control the day to day but if you really think that journalists can go rogue and print whatever they want against whomever they want is really naive.

Replace "mainstream media" with "black voters" and you've got it.

I used the 2016 formula. DNC owns MSM, and DNC doesn't want Bernie to win.


/e Apparently, the meme maker did as well.

This post was edited by Ghot on Mar 5 2020 11:00pm