To fix mess

Trump saying it.

Comments

8 responses to “To fix mess”

  1. iknklast Avatar

    Does he realize at all that shutdowns often work against the party causing them (which always seems to be the Republicans)? Does he realize at all that one of the traits of a good negotiator (which he claims to be) is the ability to compromise with those who disagree with you, and give them something in return? Does he even realize….oh, just fill it in yourself. I’m exhausted trying to follow his logic.

  2. Jeff Engel Avatar

    Yeah, expectations of logic are not helpful with him.

    Counting on him to crave power and its display, that may work. He views himself as a dictator and Congress – the Republicans in it, at least, as his employees, or vassals. The Democrats are an enemy force, and political rights for them are an aberration, an insult. 51 Senate Republicans could nullify the filibuster and whatever power it gives the Democrats, and when he’s got 51 vassals in the Senate now, he expects them to do just that. What it means for his party in 2018 or 2020 or beyond means nothing to him; whenever this bores him, he’ll walk away.

    I don’t think living up to anyone else’s idea of a good negotiator – or even getting results by anyone else’s measurement – means a thing to him, either. As far as I can tell, his vaunted deals have all been a matter of leveraging celebrity status (starting with sheer inherited wealth and shamelessness) combined with failure to satisfy obligations made safe through the use of lots more money on lawyers. Our legal system has, unfortunately, never yet deterred that well enough to stop him, and our political system didn’t stop him doing the same thing with it. The Republican Party spent 40 years building a frothing hate bloc and now cannot elect anyone who isn’t comfortable with it or reliably avoid nominating someone who isn’t at home in it.

  3. iknklast Avatar

    Jeff, I think the mainstream Republicans figured they could control this block of haters by just throwing them a bone now and then. But these folks want red meat, and they want to push everyone else away from the table.

    It’s sort of like Nixon’s Southern Strategy. He thought he could bring all these Dixiecrats into the fold, reliably voting Republican, and that he could manage them. Two problems: one, he didn’t stick around very long; two, he couldn’t manage them.

    I view Trump as the inevitable outgrowth of the Republican Party strategy for the past five decades. They forgot that you will eventually take on the odor of those you get close enough to for long enough.

  4. Go Avatar

    Obama leave mess! Not classy! Sad!

    Trump to fix mess. Huge, classy. Beautiful fix, the best.

    Trump give you map, showing beautiful red counties everywhere won by Trump, who is beloved by all. You must take map, copies for all. Trump insists!

    Bye-bye now. Trump go Mar a Lago for weekend.

  5. Kristjan Avatar

    Well, considering Trump got elected, the last shutdown sadly didn’t work against them.:(

  6. iknklast Avatar

    Considering Trump actually had fewer votes, we need to quit saying he won the election. He won the electoral college, that is all. The other candidate, I believe her name was like, Hill… something?…actually had enough more votes than he did to count the population of the state I live in…twice. That’s just her overage…

    The problem isn’t that Hillary ran a bad campaign, or that Trump appealed to the worst in the voters, it is that we have decided that, because the majority of the people live in big coastal cities, we need to make sure their vote counts for much less. And also that people like me, who live in red states, end up having our vote go not to the person we voted for (I believe her name was like, Hill… something?…) go to the other candidate, because it all gets corralled into a single vote cast by the majority, which in this case (my state) happen to be white, old, and conservative.

  7. Acolyte of Sagan Avatar
    Acolyte of Sagan

    iknklast, ‘that was just her overage‘? A Freudian slip?

  8. iknklast Avatar

    Not a Freudian slip – just meaning that was just the number of votes she was over Trump. More like, maybe a poor choice of words.