The narratives about Trump thread

Politics US Politics
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Many moons ago, Ronald Reagan was seen as a loser with no chance of becoming president. Then he was seen as a right wing nut that would precipitate a nuclear holocaust. Then he was seen as a senile dolt who was asleep at the wheel (this last turned out to have some truth to it, but do we really want to make fun of Alzheimers victims?) Now he’s seen as one of the greats.

But never mind him. Let’s talk about Trump narratives. He’s been the second coming of Hitler, a monster to be opposed by any means necessary. Much thuggery has been undertaken in the name of resistance to The Donald. But that narrative is dying fast now, and that thuggery will be unsustainable.

The new narrative: he’s a doofus who can’t get Odammitcare repealed and replaced, and probably can’t get anything else done either.

Someone who saw this coming:

I read Art of the Deal. I think he’s going to turn out to be Machiavelli. We could do a lot worse than that.

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Well, at least your first three sentences were accurate.

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Meanwhile his supporters seem to be putting all the blame on Ryan.

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I’m tired of talking about Trump. I’ve decided to stay in Taiwan for the foreseeable future for a reason.

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Trump’s policy of shoot first and get the facts later is reminiscent of The War About Nothing in Iraq. Yet more evidence that you can fool most Americans all the time due to bad intelligence.

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A comment on warning shots: you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, but not all damnation carries the same weight.

If self defense training, they tell us never to fire a warning shot - for almost purely legal reasons. Third parties and their points of view complicate everything when you’re supposed to be concentrating on protecting your own life in an ethical fashion. In military policy, a “warning shot” - also known as proportionate response - is either way too much or way too little, depending who’s bleating about it.

But the point is the effect on the enemy’s future behavior. And eventual success refutes all objections… eventually. Also, international law is a joke so we can safely ignore that.

So ignore the complainers on both sides. What matters is the end result, and we don’t know yet what that will turn out to be.

But we do know that Odammit’s approach to foreign policy didn’t work worth shit. Hindsight is the verdict of history, and it has the final word.

By the way, Odammit took flack in certain circles for targeted drone killings, and Mosul, and… whatever. My only complaint is he didn’t manage to keep the world safe for freedom. Nothing fails like failure.

The Donald has inherited a mess in the Middle East and another in Korea, and yet another in US health care. He gets to blame his predecessor for a year, two max. After that whatever the situation is, he owns it.

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http://blog.dilbert.com/post/159495094661/the-north-korea-reframe

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I am still stuck at Trump is an incompetent Hitler though.

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It never pays to get stuck.

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Buyer’s remorse? Not really. At least, not yet.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-trump-voters-don’t-have-buyer’s-remorse-but-some-hillary-clinton-voters-do/ar-BBAcLRH?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

[quote]A new Washington Post-ABC News poll confirms this — in spades. And, in fact, it shows more buyer’s remorse for Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton. And were the 2016 election held again today, it shows Trump would avenge his popular-vote loss.

While just 4 percent of Trump’s supporters say they would back someone else if there was a redo of the election, fully 15 percent of Clinton supporters say they would ditch her. Trump leads in a re-do of the 2016 election 43 percent to 40 percent after losing the popular vote 46-44.[/quote]

Either the polls prove the opposite of what the haters are saying, or polls are meaningless. Take your pick.

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[quote]The Trump administration cited the deployment of the naval strike force, which includes the carrier and four warships, as a clear warning to North Korea, which was said to be planning a nuclear test last weekend in conjunction with a national holiday.

“We are sending an armada, very powerful,” to the waters off Korea, President Trump told Fox Business News on April 12.

[/quote][quote=“rowland, post:8, topic:159091”]
The Syrian attack and the North Korean situation moved Trump to “Effective, but some of us don’t like what he’s doing”
[/quote]

When the Carl Vinson carrier strike group reaches the Indian Ocean near Australia and finds out North Korea isn’t there do you thinkTrump will be moved back a notch to “effective but incompetent”?

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Oh my gosh, are you kidding?!!

China has stepped up to the plate and announced to North Korea and the world that they will use military might if they have to against the North to take our their nuclear facilities if they keep acting like a child. Obama never came close to this in 8 years!

And it effectively scared the North so much (both China and USA against them) that they nixed their planned 6th nuclear test and opted for a ballistic missile launch instead (which failed miserably), belligerent rhetoric notwithstanding.

And the North is still gonna be worried about their 6th nuclear test. It may never materialize. This is a huge accomplishment.

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Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth:

quote — Fresh off an immense North Korean parade that revealed an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles, rival South Korea and its allies are bracing for the possibility that Pyongyang’s follow-up act will be even bigger.

North Korea often marks significant dates by displaying military capability, and South Korean officials say there’s a chance the country will conduct its sixth nuclear test or its maiden test launch of an ICBM around the founding anniversary of its military on Tuesday.

Such moves could test the developing North Korea policies of President Donald Trump, who has reportedly settled on a strategy that emphasizes increasing pressure on Pyongyang with the help of China, North Korea’s only major ally, instead of military options or trying to overthrow the North’s government. Trump spoke by phone with both the Japanese and Chinese leaders Monday. China’s official broadcaster CCTV quoted President Xi Jinping telling Trump that China strongly opposed North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and hoped “all parties will exercise restraint and avoid aggravating the situation.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump agreed to urge North Korea to refrain from what Abe called provocative actions. “The North Korean nuclear and missile problem is an extremely serious security threat to not only the international community but also our country,” the Japanese leader told reporters in Tokyo afterward.

Recent U.S. commercial satellite images indicate increased activity around North Korea’s nuclear test site, and third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un has said that the country’s preparation for an ICBM launch is in its “final stage.”[/quote]

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According to Nikki Haley when asked about preemptive strike on North Korea,

we won’t do anything unless he gives us reason to do something.

But right now we’re saying don’t test, don’t use nuclear missiles, don’t try and do anymore actions, and I think he’s understanding that. And China’s really helping us put that pressure on him.

Dictators are living with a different reality now than they were under Obama

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Dictators are living under a different reality, but people accustomed to getting their own way are slow to adjust mentally to a new reality.

In case they call your bluff, never be bluffing. Red lines have to mean something. The dark side of proportionate response is: if they go too far and keep going, you have to smack the bastards down hard.

Once North Korea is wiped off the map, the rest of the uncivilized world will sit up and take notice. If anything short of that does the trick, then fine. But calling extreme measures for extreme situations unthinkable can be a fatal lack of imagination and nerve.

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Well, today was some important military celebration, and instead of nuclear or even ballistic missiles, (if you’re celebrating your military, that’s definitely the time to do it), they just settled for an artillery firing, albeit the largest. Yeah, seems they’re getting the message, rhetoric notwithstanding.

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It’s good to see a u.s. prez finally taking the n.k. wmd threat seriously. With Russia and China helping n.k. under the table while pretending to oppose them being a thorn in Uncle Sam’s side it’s just a matter of time before Kim is able to make good on his repeated threats to wipe the u.s. off the face of the earth.

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How the Chinese ‘yes’ that it will help curb North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program works:

[quote]Pyongyang revealed a mock-up of its KN-08 or Hwasong-13 ICBM during a military parade in 2012. Six of these mock-ups however, were being carried by six very real and purpose-designed 16-wheel missile transporter-erector-launchers, made by the Sanjiang Special Vehicle Corp. of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.

In order to design this launcher, Chinese engineers would have required extensive knowledge of the liquid-fueled KN-08 missile, perhaps having even aiding its development. China had an untested liquid-fueled, road-mobile ICBM design to give the North Koreans — its DF-23 project from the early 1980s. China has also sold North Korea a new precision-guided rocket artillery system, and very likely, a new fourth-generation anti-aircraft missile called KN-06, so aiding North Korea’s ICBM would have been consistent.

Since 2012 the world has watched with growing alarm as North Korea has documented its progress in developing its nuclear warhead-armed ICBM. For its Oct. 10, 2015 parade North Korea revealed its KN-14, a redesigned and longer-range ICBM judged capable of reaching Washington D.C. Then in a series of 2016 disclosures, North Korea revealed a compact nuclear weapon design compatible with the KN-08 and KN-14, tests of ablative material to assist the re-entry of nuclear warheads and possible engine tests for its ICBM.

On Sept. 9, Pyongyang tested a 20- to 30-kiloton nuclear weapon, perhaps suitable for a warhead, and some estimate it could have 100 nuclear weapons by 2020. But it is China’s launchers, perhaps up to eight of them, according to Japanese reports, which will give North Korea’s ICBMs the mobility they need to conduct surprise nuclear strikes against the United States and then to evade U.S. counter-attack. . . .

In June 2012, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, citing an anonymous Japanese “government” source, reported that on Aug. 1 2011, the “spy satellites of Japan, the United States and South Korea” observed a Cambodian ship transporting four of the Chinese missile launchers from Shanghai to the North Korean port of Nampo. But despite this early knowledge, the Asahi report stated, “On the urging of the United States, the three governments also decided not to publicize the shipment of the vehicles to avoid publicly embarrassing China.”[/quote]

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For those who believe in polls: