Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Trump and his administration only has the authority that our Classically Liberal constitutional system grants him, which is not very much. Since there is no real/influential Trump personality cult (just about every Hollywood actor and late night TV host has more of a personality/cult following) he has no real authority either via the system or outside of it culturally. The only authority he has with the vast majority of supporters such as myself is that he ain't the other guy, does not hate me and my conservative and/or Classically Liberal values, will appoint other-than-progressive-ideologs to the Supremes, etc. In other words it's just another presidency and politics as usual.

Except its not, in that since Trump is not an insider (either a Democrat nor a Republican - he's a RINameOnly) he's had even less influence than is usual. His efforts to actually change the status quo around the working class, trade, manufacturing, and the like have been just plain unsupported from the inside (mostly by congress) because neither the Dems nor Repubs have any self interest in upsetting the progressive/globalist apple cart. He idealistically thought he could make a real dent in the status quo economics and the Washington insider "swamp", but he knows now how entrenched these realities are and how little actual power the US presidency wields. Since he is severely limited in the personality dept., he was never going to be a symbolic leader in the mold of a even an Obama, let alone a Kennedy or Reagan.

Look, you seem like a nice devoted and loyal follower of the Big Media, Big Progressive and Big Party Politics. Your not going to get much from talking to me because I'm not even on the same planet as these usual thought (really emotional) boxes....

 

I sincerely hope so. If you're interested in real world cases of how easily this is undone (and the specific mechanics), look at Russia and Turkey.

That's a good one lol.

Anywho, apparently going back and forth is pointless so instead, I hope you have a nice day.

 

I can't agree with you @ultrabike about Trump's insider status. Sure, he is not an outsider like you and I - he has real resources (personal and otherwise), a functioning political machine, media experience, and the like. He has the backing of the GOP machine up to a certain point, but this is only because that's what parties do. He only won the nomination and the election however because both parties got complacent and misread the mood of the electorate. I don't think much has changed on that front. The way I read it, before covid the Dems assumed a second term as well, so they allowed Biden to run as place holder, even while puffing their chest out like it was really up for grabs with the impeachment circus and what not.

As far as media, I take the fact that most of them (88% of "journalists" the last survey I saw - about the same percentage for those in Academia) vote Democrat and self identify as progressive to be proof enough of their loyalties/influence. I don't take 12% support for the GOP, even if you assume it all supports Trump, as 'big'.

I do agree with you on the bipartisan nature of the swamp, but then I view both parties as being different flavors of progressive...

 

I concur with @crenca. Trump never held elected office before he was elected. Insiders spent decades being politicians, which is another serious issue as well.

I'll say this, tons of right wing and left wing media sites to go around for your daily bias news. Just pick your flavor.

@purr1n on the CA wildfires, is most of the fires on Federal Land?

 

I'm not disagreeing, but let's not forget the general "Thanks, Obama" meme - you can't forget there's large minority of the U.S. population that likely blames a lot of their current livelihood on the things that happened during the prior-to-Obama presidency. Data not withstanding.

We're good at misplacing blame, is all I'm saying. And it takes a long time for the analysis of outcomes to point to actual statistically correlated variables to be borne out in the research beyond individual anecdotal outcomes.

 

I don't really think Trump has insider status as he's pushed a lot of controversial approaches which government establishment/lifers don't seem in favor of. Kushner doesn't get any credit but I've been really impressed with his approach towards prison reform and the Middle East. The conventional wisdom was that Palestine had to be part of any part of integrating Israel with the broader Middle East. Kushner ignored that and went directly to the more moderate factions (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain) while Trump took Soleimani out and played up the Saudi-Iran rivalry. I think what Trump realized that the political establishment didn't is that that part of the world respects strength and commitment, and Trump has been standing up to Iran and China. I still have no idea why Obama thought Iran would negotiate in good faith. It was really interesting seeing how many Middle Eastern countries had no qualms about eventually engaging with the United States while Palestine refused to participate while continuing to try to shake us down for more money.

I don't generally agree with NRO but this was a well-written piece with a lot of interesting quotes. I used to do a lot of business development and partnerships work and would not be surprised if this was actually a reasonably accurate depiction of how things went down:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020...and-forged-a-breakthrough-in-the-middle-east/

I generally think that there are various factions in the GOP that have arranged in the following way:

• McConnell, Haley and pragmatic establishment figures: Have enough in common with Trump such as remaking the judiciary that they're allies by shared purpose. They mouth support but I don't think they're particularly MAGA.
• Younger Conservatives/Libertarians: Cotton, Crenshaw, Cruz, DeSantis, Paul, and others are embracing the populist wave and "America First". Much more in tune with younger conservatives and libertarians. Doesn't feel like these guys have been around long enough to get Pelosi swampy yet.
• RINOs and Swamp Creatures: Romney, Murkowski, McSally, and other folks who would absolutely love to join all the Bush administration folks in supporting Biden and reverting things back to the status quo.
• Grifters: There are a lot of opportunists running for state office positions who have no professional or academic qualifications and whose biggest justification for election is aligning themselves uncritically to Trump. This also applies to groups like OANN.

There are a lot of folks I'm not really sure what to think of such as Rubio but I generally find most current Republicans to fall within one of those quadrants.

I've been trying to get a handle on the Democrats but the party is a mess with no leadership.

 

Great post @Elysian . Two thoughts:

1) The point about Kushner (and Trump by extension) prison reform is huge, in that it is one of those things that has positive pragmatic effect on a large percentage of the underclass (obviously heavily black), that is largely unseen by the vast majority of Americans. Our justice system is widely recognized as broken, overused, and disproportional to the poor. Was it the progressive wing of the Dems who did this? No - all they have done for the last 60 years is talk about it! This speaks to @ultrabike's point about their moral/political hypocrisy.

2) The Dems seem to have a healthy New York to California axis that is sheltered and confident enough pull off
political circus's like the impeachment. So they obviously have their equivalent of your third bullet point.

 

As someone in FL, I'll give DeSantis enough time before he will go into the pragmatic status. When he was running for Gov he was running very hard right, but as Gov he has been just a regular GOP gov who isn't hard-right and actually knows how to play the game in FL (aka don't govern if this is a deep south state, but a state full of moderates). He is not even close to being a Libertarian thou, and none of these guys on your list are true Libertarian in the sense that they pick and choose what "Libertarian" traits they feel like having. Rubio is already a pragmatic establishment figure of the GOP after being in the Senate for 10+ years. I know he will run for reelection again and he will win easy in FL (due to him being Cuban the Hispanic vote will go to him not because he is with the GOP but he is Cuban).

I like Crenshaw, but I dunno if he will make a big impact as a House rep if I have to be honest. Something like a Senator might be better for him. Cruz talks a big game but I put him under the Establishment figures since he been in the Senate for awhile at this point.

Arab nations being friends with Israel is a well known secret. Most of the Arab nations hate Iran and they don't give a f**k about the Palestinians, they wanna get on that Israeli weapons and that massive Israeli technology. End of the day, peace = money deal. I should research more on what the US government is giving these Arab nations as benefits. I remember when Jordan did the peace deal with Israeli in the 90s that the US government wiped out the debt Jordan had with the US as a condition of making peace with Israel.

While this stuff helps, it is only on the Federal Level. GOP controlled states like in FL aren't interested too much in prison reform. However, it is FL culture that even minor crimes we send your ass to prison. The real changes must be done on the state level, and that is a f'ing mess by itself.

Best way for Trump to win black voters, push to legalize weed. He should honestly say f**k everything and do that, and see how fast his support will go up the roof. I'm not joking.

 

I know they are being allowed to buy advanced weapons from us, such as the F-35 (excepting perhaps Qatar which has too obvious past ties with Hamas - they will at least get more F-16's though). Jordan just granted overflight to Israeli airlines. No doubt these small Gulf states are looking to draw in well off Israeli tourist, and other trade as well. Our swampy defense contractors sure appreciate the business.

All this is real politic that is the norm in the middle east or anywhere else. Thing is it took place under Trump and in part at least through his efforts, so why is he not getting credit for it? If it had happened under Obama he would have received another peace prize.

 

He isn't getting credit due to the world is focusing on Covid-19. Honestly, only the right-wing media and the Israeli focused sites were focusing heavily of it (I almost spilled coffee when I got the alert about the UAE deal, I was like snap someone wanna get that Israeli tech).

I know if Covid-19 wasn't a thing it would be bigger news. I know I think the bigger news sites talked about it for a day/two and moved on to Covid-19 crap.

When it comes to voting time, this would not be a high priority for the majority of people. Except for the Pro-Israeli Christians and the Conservatives Jewish voters.

Now, which state would this be the biggest impact?.......

It isn't hard.....

FLORIDAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Outside of NY and CA FL has the third biggest Jewish population. The FL GOP and the National GOP + Trump groups are pushing these news hard in the Jewish parts of FL. I seen this stuff near the Temples and the Jewish Center about ten minutes away from my apartment. It also make sense, the Jewish voters here in Jacksonville are majority Republican registered voters and most came from old/new money. FL GOP knows they won't win all the Jewish vote in FL, but it is about lower the % of those voters going Dems.

We talked about the FL school bill law that I had issues with. Use that plus Trump successes in the Middle East and you have a reason why some Jewish voters might vote just a little more for Trump next month.

 

Something else crossed my mind today - are healthcare costs in America ever going to get fixed or are we just screwed forever? If it can get fixed, what does the road look like? If not... well it's pretty obvious that it's far from ideal here. I notice that none of our politicians are talking about it (probably b/c lobbying + US politicians are way too cheap).

Notice I use the word healthcare - not insurance, not prescriptions, not Medicare/caid, not the VA or veteran insurance system, etc. Also note that I am not advocating for the system used in any one other country b/c they have what I suspect are serious issues too and cracks are starting to form in these places too.

With an inverted population pyramid / aging population and the fact that 75%+ of healthcare costs for the average person occur in the last 20 years of their life (IIRC it's anywhere from 50-80% in the last 6 months for most people, but I may be wrong) + SS is expected to be bankrupt before 2040, this is going to be a big problem really soon. Even worse when we consider that this aging population that is already the biggest section of the US in terms of population controls an even bigger % of the wealth. What should be the biggest transfer of wealth in US history (old people to those inheriting money) may instead be the biggest pilfering ever (via healthcare costs and inheritance taxes... but these taxes are another story). And no, the gains from playing the stock market and betting on pharma, insurance, etc b/c you "saw this coming" is not going to be enough for the money you get screwed out of or for the fact that this could be the first major step in 3rd worlding the US. /s

 

The real reason I am not concerned is very simple: even if Trump wanted to do it very badly there is no chance in hell he can.
Totalitarian regimes have some things in common: the state agencies, the media, the population surveillance tools, legislature, work for a single party. In the past the dictators either used the armed forces (Argentina, Chile) or popular uprising to subordinate the rest of the population. And use the legal system to consolidate it.
Now, I will leave it to your imagination which part of the US political spectrum is closer to realize this model but you can see that Trump has absolutely no means or chances to become a dictator, no matter what his supposed "authoritarian tendencies" are.
He may be an authoritarian by temperament but he will remain a very lonely authoritarian in his own country. The chances that 82nd Airborne will descend on Capitol Hill to install Trump as the sole ruler are, I would say, very slim.

The only reason for the concern could be, IMO, Trump personality, his overgrown ego, his desire to show to the world every morning whose dick is bigger (pretty weird occupation for a 75 years old man), his propensity to make more enemies than friends every day. Trump is a very difficult person to like, to say it mildly.
But what steps has Trump actually taken to overthrow the American constitution? Except that the media are saying that he would love to do that. Maybe.

 

Wherever there's a douche, there's a bag (Stephen Colbert).