It's important for the rightwing to realize that the liberal outrage over Trump is unprecedented

[Dr.Traveler]

[
No, I'm quite confident he's an idiot who's going to foul the country up while he makes himself rich.

You mean like Crooked Hillary?

Eh. I was fully in the "Both suck" category this year and was actively looking for a moderate Republican so I could vote against Hillary. I'm pretty clear about my opinion that Trump sucks considerably worse than Hillary though.

What will you do if he, say, manages to get a significant improvement in jobs and wages for low and middle income Americans?

I'll give him credit. But here's the thing: He's not going to accomplish that. Almost all the stuff Trump is talking about has been tried before and failed.

1. Using trade policy to build up US industry has been tried successfully in the past, though not for long time.

2. Deporting large numbers of people have only been tried ONCE before that I am aware of. It did fail, but once does not mean it can't be done.



Wait for the media lying to you. Because if he does success, they will try to spin it, if not outright lie.

Mass deportation is going to tank the economy. You're already hearing push back from farmers and other businesses on that issue. There are numerous scientific articles that definitively show that the US economy is propped up by illegal workers. And it is going to cost BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS to deport folks, putting a further strain on the economy.

As far as trade policy goes, that's all pretty much doomed to failure. Trump isn't talking trade policy, he's talking tariff wars which crashed the global economy last time it happened. Not only that, automation of manufacturing is at the point where factories don't need the workers they needed before. Hell, the labs that build your eyeglasses are highly automated now and employ a fraction of the workers they did before. Manufacturing won't be a major driver for the US economy.

 

[Correll]

Trump supporters and surrogates need to take a step back from covering-up and apologizing for his glaring inadequacies and horrifying blunders--in other words, pull head from ass.

Trump won because the Democrats ran Hillary Clinton.
Don't like the fact Trump is President? Blame the Dems.

Hillary ran a crappy campaign, that is for sure. But blame the Democrats for Trump? I don't think that works. Should Trump turn out to be a disaster there's going to be blame enough for all of us. Almost half the country didn't bother to vote. The GOP couldn't control their own primary process and ended up hijacked by a minority of its voters. A ton of other GOP candidates couldn't get it together to stop Trump. Almost all of the elected GOP members were spineless and refused to unendorse him as they condemned the things Trump said.

Short version: Every nation gets the government it deserves. We got Trump.

THe Parties should not be "in control" of their primary processes.


THe voters should be.


What you are talking about is the opposite of freedom.

Bullshit. The parties shouldn't be in control of the general election, but the primary? Sure they should be. The parties are private organizations with their own rules. You don't like those rules, don't play. Run third party or create your own party. You may not like it, but the two major parties don't owe the voters control over the process any more than the voters owe the two major parties their votes.

The leaders of the party are not the whole of the party.

Without US they would not have a party.


WIthout them, we won.

 

[Correll]

You mean like Crooked Hillary?

Eh. I was fully in the "Both suck" category this year and was actively looking for a moderate Republican so I could vote against Hillary. I'm pretty clear about my opinion that Trump sucks considerably worse than Hillary though.

What will you do if he, say, manages to get a significant improvement in jobs and wages for low and middle income Americans?

I'll give him credit. But here's the thing: He's not going to accomplish that. Almost all the stuff Trump is talking about has been tried before and failed.

1. Using trade policy to build up US industry has been tried successfully in the past, though not for long time.

2. Deporting large numbers of people have only been tried ONCE before that I am aware of. It did fail, but once does not mean it can't be done.



Wait for the media lying to you. Because if he does success, they will try to spin it, if not outright lie.

Mass deportation is going to tank the economy. You're already hearing push back from farmers and other businesses on that issue. There are numerous scientific articles that definitively show that the US economy is propped up by illegal workers. And it is going to cost BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS to deport folks, putting a further strain on the economy.

As far as trade policy goes, that's all pretty much doomed to failure. Trump isn't talking trade policy, he's talking tariff wars which crashed the global economy last time it happened. Not only that, automation of manufacturing is at the point where factories don't need the workers they needed before. Hell, the labs that build your eyeglasses are highly automated now and employ a fraction of the workers they did before. Manufacturing won't be a major driver for the US economy.

1. Mass deportations will not crash the economy.

2. Farmers are a very small portion of the economy.

3. It will not cost Trillions.

4. Those studies are extremely suspect.

5. He is THREATENING tariffs, as leverage.

6. The last time the US was a huge exporter.

7. Sure. Automation. BUt yet, Germany, another first world nation, has TWICE the rate of manufacturing employment we do.

8. Manufacturing can and should be an important part of the us workforce. YOu cite farmers as though they count, yet farm employment is only 2%.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

Trump supporters and surrogates need to take a step back from covering-up and apologizing for his glaring inadequacies and horrifying blunders--in other words, pull head from ass.

Trump won because the Democrats ran Hillary Clinton.
Don't like the fact Trump is President? Blame the Dems.

Hillary ran a crappy campaign, that is for sure. But blame the Democrats for Trump? I don't think that works. Should Trump turn out to be a disaster there's going to be blame enough for all of us. Almost half the country didn't bother to vote. The GOP couldn't control their own primary process and ended up hijacked by a minority of its voters. A ton of other GOP candidates couldn't get it together to stop Trump. Almost all of the elected GOP members were spineless and refused to unendorse him as they condemned the things Trump said.

Short version: Every nation gets the government it deserves. We got Trump.

THe Parties should not be "in control" of their primary processes.


THe voters should be.


What you are talking about is the opposite of freedom.

Bullshit. The parties shouldn't be in control of the general election, but the primary? Sure they should be. The parties are private organizations with their own rules. You don't like those rules, don't play. Run third party or create your own party. You may not like it, but the two major parties don't owe the voters control over the process any more than the voters owe the two major parties their votes.

The leaders of the party are not the whole of the party.

Without US they would not have a party.


WIthout them, we won.

That right there is all the source of obligation the party leaders have to their voters. The two parties are not part of the Constitution and are not required legally to listen to their voters. Your freedom does not derive from them. If the parties do not like a candidate, they can and should stack the deck against them. It is the responsibility of party leadership to protect the brand and to ensure the party platform is implemented. Candidates that hurt the party or refuse to support the platform can and should be shown the door.

It's not hard to understand. The Political Parties have the same obligation to you that the local grocery store does to you as a customer. They want your vote same as the store owner wants your business. But if catering to your hurts the party, the Party will show you the door just as fast as the businessman will show you the door once you hurt his bottom line.

 

[Correll]

Trump won because the Democrats ran Hillary Clinton.
Don't like the fact Trump is President? Blame the Dems.

Hillary ran a crappy campaign, that is for sure. But blame the Democrats for Trump? I don't think that works. Should Trump turn out to be a disaster there's going to be blame enough for all of us. Almost half the country didn't bother to vote. The GOP couldn't control their own primary process and ended up hijacked by a minority of its voters. A ton of other GOP candidates couldn't get it together to stop Trump. Almost all of the elected GOP members were spineless and refused to unendorse him as they condemned the things Trump said.

Short version: Every nation gets the government it deserves. We got Trump.

THe Parties should not be "in control" of their primary processes.


THe voters should be.


What you are talking about is the opposite of freedom.

Bullshit. The parties shouldn't be in control of the general election, but the primary? Sure they should be. The parties are private organizations with their own rules. You don't like those rules, don't play. Run third party or create your own party. You may not like it, but the two major parties don't owe the voters control over the process any more than the voters owe the two major parties their votes.

The leaders of the party are not the whole of the party.

Without US they would not have a party.


WIthout them, we won.

That right there is all the source of obligation the party leaders have to their voters. The two parties are not part of the Constitution and are not required legally to listen to their voters. Your freedom does not derive from them. If the parties do not like a candidate, they can and should stack the deck against them. It is the responsibility of party leadership to protect the brand and to ensure the party platform is implemented. Candidates that hurt the party or refuse to support the platform can and should be shown the door.

It's not hard to understand. The Political Parties have the same obligation to you that the local grocery store does to you as a customer. They want your vote same as the store owner wants your business. But if catering to your hurts the party, the Party will show you the door just as fast as the businessman will show you the door once you hurt his bottom line.

It is the party leadership that has hurt the brand with their putting their interests ahead of the interests of the nation and their members.

IN practice, the limiting of the party choices is limiting the choices the voters in the general election have.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

Eh. I was fully in the "Both suck" category this year and was actively looking for a moderate Republican so I could vote against Hillary. I'm pretty clear about my opinion that Trump sucks considerably worse than Hillary though.

What will you do if he, say, manages to get a significant improvement in jobs and wages for low and middle income Americans?

I'll give him credit. But here's the thing: He's not going to accomplish that. Almost all the stuff Trump is talking about has been tried before and failed.

1. Using trade policy to build up US industry has been tried successfully in the past, though not for long time.

2. Deporting large numbers of people have only been tried ONCE before that I am aware of. It did fail, but once does not mean it can't be done.



Wait for the media lying to you. Because if he does success, they will try to spin it, if not outright lie.

Mass deportation is going to tank the economy. You're already hearing push back from farmers and other businesses on that issue. There are numerous scientific articles that definitively show that the US economy is propped up by illegal workers. And it is going to cost BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS to deport folks, putting a further strain on the economy.

As far as trade policy goes, that's all pretty much doomed to failure. Trump isn't talking trade policy, he's talking tariff wars which crashed the global economy last time it happened. Not only that, automation of manufacturing is at the point where factories don't need the workers they needed before. Hell, the labs that build your eyeglasses are highly automated now and employ a fraction of the workers they did before. Manufacturing won't be a major driver for the US economy.

1. Mass deportations will not crash the economy.

2. Farmers are a very small portion of the economy.

3. It will not cost Trillions.

4. Those studies are extremely suspect.

5. He is THREATENING tariffs, as leverage.

6. The last time the US was a huge exporter.

7. Sure. Automation. BUt yet, Germany, another first world nation, has TWICE the rate of manufacturing employment we do.

8. Manufacturing can and should be an important part of the us workforce. YOu cite farmers as though they count, yet farm employment is only 2%.

I'm curious if you work in any of the factories left in the USA, or know folks that do. So much of the factory is already automated. I've had numerous conversation with family members about robots and automation and these are across widely different fields. We are overwhelmingly a service economy. In 2013 durable manufacturing employed less than 1% of the workforce. Non-durable goods manufacturing was only 3%.

Maybe Trump's plan works and it doesn't lead to a tariff war. But nothing I've seen so far leads me to believe he can pull it off. The policies he is talking about have been tried before and failed. Not to mention Trump himself is a pretty questionable business many with a history of bankruptcy and unpaid bills. Hell, he'd be richer now if he'd just invested what his Daddy gave him in generic market indicies.

But maybe it works. I hope so. I really do. I've got a lot of family in the sectors that NAFTA has devastated. I've got a lot of family in sectors that automation will likely devastate in the next few decades. If he can pull it off, good for him and good for us.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

Hillary ran a crappy campaign, that is for sure. But blame the Democrats for Trump? I don't think that works. Should Trump turn out to be a disaster there's going to be blame enough for all of us. Almost half the country didn't bother to vote. The GOP couldn't control their own primary process and ended up hijacked by a minority of its voters. A ton of other GOP candidates couldn't get it together to stop Trump. Almost all of the elected GOP members were spineless and refused to unendorse him as they condemned the things Trump said.

Short version: Every nation gets the government it deserves. We got Trump.

THe Parties should not be "in control" of their primary processes.


THe voters should be.


What you are talking about is the opposite of freedom.

Bullshit. The parties shouldn't be in control of the general election, but the primary? Sure they should be. The parties are private organizations with their own rules. You don't like those rules, don't play. Run third party or create your own party. You may not like it, but the two major parties don't owe the voters control over the process any more than the voters owe the two major parties their votes.

The leaders of the party are not the whole of the party.

Without US they would not have a party.


WIthout them, we won.

That right there is all the source of obligation the party leaders have to their voters. The two parties are not part of the Constitution and are not required legally to listen to their voters. Your freedom does not derive from them. If the parties do not like a candidate, they can and should stack the deck against them. It is the responsibility of party leadership to protect the brand and to ensure the party platform is implemented. Candidates that hurt the party or refuse to support the platform can and should be shown the door.

It's not hard to understand. The Political Parties have the same obligation to you that the local grocery store does to you as a customer. They want your vote same as the store owner wants your business. But if catering to your hurts the party, the Party will show you the door just as fast as the businessman will show you the door once you hurt his bottom line.

It is the party leadership that has hurt the brand with their putting their interests ahead of the interests of the nation and their members.

IN practice, the limiting of the party choices is limiting the choices the voters in the general election have.

The general election is a separate problem. It essentially boils down to the fact we've allowed the two main parties to corrupt our freedom of choice at the ballot box by ceding them too much authority in running elections.

Still doesn't change the fact that the parties themselves owe the voters nothing in the primary process. Sooner folks realize that, sooner we can start to address the real issues. Folks are too easily brainwashed into party politics.

 

[Correll]

What will you do if he, say, manages to get a significant improvement in jobs and wages for low and middle income Americans?

I'll give him credit. But here's the thing: He's not going to accomplish that. Almost all the stuff Trump is talking about has been tried before and failed.

1. Using trade policy to build up US industry has been tried successfully in the past, though not for long time.

2. Deporting large numbers of people have only been tried ONCE before that I am aware of. It did fail, but once does not mean it can't be done.



Wait for the media lying to you. Because if he does success, they will try to spin it, if not outright lie.

Mass deportation is going to tank the economy. You're already hearing push back from farmers and other businesses on that issue. There are numerous scientific articles that definitively show that the US economy is propped up by illegal workers. And it is going to cost BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS to deport folks, putting a further strain on the economy.

As far as trade policy goes, that's all pretty much doomed to failure. Trump isn't talking trade policy, he's talking tariff wars which crashed the global economy last time it happened. Not only that, automation of manufacturing is at the point where factories don't need the workers they needed before. Hell, the labs that build your eyeglasses are highly automated now and employ a fraction of the workers they did before. Manufacturing won't be a major driver for the US economy.

1. Mass deportations will not crash the economy.

2. Farmers are a very small portion of the economy.

3. It will not cost Trillions.

4. Those studies are extremely suspect.

5. He is THREATENING tariffs, as leverage.

6. The last time the US was a huge exporter.

7. Sure. Automation. BUt yet, Germany, another first world nation, has TWICE the rate of manufacturing employment we do.

8. Manufacturing can and should be an important part of the us workforce. YOu cite farmers as though they count, yet farm employment is only 2%.

I'm curious if you work in any of the factories left in the USA, or know folks that do. So much of the factory is already automated. I've had numerous conversation with family members about robots and automation and these are across widely different fields. We are overwhelmingly a service economy. In 2013 durable manufacturing employed less than 1% of the workforce. Non-durable goods manufacturing was only 3%.

Maybe Trump's plan works and it doesn't lead to a tariff war. But nothing I've seen so far leads me to believe he can pull it off. The policies he is talking about have been tried before and failed. Not to mention Trump himself is a pretty questionable business many with a history of bankruptcy and unpaid bills. Hell, he'd be richer now if he'd just invested what his Daddy gave him in generic market indicies.

But maybe it works. I hope so. I really do. I've got a lot of family in the sectors that NAFTA has devastated. I've got a lot of family in sectors that automation will likely devastate in the next few decades. If he can pull it off, good for him and good for us.

1. Numbers I've seen for manufacturing shows us manufacturing at 9% (and for comparision German's at twice that)

2. When were those policies "tried and failed"?

3. Automation is only part of the issue. Germany has TWICE the level of manufacturing employment we do. That's a lot of jobs.

 

[Correll]

THe Parties should not be "in control" of their primary processes.


THe voters should be.


What you are talking about is the opposite of freedom.

Bullshit. The parties shouldn't be in control of the general election, but the primary? Sure they should be. The parties are private organizations with their own rules. You don't like those rules, don't play. Run third party or create your own party. You may not like it, but the two major parties don't owe the voters control over the process any more than the voters owe the two major parties their votes.

The leaders of the party are not the whole of the party.

Without US they would not have a party.


WIthout them, we won.

That right there is all the source of obligation the party leaders have to their voters. The two parties are not part of the Constitution and are not required legally to listen to their voters. Your freedom does not derive from them. If the parties do not like a candidate, they can and should stack the deck against them. It is the responsibility of party leadership to protect the brand and to ensure the party platform is implemented. Candidates that hurt the party or refuse to support the platform can and should be shown the door.

It's not hard to understand. The Political Parties have the same obligation to you that the local grocery store does to you as a customer. They want your vote same as the store owner wants your business. But if catering to your hurts the party, the Party will show you the door just as fast as the businessman will show you the door once you hurt his bottom line.

It is the party leadership that has hurt the brand with their putting their interests ahead of the interests of the nation and their members.

IN practice, the limiting of the party choices is limiting the choices the voters in the general election have.

The general election is a separate problem. It essentially boils down to the fact we've allowed the two main parties to corrupt our freedom of choice at the ballot box by ceding them too much authority in running elections.

Still doesn't change the fact that the parties themselves owe the voters nothing in the primary process. Sooner folks realize that, sooner we can start to address the real issues. Folks are too easily brainwashed into party politics.

The general election is not a separate problem. THe general election is between the two candidates that the parties, or the parties voters choose.


You can not like that, but, for now and for the foresee able future, that is the way it is.


This election was about real issues, with a real choice between the status quo and real change.


If the GOP leadership had had it's way, you would have had two status quo candidates pretending to be different.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I'll give him credit. But here's the thing: He's not going to accomplish that. Almost all the stuff Trump is talking about has been tried before and failed.

1. Using trade policy to build up US industry has been tried successfully in the past, though not for long time.

2. Deporting large numbers of people have only been tried ONCE before that I am aware of. It did fail, but once does not mean it can't be done.



Wait for the media lying to you. Because if he does success, they will try to spin it, if not outright lie.

Mass deportation is going to tank the economy. You're already hearing push back from farmers and other businesses on that issue. There are numerous scientific articles that definitively show that the US economy is propped up by illegal workers. And it is going to cost BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS to deport folks, putting a further strain on the economy.

As far as trade policy goes, that's all pretty much doomed to failure. Trump isn't talking trade policy, he's talking tariff wars which crashed the global economy last time it happened. Not only that, automation of manufacturing is at the point where factories don't need the workers they needed before. Hell, the labs that build your eyeglasses are highly automated now and employ a fraction of the workers they did before. Manufacturing won't be a major driver for the US economy.

1. Mass deportations will not crash the economy.

2. Farmers are a very small portion of the economy.

3. It will not cost Trillions.

4. Those studies are extremely suspect.

5. He is THREATENING tariffs, as leverage.

6. The last time the US was a huge exporter.

7. Sure. Automation. BUt yet, Germany, another first world nation, has TWICE the rate of manufacturing employment we do.

8. Manufacturing can and should be an important part of the us workforce. YOu cite farmers as though they count, yet farm employment is only 2%.

I'm curious if you work in any of the factories left in the USA, or know folks that do. So much of the factory is already automated. I've had numerous conversation with family members about robots and automation and these are across widely different fields. We are overwhelmingly a service economy. In 2013 durable manufacturing employed less than 1% of the workforce. Non-durable goods manufacturing was only 3%.

Maybe Trump's plan works and it doesn't lead to a tariff war. But nothing I've seen so far leads me to believe he can pull it off. The policies he is talking about have been tried before and failed. Not to mention Trump himself is a pretty questionable business many with a history of bankruptcy and unpaid bills. Hell, he'd be richer now if he'd just invested what his Daddy gave him in generic market indicies.

But maybe it works. I hope so. I really do. I've got a lot of family in the sectors that NAFTA has devastated. I've got a lot of family in sectors that automation will likely devastate in the next few decades. If he can pull it off, good for him and good for us.

1. Numbers I've seen for manufacturing shows us manufacturing at 9% (and for comparision German's at twice that)

2. When were those policies "tried and failed"?

3. Automation is only part of the issue. Germany has TWICE the level of manufacturing employment we do. That's a lot of jobs.

Well, take your pick. Threatening Tariffs usually kicks off a tariff war and those are a disaster for everyone.

Things like the Carrier deal have been tried and fail long term literally all the time. Off the top of my head there's the V-Vehicle and Foster Farms in Louisiana, among others. Nearly every State has examples of that. And to put Carrier in perspective, Trump still didn't save over half those jobs at the cost of enormous concessions. Mass Deportation was tried under Eisenhower and failed.

Cutting taxes and restrictions on business "bigly" was tried and failed in Kansas under Brownback and in Louisiana under Jindal. Both tanked their state's economies. Reagan also had massive tax cuts and managed to balloon the nation debt AND tank the economy under George HW Bush. George W. Bush had tax cuts and again managed to balloon the debt and tank the economy.

So yeah, I'm skeptical. Pretty much the only thing that seems to a good job long term is investment in infrastructure and innovation. To Trump's credit he does want to invest in infrastructure, it's just the GOP has told him to take a hike on that issue.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

This election was about real issues, with a real choice between the status quo and real change.

I'm calling bullshit on that point right there. Trump doesn't represent real change. He represents rejection. That's not the same as change. If you voted for Trump expecting real change you're going to have a really sad and disappointing 4 years.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

IN practice, the limiting of the party choices is limiting the choices the voters in the general election have.

I think this needs to be pointed out again. The parties have no obligation to provide you a variety of choices in the general election. As a US Citizen it is YOUR responsibility to do that by contributing to campaigns or working on behalf of the people you want elected. People fundamentally do not understand that the political parties are not required to even listen to you as a voter nor are they required to respect or support the primary results. Both parties have plenty of mechanisms to derail or stop a candidate and they have historically not been shy about using them.

And here's the kicker: They shouldn't be shy about using them. IF the parties aren't going to exert control over their own internal process then they shouldn't exist. Let's go to the jungle primary system they use in Louisiana and be done with it. If I vote Democrat, if I give them money, then I expect them to give my candidates and elected officials that represent the positions of the party. If they can't do that, then what good are they?

 

[Iceweasel]

This election was about real issues, with a real choice between the status quo and real change.

I'm calling bullshit on that point right there. Trump doesn't represent real change. He represents rejection. That's not the same as change. If you voted for Trump expecting real change you're going to have a really sad and disappointing 4 years.

Thanks Kreskin. Like we've been enjoying the shit out of the last 8.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Unprecedented = Soros paid for it

 

[TheDude]

Can leftist flowers provide rational reasons for said outrage?

 

[Flash]

[

Eh. I was fully in the "Both suck" category this year and was actively looking for a moderate Republican so I could vote against Hillary. I'm pretty clear about my opinion that Trump sucks considerably worse than Hillary though.

Trump is a big government Liberal but less so than this stupid Crooked Hillary bitch. Between the two it was was a no brainier to vote against Crooked Hillary. She has more baggage than Delta Airlines and belongs in jail. Probably the most flawed, corrupt and dishonest person to ever run for President. Even more so than Slick Willy. Good thing she lost.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Trump supporters and surrogates need to take a step back from covering-up and apologizing for his glaring inadequacies and horrifying blunders--in other words, pull head from ass.

Trump won because the Democrats ran Hillary Clinton.
Don't like the fact Trump is President? Blame the Dems.

Hillary ran a crappy campaign, that is for sure. But blame the Democrats for Trump? I don't think that works

If the Dems had run a better candidate - and they had better candidates - Trump would not have won.
But no, they ran Hillary.

 

[Correll]

1. Using trade policy to build up US industry has been tried successfully in the past, though not for long time.

2. Deporting large numbers of people have only been tried ONCE before that I am aware of. It did fail, but once does not mean it can't be done.



Wait for the media lying to you. Because if he does success, they will try to spin it, if not outright lie.

Mass deportation is going to tank the economy. You're already hearing push back from farmers and other businesses on that issue. There are numerous scientific articles that definitively show that the US economy is propped up by illegal workers. And it is going to cost BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS to deport folks, putting a further strain on the economy.

As far as trade policy goes, that's all pretty much doomed to failure. Trump isn't talking trade policy, he's talking tariff wars which crashed the global economy last time it happened. Not only that, automation of manufacturing is at the point where factories don't need the workers they needed before. Hell, the labs that build your eyeglasses are highly automated now and employ a fraction of the workers they did before. Manufacturing won't be a major driver for the US economy.

1. Mass deportations will not crash the economy.

2. Farmers are a very small portion of the economy.

3. It will not cost Trillions.

4. Those studies are extremely suspect.

5. He is THREATENING tariffs, as leverage.

6. The last time the US was a huge exporter.

7. Sure. Automation. BUt yet, Germany, another first world nation, has TWICE the rate of manufacturing employment we do.

8. Manufacturing can and should be an important part of the us workforce. YOu cite farmers as though they count, yet farm employment is only 2%.

I'm curious if you work in any of the factories left in the USA, or know folks that do. So much of the factory is already automated. I've had numerous conversation with family members about robots and automation and these are across widely different fields. We are overwhelmingly a service economy. In 2013 durable manufacturing employed less than 1% of the workforce. Non-durable goods manufacturing was only 3%.

Maybe Trump's plan works and it doesn't lead to a tariff war. But nothing I've seen so far leads me to believe he can pull it off. The policies he is talking about have been tried before and failed. Not to mention Trump himself is a pretty questionable business many with a history of bankruptcy and unpaid bills. Hell, he'd be richer now if he'd just invested what his Daddy gave him in generic market indicies.

But maybe it works. I hope so. I really do. I've got a lot of family in the sectors that NAFTA has devastated. I've got a lot of family in sectors that automation will likely devastate in the next few decades. If he can pull it off, good for him and good for us.

1. Numbers I've seen for manufacturing shows us manufacturing at 9% (and for comparision German's at twice that)

2. When were those policies "tried and failed"?

3. Automation is only part of the issue. Germany has TWICE the level of manufacturing employment we do. That's a lot of jobs.

Well, take your pick. Threatening Tariffs usually kicks off a tariff war and those are a disaster for everyone.

Things like the Carrier deal have been tried and fail long term literally all the time. Off the top of my head there's the V-Vehicle and Foster Farms in Louisiana, among others. Nearly every State has examples of that. And to put Carrier in perspective, Trump still didn't save over half those jobs at the cost of enormous concessions. Mass Deportation was tried under Eisenhower and failed.

Cutting taxes and restrictions on business "bigly" was tried and failed in Kansas under Brownback and in Louisiana under Jindal. Both tanked their state's economies. Reagan also had massive tax cuts and managed to balloon the nation debt AND tank the economy under George HW Bush. George W. Bush had tax cuts and again managed to balloon the debt and tank the economy.

So yeah, I'm skeptical. Pretty much the only thing that seems to a good job long term is investment in infrastructure and innovation. To Trump's credit he does want to invest in infrastructure, it's just the GOP has told him to take a hike on that issue.

1. You are referring to the Trade War prior to the Great Depression?

2. Link for V-Vehicle, please, for discussion purposes.

3. Operation Wetback failed, because the border was not sealed and the illegals came BACK. BUild the wall, and e-verify and that won't happen.

4. Reagan had the longest peace time expansion of the economy to date during his administration into Bush's.

 

[Correll]

This election was about real issues, with a real choice between the status quo and real change.

I'm calling bullshit on that point right there. Trump doesn't represent real change. He represents rejection. That's not the same as change. If you voted for Trump expecting real change you're going to have a really sad and disappointing 4 years.

1. Enforcing immigration laws will be a massive change from the bi-partisan consensus for generations.

2. Trade policy to protect/nurture us manufacturing will be a complete change from the bi-partisan Free Trade consensus for generations.

3. AND, moving away from Cold War reflexive confrontation of Russia, is a huge and welcome change.

 

[kaz]

Picture the alternative reality of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, or even Ted Cruz becoming president instead of Trump. Would there be any talk of recounts, pre-adminstration scandals, or worldwide scorn?

No.

For me, I can't stand teabaggers like Ted Cruz or Mike Pence, but I would still feel much less anxious if they were president. There's a level of dignity, intelligence, and professionalism in their personalities. I respect that about them whenever I compare them to Trump. It just blows my mind how the rightwing is in denial about Trump.

Maybe you should have run someone less corrupt then, just a thought ...