The Donald Trump Playbook

[GMDino]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/donald-trumps-playbook/507647/?google_editors_picks=true

Quote:What do Donald Trump supporters expect from the president-elect?


Some expect him to bring back manufacturing jobs sent to China and Mexico. Some expect him to “drain the swamp” and banish elite interests in Washington. Some expect him to restore the order of mid-20th-century America, where whites—and especially white men—enjoyed a cultural, demographic, and economic advantage that they feel is slipping away.
Perhaps for others, their expectations are not about any specific policy, but rather a more ineffable feeling: They want respect, above all, and they have lifted up a man who has promised to lift them up in return.

It’s fair to say that no supporter, journalist, or politician has any special forecasting power when it comes to the policy preferences of a President Donald Trump. But in the days after his shocking election, those following his transition have noticed a theme: Trump’s advertisement for populism may ultimately disguise a policy of surprisingly old-fashioned elite enrichment.

First, the transition team itself is stocked with members of the same powerful and plutocratic class that he attacked on the campaign trail. His chief strategist seems far more concerned about the destruction of the left than about reforming capitalism to repair income inequality. His closest economic advisers include several multi-millionaires and a few billionaires. Many of these advisers are proponents of rolling back banking regulations designed to spare poor Americans of the worst abuses of Wall Street.

One of them, Anthony Scaramucci, an investment banker, has promised to fight the Labor Department’s “fiduciary rule,” which was designed by the government to protect people from financial advisers who put their own profit ahead of their clients' interest. Criticizing the burden the law placed on wealth managers, Scaramucci compared the rule to the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which declared that slaves were not citizens. Although Scaramucci later tweeted that he had intended for the comparison to be about “bad governmental decisions,” equating wealthy financial advisers to slaves is far from populism.

Second, the piece of Trump’s economic policy that fits best with congressional Republican preferences is his proposed tax cut, which would reduce government revenues by $6 trillion in the next decade. Half of this cut would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. Furthermore, Trump has proposed to change the tax treatment of so-called “S corporations” to allow closely held companies (like his own) to get a 20-percentage-point tax cut on all income.


Third, there are several reasons to worry that the industrial workers who are relying on Trump to turn back the clock on globalization and technological change have misplaced their hopes. The real-estate mogul has promised to renegotiate trade deals and and slap tariffs on any countries, like China, that don’t accept his terms. If this happened, prices on Chinese and other exports would rise, punishing low-income families who need cheap essentials to make ends meet.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade think tank that is considered bipartisan, has estimated that under a "full trade war scenario," hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk across the Rust Belt, with Michigan facing some of the worst losses. A trade war with a country like China could be catastrophic for many U.S. companies, not only those who sell to Chinese consumers, but also those who rely on a global supply chain that includes Chinese factories and distribution centers. By taking business away from manufacturers and companies, Trump’s policies could hurt the very workers he’s promised to protect. Meanwhile, Trump and Congressional Republicans have promised to repeal a great deal of the Affordable Care Act, which would strip about 20 million people of insurance coverage. Add to that the fact that his tax cut would require trillions in cuts to programs that help the poor, young, and sick just to keep from blowing open the deficit, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Trump’s policies could endanger, rather than protect, manufacturing jobs while unraveling the safety net to catch workers who are without work.


As I thought about the potential gap between the hopes of downtrodden Trump supporters and the possible effects of his policies, I thought of Trump University, his controversial and possibly fraudulent real-estate school. With Trump U, the mogul enticed people to sign up for a program stamped with his surname, which did not provide anything close to a worthwhile education, according to many accounts. “While Trump University claimed it wanted to help consumers make money in real estate, in fact Trump University was only interested in selling every person the most expensive seminars they possibly could,” said Ronald Schnackenberg, a former salesman for the school. What initially seemed like a plan to democratize wealth instead revealed itself to be transfer of money from the desperate to the rich—specifically, to Trump, himself.

Trump’s ideas are such a shock to the economic order that it is hard to predict what exactly would happen if they became policy. Would an infrastructure stimulus bill combined with a massive tax cut boost economic growth by putting blue-collar men back to work while putting billions of dollars into the hands of consumers? Maybe. Might such policies scare foreign borrowers nervous about lending more money to a president who has said he might explore defaulting on U.S. debt? Maybe. Or might the next few years be dominated by non-economic news as the economy continues its thermostatic recovery while the culture wars resurge? Maybe.

But there is another plausible outcome, which is that Trump, a Republican president with a Republican majority, will govern like a traditional Republican. That is, he will be most successful enacting economic policy that jives with modern GOP orthodoxy, like tax cuts, spending cuts to programs like Medicaid, and financial deregulation, the sum of which would allow rich Americans to make more money and keep more shielded from taxes while gutting social-insurance programs that protect Americans from poverty, unemployment, and other forms of bad luck.

With Trump University, the president-elect took advantage of desperation, converting the vague aspirations of older and less educated Americans into his own profit machine, while giving his customers nearly nothing in return. It will require unblinking vigilance from both voters and journalists to ensure that his university was not a dress rehearsal for his presidency.

[Mike M (the other one)]

DT has only announced 2 official cabinet members so far. He's not talking to the press about it, and that's driving them insane and leading to stupidity from the opinionated non-factual media of Huff Puff and NYT.

I find it amusing.

[GMDino]

(11-17-2016, 02:37 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: DT has only announced 2 official cabinet members so far. He's not talking to the press about it, and that's driving them insane and leading to stupidity from the opinionated non-factual media of Huff Puff and NYT.

I find it amusing.

The president elect can't make a decision so the news people do what they do:  Speculate.  Used based on past actions and leaks from within the Trump team.

But he has a couple months yet.  I'm sure he'll get it together.  Or find someone to blame it on.  

[JustWinBaby]

What's funny is the derision and ridicule aimed at Trump "draining the swamp"....Obama was heralded for promising to do the same 8 years ago.

Difference is Obama was "their" guy. But it is refreshing to see the press finally start taking a pessimistic and skeptical approach, even if it's more agenda driven than actually a change of heart to take their job seriously.

[Vas Deferens]

(11-17-2016, 06:36 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: What's funny is the derision and ridicule aimed at Trump "draining the swamp"....Obama was heralded for promising to do the same 8 years ago.  

Difference is Obama was "their" guy.  But it is refreshing to see the press finally start taking a pessimistic and skeptical approach, even if it's more agenda driven than actually a change of heart to take their job seriously.

I'm fairly certain they spoke at length about all of his appointments.  But Obama didn't pick appointments based on an ability to feign ignorance for the sake of pandering to corporate interests.  Maybe Donny Kardashian put that sump pump in the wrong swamp.  TOTALLY UNFAIR! 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(11-17-2016, 06:36 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: What's funny is the derision and ridicule aimed at Trump "draining the swamp"....Obama was heralded for promising to do the same 8 years ago.  

Difference is Obama was "their" guy.  But it is refreshing to see the press finally start taking a pessimistic and skeptical approach, even if it's more agenda driven than actually a change of heart to take their job seriously.

Agreed. Sort of a Libertarian here, and as a third party observer I found it all pretty funny that...


2008 Change and Hope
Democrats: Hurray! About time!
Republicans: We don't need change, 'Murica!

2016 Make America Great Again
Republicans: Hurray! About time!
Democrats: It was already/was never great!

[Vas Deferens]

(11-17-2016, 08:19 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Agreed. Sort of a Libertarian here, and as a third party observer I found it all pretty funny that...


2008 Change and Hope
Democrats: Hurray! About time!
Republicans: We don't need change, 'Murica!

2016 Make America Great Again
Republicans: Hurray! About time!
Democrats: It was already/was never great!

Notice the popular vote was that the country was already going in the right direction.  Probably as a result of the last 8 years.  But whatever.  Fat **** idiots won't get their jobs back and will become apathetic because of their cholesterol and diabetes soon enough.  Hopefully social services aren't ripped of the ability to take a child away from a pair of alcoholic 600 lb trump ***** that make the kid do the laundry.   It will all be over soon.  

Praise Jesus. 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(11-18-2016, 02:19 AM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Notice the popular vote was that the country was already going in the right direction.  Probably as a result of the last 8 years.  But whatever.  Fat **** idiots won't get their jobs back and will become apathetic because of their cholesterol and diabetes soon enough.  Hopefully social services aren't ripped of the ability to take a child away from a pair of alcoholic 600 lb trump ***** that make the kid do the laundry.   It will all be over soon.  

Praise Jesus. 

Go to bed, you're drunk.

[Rotobeast]

(11-18-2016, 04:05 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Go to bed, you're drunk.

But his pillow-talk is so cute, when he's hammered.

[Vas Deferens]

(11-18-2016, 04:05 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Go to bed, you're drunk.

Take a Xanax, whitewash your reality.  

[GMDino]

And it continues.

They lie and then get caught and no one cares....

[/url]

Quote:[url=http://crooksandliars.com/2016/11/trump-says-elton-john-will-perform-his]Trump Says Elton John Will Perform At His Inauguration: Elton Says 'Hell No'


Anyone who thinks that Donald Trump actually tells the truth is living in a world of ignorance I can't even imagine – but the absolute truth is that Trump lies all of the time – often for seemingly no reason at all.


Maybe you've had a friend like Trump. Someone who lies about things that don't seem worthy of lying at all. They say they have that purse, too, or that they met a celebrity that you know they haven't. Small things that are meant to boost their social standing, but in the end leave them looking like a petty child.
Which is exactly what happened to our beloved president-elect this week when it was revealed that he did not in fact book Elton John for his inauguration, despite persistent statements from his team saying that they did.

Trump transition team member Anthony Scaramucci claimed in an interview, "This will be the first American president in US history that enters the White House with a pro-gay rights stance. Elton John is going to be doing our concert on the mall on inauguration."

Another member of Trump's team confirmed Elton John's booking for the inauguration.

Unfortunately for them, those associated with John said there had been no such booking.

A representative for John said that he would not be performing at Trump's inauguration while his publicist Fran Curtis later said,

Quote:"Incorrect. He will NOT be performing."

Though Trump loved to play Elton John's music during his rallies in the campaign season, John himself backed Clinton and referred to Trump as a "barbarian."

[jmccracky]

Main play from Trump's playbook-

Fake to the left.....fake to the right......

[Aquapod770]

(11-18-2016, 02:19 AM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Notice the popular vote was that the country was already going in the right direction.  Probably as a result of the last 8 years.  But whatever.  Fat **** idiots won't get their jobs back and will become apathetic because of their cholesterol and diabetes soon enough.  Hopefully social services aren't ripped of the ability to take a child away from a pair of alcoholic 600 lb trump ***** that make the kid do the laundry.   It will all be over soon.  

Praise Jesus. 

[JustWinBaby]

(11-18-2016, 02:19 AM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Notice the popular vote was that the country was already going in the right direction. 

The 800-1000 seats Dems have lost across all levels of govt since 2008 say otherwise....

[Aquapod770]

(11-26-2016, 11:52 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: The 800-1000 seats Dems have lost across all levels of govt since 2008 say otherwise....

i'd say that definitely confirms the country is going in the right direction 

[GMDino]

(11-26-2016, 11:52 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: The 800-1000 seats Dems have lost across all levels of govt since 2008 say otherwise....

(11-28-2016, 11:38 AM)Aquapod770 Wrote: i'd say that definitely confirms the country is going in the right direction 

Democrats gained five seats in the house and one in the senate that is 48-51 right now in favor of the GOP.