Will: Quarantine Trump

[Dill]

Pulitzer Prize winning conservative journalist George Will placed the following commentary in Today's Washington Post.

The gist of it is that Trump not only lacks the basic knowledge of history and government needed to be an effective president, but he also cannot think and speak sequentially. He does not know what he does not know. He does not know what it is to know.
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George F. Will: President Trump doesn't know what it is to know (Commentary)
http://amp.syracuse.com/v1/articles/20605487/george_f_will_president_trump_doesnt_know_what_it_is_to_know_commentary.amp

WASHINGTON -- It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about Donald Trump's inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence. . . .

What is most alarming (and mortifying to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated) is not that Trump has entered his eighth decade unscathed by even elementary knowledge about the nation's history. As this column has said before, the problem isn't that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something. . . .

As president-elect, Trump did not know the pedigree and importance of the "one China" policy. About such things he can be, if he is willing to be, tutored. It is, however, too late to rectify this defect: He lacks what T.S. Eliot called a sense "not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence." His fathomless lack of interest in America's path to the present and his limitless gullibility leave him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind.

Americans have placed vast military power at the discretion of this mind, a presidential discretion that is largely immune to restraint by the Madisonian system of institutional checks and balances. So, it is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict. 
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I generally agree with Will here. But I am pretty sure there are many Americans who either don't see the "disorderly mind" Will refers to, or don't see or care what might be the consequences of a Commander-in-Chief with a disorderly mind, or they prefer a disorderly mind to an orderly.

[GMDino]

(05-05-2017, 12:42 AM)Dill Wrote: Pulitzer Prize winning conservative journalist George Will placed the following commentary in Today's Washington Post.

The gist of it is that Trump not only lacks the basic knowledge of history and government needed to be an effective president, but he also cannot think and speak sequentially. He does not know what he does not know. He does not know what it is to know.
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George F. Will: President Trump doesn't know what it is to know (Commentary)
http://amp.syracuse.com/v1/articles/20605487/george_f_will_president_trump_doesnt_know_what_it_is_to_know_commentary.amp

WASHINGTON -- It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about Donald Trump's inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence. . . .

What is most alarming (and mortifying to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated) is not that Trump has entered his eighth decade unscathed by even elementary knowledge about the nation's history. As this column has said before, the problem isn't that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something. . . .

As president-elect, Trump did not know the pedigree and importance of the "one China" policy. About such things he can be, if he is willing to be, tutored. It is, however, too late to rectify this defect: He lacks what T.S. Eliot called a sense "not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence." His fathomless lack of interest in America's path to the present and his limitless gullibility leave him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind.

Americans have placed vast military power at the discretion of this mind, a presidential discretion that is largely immune to restraint by the Madisonian system of institutional checks and balances. So, it is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict. 
...............................................................................................................................................................

I generally agree with Will here. But I am pretty sure there are many Americans who either don't see the "disorderly mind" Will refers to, or don't see or care what might be the consequences of a Commander-in-Chief with a disorderly mind, or they prefer a disorderly mind to an orderly.

Any sane person knew that Trump was ill-educated and unwilling to admit he didn't know something.  He readily admitted that he didn't care if Clinton was more prepared for questions or debates.  He likes applause and getting some love he didn't get as a kid.

But he was a slick salesman and there were enough people who only read headlines and don't like the country not being white/christian 1950 who bought it and voted.

[Dill]

(05-05-2017, 08:43 AM)GMDino Wrote: Any sane person knew that Trump was ill-educated and unwilling to admit he didn't know something.  He readily admitted that he didn't care if Clinton was more prepared for questions or debates.  He likes applause and getting some love he didn't get as a kid.

But he was a slick salesman and there were enough people who only read headlines and don't like the country not being white/christian 1950 who bought it and voted.

There were so many though. That is troubling. The other side of the equation is they were sold on the notion that Hillary was much more dishonest and a greater danger to national security. I've seen no reason to believe the Trump base thinks any differently.

[GMDino]

(05-05-2017, 11:37 AM)Dill Wrote: There were so many though. That is troubling. The other side of the equation is they were sold on the notion that Hillary was much more dishonest and a greater danger to national security. I've seen no reason to believe the Trump base thinks any differently.

Of course.

I *still* have people arguing about how dishonest the Clinton Foundation was/is (for example) when it was the TRUMP FOUNDATION that admitted they misspent funds and had to stop taking donations because they didn't have the proper paperwork to even do so.

I got why people didn't want another Clinton in the WH.  I got why they disliked Clinton on policy.  I'll never get the people too dumb to understand they got snookered by a con artist who was more dishonest than the person they wanted to "lock up". 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-05-2017, 08:43 AM)GMDino Wrote: But he was a slick salesman and there were enough people who only read headlines and don't like the country not being white/christian 1950 who bought it and voted.

Ahh, the all Trump voters are racist trope.  I'll now leave you two go back to your conversation.

[GMDino]

(05-05-2017, 11:46 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Ahh, the all Trump voters are racist trope.  I'll now leave you two go back to your conversation.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-05-2017, 11:49 AM)GMDino Wrote:

I honestly apologize.  I didn't mean to get in the way of your make out session.

[GMDino]

(05-05-2017, 11:51 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I honestly apologize.  I didn't mean to get in the way of your make out session.

[*bfine32*]

# If you don't act, think, talk look like I expect you to; there is something wrong with you.

[Vas Deferens]

Regan era cuts to education coming to fruition. They wanted man undereducated populace and they got one.

Welcome to your new reality folks.

Insert lucie idiocracy comment here.

[Matt_Crimson]

So what happens if this really dumb guy who doesn't know anything does pretty well the 4 years he's in office? Do we reelect him or pick somebody else who knows who Martin Luther King was?

[Vas Deferens]

(05-05-2017, 02:21 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So what happens if this really dumb guy who doesn't know anything does pretty well the 4 years he's in office? Do we reelect him or pick somebody else who knows who Martin Luther King was?

If he scams a bunch of people into voting for him and then implements single payer healthcare; I could care less if he masturbates on air with o'reily for a national address.

He's got the power. Not convinced on the aptitude based on what I have to go by this far.

[GMDino]

(05-05-2017, 02:21 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So what happens if this really dumb guy who doesn't know anything does pretty well the 4 years he's in office? Do we reelect him or pick somebody else who knows who Martin Luther King was?

I hope he DOES do well...but for all us.  Not just for a few select people in the US.

Him doing well for all of us would be great!

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-05-2017, 02:21 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So what happens if this really dumb guy who doesn't know anything does pretty well the 4 years he's in office? Do we reelect him or pick somebody else who knows who Martin Luther King was?

If He does good I hope he does get re-elected.

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-05-2017, 02:43 PM)GMDino Wrote: I hope he DOES do well...but for all us.  Not just for a few select people in the US.

Him doing well for all of us would be great!

(05-05-2017, 08:23 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: If He does good I hope he does get re-elected.

So you'd be okay with having a really dumb guy that doesn't know anything as president?

[GMDino]

(05-05-2017, 08:29 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So you'd be okay with having a really dumb guy that doesn't know anything as president?

I'd be happy with the country doing well.

I voted for Bush in 2000 hoping he really was a fiscal conservative who understood we also need to be compassionate to those less fortunate.

I didn't vote for Bush because I thought he was smart or knew what he was doing going in.

I don't want the POTUS to fail...but I also don't want him to lie and pad his own pockets while the country fails around him.

[Matt_Crimson]

(05-05-2017, 09:51 PM)GMDino Wrote: I'd be happy with the country doing well.

But would you be okay with Trump being president?

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-05-2017, 08:29 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So you'd be okay with having a really dumb guy that doesn't know anything as president?

What did I just write?

"If He does good I hope He does get re-elected."

Kinda explains why you don't understand, "I don't stand by anything."

[Dill]

(05-05-2017, 02:21 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So what happens if this really dumb guy who doesn't know anything does pretty well the 4 years he's in office? Do we reelect him or pick somebody else who knows who Martin Luther King was?

We may differ on what "does pretty well" means.

If Trump accomplishes FIVE of the following: implements a better healthcare system which works as well as European systems, begins bringing the deficit down, keeps employment under 5%, measurably improves K-12 education, increases funding for medical research and NASA and NOAA, trims the military budget, sets a two-state solution in motion in Palestine, maintains US alliances while effectively caging Putin and Kim Jung-un, shrivels the Islamic State to nothing . . .

and he DOES NOT do any of the following: ban Muslims, expel dreamers, build a wall, expand the wars in AFghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, cut EPA regulations, cut taxes on the upper 15%, encourage Israel to continue building settlements in the occupied territories, trash the Iran deal, worsen the N Korean crisis without resolving it (e.g., alienating China to the point that it no longer uses its leverage in our favor; or drawing an attack on South Korea or Japan.)

Then I will say he did a good job and perhaps even vote for him.


But I think that he is what you called "a really dumb guy," and it is more likely that he will not even serve out a full term. He will destroy our foreign policy and send the economy on a downward trend, embarassing the US before the world along the way. This will be the worst presidency in history.  And in 2020 I will vote for the Democrat who knows who Martin Luther King was. Some Trump supporters will be ready to do that as well.
.

[hollodero]

(05-05-2017, 02:21 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: So what happens if this really dumb guy who doesn't know anything does pretty well the 4 years he's in office? Do we reelect him or pick somebody else who knows who Martin Luther King was?

This question of yours is so moot. And the main reason is that you don't even have clear conception of what "doing pretty well" could mean. To Trump supporters, he is already doing pretty well. There's no fact, no data, no outside voice even that could shake that opinion, so there is no measuring stick. That's what's so surprinsingly effective with that whole Trump movement, that the refereeing function of truth is no longer part of their conversation. News are fake, facts are not telling the whole story, Trump tweets it like it is, you just need to believe it. To feel it, one might say. And many of you do, for many my best guess is because he's not a Democrat, but there might be nobler reasons I don't see.

In 4 years some will still believe he's a tremendous guy shaking things up and standing up for the little white guy or whatever Trump tweets out. The rest of the world (meaning the non-Trumpist in the USA and literally the rest of the world) will see him like we already see him, as an incompetent, dumb shrewd mannerless egomaniac that dreams of dictatorship. We see hundreds of pretty objective examples the Trump supporter won't acknowledge. 
So I say he won't do pretty well and that I would be shocked if he did. Given his described assets and/or the lack thereof. But that would be by my measures. If you as a nation think he did pretty well, sure, go for him again in 2020 and turn from an admired country into a ridiculed and feared one. That's the pointless answer to a pointless question.