Donald Trump: America's Berlusconi?

[Warren Dew]

(01-08-2017, 08:15 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-07-2017, 04:56 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: But seriously, even if he doesn't do any of things he campaigned on, and gets tossed out on his ear 4 years from now, at least he cleared the space on both parties for something new.

Exactly.  But if he does this, he will be serving in the role of a post-trigger president like Hoover, and not a post regeneracy president like FDR. For 2016 to a regeneracy. Trump has to be successful.  But to be successful he needs the right tools, and the right personnel.  He has neither, he ran all by himself. They was no movement that he led. He has no ideology, no loyal followers.  Only self-interested individuals like himself, who are backing his play for now, because he's on top.

Loyal followers are merely self interested people whose fates are tied to their leader by lack of alternative patrons.  Folks like Bannon and Conway qualify, as do the cabinet appointments with a business rather than a government background as far as politics is concerned.

Quote:He has to select amongst the same Republican ideas and people that Bush was dealt.  The Russian cyber attacks are an act of war against the US, just like sanctions have been against Russia. Trump's plan, of which I approve, is to to appease Russia.  The GOP is filled with people who agreed with Romney that Russia = USSR, and who see Munich everywhere.  He is going to have a lot of unhappy campers.

You have a very loose definition of "war".  With respect to the Russians, while I agree that there are Republicans like McCain and Graham who fit your description, it's not a fair characterization of Romney.  By virtue of their nuclear arsenal, the Russians are our primary geopolitical adversaries; that just doesn't make them our enemies as the McCains of the world would have it.  That's water under the bridge, though.

Quote:Also, he is not tapping libertarian anti-war types, but rather hawkish Republicans.  They may be less antagonistic about Russia, but they make it up in spades with Iran.  So if Trump manages to reduce tensions with Russia by giving Putin a free hand in Europe, but gets us into a war with Iran, how is this any better than Bush?  Bush's relation with Russia was pretty good, IIRC, it's not that hard to say nice things about Vlad.

We are going to get another recession.  If it is bad, his promise to bring jobs will be replaced by massive job losses.  This will not endear him to his base.  A $2 trillion deficit is going to be noticed, even if Tea Partiers suddenly decide they don't care about deficits anymore.  It is going to help with Trump's popularity, and could conceivably hurt him.  Obama inherited a recession that was half over before he took office, and enjoyed an expansion for almost all of both of his terms and yet he and his works were abjured by half the country.  Trump is inheriting a boom, which is going to go bust on his watch.  Do you really think it is possible for him to make big electoral gains like FDR did?

The Tea ("Taxed Enough Already") Party never really cared about deficits; that was just rhetoric to keep spending down and avoid pressure to increase taxes.  But frankly, Trump is a third way that has undercut the Tea Party as much as he has the Republican Establishment.

Trump has a terrific opportunity on the economic front, because there has been no actual recovery from the financial recession.  Instead, under the Obama administration, the economy has grown parallel to the long term trend, but below it, rather than recovering to the long term trend after the recession as is more usual.





If Trump can identify and reverse the Obama policies that prevented a recovery, and avoid implementing any depressive policies of his own such as trade isolationism, there could be a rapid first term economic improvement that would make him wildly popular.  Granted that is a big "if".