Signs of a Dying Empire

[Kinser79]

(09-23-2017, 08:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: Reagan pitched ideas that have been proven wrong, and Trump is doing the same today. Errors self correct over time.

Errors do. Some of Reagan's ideas were dead wrong, some of them were right on target. There is a reason why I say that in my lifetime he was the one president that was half-way decent whose name wasn't Donald John Trump.

Quote:Three points here:

1. Bush got a pass, so let's let that one lie
   
2. Clinton was investigated for Whitewater but got nailed for a blow job. I suspect that there was a lot more to Clinton's sex life that had real meat to it, but a consensual blow job? Really?
   
3. Trump, on the other hand, has a trail of potential issues for a non-partisan prosecutor to follow, and expecting them all to lead nowhere is optimism at its finest.
   

I see your list and can answer all of them.

1. Bush got a pass because of 9-11. Had that not happened he wouldn't have had the political capital for invading Iraq or for being re-elected.
2. Doesn't ultimately matter. The fact is that every time the White House changes hands and the "opposition" party is in charge the Congress investigates the President and his entourage. I put the word opposition in hate quotes because when we're speaking of the Neo-con GOP establishment or the Neo-Lib Dimocrat establishment I consider them to be so close in ideology as to actually constitute one party, often referred to as the "uniparty". Noway has already referred to the uniparty once in this thread.
3. For all their investigating they can't nail the President on anything, and they've been after him since September 2015. This means one of two things is the case:
A. The President is extremely good at hiding evidence, OR
B. The President hasn't done anything criminal.

Occham's razor indicates that option B is the preferred option
.

Quote:I can buy the nationalism meme to an extent, though it seems a lot more self serving than national.

That is a matter of opinion. Obviously I disagree with you.

Quote: Pragmatism, on the other hand, devolves to wins and losses -- not an acceptable basis for a system of government, to borrow from Monty Python.

We already have a basis for a system of government steeped in Classical Liberalism, it just needs to be applied. That being said, devolving things down into wins and losses is an acceptable basis for governing, especially when you were elected to be the Negotiator in Chief.

Quote:I don't see Trump lasting the entire 4 years as a more likely possibility, but he's more likely to get pushed out than murdered. As for 2020, don't count on Trump making even a decent showing, if he's even a candidate.

1. Impeachment is extremely difficult to accomplish, they didn't even use it on good old Tricky Dick (who I not-so-strangely view as a very good President, even if he was as crooked as a dog's hind leg).
2. Pushing the President out by means other than impeachment means one of two things.
A. Making the country ungovernable to the point that he resigns in disgrace, OR
B. Finding something that the president has done that could lead to a successful impeachment (a la Richard Nixon) so that he resigns in disgrace to prevent the complete poisoning of the office of the Presidency.

Since investigations starting in 2015 have found nothing on Trump B is unlikely, and A would lead to a civil war, and being a 4T likely lead to a hardening of Trump's support base and an eventual total destruction of the opposition. In his day Lincoln was reviled but today he is revered, the same is true for FDR.
3. I would say that baring an assassination, the president not running for a second term would only happen if his health started to fail, which I think is unlikely. The man doesn't smoke or drink, and runs circles around people half his age.

We'll see about 2020, a day is a long time in politics, three years is nearly an eternity, I would say that provided the economy gets turned on (and we're headed for our second quarter of 3% growth in GDP), tax relief happens and there is a shovel turning on the wall the President will be re-elected no problem.

There being a war during his tenure improves his chances of re-election actually, especially if it is against the Norks.