03-04-2018, 11:51 AM
(03-03-2018, 11:54 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > I just wanted to note that without the border adjustment tax,
> we're now imposing much less well thought out tariffs that are
> already causing threats of retaliation and counterretaliation. We
> should have done this the sensible way when we had a
> chance.
Whether those tariffs will be enacted is far from certain.
What we're actually seeing is a repeat of a script that we've seen
several dozen times in the last year. Trump says or tweets something,
the mainstream media becomes hysterical for several days, and in the
end Trump wins because he was successful in controlling the media.
I remember watching this with amazement on the first weekend of
Trump's presidency. That weekend there was going to be this huge
march on Washington by feminists, being described by the mainstream
media as the greatest women's march in history. During the night on
Friday night, Trump tweeted a couple of things -- I don't even
remember what the tweets were about, but the mainstream media
considered them outrageous.
The mainstream media went completely hysterical. So all we heard on
the news on Saturday is how Trump was violating the first amendment
and was using Twitter to be a new Joseph Goebbels. He was also a new
Adolf Hitler because of whatever the content of the tweets was. He
was already the worst president in American history and he should be
impeached as quickly as possible. Others on the left were more direct
in saying that Trump should be jailed or shot or beheaded.
One argument that even Republicans used was that Trump shouldn't be
tweeting because it distracts from his agenda. He should be talking
about his policy issues, and the fact that the news was all about his
tweets proves that he's sabotaging himself since nobody is talking
about his agenda.
But that was never going to happen anyway. If it hadn't been for
Trump's tweets, the discussion all weekend would have been one woman
after another talking incessantly about how Trump was a deplorable --
"racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it."
So this was an almost total victory for Trump. The feminist march was
ignored by the press, and was completely forgotten by Monday. Within
a couple of more days, the press was consumed by Trump's next tweet,
and that dominated the news for a few days.
Since day one, Trump has been successfully mocking and baiting the
mainstream media and the left, and it works every time. Even now, as
I'm typing this, I'm hearing on CNN that Trump is "unglued,
unravelling, uncontrollable" and "the White House is in chaos." I
could have heard exactly this same thing in the first week of Trump's
term. It's the same thing, over and over again, week after week after
week after week. Meanwhile, from what I can tell, Trump keeps driving
his policy agenda forward as well as Obama or any other president.
According to supporters, Trump has accomplished 63% of his policy
goals in the first year, which is excellent.
It's the media in chaos, not the White House. This past week, the
mainstream media was in total chaos, as Trump used two statements to
drive the news agenda.
First, the gun control statement - restrict some gun sales, don't be
afraid of the NRA. This was a total victory by Trump, as he
completely disarmed the attacks by the left-wing and the mainstream
media on Trump over gun control. In the end, I doubt that anything
will be done except perhaps to outlaw gun stocks.
Second, the trade tariff statement. One thing that I heard that I
never knew before is the claim that the US is almost tariff-free,
while the EU and China have massive anti-American tariffs already.
The people in the tsunami of criticism against Trump have not
criticized this statement, leading me to believe that it's true. If
so, then Trump's statement was extremely effective and successful in
illuminating an important situation.
So whether any tariffs will actually be put into place will have to be
seen. But in the meantime, the political discussion now has on the
table this big discrepancy in tariffs between the US and other
countries. So, once again, Trump has scored a big success.
So maybe the left is right. Maybe Trump is unbalanced, has Alheimers,
is spiraling completely out of control, is about to resign, is lashing
out, etc., etc., etc. But after a year of hearing the same crap from
the left, week after week after week after week after week, there is
no reason to believe any of the crap on the left. The constant flood
of vitriolic, hate-filled, hysterical, chaotic statements from the
left and the mainstream media simply do not fit the facts of what's
actually getting done.
In the meantime, the REAL problems -- North Korea, South China Sea,
Syria, etc. -- are getting worse every day, but are ignored by the
left and the mainstream media because they're completely full of crap
and can't talk about anything else but the crap they're full of.
