10-30-2019, 08:57 AM
(10-30-2019, 02:44 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(10-29-2019, 02:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:According to you, he's making all kinds of money off being President. I don't think he's making nearly as much as he did while in business. Now, according to you, he's not making money like he expected going in so to speak. Won't you be surprised if Obama turns out to be the modern Nixon today as you says. One thing I've learned about the liberals over the years is liberals/Progressives/blues tend to ignore, try to avoid and openly defy/ go against conventional wisdom as much as humanly possible. How much is a fake news channel going to be worth in six years? I bet he'll be able to purchase the old TV networks and all their newer cable networks for a bargain price.(10-29-2019, 08:44 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: What's the point of it? The Democrats will never get 67 votes against Trump. So what is this good for? To show that they really, really dislike him? I think we all know about that.
This was said about Nixon too, and Trump is the modern Nixon. If GOP Senators feel threatened, the calculus will change fast. If not, then it will left to posterity to address this properly … or not.
Personally, I think Trump would be okay with being impeached and convicted, it he is then able to parlay that into a Trump Network to rival Fox. He hates this job, and he's not making money like he expected.
1. He is still making deals to establish profitable operations with the aid of his office. "With the aid of office" is what is different. He is using the Presidency to enhance the value of his brand which is identical with his ego. Trump has the delusion that he can make a killing off his deals in the near future, although I expect him to be in no position in which to enjoy such.
2. His ideology is corporatism -- the idea that government melds with Big Business, both getting bigger at the expense of the little guy. What Dubya did as a big-government right-winger with comparative baby steps, Trump does with (pardon the metaphor) great leaps forward. Competition vanishes among the elites but becomes increasingly intense among the common man, who is expected to make bigger sacrifices as a worker or consumer. There are legitimate purposes for government intervention in the economy: to mitigate disputes, to aid the unfortunate and helpless, and to do what the private sector either cannot do or cannot do equitably.
3. Nixon had his dark character; Obama is by contrast about as sunny a character as there is. Note well: there are right-wing media, and they were looking to poke holes in the Obama persona. They would have loved to expose a sex scandal or shady dealings. They would have been delighted to expose some emotional blow-up. Obama gave them nothing. Conservatives would have been wise to recognize that apart from ideology he was a good model of how a conservative President conducts himself.
Trump has sought to disparage Obama at every turn. Pardon my repetition, but the next effective President from the conservative side of the political spectrum will behave much like Barack Obama. If you want an idea of what that will look like, then think of another mature Reactive, who falls short of the epochal leader of the type of a Lincoln or FDR, but in a 1T a sixtyish Reactive is exactly what fits the mood if free of rancor. Try Dwight Eisenhower. Obama was that sort of leader when around fifty.
4. Conventional wisdom? Many of us liberals consider history relevant beyond the pornography of fascism, Bolshevism and insane despotism. Most of us recognize who Caligula, Nero, and Commodus were and how relevant they are for judging leaders who entertain the masses with spectacles while bleeding the treasury. OK, at least our gladiatorial games (boxing, pro wrestling, and American football) and chariot races (auto racing) are less bloody than those depicted in [i]Gladiator[/i] and Ben Hur and don't involve feeding Christians to the lions as in Quo Vadis? (which might involve a literal shark tank) -- and are strictly private in funding.
Much of what many people consider conventional wisdom is their own vile tendencies and desires. Remember well: blunders must first seduce. Donald Trump goes beyind seduction: he is addicted.
5. Will it be CBS/Viacom/Paramount or Disney-ABC that ends up buying out FoX Propaganda Channel when it is discredited, and its technical infrastructure is available at fire-sale prices? Time-Warner already has CNN, and NBC already has CNBC and MSNBC. I can see CBS/Viacom/Paramount introducing the new channel with what becomes a filler in "News as History" and with news with legitimate educational value for children (I/E content). Maybe CBS or ABC finds a way to collaborate with NPR news which is limited in its paucity of images. Credibility is everything in long-term success in news except when the news fits a popular agenda. FoX Propaganda Network has an aging, unsophisticated audience that is aging into oblivion.
On something less political, I was shocked to find back in the 1980's, the typical customer of the traditional department store was 59 years old. Unless one has a product or service whose utility is largely limited to people already old (let us say nursing homes) one cannot maintain profitability unless getting a younger generation of customers. Knowing this, are you surprised that Montgomery-Ward is no more, along with many old-fashioned regional department stores, and that Sears is dying? Target, Meijer (it will likely expand into Minnesota within ten years about as it gets into the Nashville, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis areas), Kohl's, and Wal*Mart survive by treating dry goods as if groceries.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.