Never quite grasped the concept of why neg rep is still important to some, maybe it flicks the ego.

You know, complaining about the world becoming worse is a sign of..a healthy aging process. Everybody thinks, when aging, that the world used to be better before. It is not worse, it is different. I think that the politicians think the same things like before but are more likely to say them now. Not get stuck in soul eating decades of cold war, looks like stuff changes within a couple of weeks. Directness gets stuff moving. Politicians also adopt the language of masses simply to need fewer stiff and elitist interpreters. Trump says ridiculous stuff - and has people read it and believe that it is what he said. Coded and complex diplomatic protocol often yields zero progress and on top, it is a mess of unintelligible jargon no voter would really read.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

I always find it strange that people ascribe a lot of Trump's success to his tweeting.

Firstly Obama is a lot more successful at tweeting than Trump, Obama's tweet about Charlottesville is now the most liked tweet ever. If you look at the top ten retweeted tweets in 2017 then Obama shows up three times and Trump zero times.

Secondly Trump's twitter audience is relatively small compared to the total US population.

Finally if Trump's base is really the unskilled white working class then I cannot imagine them hunched over their smartphones in their trailers every night

My OH would have said something like "You're welcome to my shit hole every time you like, I bet you're going to love our shit.."... Bless his calmness and humour. I would be the one more prone to react like your OH.....

Nah, I wish. Healthy aging brings wisdom and I'm definitely not there.
But back to what I seemed to complain about - I do realise I owe my (sometimes) candid image on world being better before to the lack of genuine interest in what's going on in other places than my town, country, school, family, friends...in one word - my bubble. I still don't feel like I gain anything meaningful, on a personal level, by knowing more now about all this mud. OH doesn't even read declarations, replies exchanges etc. - Trump's or other politicians' - anymore. If he finds a good analyses on some events, he's paying attention, not on controversy, outrage, things like that. Propaganda. And I finally admit he was right, all along.

You know, this is exactly why I often feel very unsure about when reading Trump stuff. He's a highly controversial character - no doubts. But I don't like when someone else tries to manipulate me. I don't need anyone to tell me he's bad, I want to follow what he's practically doing and what are the consequences of his policies, official statements etc.


So what if he's a Brexit supporter? I don't like the methods used in taking UK out of EU and I was kind of vocal here at the time - bless my naivety (and got bitten because of that, of course) but you know what, I came to terms with Brexit. I even think it's a good thing for UK and for EU itself, if they want to keep this project alive. I might get into why I do think so on another thread, though. So let's ignore Brexit for a moment.

You nailed a serious problem though - who represents whom and to which degree. Should the winner take it all, or should they also try to represent most of the people, even those who didn't vote for them.

Back to me, I'm such an egocentric. I really have a serious problem with who represents me. In general. On the political level...in special. Politics gives me reactions like Blueangel's husband...well, almost. Metaphorically.
I still vote, and still get disappointed every single time - one way or another. Could that be the case for most people who also think they're fulfilling their civic duty to vote?

Marton? How do you feel about that?

As much as most of us think Trump is out of his depth, he looks like Einstein compared to Sheriff Joe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiNY231MfEQ

Yup.

Best way to deal with trolls is to troll back. Best way to deal with being at the wrong end of a joke is to make a funnier joke back.

There was a time that we admired politicians for their wit. Exchanges in parliamentary debate often took on a life of their own and became legendary. Many of Mrs Thatcher's greatest moments, for example, were - or at least appeared to be - spontaneous retorts to scathing criticism. Churchill even more so. He had a natural talent for it.

Basically people like that said, OK, you can play that game, but I can play it too. Let's see who can play it better.

Where is that gone today?

This precisely is what is happening all around us. People are breaking out of their own bubbles. Call it fake news if you want, but the Internet gives everybody a soap box and suddenly theren't aren't two ways to look at something but two hundred. All of them containing some element of truth - but also some degree of distortion. It's a Pandora's box and many people wish they could snap it back shut and one way to do that is to discredit diverging viewpoints. But this only pushes people back into their own sounding chambers. It doesn't restore a unified school of thought. It doesn't create space for the dialectic that is necessary to create a concensus.

So would I.

I remember when Raegan was president, Bush Senior, Clinton, Bush Junior, Obama (hope I haven't forgotten one) ... I don't recall liking any of them. They had their good points maybe, but I guess when they did something good it largely passed me by, but when they got involved in some military conflict or some morally corrupt dealing it got me angry, so the negative side prevailed. And then with hindsight and the blessing of historical perspective my anger mellowed and I now maybe admit some of them were not that bad. I guess it's the same for most of us.

So the present president is not a superhero and is not Jesus walking on water? Well, big deal. He's stepping in the tradition.

Yup. Should a winner also take into account the viewpoints he disagrees with, or at least admit they have some validity?

I think a good leader is one who unites people, speaks for all the people and looks out for the interests of all the people - not just the ones who elected him or sponsored his campaign.

One problem we have in Europe right now is that leaders are pushing their own agenda and, even if they won by a narrow margin, are ignoring alternative points of view. This is only formenting further division and discontent.

I said he was a Brexit supporter because he was complaining that the actions of a London mayor could alienate a major ally, the US, when Brexit had the same effect on the EU. Seemed a bit of a hypocritical complaint?

The issue about voting is not so much about the voters but about the candidates.
If you have a poor selection of candidates then certainly you have a difficult situation. In my view, if you do not vote then you forfeit any right to complain about the actions of the winning candidate.

I'm not sure.

People assume, that a party had some control over a candidate. The candidate will pick their advisors from that party and so even if the candidate is at the extreme fringe of the party, the party will have some normalizing influnece.

Whether or not this is true is a matter for debate, but I think the stamp of approval of a party has a huge effect.

So in the US presidential election we had a showdown between two deeply problematic candidates. But I am sure many of those who voted Hillary did so holding their nose but saying it'll be alright because at least she is still a Dem. Likewise Reps for Trump. If Trump had run as an independent, or Hillary even, they wouldn't have got half the votes they got running for their respective parties.

As for "if you don't vote ...", I think there is a big difference between not voting (which can be interpreted as lack of interest) and spoliing your ballot paper or maybe even voting for a protest candidate as this clearly signals dissatisfaction.

The US election was indeed an excellent example.
Trump did eventually get the reluctant approval of the GOP but it seems to be a one way street. I mean I do not see much evidence that Trump is benefiting from advice from the GOP or making much effort to follow their policies.

Maybe he has his reasons, I remember Trump saying that on the Campaign trail he kept talking about replacing Obamacare with something better because this was a well known GOP strategy. Consequently he expected within a short time after inauguration that the GOP would lay an appropriate bill on his Oval Office desk but it turned out the GOP did not have an agreed plan for a healthcare substitute.

I am sure that Trump's base remain faithful, but to win next time around he will need a big chunk of the independents so the big question is will they support him!

Maybe it depends on who he is going to run against.

It seems he has been attempting to prime Oprah.

Maybe he thinks she will be easy to defeat.

Very good question, currently there is no obvious strong candidate. Sanders is probably too old at 76, maybe Joe Biden would be a strong candidate?

Joe Biden is a very strong candidate. He has that unpretentious "ordinary Joe" personality, combined with a sharp mind and a detailed understanding of topics. He has the added advantage that he wanted to run against Hillary and can thus benefit from Trump's anti-Hillary rhetoric. His prone-ness to the occasional minor gaffe may also turn out in his favour, as it makes it easier for people to relate to him and see him as one of the people. His weakness is his age. If he serves two terms he'll be 86 at the end of his presidency.

Trump will be 74 in 2020, so hardly a spring chicken.

Donald Trump did not use the term “s***hole” to describe developing countries during a meeting on immigration, instead using the word “s***house”, it has been claimed.

The Post‘s White House reporter, Josh Dawsey, said a White House official had told him there was a debate “internally” about the word used, with two senators – Republicans David Perdue and Tom Cotton – saying they had heard the latter.

Referring to “s***hole”, Mr Perdue said on Friday that he and Mr Cotton “do not recall the President saying these comments

Source

"You could not make this stuff up!"

Bannon ordered to testify to grand jury

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon has been summoned to testify before a grand jury in the US, US media report.

He was reportedly subpoenaed by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who is leading an inquiry into alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election campaign.

Source

It does not look like it anymore. But at one point he was willing to carricature himself, slapping on orange tanner, going overboard with tweets, and exposing (not only) his private life in a pretty crazy reality show style. It is almost walking on water, if you ask me. Still makes me laugh. I don't buy this "I am an open book" all the way, but that's probably previous politicians' fault. Nobody trusts politicians. People probably actually trust Trump. I always thought he is turning politics in showbiz, now I think there is a lot more folklore envolved..and an open battle against the attention engineers that biased and profiteering media hire.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Trust Trump? A man who tells an average of five lies a day? Right at the start on his inauguration he claimed it did not rain during his speech and he had the largest inauguration crowd.

It is not possible to trust anybody who lies so repeatedly.

Look at the latest furore, they are arguing about did he describe African countries as shithouses or shitholes
Either term is equally bad.

I assume the media that are claiming Trump asked about these countries "can't we take them out!" are joking

From your link "in the United States, a grand jury of ordinary citizens who represent the community is often used to decide whether there is enough evidence to pursue a prosecution."
So what evidence are they looking for Bannon to corroborate and in which prosecution and who will be prosecuted

Could be anyone. Bannon was in the inner circle for a long time. Odds are it's still for smaller fish and not for Trump himself.

Odds are it will be someone who was already interviewed by Mueller's team. I doubt they would call a grand jury for anyone who had not been interviewed.

The inner circle list believed to have been interviewed are White House communications director Hope Hicks, senior adviser Jared Kushner, White House counsel Don McGahn, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, National Security Council chief of staff Keith Kellogg, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former press secretary Sean Spicer.

My money would be on Jared Kushner who is known to have had conflicts with Bannon.