I despise Donald John Trump, Change My Mind

Author: RationalMadman

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RationalMadman
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Prove me wrong, Steven Crowder fans.
Greyparrot
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Like, that's just your opinion...man.
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@Ratman

So he bought a presidency and got his name in the history books.
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@zedvictor4
So he bought a presidency and got his name in the history books.

At half the price Hillary tried to purchase it too!
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Despise him all you want. You can’t even vote in American elections. Your opinion is useless to me and changing it has not benefit to me.
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@ILikePie5
RationalMadman
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So far, total failure. 
Swagnarok
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The man was a geopolitically savvy leader. He aggressively pursued America's interests in ways that his predecessors largely declined. He sought to dismantle trade barriers that weakened the American economy's international competitiveness. He sought to bring back the era of plentiful good-paying blue collar manufacturing jobs, toward which end he rolled back many environmental regulations that incentivized offshoring to avoid compliance costs. He sought to re-assert American control over the domestic supply chains for steel, rare earth metals and petroleum. He sought to save trillions stolen from our economy every year via foreign IP theft.

And make no mistake, "the economy" is not some lofty abstraction. People's jobs depend on it. Their life savings invested in the stock market depend on it. Their retirements depend on it. A good economy is good for everyone. As of late 2019 the economy was at its best since the start of the Great Recession, and had seen improvement overall since the end of Obama's second term.

Unlike the establishment, which for idiotic (cough *partisan* cough) reasons sees Russia as America's primary threat even though it's a backward declining nation, Trump recognized China and Europe as our main competitors. He sought to use Brexit to drive a wedge in the EU while he escalated the pivot to Asia. His administration seems to be more aggressively pro-Taiwan than its predecessors and has stepped up warship transits through the Taiwan strait. He's resisted establishment pressure to tie down our forces in Eastern Europe, and is disengaging us currently from Afghanistan, both of which will allow for a speedier response to a Chinese crisis.

...

...

But he botched Covid. Nobody's going to remember any of the above now, because it arguably pales in comparison to the magnitude of that blunder.
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@Swagnarok
I know you put effort into that reply and that you also believe it but it is impossible for me to reply in a polite and nice way.

How is Trump geopolitically savvy? The only nations he has not made loathe US with a passion are Israel and India. Technically Canadian conservatives like him but that's just because they always liked US in general, given their political outlook.
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@Swagnarok
A good economy is not good for everyone when you have demolished the entire failure of a safety net that Obamacare was and replaced it with literally no safety net at all. This version of 'good economy' benefits only the rich.
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@RationalMadman
"Making countries dislike America"  is a virtually meaningless statement. There's always going to be something about America that other countries dislike, so long as it's the main superpower. Cooperation with it, along with competition against it, are both inevitable. Neither Obama nor Trump really changed that.

When Obama was in office the EU and other countries maintained tariffs against American goods, even though he was a "friendly" President. If friendship means applauding and cheering for Obama while privately crapping all over America and its national interests then maybe America isn't interested in that kind of relationship.

Besides, what has Trump really done? Tweeted mean stuff? How many countries has he invaded? By the end of their first terms, most presidents since Reagan have invaded at least one country (Clinton invaded Haiti in 1994). Trump? None. Zilch. Nada. Obama's the one other exception, and his administration arguably worked behind the scenes to destabilize Libya, Syria, etc, throwing these countries into permanent states of civil war. Do you know how many countries international law allows you to invade? ZERO.
So does Trump have some magic ethereal quality about him that makes him more despised than the American presidents who actually invaded other countries? Or is it a bunch of rhetorical nonsense spouted by Trump haters? Because the latter seems more likely.

Do you know what makes a country disliked? Acting in imperialist fashion, annexing or dismantling other countries, disrupting international peace, laying territorial claims to its neighbors. Tell me how many wars Trump started, or how much territory, land or maritime, has been added to the United States since 2017.
And you know what? Even if Trump's not very nice, China's doing or planning on doing virtually all of the above. At the end of the day fear of China will outweigh most countries' disdain for Trump, a temporary 4-8 year president. Any country that thinks or acts differently is too stupid to live and deserves to become China's b**ch.
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Well, you would first have to start liking good policies in order for my arguments to convince you.
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@Greyparrot
I will take you're word for it.

With the price of a presidency being so high, it really does limit the quality and integrity of the potential purchasers.

And that the whole presidential circus and corrupt election system is allowed to continue, does say so much about  American culture and human nature in general.
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@RationalMadman
So far, total failure. 
the trade deals are a failure?
How about the drug pricing that's going on now?
First step act?

all bad?  how so?

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@Swagnarok
Do you know what makes a country disliked? Acting in imperialist fashion, annexing or dismantling other countries, disrupting international peace, laying territorial claims to its neighbors. Tell me how many wars Trump started, or how much territory, land or maritime, has been added to the United States since 2017.
Do you know that the 100% illegal assassination of the Iranian General was actually a lesser act? Trump tried to declare literal war on Iran and only changed his mind last minute (before he assassinated their high ranking General).

This is a good timeline on the matter. Both before and after he tried to declare actual war on iran with mandatory conscription.


Iran aside, he's done plenty to many nations to make them resent him. Ironically, he even managed to piss off his buddy Putin. Trump is an absolute shambles in international relations. The Indian President is embarassed to have to pretend to like Trump just for a good deal.

This doesn't even begin to explore how his words alone have made the Middle East and South America loathe him and the US.
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@Swagnarok
Do you know how many countries international law allows you to invade? ZERO.
Wrong. When the leader uses chemical weapons on innocent civilians, there are absolutely legal clauses in UN agreements to enable forceful invasion to free the people.
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@Swagnarok
Libya was destablised via the Reagan era putting a plant named Gaddafi into power. Not sure how you can suggest that it was a bad thing for Libya to get that lunatic out of power once he went rogue.
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@Swagnarok
So does Trump have some magic ethereal quality about him that makes him more despised than the American presidents who actually invaded other countries?
Not magical at all, no. It's easy to be loathed by nations when you say that hispanic immigrants are generally rapists, drug dealers and murderers but 'sure, some of them may be good people' and when you also are islamophobic to severe degrees.

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@TheDredPriateRoberts
So far, total failure. 
the trade deals are a failure?
How about the drug pricing that's going on now?
First step act?

all bad?  how so?
I was saying failure of anyone to change my mind. As for Trump, I see nothing you say that suggests success. The drug pricing of what? Malaria medicine for Covid-19? Trump is insane.
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@RationalMadman
drug pricing of insulin and epinephrine as well as the ability to buy drugs from Canada

which administration succeeded in doing any of those 3 things and why would lower prices on insulin, epinephrine be a bad thing?

lol I doubt anyone could change your mind about anything.



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@TheDredPriateRoberts
First of all, I am not suggesting that Covid-19 handling was his greatest failure by a massive margin. He's failed on many counts.

Secondly, I am genuinely confused what you're saying. In social democracies the poor who are diabetic get insulin for free. Are you referring to diabetic hormonal treatment or what?

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@RationalMadman
Insulin didn't have a price cap pre Trump, now it does = lower pricing for cash payers, same for epinephrine.  Pharmacies can purchase meds from Canada at a much cheaper price but that savings has to be passed onto the consumer, not kept as profit.
this is my understanding of how it will work.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
It is a compensation for completely removing any safety net for the poor getting access to healthcare maybe (which he had to go back on as covid got worse).

I don't see an issue with subsidising medicine with tax money, I'm left-wing. Can you explain why he privatised healthcare and undid any progress towards making it accessible to the poor pre-covid?

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@zedvictor4
 American culture and human nature in general.

It's not like America was exclusively the only nation that allowed its government to grow out of control of accountability. Sweden scaled back theirs considerably after the disaster of the 70's. America just has to hit rock bottom before we can fix our cultural addiction to the government.

Greyparrot
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 hispanic immigrants
You misspelled Mexico and Illegal.
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@RationalMadman
lowering costs makes it more accessible to the poor.

the U.S. already subsidizes the rest of the world by paying more for drugs than other countries right?  If that stops, costs go down for insurers as well as cash payers.  That savings should be passed onto the consumer.  Additionally reducing the time for generics would also drop prices.
I look at subsidies just like college financial aid, if the business knows you can pay more for something because of subsidies, whatever, costs will go up.  Prices are supply and demand AND what the market will tolerate.
Even generic drug manufacturers, how many are there for any given drug?
Ever buy a prescription from a pharmacy and they ask you which company you want to buy it from?  neither have I.
while generics do reduce cost I'm not sure there is all that much competition for any certain drug.
Pharmacies I'm sure contract with whatever company for whatever drug.  You aren't making the choice, they are making it for you.  Seems pretty ripe for corruption.  It's not like vitamins where you can compare brands and prices yourself and you make the choice.

do you remember the days of the $4 and $10 prescriptions?  what happened to that?
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@Greyparrot
Do you think only mexicans illegally cross ths border? No Bolivian? Not Chileans? No Brazilians? No Hondurans (yea seriously they go to Mexico just to cross the border)?
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We can address every illegal invader group from individual nations in turn.
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@RationalMadman
Reagan was no friend of Gaddhafi. The latter sponsored some acts of terrorism in the West and pursued nuclear weapons. Reagan bombed him at least once, and his successors may've kept up sanctions against the rogue Libya.

Around 2002/2003 Libya agreed to scrap its nuclear program. Assuming we take these people at face value (like a lot of people assume Iran has kept its end of the Iran Deal), there was no reason to destabilize Libya in 2011. Obama saw very well how Iraq turned out but he still apparently thought it was a good idea to sponsor a civil war in the country and bomb Gaddhafi's forces from the air.

(Also, so far as I know of Gaddhafi wasn't a mass genocidal maniac on the level of Saddam, though of course he was still a dictator.)
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@Swagnarok
Reagan asked gaddafi to take the vlame but Syria was actually behind it. Reagan was scared of Syria amd needed go appear brave, understand?



Gaddafi did go rogue though.