You have basically four things you claim Trump has been good at:
1. FDA pick
- I agree though I'd say this was accidental. You nominate dozens of people, I guess at least one of them isn't going to be bad. Is that like how Tillerson helped prevent WWIII despite Trump's best efforts to start it?
2. Immigration
You don't seem to have a realistic idea of what illegal immigrants are like at all. I suggest you read more on this. Just about everything you said about them is wrong. I don't think you'll get much backlash saying that we need better immigration standards, but Trump has been worse in every way on this than Obama.
3. Trade
Trump is terrible at negotiating, so I doubt anything positive will happen from this. He's a baby with a gun, so people will do what he wants but no one will talk with him seriously. Anything good that comes out of trade will be because of the people around Trump doing things right despite Trump.
4. NATO
Everyone agrees here that America's military is too big, but start asking which bases to take away and suddenly things get tougher. Europe cannot check Russia's power, Europe has no incentive to check Korea's or China's power. We're the world's baby sitter because we have to be. Because it's in our best interest to be. We get to call all the shots. We were the only country that wasn't completely decimated from WWII. No one wants to start a war with us, and Europe will never elicit that fear that we do.
It's not just 4 things, I only picked a few, there's plenty of positive and negative things he's done. Have you had a president you've been 100% on board with?
Not just FDA, but Mattis has been accepted as a wise pick by the left. The others are mostly inconsequential. His nominees haven't done too much of anything or were forced to resign. Gottlieb was a surprise. The government still is functioning and majority have been quiet. Trump just steals all the attention (probably what he wants anyway) Certain departments are apolitical compared to others like defense, transportation, labor, NIH (Francis Collins is still there doing great work, holdover from Obama)
I have an idea of what illegal immigrants are like since we've hired them before. If we want to complain about illegals, we have to accept we'll be doing work Americans don't want or are too lazy to do (meatpacking, food processing, mowing lawns, construction, etc). To me, their modern day slaves being exploited by employers going unpunished. Americans can't have their cake and eat it. If we want illegals doing menial work, at least a program to give work visas, track, document them, to protect worker rights but no path to citizenship as that's not their goal and they lack the skills to succeed in America (largely, there are always exceptions). They just want to send remittances. Once Trump threatened, only then they wanted citizenship, but not out of patriotism but pragmatism. When you hear Mexicans chant "bin Laden at US Soccer games, it's hard to think of them as a people on our side. One woman openly admitted how they exploit children to gain sympathy (separation was bad move yes but never saw such irresponsible parents). But that goes towards immigration issue as a whole and integrating immigrants, not just accepting them. Many factors out of our control(like technology) contribute to the divide. Illegals are not all net benefit. Many need to be deported but those deemed necessary should have some permit to work.
What does it mean to be a citizen? Objectively but also in people's minds, what do people think of citizenship? Native born? Loyalty? Race? Language? What holds a nation together? Not just in US but every country is wrestling with that identity. That's why Europe is disintegrating, Merkel got too cocky and stayed in power too long, wanting to be the savior and hero but end up losing Britain and EU and her coalition. Feel good about yourself for a few days, then let country feel like crap for years if not generations? Not so wise and not sure we should rush into accepting anyone walking into the country, we have standards and laws and ports of entry. Immigration is for another thread anyway.
Obama said not to underestimate Trump. Hard to say his negotiation as results aren't final but it's actually not bad. North Korea was actually pretty good. He got war dead remains and hostages back and they blew up their (now meaningless) testing site. For what? Just to meet? NK still has sanctions and they've stopped testing (mainly cause they don't need to) but the tension is gone isn't it? And Trump always wanted to pull out of ROK and save $$, so he doesn't see that as a loss and it kinda isn't, we can easily restart those if we want. If you're going to be unpredictable, make as much use of it as you can (though Trump's effectiveness is questionable).
Europe can plenty check Russia's power. EU GDP is multiple times larger than Russia. They have capable defense industry. They're plenty able to defend themselves now. EU does have interest on checking China (Britain/France sending their navies to SCS, Hague ruling). Collective world security requires collective world effort. Most NATO members aren't committed, choosing to mooch off us while we bear the burden. It's not post-WWII anymore, Europe is not destroyed, why keep the same economic tariffs, agreements, military arrangements based on a destroyed Europe for today's EU? Macron said they can't rely on US anymore, good, he has to pick up the slack too. If they join Russia that's fine too. But Lockheed, Boeing, NG, and deep state won't let America leave EU, just like they did to Carter and Korea and now to Trump.
And Russia's moves are very rational. We've been picking off former Soviet satellites and are now at Russia's doorstep. How would US feel if Mexico was aligned with Russia with Russian troops doing exercises near Texas border? I can't blame them. And I understand China's rationale for SCS even though I completely disagree and oppose them, they have my sympathy.
I expect the media to do its best to make the Trump presidency a big a headache as possible. I don't think there's collusion, if there was, it would've been found already. If all they found was campaign finance violations, then there's nothing left but yellow journalism. Russia/Trump may have similar intents but doesn't mean they colluded, though they probably understood each other without having to say anything. I just wish the media could remove its bias and shut up, talk about something else. Americans voted for Trump, it wasn't fixed, just cause it's shocking doesn't mean it can't be true. Democrats should focus on building a better message and actually do something instead of whining. Also I hate Fox, Breitbart and regularly read NYT, WSJ, SCMP, thediplomat, Guardian, PBS (watch) and Wikipedia but the media is really wearing me down.
Topic: So Let's Speculate about the Future of a Full Trump Presidency... (Read 1394225 times)
