Go the Trumpster?

[Steve Axford]

I remember a thread by this title was posted when trump was elected. With his latest withdrawal from the Climate Change Accords, I'm wondering if people think this is a move that will be good for anyone in the world. I spend most of my time documenting nature and his stupidity gives me the shivers. How do you feel?

[Tannin]

I think it may in fact be a positive thing, Steve. International agreements for this sort of thing practically always work very badly, if at all. The only one I can think of which has more-or-less worked was the ozone layer one, which was (so far as required action goes) very minor indeed. This move by Trump shows up the climate agreement as the very weak thing that it always was, and, with any luck, will force the responsible nations of the world to take more effective action. The simplest and most effective is tariff barriers to goods from the rouge nations (Syria, Nicaragua, USA). A 10% tariff on US goods by the EC nations, for example, would produce swift and effective results. This is what should have been done in the first place.

Counter-intuitively, over the medium-term I think that Trump's more-naked-than-usual insanity may well move us forward rather than backward.

[Steve Axford]

I do hope that you are right. I does seem to be true that his performance has made it less likely that right wing lunies will get elected (in spite of the hopes of some). We now seem to depend on the young, who are universally against trump and the climate skeptics, to actually vote

[Glenda]

I was watching the Drum yesterday and Adam Spencer made some good observations. With US states having a fair bit of autonomy he doubted California and Florida which are heavily invested in renewable energy would change their policies, nor most of the larger companies which are against Trump withdrawing. Also the White House has apparently said it would follow the UN rules for withdrawing from the pact which means they cannot actually withdraw until around November 2020. This is the same time as the next Presidential election, where hopefully sanity will prevail, and Trump will be gone.

[Steve Axford]

You may be right, but trump can do a lot of damage and there are we are hoping that he is the only crazy out there. But of course we know he is not. After all, quite a few people did vote for him.
I think we do need to worry. Making a madman president of the USA isn't a sane thing to do, which brings into question our collective sanity or at least that of the US population (are we so different?)

[arthurking83]

... Making a madman president of the USA isn't a sane thing to do, which brings into question our collective sanity or at least that of the US population (are we so different?)

My understanding of the problem of Trump winning wasn't so much that the US population is as mad as he is, Clinton won the majority of the vote, but he won a slightly larger majority of a minority voting block within the greater voting population!

it's like Hanson becoming a Senator here in Aus.
If the voting was such that her seat was a nation wide campaign, I doubt she'd have even registered at all in the wider scheme of things.
But her electorate, voted her in, in part on her primary vote and via the preference deals she managed.

Some funny facts I've heard of about the general US population.
During the election, Clinton was unscrupulously reported to be associated with a Pizza restaurant that was supposedly exposed to operate a child slave/abuse ring.
Must surely have had an impact at the time, until it was exposed to be a 'Trumpism'!!

After the election tho, there as a poll as to how many believed that Clinton was actually associated with the ring(even tho the truth did come out) .. and many stil thought she was(ie. those that strongly believe in conspiracy theories)
What's hysterical was that of those that believed she was part of the ring, 18%(or so) still voted for her in the election!

ie. those (18%)folks don't seem to have any issue with electing a head of state that was in their eyes a leader of a child exploitation syndicate!

Says a lot for a 5th of the electorate's overall principles.

Trump is there simply because of the flaws in the voting system they use.

The next question should be what are his chances of seeing out his 4 year term .. ie. before he's impeached(or in the unlikely situation he's forced to resign .. ala Nixon).
He meddles with the judiciary at his political peril ... and much rejoicing!

[Boo53]

The guest speaker at our last Photography Club meeting had spent 6 months working as a Photo Journalist in the US from Oct 2016 to April 2017, principally covering the "Marches" before and after the election over there.

Amongst the things Jeannette mentioned was that the marches, covered as Anti Trump over here, were attended by people with a wide variety of motivations, only about 30-40% anti trump. Other issues were anti various State Laws and discrimination against Women and Minorities.

Another thing she mentioned was that Hilliary Clinton is almost as disliked by the Left as Trump is but with their system there's little else on the Horizon. Also the pro Trump camp tend to be so insular the opinion of the rest of the world is either irrelevant or doesn't even register.

Hopefully the individual States will help drive things forward, but it appears that the economic realities will keep renewables moving forward. Certainly it appears that that is already the case in India

[Liney]

I have to say I'm not a big fan of Trump, but I can see that he's a business man first and a politician second. His priority is America and Americans, and sod the rest of us, which means he will do whatever he thinks will serve the majority of Americans with the best outcome.

I also think that a lot of the problems he's facing come down to those who did not support him undermining his authority in what could be classed as sabotage. I heard a commentator talking about the days when Americans would support "The President" regardless of who he was, but when Trump got elected all those "not my president" demonstrators have thrown away anything that could be classed as loyalty and seem to want to do something, anything even, to fight against this evil. The leaks are one example of this, the so called "fake news" is another where any piece of information is interpreted in a way to cast a bad light, and then spread through social media. America certainly appears to be a divided nation, I think the UK is going that way (regardless of who wins the general election next week there will be repercussions) but I reckon Australia has a bit to go yet before we reach the same levels.

[Steve Axford]

Arthur, I heard of a study by some psychologists that found that when people were told a lie that they believed, that was subsequently withdrawn, that 80% of them continued to believe that lie. There are many examples of this in politics. I don think I need to give examples.

While I would not liken Trump to Adolf Hitler, there are certain similarities in style. Goebels once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." This is countered by Abraham Lincoln, who said "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Let's hope Abraham Lincoln wins over Goebels with this one.

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I have to say I'm not a big fan of Trump, but I can see that he's a business man first and a politician second. His priority is America and Americans, and sod the rest of us, which means he will do whatever he thinks will serve the majority of Americans with the best outcome.

I also think that a lot of the problems he's facing come down to those who did not support him undermining his authority in what could be classed as sabotage. I heard a commentator talking about the days when Americans would support "The President" regardless of who he was, but when Trump got elected all those "not my president" demonstrators have thrown away anything that could be classed as loyalty and seem to want to do something, anything even, to fight against this evil. The leaks are one example of this, the so called "fake news" is another where any piece of information is interpreted in a way to cast a bad light, and then spread through social media. America certainly appears to be a divided nation, I think the UK is going that way (regardless of who wins the general election next week there will be repercussions) but I reckon Australia has a bit to go yet before we reach the same levels.

Perhaps serving America first is a little pointless when it comes to climate change? After all, the USA happens to share this planet that has this climate. That strikes me as a lose-lose situation. Surely even a businessman can see that?

As for him not getting a fair go. Surely you jest? What president has ever got a fair go?

[Mark L]

So let's get back to Steve's OP about Climate Change Accords. It's not all about Trump.
U.S.A.s withdrawal (which actually doesn't happen before 2020) may make all the other nations try harder?
Having said that, how hard do you think our govmint is trying. Let's go Adani.

[bricat]

I'll stick up for Trump. He has been elected by the people. If you don't like him, vote him out. There are too many whinges complaining about every little bit that he does. Every news story has a dig at him in some ways with innuendo, false news and no facts. Sure you can quote some things that he has stuffed up but I don't hear much about the good stuff he is doing. As a matter of fact I can't recall any good news story. That is unless you call withdrawal from the climate change accord good news. So in his 100 plus days in office how many good things has he achieved. Non according to our media. I stopped reading newspapers 20 odd years ago for all the drivel and BS that was published and the tv radio news reports are not much better
As far as climate change is concerned I have heard way too many claims from people in the know eg sciencetists that have been proved wrong. The fact of the matter is that our current thinking and knowledge suggests humans have caused this. This could well be proved wrong in time. Well on a trip to Alaska up the northwest passage we called into a fiord which was originally a glacier and had retreated some 100 miles (don't quote me exactly). This retreat had occurred long before the industrial revolution. Point being Mother Nature was doing her work.
We should all remember to have an open mind. Ps I am not a Trump fan at all or Clinton for that matter. But it certainly looks similar to Australians choice ie some politicians have selective memory at a Royal Commission
Ok let me have it......

[jim]

Brian, can you think of any Trump achievements that haven't been reported by the media?

[ricktas]

Here is a story andlittle clip by a US based 'news' service. Now as this went to air, one could assume the media came across these protesters and decided to film them. but a behind the scenes video show an entirely different story.

The mainstream media is manipulating the public at every opportunity.

Having said that, there are current reports of China meddling in our politics. I personally do not blame the Chinese for this, but our own political parties. Politicians have lied to us for years, and when something comes out, and they deny it, who do we believe? Our politicians have created this. Lie to use, repeatedly, then when something comes out that is true, lie to us again. Creating a sense that we do not know what to believe. Politics has gone from being about nation building, which was its purpose when the Commonwealth of Australia was formed, to being about who can lie to the public the best.. and get away with it.

Donald Trump, for all his faults, is calling a lot of this out. I think the best thing he did was say no to the T.P.P. and he is showing the media up for their manipulations.

I also do not believe the Paris agreement or any other currently planned methods of halting climate change is going to work, too little, too late. As Stephen Hawking has stated, we are in the last 1000 years of human life on this planet. Sadly us humans are also going to take some amazing non-human species with us, and hopefully once we are gone, planet Earth can recover and renew.

[arthurking83]

I'll stick up for Trump. He has been elected by the people. If you don't like him, vote him out. .....

Read my post above.
Yes he was voted in, but the majority of the people's vote went to the opposition!

It was like in the old days of QLD voting that kept the Joh and the Nats in power for so long.
One farmer had the same voting power as an entire suburb! .. it's not the same as a rigged election, but to claim that the people voted elected him is a bit misleading.

And in recent elections here where obscure unknown candidates get elected with less than 1% of the vote, but 'get elected' as a consequence of preference deals made behind the scenes .. not popularity.

[Steve Axford]

Everyone says that they are not a trump fan. It seems that it is politically correct to deny liking him. I wouldn't have thought that you would want to be placed in the "politically correct" basket, Brian.

I, like Jim, would like to know which of trumps achievements haven't been reported in the press. They seem to report every tweet that trump makes.

- - - Updated - - -

Here is a story andlittle clip by a US based 'news' service. Now as this went to air, one could assume the media came across these protesters and decided to film them. but a behind the scenes video show an entirely different story.

The mainstream media is manipulating the public at every opportunity.

Having said that, there are current reports of China meddling in our politics. I personally do not blame the Chinese for this, but our own political parties. Politicians have lied to us for years, and when something comes out, and they deny it, who do we believe? Our politicians have created this. Lie to use, repeatedly, then when something comes out that is true, lie to us again. Creating a sense that we do not know what to believe. Politics has gone from being about nation building, which was its purpose when the Commonwealth of Australia was formed, to being about who can lie to the public the best.. and get away with it.

Donald Trump, for all his faults, is calling a lot of this out. I think the best thing he did was say no to the T.P.P. and he is showing the media up for their manipulations.

I also do not believe the Paris agreement or any other currently planned methods of halting climate change is going to work, too little, too late. As Stephen Hawking has stated, we are in the last 1000 years of human life on this planet. Sadly us humans are also going to take some amazing non-human species with us, and hopefully once we are gone, planet Earth can recover and renew.

It would appear that some press people lined up some protestors so the camera could see them. I didn't see any claims that they were a "rent-a-crowd". As far as Fake News goes it is about on the same level as asking someone to stand next to a tree to give it scale in your landscape photo.

I wonder what alternative you have to international agreements on climate change? Perhaps you favour the do nothing approach and move to another planet when we have stuffed this one? It's about 45 years since the first moon landings and we haven't really got any further with the interplanetary stuff.
It may not be certain what will happen, but we know that something will and all the indications are that it won't be good. We have the technology now so it would seem crazy not to proceed with the accord. Fortunately most people are ignoring trump. Even most US business leaders and even most fossil fuel business leaders.

[Tannin]

Amid a sea of disaster, Trump has achieved one thing of note: he cancelled the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement). The TPP was a proposed trade agreement betwen the US and a stack of Pacific nations (including us) which was set to do tremendous damage to our economy (open slather imports, not a lot of benefit for exports bar two or three not-very-important industries), our legal system, and our ability to make our own laws in our own country (all sorts of nasty provisions shifting authority to foreign (read US) courts and foreign corporations). It was a genuine shocker of an agreement which was set to do us and all the smaller nations a great deal of harm, and deliver substantial benefits only to the USA.

From an American point of view, of course, it was a spectacularly good deal offering substantial benefits for very little cost, and it had taken them a solid decade of diplomatic threats and sweet-talk to persuade the other nations to bend over and take it. Trump was very stupid to cancel such a sweet deal, but no matter. It certainly saved our bacon.

[ricktas]

Everyone says that they are not a trump fan. It seems that it is politically correct to deny liking him. I wouldn't have thought that you would want to be placed in the "politically correct" basket, Brian.

I, like Jim, would like to know which of trumps achievements haven't been reported in the press. They seem to report every tweet that trump makes.

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It would appear that some press people lined up some protestors so the camera could see them. I didn't see any claims that they were a "rent-a-crowd". As far as Fake News goes it is about on the same level as asking someone to stand next to a tree to give it scale in your landscape photo.

I wonder what alternative you have to international agreements on climate change? Perhaps you favour the do nothing approach and move to another planet when we have stuffed this one? It's about 45 years since the first moon landings and we haven't really got any further with the interplanetary stuff.
It may not be certain what will happen, but we know that something will and all the indications are that it won't be good. We have the technology now so it would seem crazy not to proceed with the accord. Fortunately most people are ignoring trump. Even most US business leaders and even most fossil fuel business leaders.

I have no need to get into another ridiculous argument with you. I have stated my views, you can disagree if you like, but I have nothing further to add to my opinion, and I do not feel the need to refute yours.

[jim]

As Stephen Hawking has stated, we are in the last 1000 years of human life on this planet. Sadly us humans are also going to take some amazing non-human species with us, and hopefully once we are gone, planet Earth can recover and renew.

What an appallingly bleak view. I don't say you're wrong but I certainly hope so, and it would be a great disgrace if this sort of pessimism became an excuse for not even trying.

The Earth will eventually recover from almost anything. That's a given.

[Mark L]

The mainstream media is manipulating the public at every opportunity.
.....
Donald Trump, for all his faults, is calling a lot of this out. .... and he is showing the media up for their manipulations.

mmm, so Rupert's empire and Fox media are the media Trump is calling out. Of cause Rupert's empire doesn't manipulate.
I might start buying the Daily Telegraph to get a balanced view.

And in view of a few other comments here, this earth will live on even if humans aren't involved.

[martycon]

On a lighter note, I find DT to be the entertainment highlight of the year. I hope future years can still be seen in this lighter vein. Meantime DT has been seen to have the ability to change his mind. I was heartened when his press secretary announced that DT accepted that climate was changing, and that mankind may have had a very minor part in the process. Or was this just part of a pleasant dream?
a hopeful marty