A thread of optimism: why do you think Trump will win in 2020?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We should all support less imports from China.
China is the worst environmental disaster ever!

American consumers are the worst environmental disaster ever. No one put a gun to every American's head and asked them to keep buying "stuff", whether they can afford or not.

Ok, so let’s NOW reduce our made in China slave labor trade. Why not?

Better late than never....

[Anonymous]

ya know... people have an option of NOT buying cheap crap from China. Not a bad thing IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP above....

One more thing..... I do believe that the details which will be revealed regarding the genesis of the Russia investigation will be pretty devastating. Many will sympathize with Trump as a result.

The IG already cleared Page and Strozk. Whatever it is you are expecting won't happen unless Barr pulls another fabrication ploy that people like you seem prone to fall for.

First of all, the IG did not "clear" Page and Strzok. Not sure where you are getting that.
And, the IG is not who they should be worried about.

I think this is a loser for the Trump team. Why follow what you perceive as one fishing expedition with another? There’s nothing there. Better to move on because you got a pretty good possibility of a second term, with a good economy and railing against the Democrats and their ongoing investigations. Run at this windmill and I think you shoot yourself in the foot.

There's nothing there? Partisan FBI agents cooked up a way to spy on the opposing candidate and create some elaborate Russia collusion hoax to oust a sitting president, and we should just say "oh well"? What's to stop Democrats from doing it again, since there is no consequence to using government forces to undue a presidential election?

Your side has wasted tens of millions of dollars and caused a massive distraction for two years with a hoax - impeding the president from being as effective as possible - and now, because it was revealed there's nothing there, you want to just drop it? Or, as we've seen, go on a major offensive by smearing the AG?

The depths to which Democrats sunk to install Hillary, and then, losing that fight, to undue the election results, will be revealed.

Both sides need to take of the partisan blinders on this issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We should all support less imports from China.
China is the worst environmental disaster ever!

American consumers are the worst environmental disaster ever. No one put a gun to every American's head and asked them to keep buying "stuff", whether they can afford or not.

Ok, so let’s NOW reduce our made in China slave labor trade. Why not?

Better late than never....

Not gonna happen. We are addicted to buying things and our economy is driven by consumerism. If we stop buying our economy will collapse. So we are stuck in a cycle of consumption. Its like riding a tiger. If we stop, the tiger will consume us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP above....

One more thing..... I do believe that the details which will be revealed regarding the genesis of the Russia investigation will be pretty devastating. Many will sympathize with Trump as a result.

The IG already cleared Page and Strozk. Whatever it is you are expecting won't happen unless Barr pulls another fabrication ploy that people like you seem prone to fall for.

I think that is exactly what Barr will do. I really don't understand why Trump supporters don't see how dangerous going down the road of undermining trust in all institutions is. There is no way this investigation was illegitimate - you really believe that all the layers of review at the FBI, a federal judge, and CONGRESS, for God's sake, just allowed some out of control spying on a Presidential candidate. That didn't happen.

This is what I was trying to across earlier. Rs are just as rabid as Ds in going down rabbit holes looking for conspiracy theories. It shows how little they know about the guys and gals who work in our intelligence services. Look, some of Trump's people made some stupid mistakes and they are going to jail for them, but IMO it's largely because they were greedy before they got involved with the campaign. The Russians are not stupid and they know a mark. If the Trump campaign were smart they'd pivot to keeping Russia out of our elections instead of using Barr as a weapon against political enemies. Take the high road folks- you've got the wind at your backs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We should all support less imports from China.
China is the worst environmental disaster ever!

American consumers are the worst environmental disaster ever. No one put a gun to every American's head and asked them to keep buying "stuff", whether they can afford or not.

Ok, so let’s NOW reduce our made in China slave labor trade. Why not?

Better late than never....

Not gonna happen. We are addicted to buying things and our economy is driven by consumerism. If we stop buying our economy will collapse. So we are stuck in a cycle of consumption. Its like riding a tiger. If we stop, the tiger will consume us.

I often hear this line of argument but it strikes me as being irrational and detached from reality. Consumption is simply deriving incremental utility/enjoyment out of some good or service that you've purchased. Consuming is what gives value to the activities of an economic system. Every person consumes, some more than others, and in general there is a linear relationship between consumption and quality of life. It isn't somehow more virtuous to consume less. Every developing country in the world desires to consume more in order to improve the quality of life. Note that environmental conservation is also a type of consumption - people desire a better environment and work towards technologies which contribute to that goal, and there fore wind farms, solar energy, and etc.

There is nothing wrong with consumption in and of itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We should all support less imports from China.
China is the worst environmental disaster ever!

American consumers are the worst environmental disaster ever. No one put a gun to every American's head and asked them to keep buying "stuff", whether they can afford or not.

Ok, so let’s NOW reduce our made in China slave labor trade. Why not?

Better late than never....

Not gonna happen. We are addicted to buying things and our economy is driven by consumerism. If we stop buying our economy will collapse. So we are stuck in a cycle of consumption. Its like riding a tiger. If we stop, the tiger will consume us.

Speak for yourself and your ilk. Half the time (at least), I see “made in china” - I put it back. I do NOT need to support Chinese SLAVE labor. Why do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We should all support less imports from China.
China is the worst environmental disaster ever!

American consumers are the worst environmental disaster ever. No one put a gun to every American's head and asked them to keep buying "stuff", whether they can afford or not.

Ok, so let’s NOW reduce our made in China slave labor trade. Why not?

Better late than never....

Not gonna happen. We are addicted to buying things and our economy is driven by consumerism. If we stop buying our economy will collapse. So we are stuck in a cycle of consumption. Its like riding a tiger. If we stop, the tiger will consume us.

Speak for yourself and your ilk. Half the time (at least), I see “made in china” - I put it back. I do NOT need to support Chinese SLAVE labor. Why do you?

What phone or computer are you using to access DCUM on? What car do you drive? What clothes are you wearing? What sort of plastic container do you put your leftovers in? Where was your MAGA hat made?

I wish you the best of luck if you are able to excise products made in China from your life. And I call BS on your little "tut tut" tirade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Holy crap, how can you tell? I didn't say anything about being a first generation immigrant. Is my English that terrible? As a matter of fact, yes I do believe that being from another country has influenced my support for Trump. Our liberal friends will find this observation incredulous but Trump reflects the traditional image of an America that values strength as a virtue and taking pride in a job well done. He has governed in the past two years by always putting the interests of America first, which is such a basic principle that for it to be somehow construed as a faulty view point by his political opponents underlines just how much the US needs to regain its sense of purpose and direction. Competition among the nations of the world is good, it is to be encouraged, and healthy - so long as everyone is competing using the same set of rules. And that brings me to the other side of the coin: I come from a country that had a failed attempt at a Marxist society, so I see the current attempt by progressives in the US to do the same as utter foolishness. The principles of classical liberalism has served the US well, and even as we adopt more socially liberal policies due to the natural progression of culture, there are certain bedrock principles that will bring the destruction of our democracy if we choose to erode them: the protection of civil liberties under the rule of law.

DP: Your English is very good! Previous PP must work for the CIA or something like that

Btw, where exactly are you from, if you don't mind? You don't sound Eastern European to me but that's the most likely "Marxist society" reference.

The PP had me pegged based on, what, three sentences? I am amazed and impressed. I hope to have read something the PP wrote. I have a lot of respect for people who are masters at their craft. Amazing.

I was originally from China. My grand parents were evil capitalists who owned printing factories, which I guess was the worst kind of capitalism. They had their factories first regulated on what they could print, then confiscated and nationalized in the name of socialism. You know what's sad is that my grandma was so scared that she didn't even dare to tell me anything about our history. On the rare occasion when my mom would slip and say something, my grandma would shush her because it was dangerous to have fond memories of the past prior to socialism. Socialism stole my family's livelihood, our freedom, and even our history. It is cruel and evil.

I am the PP writer - cruel and evil seems like a vast understatement for what your family went through.

Just, for whatever it's worth - I loathe Trump but am a capitalist. I lean toward libertarian/liberal. We used to (jokingly) be called liberalatarians, and now I guess we get disparagingly called neoliberals. I do want some things that I think anti-socialists fear - government healthcare available to all, for example - but I do not want to do away with our capitalist system overall. I think it's the best of our imperfect choices. The most opportunity, the most freedom, the most safety. (Largely) free markets and freely available healthcare. I guess that would be my overall platform. I think immigrants make our society stronger, that we want to cultivate businesses, and protection of the environment is critical.

Anyway, thank you for your response. More than you could know, and probably more than is really mentally healthy, it's given me a bit of hope to be able to have a friendly back and forth with someone on this board like this.

NP. I too appreciated this civil discussion. Like the DCUM of old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

-Trump has had to authorize ~$28 billion in bailout aid (taxpayer money) to farmers due to his trade war; we'll see if he gets the USMCA ratified. WE ARE COLLECTING MUCH MORE THAN THAT IN TARIFFS, SO IT'S NOT REALLY A PROBLEM. I LIKE WHAT HE HAS BEEN TRYING TO DO, BUT I AGREE THAT WE HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE THE ACTUAL RESULTS

The tarriffs are paid for by the importer - who passes the cost onto the consumer. I guess we'll see but I have a problem with needing to expend $28billion dollars to see what happens.

Given we have a 600 billion trade deficit year after year, spending $28 billion now trying to fix the issue can be a wise investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We should all support less imports from China.
China is the worst environmental disaster ever!

American consumers are the worst environmental disaster ever. No one put a gun to every American's head and asked them to keep buying "stuff", whether they can afford or not.

That’s the spirit! Hate America! President trump thanks you for his re-election.

[Anonymous]

I posted this in the other optimist thread.

k it’s a coin toss. Just as there are many people not talking about Trump that will vote for him, there are many people who will come out in droves to do all they can from keeping him in office.

Swing voters are going to determine the fate.

And to that end:

I also predict that eventually swing voters will get so frustrated with Rep/Dem options, stakeholders will begin to heavily invest in reframing the independent party and run a candidate that will in years to come be elected as an independent president.

-l

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted this in the other optimist thread.

k it’s a coin toss. Just as there are many people not talking about Trump that will vote for him, there are many people who will come out in droves to do all they can from keeping him in office.

Swing voters are going to determine the fate.

And to that end:

I also predict that eventually swing voters will get so frustrated with Rep/Dem options, stakeholders will begin to heavily invest in reframing the independent party and run a candidate that will in years to come be elected as an independent president.

-l

If Bernie wins the D primary, I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong I candidate.

Maybe even Bloomberg, even if he has said he won't run.

[Anonymous]

Only way he wins is if bernie goes indie and splits the dem vote. Would not put it past the a hole either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted this in the other optimist thread.

k it’s a coin toss. Just as there are many people not talking about Trump that will vote for him, there are many people who will come out in droves to do all they can from keeping him in office.

Swing voters are going to determine the fate.

And to that end:

I also predict that eventually swing voters will get so frustrated with Rep/Dem options, stakeholders will begin to heavily invest in reframing the independent party and run a candidate that will in years to come be elected as an independent president.

-l

Disagree. We have a constitutional problem that makes 3rd parties nonstrategic from the voters' perspective. Until we have run-off elections for every federal and state office, two parties will continue to dominate because voters are smart enough to realize that 3rd parties are a "wasted" vote. The two parties are endemic to a structural failure by the Founding Fathers to require run-off elections for every elected office.

Until we fix that problems, voting for a 3rd party ends up electing your least desirable candidate.