President Trump's press conference after his meeting with President Kim was outstanding. His question and answer session was friendly, open and transparent with all the journalists present in the room. He actually said that it wasn't a day to be confrontational with the press. I was greatly impressed. He said that he hadn't slept for 25 hours. He wanted to keep taking questions from journalists and briefly asked his White House Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, if they were okay for time. Huckabee Sanders must have nodded in the affirmative as Trump continued for another few minutes. Trump, for once, really stepped up to the plate.
I cant quite confidently get past all the negativity around him or should I say outright hostility to be confident of his political legacy.
I do think he has a bias against him probably due to being a political outsider. I suspect even if he had been ordinary he would still be undermind by the political family.
A lot of people respond badly to being outclassed and to people doing things differently than the culture demands.
I remember both clinton and Obama saying he knew nothing of how to run a country or get things done. Clearly these statements were narrow and culture based. I think the correct interpretation of this (after all the republicans said the same) was that he didnt belong.
Obviously not. He is a bully-boy with very few if any redeeming features who makes policy up on the hoof in a knee jerk fashion based on short term populism and his enormous ego. He has lied so often that people have become immune to it and a Trump lie almost doesn't make the news any more because it isn't really news. It is par for the course. As he himself said, at the moment he could shoot someone on fifth avenue in broad daylight and get away with it. He has moved into the swamp he was going to drain and filled it by giving paid and unpaid jobs to his cronies and his family and is using the Presidency to promote Brand Trump as if it is a simple marketing opportunity. It says plenty about the state of the USA and the world we live in, where how popular your last tweet is seems more important than what you are and what you stand for, that someone as completely offensive as this man can (1) get elected and (2) stay in power for more than five minutes. He has started a world trade war that is going to cause massive economic hardship to his own people as well as the wider world. He is the standard bearer of the sinister alt right, loved by the likes of the KKK and authoritarian leaders and despots the world over. Unfortunately for Trump, his past misdemeanours will catch up with him. The snivelling toads in the GOP who are prepared to not upset the applecart whilever Trump is popular will turn on him with a vengeance when he becomes toxic, which he surely will. It is a matter of time.
-- Edited by smiler on Sunday 17th of June 2018 12:41:48 PM
He still gave a statesmanlike press conference in Singapore. When the real power behind the throne has had enough Trump will be gone. He will have trodden on too many toes before that time.
-- Edited by wotsisname on Sunday 17th of June 2018 02:24:36 PM
Trump is capable of delivering an impressive performance. But the idea that he is or ever will be a 'great leader' is laughable.
When you cut through the egotistical blather around the North Korea meeting, the terms of what were actually agreed was all fluff and actually far less substantial than previous administrations have agreed with North Korea, which North Korea has gone on to completely ignore.
Trump must know that. He is after all the Master of breaking internationally binding agreements.
Todays news out of the USA is truly terrifying. This President is displaying more and more fascist tendencies with every day that passes. For God's sake, the man describes weak, poor and vulnerable people seeking a better life in the USA as 'criminals', 'animals' and 'an infestation'. He falsely blames these people for the ills of the USA and his administration is taking the children of these poor souls and keeping them locked in cages. Trump is becoming increasingly nationalistic and isolationist in part because it is his instinct and in part because he thinks that it plays well with his core support (which sadly it does). This is not rhetoric or fake news - it is really happening and Trump makes no apology for it. Fascists the world over are re-tweeting Trump at every turn and gaining strength from him. It really is sending a shiver down my spine. These are very, very dangerous times indeed.
Marie Le Pen has today criticised Trump for imposing an immigration policy that is too extreme.
Just let that sink in!
With his scripture-quoting Attorney General, he has introduced a zero tolerance enforcement policy that was inevitably going to result in thousands of children being taken from their families knowing that it would provoke people ,and give him a bargaining chip to say '..if you want this to stop you are going to have to pass some new legislation on immigration that I will be happy to endorse'.
That is only a very. very small step away from taking children as hostages isn't it?
