Trump pivots center?

Trump's presidency persists despite my certainty it is doomed.

The most recent issue over DACA and the dreamers opens a strange door, on an issue that past presidents have not been able to solve, and mainly because past congresses have been unwilling to face. But the Dreamers open or reopens a door, first shutting a door Obama opened, and demanding Congress find a compromise, and confessing he'll restore Obama's solution if congress can't do better.

I can't say what should be done at all with illegals. What do you do with people who would rather live illegally, work illegally, to try to get a better life for their children, than go back their country of birth?

It is a surprising issue almost since you'd never assume anyone would want to live that way. And because this issue was ignored outside of criminal activity for decades, we now have kids who are becoming adults after living here all or most of their lives, and willing to do anything to stay, to have an opportunity to prove themselves.

And since the bleeding-heart Democrats have generally taken the side of the immigrants and minorities, they naturally would like to expand these illegals into citizens, and self-interestedly expand their voter base, so this obviously can never do. I mean certainly not all immigrants are Democrats, but if 75% are, that means 50% net gain in new democratic voters, so if we imagine 12 million illegals, when they're all adults, and if they all voted, that's a net gain of 6 million votes for Democrats.

And so the Republican party, whether by nature, or by necessity has taken up the anti-immigrant agenda, or anti-illegals in general, and lowered immigration in general, even if the corporate branch of the party has long been glad for hard working immigrants to come here and fill jobs that no one else is willing to do, or at least they can be paid less, and much less, if under the table.

And thus now come Trump, who is first condemned for reversing Obama DACA, and yet he pivots and says he believes in the Dreamers, and WANTS Congress to find a solution for them. And the standard corporate Republican is generally happy with more immigration, while the anti-immigrant voters who supported Trump are less happy at the prospects that Trump may expand immigration to these dreams, and of course it'll be more over time, as the families of dreamers will also get special treatment.

And I never thought Trump's claim "I have the biggest heart" was false, even if crazily hyperbolic, but it shows a side of him that wants to be loved, and wants people to get along, and so crazily, Trump may have the power to reverse this unfortunate partisan issue of immigration. And if the Republicans can embrace the Dreamers, the party's pro-immigration voices can rise again from the silencing, and perhaps new republican candidates will rise as immigrants, and it won't be 75%-25% D-R split, but closer to parity. And if anything can happen its easy to say it was because Trump is "above party" - he doesn't care what strengthens the Republican's fist of power.

538 offers 4 theories of Trump's working with Democrats, and overall I accept any or all of them, and more generally in the lines of Scott Adams. If Trump is still President in 12 months, it may because the Democrats themselves block impeachment, preferring amiable Trump to religious extremist Pence.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/4-theories-to-explain-why-trump-is-suddenly-working-with-democrats/

Overall, I'm sure we should all be scared of Trump as president, and I still think he's more willing than any president to take executive authority under crisis. He may not be reading about a goat during the next big terrorist attack, and he probably will mostly just follow his generals when it happens, but he can push the limits in the line of his fierce campaign rhetoric.

And if a new economic crisis happens, I suppose I feel less afraid of Trump as president. At least the Republicans control everything, so they are responsible for everything, and if their legacy is tax cuts for the wealthy just as the economy collapses, and millions are losing their jobs, they'll be blamed. OTOH, perhaps Trump will do what Obama wouldn't, and risk the economic recovery on trying to punish the most convenient scapegoats for the collapse, and surely they'll be many to choose between.

And he could end up looking like a Democrat of old, like FDR saying "I welcome their hatred" as he imposes old testament justice, or at least the appearance of it. And Trump may end up turning around and accepting Sander's Single payer health care as well. There are no limits to Trump's changing sides, if it means he gets to be the hero of the story.

The Imminent Fall of the House of Trump?

I have no idea what's going to happen in the coming months, but it becomes increasingly hard to imagine Donald Trump's presidency will last the year. Impeachment by his own party seems unlikely, and apparently it can take many months. And the vice president invoking the 25th amendment, section 4, is the fastest escape route, but "unable" is a tricky word seeming to mean temporary incapacity that doesn't clearly deal with things like dementia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Section_4:_Vice_Presidential.E2.80.93Cabinet_declaration
---
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
----

My best guess is that Trump will resign before the end of 2018, same as Nixon, whatever the exact sequence of events. And Trump may find this to his best satisfaction, and for all we know it was his plan from the beginning, or since he unexpectedly won, to cause the biggest splash he can, and leave when it gets too tedious. And picking stable conservative Mike Pence VP surely helped republicans vote for Trump, and helped Trump feel sure he can back out at any time and things will be okay. And Trump's refusal to show his tax returns, and his refusal to sell off his assets like every other president also suggests his lack of seriousness at sticking with it.

It would be cool to offer a prediction when he'd resign, and perhaps a range is more reasonable. Things look bad enough I can imagine a resignation as early as July, and that would bring maximum relief to Trump himself, and the world. And he could go back to being a lovable bigmouth billionaire. But the transition isn't necessarily simple, or whenever someone decides to resign from a job before they do it, that frees them to maximize their impact in the final period on the job. Picking a Supreme Court justice probably will be his largest impact, even if the list he selected from was a conservative wish list. But Trump still imagines himself as a populist, and so surely Trump will be attracted to something that will make him "loved" by the people, something that sticks a middle finger at the "elite" and that would allow Trump to go out a hero, to the 40% who want him to be a hero. I'm not ready to guess what that might be yet, and I'm sure Trump doesn't know either, so it may be a "last man in the room" suggestion that wins the day.

On recent news, the most astounding interview was with Benjamin Wittes, friend of James Comey, and basically confirming that Comey took "memos" after every meeting with Trump, and felt a strong need to push back the White House from trying to influence the FBI's investigations. And so the most damning evidence so far is (1) Trump asked for loyalty from Comey (2) Comey declined loyalty (3) Trump fired Comey.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-james-comey-told-me-about-donald-trump

So Trump can be forgiven for a bad decision in asking for something inappropriate, but the consequence of that request means his motives are questionable for firing. It's categorically no different than a boss propositioning a secretary and firing her afterwards. Even if she deserved to be fired, for doing a bad job, there's simply no way to separate motives here, no way to prove it was job performance that was a the deciding factor.

And if Trump really asked Comey to let Flynn off the hook from investigations, that is apparently legally criminal "obstruction of justice" and Trump also when asked if he had done this, Trump denied it saying "no, no, next question."

Yet, before the "memos" were announced, Trump tweeted a fear about being recorded. So threat or not, that's easily a sign of a guilty conscience, someone who doesn't want to be caught, even if Trump seems so stupid, he does change his story when he decides it can't hurt him.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473
5:26 AM - 12 May 2017 "James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

And the case of Trump sharing confidence intelligence reports with the Russians shows more trouble. First Trump denies it, then when he finds out he has a legal right to do it, he defends it. But just because something is legal doesn't make it smart. And the fact his own staff are leaking such things shows there is minimal loyalty within the white house, and the more Trump tries to clamp down on leakers, the more he'll be surrounded by sycophants, the more delusional he will get, and it will become even more obvious when he tweets and talks.

Bret Stephens offers a damning picture here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/opinion/flight-93-election-trump-conservatives.html
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But the reality of the presidency is that it tends to reflect and magnify the inner truth of the officeholder. The job requires — and exposes — that most conservative of concepts: character. And if we’ve learned anything about Trump, it’s that his character isn’t just bad. It’s irrepressible.

Hence the past 10 days of our national life. Firing Jim Comey. Threatening Comey. Lying about the reasons for firing Comey. Admitting to the reasons for firing Comey. Blabbing secrets to Sergey Lavrov. Denying that secrets were blabbed. Then blabbing about blabbing to Lavrov.

No staff shake-up would have prevented any of this from happening. It would have descended on a hapless White House staff like a superheated pyroclastic flow from a presidential Pinatubo. And it will continue to descend, week after grim week, until Trump leaves or is forced from office.

That is the Trump reality. A man with a deformed personality and a defective intellect runs a dysfunctional administration — a fact finally visible even to its most ardent admirers.
----

I do believe when Trump resigns everyone will say it is best, but even a day before that moment, half of republicans will still play their roles and blind themselves to the truth of their party's fall.

There is no more republican party. It is nothing more than a self-interest machine echoing Trump's "Make American great again" while draining her dry.

The Democrats may not be much better, but they are better in at least one respect. They've never endorsed such buffoonish president as Trump.

Meanwhile all conservatives have left is to keep rehashing the real and imagined crimes of Democrats, to avoid their own conscience.

Prolife redeemer Norma Mccorvey dies at 69

I see that the woman who's case became Roe vs Wade, that made abortion legal, and later repented has died at 69:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/18/norma-mccorvey-roe-roe-v-wade-dead-abortion/98093844

The article also quotes from a Catholic priest and his wish that abortion soon will be illegal.
http://www.priestsforlife.org/library/7246-statement-on-the-death-of-norma-mccorvey
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“She was victimized and exploited by abortion ideologues when she was a young woman, but she came to be genuinely sorry that a decision named for her has led to the deaths of more than 58 million children," Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said in a statement. "Norma’s conversion to Christianity, then to Catholicism, was sincere and I was honored to be part of that journey. I’m sorry she won’t be here to celebrate with me when we finally abolish legal abortion in this country, but I know she will be watching.”
----

In fact the rates of abortion have declined steadily since 1990, and less than half now, while the population has increased from 250 to 320 million people. The priest claims 58 million abortions, while the U.S. population has increased by 100 million since 1973.

Given a Republican controlled Congress and President, perhaps we are just one Supreme Court justice from not only reversing Roe vs Wade (and allowing states to decide, as Trump suggests), but making the law of the land that abortion is illegal, as the Catholic priest desires.

I have no personal stake in the question. I've never had children, and never created a pregnancy, I never had to ask what I'd do if a woman I had sex with, my wife or not, whether I'd support or encourage her to have an abortion. Its certainly a crude decision, so easy enough to say "safe, legal and rare", but when I'd support one, I'm unsure personally.

My maternal grandmother married around age 19, and she birthed 8 children, 7 living past infancy, and perhaps 2-4 miscarriages along the way, and also one secret and illegal abortion, during the depression, I can be glad for my cousins, but would have preferred that she had access to birth control, and she and my grandfather could have chosen how many kids to have. And although my mom was third born, if she had been one of the aborted, or contracepted children, I would have nothing negative to say about that, or I wouldn't exist, yet I wouldn't call it a tragedy, but a prudent choice, or a hard choice.

And I'm certainly not against large families if parents love children, and they can afford to breed like rabbits, and that's there choice, I won't say anything against that.

And the "breed like rabbits" was in fact a joke given by the current Pope 2 years ago:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/20/378559550/pope-francis-says-catholics-dont-need-to-breed-like-rabbits
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The National Catholic Reporter says Francis "made what appears to be an unprecedented statement that Catholics may have a moral responsibility to limit the number of their children." It describes the pope's remarks this way:

"Telling the story of a woman he met in a parish in Rome several months ago who had given birth to seven children via cesarean section and was pregnant with an eighth, Francis asked: 'Does she want to leave the seven orphans?'

" 'This is to tempt God,' he said, adding later: 'That is an irresponsibility.' Catholics, the pope said, should speak of 'responsible parenthood.'

" 'How do we do this?' Francis asked. 'With dialogue. Each person with his pastor seeks how to do that responsible parenthood.'

" 'God gives you methods to be responsible,' he continued. 'Some think that — excuse the word — that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No.' "
----

So he was talking about a catholic woman specifically, but certainly his interest in the subject was not just for catholics, but seeing humanity as a whole. Yet the only sanctioned birth control method the church supports is the rhythm method, or withdrawal perhaps, or abstinence? And so people who fail in those methods may still "breed like rabbits". And a controversy on the ACA was including birth control, which the church felt should not be allowed. So it can NOT prevent women from buying their own birth control, but they don't want their healthcare plans to support it.

Could it be that the Republicans will succeed in and that Abortion in America will be illegal before 2020? It seems an easy "scapegoat" issue that Trump can support, and many religious people already believe America has been cursed because we allow abortion or because of immoral gays, or immorality in general. And a small shift in public sentiment isn't even needed, just 2 more Republican picked Justices, with one in the works, and an elderly Ginsburg at 83. So her death in 2017 could lead to a "let states decide" decision by 2018, and if the Republicans can hold on that election cycle, maybe one more case to outlaw in all cases besides the safety of the mother. Who knows?

And it does seem like Planned Parenthood should just "roll over" and withdraw from accepting public funding, because they're going to lose it anyway.

And if this outcome was "sufficient" to the religious right, I might welcome it, even being fully illegal, if it would break the unholy alliance between the Evangelical Christians and the Republican party, but it is surely too much to hope for, and does any self-righteous soul stop with mere complete victory? No, the republicans will find other "wedge issues" that keep people divided on their team, and of course Democrats will grab the wedges on the other side, and the insanity will continue. Of course, Gay Marriage must be reversed for instance.

I've been exploring the ideas of "mass psychosis" of late, in the Trump phenomenon on the Right, and perhaps the SJW antioppression oppression on the Left, and it does seem like that the abortion fight is one of the key issues that has divided us, and so somehow now being for "only lower taxes on the rich" and "prolife" are united together as self-evident truths that can not be questioned.

At some level the abortion debate seems either unimportant, but on other levels it is central, like environmental problems of consuming ever more resources on a finite world, and economic as well, since economic growth is the only model we know, and its fully clear everything we do and project about the future is that it must be bigger than the present, and if growth stops, then all our debt models fail, and capitalism itself fails. And all that seems to hit before climate change, and before shere population mass fails us, before mass starvation, but poverty will come, and a poorer future can't support the cities we have, and the land itself can't support as many people, if we also need the land for animals, like when we depended on horses for transportation.

So on my neomathusian side, slowing population solves no problem, but increases the amount of time we have to find alternative means of survival, while perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps if things have to fail before we change, then sooner is better, because we'll have less people to feed, and there'll be fewer starving in a crisis time? It's all unimaginable in our world of abundance, while that abundance is illusionary as long as we need to consume millions of years of "ancient sunlight" to keep everything running.

But there's another side, modernity has created opportunities for everyone, including women, to find fulfilling things to do besides having children, so a large fraction of the population has chosen to be childless, and even if this was always true for many men, it is more true for women now, and some demographics are now at below-replacement birth rates, which increases problems with having more elderl supported by fewer young people. So the idea of retirement at 65 may be an unaffordable luxury, and not just for individual savings, but SS and medicare programs.

If you think systems need to be controlled, you'd wonder how society has succeeded as long as it has, and surely our technical advances have enabled great things, and capitalism based on growth economics has produced a willingness for individuals to work hard for their own share of the pie, and keep everything going, while that work ethic is less attractive when you can't get ahead, and just see your parent's generation drowning in debt. And it could be childlessness itself is a reaction against a world that doesn't seem to support parenthood, with too many costs and demands to do well, and sufficient distractions that many won't take the risks of raising children.

I feel confidence the "necessity as the mother of invention" that the future will create is a return to larger families, and those who can learn to live together now will prosper better than those who try to live the false "nuclear family" or worse "single parenthood" model which never could be seen as viable, and that social programs will never help sufficiently.

So I imagine the future has two solutions coming - conservatives will cling to family systems as they've always done, and liberals will have more fun experimenting with how "intentional families" can thrive without the bonds of blood to keep people caring about each other. And I see Dostoyevsky's "Isolation" as where we're at now, with childless households isolated in the suburbs with no need for neighbors, and digitally connected to people far away, but without emotional support. So this pattern would seem to only change if technology fails and we suddenly find we can't maintain distant connections.

But I started on abortion and I'm sure the "safe, legal and rare" is the only answer and giving women access to "family planning" is vital, even if they also gain advice from their church leaders.

It does seem like "liberal dream" is ending, but not without a fight. Who knows if we won't have "universal health care" from 2022 to 2038, after the great depression hits in 2018 and the Republicans are swept out of office in 2020? But we may be a lot poorer then too. And it may yet be just a transition period back to decentralization and we won't have a united states after 2038, just 20 some years away. Abortion may yet be legal in 2030 but its safety in greater question.

Such imaginings are almost useless, but attempted just to show how much change is upon us. The technical singularity might yet save us, or maybe not in the ways we expect, but it would be nice to keep some of modern connectivity going.

Ultimately abortion doesn't matter to me. Its not my sacred cow on any side. I feel no remorse at ending the life of a 6 week old fetus, and its just a matter of safety for me. But dependable birth control is a higher value worth defending. At minimum "family planning" may not be a "human right" but it is a colletive sensibility.

Asshole of the year, 2016

In the Age of Trump, I nominate this man for "Asshole of the year, 2016", Cam Harris, who published fake political news, including one article, on October 1 fabricating a claim that tens of thousands of Clinton ballots were found in a warehouse in Ohio. The site is down, but an archive copy is here: https://archive.fo/5lfHH and all the snopes fact-checking is here http://www.snopes.com/tag/christian-times-newspaper/

Here's an article with a video interview of his confessions.
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/19/major-fake-news-operation-tracked-back-republican-operative/

Its worth hearing his interview (18 minutes). I most despise his nonanswer to the question (@14:20) "This was posted on ChristianTimesNewspaper, do you consider yourself Christian. Doesn't this go against Christianity?"

Cam answers: "I have a religious background. I grew up in a church. ... That's a question much too large for me to answer."

Maybe we can say it is now Obama's fault than young men no longer know the difference between right and wrong. But perhaps that's the whole problem with abstraction, when all the harm is in people you don't know, people who were already screwed up anyway, deporable, irredeemable? Messing with irredeemable people can't be a sin, right?

Perhaps Cam's conscience could be raised if his lies were done in person, like perhaps talking to a neighbor who believed the local minister was a child-molester because he had that kind and gentle sort of voice that child-molesters have, and not knowing if it was true, but knowing this he needed some money, and offering some supporting evidence, hoping he could get some cash out of the neighbor.

Maybe the question of morality wouldn't be "too large" to answer? What is the cost of admitting wrong action is wrong?

And I also wonder who started that rumor about Clinton running a child prostitution ring underneath a DC pizzeria? And eventually leading to a would-be-hero to find the place with a gun and demand that those innocent children.
http://www.politico.com/armed-man-arrested-near-dc-pizzeria-targeted-by-fake-news

Cam is right that his little fake news couldn't have alone changed the election in favor of Donald Trump. So if he can convince himself that Clinton would have lost in any case, he's off the hook in his mind. What's the harm in preying on gullible people?

And Cam's public confession feeds his own narcissism, showing how clever he is, at understanding people's weaknesses, and exploiting them.

And this is the slippery slope the modern world brings. Ideally fake news makes people wary to believe "news" presented outside the fact-checked world of main stream media. But in reality, fake news appears to be a force of chaos, and our minds are not good at dealing with lies, and a million small lies can add up, and Trump said "Crooked Hillary" so it must be true, at least our "inner child" says.

It would be much simpler to face an angry mob about to stone you and have Jesus walk up and say "He who is without sin may cast the first stone" and when the self-righteous mob disappears, Jesus can say "Go and sin no more." and you're free.

Maybe Cam needs to go back to Sunday school? I like Catholics better than Lutherans (except for the burdens to the poor priest) but there at least you have to confess your sins to a real person before you're forgiven. Its too easy to lie to yourself, rationalize and refuse to listen, when your conscience is telling you things you don't want to hear.

I'd suggest the same for Trump, catholic confession, but I can't see it. A person who can't see his own contradictions can't possibly find a moral voice to guide him.

Trump would probably even enjoy shocking the priest with his exploits, and all the confessions he'd make would be fabrications, while skipping the real ones which were less entertaining. Trump would never dream of the priest staying quiet, and will hope the priest will share the stories in front of the nuns, to shock them of course. That's what Trump would do, if he was a priest.

It's so hard to imagine any limit to Trump's disability and ours.

The clueless showman needing an intervention

Does Donald Trump lie? The media has been trying to deal with that question, and it seems like fruitless mission, that is, if every lie can be covered up by 3 new lies, then its like the hydra, where you can cut off one head and three more popup. At least you imagine why a direct approach won't work.

The whole problem with calling something a lie is that it suggests conscious intent to deceive, while I do think there are unconscious defense mechanisms to cover up and rationalize contradictions and avoid cognitive dissonance.

We can point out contradictions to a person's statements, past and present, and ask them to explain that, but that explanation will likely be a rationalization they're making to themselves in the moment, to avoid the contradiction. And even if you tell them of the deception, they won't let go of the rationalization.

So its like we have opportunities to "wake up" and see what's real, and we can do that when faced by contradiction. We can reflect, but a mind that doesn't want to reflect can choose to deflect, and refocus elsewhere and avoid the contradiction.

I recall psychologists have done experiments, like asking someone to choose on list of preferences, each between two things, A or B, and later ask them to explain their choice, say A, while actually telling them they chose B, and most of the time, people will skip right past that deception, assume the choice was real and come up with an explanation that never existed before that moment. We can call that lying, but it is also rationalizing,covering up ignorance with a false narrative.

This is related to the "choice supportive bias", which also can explain why Trump voters will continue to support him long after the evidence suggests it was a bad idea, like they can continue to be glad that Clinton wasn't elected for all her faults even though that's irrelevant to the current situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

I tend to think this is how much of Trump's mind works, and at a level he's not in control over. I'm sure it would be possibly for a psychologist to help him see such false narratives arising, and question them, but in any kind of public setting, no one wants to do that, least of all someone who does it chronically, to avoid awareness of shame.

I recall seeing bumper stickers "Don't believe everything you think" and it's a profound reversal to the original "Don't believe everything you hear [from others]." Until you admit to yourself that your mind makes things up continually, and its rationalized on the spot, the question of lying won't even make sense.

There may be times when Trump is aware of his "lying", and times when he isn't, but when this habit is strong, it seems that sort of awareness only comes out when faces by someone who has power over you, and knows what's true, and won't let you get away with anything, and ultimately only God has that power. Parents or authority figures can sometimes break through this and force issues, but you have to be very sure of your own facts.

Children who learn to try to deceive parents or authority figures quickly learn "theory of mind" that considers "What does the other person know?" And by modeling another mind, they can try to create a consistency between known lies, and evidence available to parents. But a person who is not good at keeping such clever track of facts and deceptions, he will get caught, and still has to learn how to avoid punishment. So then there are other tricks - either being a victim, redirecting blame elsewhere, or being a bully, refusing to admit the other person has any authority at all to judge them, and can seek to punish the judge. And the more status, power, and wealth you have the more you can get away with, and the more you can play people off each other, and try to convince yourself and others that another is the true bully or villain, and we are just defending ourselves. And the more these tricks work, the harder they are to break, and the more painful it becomes to admit the truth, when you can't avoid facing your own responsibility for a situation. And worse, people with guilty consciences might themselves hyperfocus on the deceptions of others, and as long as other people are "more guilty", one's own bad behavior can be justified as minor in comparison, even when the exact opposite is true.

I don't know how to face the question of public figures in the media except to repeat the contradictions of facts or declarations without presuming intention, and let the reader decide their own interpretation.

In Trump's case, I'd call it a permanent disability that makes him unfit for the presidency, like Keith Olbermann tried recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv28Hnx9uCg Still Supporting Donald Trump? This Message Is For You | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ

Trump needs an intervention. Being clueless might be acceptable as a billionaire surrounded by yes-men, but it is deadly for someone with real power over life and death of others.

I don't expect a 70-year old man will get what he needs, if he's made it this far in his ways. So for those close to him, it'll always be more of care-taking role, covering over the contradictions and agreeing with his enemy imagines take keep responsibility elsewhere.

A determined senate still might oust him with an impeachment, but its hard to see what it'll take for that to happen.

We have less than 2 weeks for his inauguration.

About the only advice I have is to consider facing my own advice, and pay more attention to my own coverups, and distractions that avoid responsibility, avoid keeping my word, avoid following through with what ought to be done, when its annoying or anxiety producing, or whatever.

I can sort of see my own mental tricks I'd call strategic procrastination, that is keeping some awareness of what MUST be done soon, and what the consequences are for not doing it, and yet that process fails when consequences can be avoided, or at least more of increased risk, a slippery slope of chaos, where when you leave enough glass on the floor, eventually you'll trip over some of it and get cut.

Joe Biden told Trump to "Grow up" and surely that's what we all have to do. But who is our keeper? Who will call us out when our defense mechanisms have been carefully constructed to avoid awareness of things we don't want to think about. And perhaps that's the fault everywhere, when systems are setup to manage complexity, and eventually you forget the reasons the rules existed, and cut corners, all without consequence, until something unexpected happens, something that is predictable as a possibility, but not timing, and then you're not prepared for it.

So Trump is the broken glass. Trump is the black swan, and its almost like voters unconsciously decided to throw glass in the dark, because other people will get hurt, and eventually start paying attention to things that need attention.

Asshole-elect

I think I have to agree that Donald Trump is a magician. He's so powerful he can say anything, and desperate people believe it, because he sounds tough, and when he confesses he doesn't mean anything he says later, they again cheer, because its so impressive that he can lie and get away with it.

He's like the cool child in the neighborhood who lies to all the adults, and never gets punished, and all the repressed kids feel empowered, and imagine that someday they can lie as good as the cool kid and get what they want too.

Remember, Trump said "We're going to have so much winning that we'll get tired of winning?" That's a proposterous boast in any world, and deeply offensive in a world where there is unnecesary suffering and "winning" is the only thing he values.

Trevor Noah showed some of Trump's magic confessions from his victory tour.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/15/13966872/trump-lying-daily-show
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Trump on the Republican primary system being rigged in May, as he secured the party’s nomination: "You’ve been hearing me say it’s a rigged system. But now I don’t say it anymore because I won. Okay? It’s true. You know, now I don’t care."

Trump on his promise to prosecute Hillary Clinton and "lock her up": "Forget it. That plays great before the election. Now we don’t care, right?"

Trump on his slogan to "drain the swamp": "Funny how that term caught on, isn’t it? I tell everyone: I hated it! Somebody said, ‘Drain the swamp.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s so hokey. That is so terrible.’ I said, ‘All right. I’ll try it.’ So like a month ago, I said, ‘Drain the swamp.’ The place went crazy. I said, ‘Whoa. Watch this.’ Then I said it again. Then I started saying it like I meant it, right? And then I said it, I started loving it."
---

And even going back to last January, at the Iowa Caucuses, he was shameless, like his greed.
“Now, I’ll tell you, I’m good at that – so, you know, I’ve always taken in money,” he said at a rally in Iowa. “I like money. I’m very greedy. I’m a greedy person. I shouldn’t tell you that, I’m a greedy – I’ve always been greedy. I love money, right? But, you know what? I want to be greedy for our country. I want to be greedy. I want to be so greedy for our country. I want to take back money.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-primaries/265335-trump-im-very-greedy

What the hell does that mean? He wants to be greedy for US? I mean this is the sort of speech one of my Viking ancestors gave, before they became christianized. We're basically going to loot the the entire world, but its okay, because you'll get your share of the loot. And we've got the most expensive military in the world by a factor of 10 or more, so who is going to stop us?

And Trump boasts that exactly as well:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/21/donald-trump-iraq-war-oil-strategy-seizure-isis
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One of the recurring themes of Donald Trump’s national security strategy is his plan to “take the oil” in Iraq and from areas controlled by Islamic State (Isis) extremists. It would drain Isis’s coffers and reimburse the US for the costs of its military commitments in the Middle East, the candidate insists.

At a forum hosted by NBC on 7 September, Trump suggested oil seizure would have been a way to pay for the Iraq war, saying: “We go in, we spend $3tn, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then … what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils.”

He added: “One of the benefits we would have had if we took the oil is Isis would not have been able to take oil and use that oil to fuel themselves.”

The idea predates Trump’s presidential campaign. As far back as 2011, he was telling the Wall Street Journal that this was his policy for Iraq. “You heard me, I would take the oil,” he said. “I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take the oil.” And he insisted to ABC News that this did not amount to national theft.

“You’re not stealing anything,” Trump said. “We’re reimbursing ourselves … at a minimum, and I say more. We’re taking back $1.5tn to reimburse ourselves.”
---

That's what strength looks like. Do what you want, say anything, and use power to take from others who can't defend themselves. Its like police coming into a neighborhood and demanding "protection fees", and then letting criminals do what they want to those unprotected, but taking a cut of the criminals loot as well.

This is what being tough looks like, and its all Obama's fault, because he didn't start enough new trillion dollar wars.

Trump's only ideology is greed and bullying, what could go wrong?

There's psychology term "gas lighting" some claim applies to Trump, coming from a movie where a man makes a woman feel crazy by changing things in her house and denying it, and making her feel crazy. But Trump doesn't even do this since he's very open about his manipulations.

Its seems astounding that we have to run this experiment forward, JUST IN CASE, it doesn't end in disaster. But that's the problem as well, because when Trump's popularity wanes, all he has to do is prey on people's fears and anger and find proper scapegoats, so the victims of his temperament won't be most Americans, but minorities here, and people of the rest of the world.

It seems like the rest of the world has NO CHOICE except to consider America as an ENEMY. Anything else just makes them complicit in our madness.

Okay "enemy" is too strong, but not by much, at least a potential enemy. You have to consider America is MENTALLY ILL and has weapons of mass destruction, and no one has the power to disarm us.

Paul Levy wrote a book called "The madness of George Bush", and a follow up "Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil". Paul Levy discovered it in part looking at George Bush, and then reflecting back on his own reactions to Bush's hubris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_efa2TW2NWo The Madness of George W. Bush
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Paul Levy will explore whether the madness that George W. Bush has fallen into is showing us something particularly important about ourselves. What if Bush's madness is a reflection of our own potential for madness? What if Bush has been collectively dreamed up (by 6.4 billion of us) to play out, in full-bodied form, a pathological role existing deep within the collective unconscious of all humanity? Tune in and find out.
---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Mh9jaxmbU - Paul Levy - Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil
--
There is a contagious psycho-spiritual disease of the human soul, a parasite of the mind, that is currently manifesting itself in the form of unprecedented conflicts and crises on a global scale. This collective psychosis or mental virus -- which Native Americans have called wetiko - covertly operates through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering us oblivious to our own madness and compelling us to act against our own best interests.

Wetiko distorts our perceptions by stealth and subterfuge, acting through us while simultaneously remaining hidden. Unconstrained by conventional laws of time and space, this 'bug' in the system deceives us by working with the projective tendencies of our mind to appear external to and other than ourselves. Thus, the conflicts and crises which threaten the collapse of political, social and economic systems, and perhaps even of the biosphere itself, are nothing less than a revelation of our own internal darkness, the side of our nature that we all too often deny. Quantum physics is now revealing to us the dreamlike nature of reality and, as with our dreams at night, events in the so-called waking world are symbolically reflecting a condition deep within the psyche of humanity.

Drawing on insights from Jungian psychology, shamanism, alchemy, spiritual wisdom traditions, and personal experience, Levy shows us that hidden within the venom of wetiko is both a profound truth and an antidote, which once recognized can help us awaken and restore sanity to society. Whether wetiko destroys our species or catalyses a deeper process of global awakening depends upon recognizing what it is revealing to us about ourselves.
---

The sun still rose today, maybe tomorrow too

In a strange twist of Fate, they have declared, unexpected, that Hillary Clinton should NOT be held responsible for the global economic crisis of 2017.

Instead we shall have Donald Trump as the leader of the Free world, and pussy grabbing shall now be the law of the land, for those brave enough to do the grabbing.

And in the best of all worlds, after the Democrats declined to support Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, and I boldly accepted my mission, I voted for Hillary, against Donald Trump, and although Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Iowa fell to Trump's spell, Minnesota, the land of Lake Woebegon, where all the men are good looking, and all the women are strong, and all the children are above average, BARELY held for the Democrat.

And the vote was a squeaker still, 1,363,741 (46.8%) for Clinton and 1,320,998 (45.4%) for Trump. So from Romney 2012, Obama won 1,546,167 (52.65%) to Romney's 1,320,225 (44.96), almost identical for the GOP, but Hillary lost nearly 200k voters. While 2008 had Obama at 1,573,354 (54.06%) to McCain at 1,275,409 (43.82%), just slightly more for Obama, while McCains was only slightly lower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Minnesota,_2016

*** 12/15/16 Update - how much did the final vote change? Clinton [+3975] 1,367,716 (46.4%), Trump [+1953] 1,322,951 (44.9%), other [~ +33700] 254,146 (8.6%). Pretty close, except many more "Other" votes, preassume came from write-ins.

So Minnesota remains the only pure-Democratic state since 1976, yet at the state level, the republicans HELD the house, and won back the Senate, so even if the state Republicans are "more sensible than average", its tough times to be a democrat, even in Minnesota.

And the National republicans also held onto the U.S. Senate, with likely 51 seats, plus a VP now, while expanding their lead in the U.S. House. So if we imagined the Republicans were a united party (and they're not), but if they were, they basically have the run of Washington, and could pass anything on their own united votes (if such a thing existed), and the only thing in the way is a Senate Filibuster, but since the Democrats have expressed a willingness to overpower it under a President Clinton, it will be an easy dare for Republicans to overpower it in any appointment or decision they deem as necessary to their party interests.

And apparently Republic state governors also had a great collective election. They started with 31 republican and 18 democratic governors, and if they've gained 3, perhaps its now 34 to 15 breakdown?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_governors
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-election-results-governors-20161108-story.html

So while the rise of Trump has promoted discussion of the end of the Republican party, merely because they looked doomed to lose the presidency again, now Trump has reversed that only stain on GOP power, merely by saying nearly the opposite of every conservative mantra, save cutting taxes for the wealthy. Of course Trump is united there, and Bill and Hillary Clinton will surely say thank you for it, saving them a million dollars in taxes a year.

The interesting question to consider is how will the republicans act in terms of balancing the budget? Will they follow the traditional republican plan of trying to reduce the government to be small enough to be drown in a bathtub? And more interestingly, since most government spending is mandatory, the main place they can cut back spending is social programs, and social programs generally benefit the southern states with more poor people, and Trump is now the man of the working class whites, who don't want hand outs, but hand ups, so they'll be glad to have their government benefits cut, if they can get a new shitty job with no benefits in its place. And when the 12 to 30 million illegals from central and south American are deported, we'll be openning up many low income jobs for the working class whites to take over.

And the republicans have always hated the minimum wage, so why not end it completely. Why tell an employer how much people are worth when they're done exported jobs to China? There's surely plenty of service jobs to be had, part time and no benefits. And as long as housing is cheap, as long as all that illegal immigrant housing has been cleared, property and rent prices should go way down, and the working class can have choice properties at low prices.

Of course the working class still properly don't have the credit scores to buy property, so some enterprising billionaires surely would love to buy up all the cheap properties and add a new coat of paint, and open up the rent back to the people, so they can pay 60% of their income on rent, but maybe less if we can pack more people together like the illegals used to do, so it'll be a win-win for all.

Its hard to guess, but you have to be sure all the calls for reducing federal deficits are simply talking points while tax-and-spend Democrats are in charge, while when Republicans are in charge, its borrow-and-spend like there's no tomorrow, don't you think? Donald Trump wants to cut taxes for the wealthy, and reduce income tax revenue by $500 billion year year. Where is he going to cut spending to pay for that? Social programs of course, right, that's where I started.

But are we going to cut spending for the Military? No no no, spending more than all other countries combined is not enough for the police man of the world. And if GWB can start two unfunded wars, surely Donald Trump can beat that in 4 years and start 3 unfunded wars? Afterall, why have a military if you're not going to use it.

And with the expanding poverty, surely we can expand the ROTC programs and get more working poor to get their sons and daughters to join the military, for the possibility of a college education, when they come home from their 3rd or 4th deployment?

And corporations will have their taxes reduced from a crazy 35% to perhaps 15%, and that'll allow corporations to hold onto more of their profits, without redistributing to shareholders, and they can use these profits to buy up more assets, you know, like housing for all the workers. Maybe we'll go back to the Henry Ford days and have company towns, and company schools and everything, and everyone will get paid just enough to pay all their income back to the company!

Well, you can't really tell what will happen, and its not like we know anything. And when the great economic Crisis of 2017 happens, it won't be like what we expect, but it'll be something that demands more centralized authority to get everything done that needs doing, and all the "smaller government" ideas will go out the window.

I admit, I wasn't looking forward to a Clinton presidency, since we're already on year 8 of an Obama fake-economy but how much more can the federal reserve do anyway, with 8 years of near zero interest rates. So surely more free money will be the order of the day for President Trump, just as it was for Bush, just as it would have been for Clinton. Does anything change?

And if you believe the conspiracy people, perhaps there will NOT be a new bailout, and the government WILL just let large portions of the economy go under, and claim "We can't afford to bail everyone out" and then let the billionaires who have been sitting on cash for 8 years come to the rescue and buy up $50 trillion dollars worth of infrastructure for a cool bargain of $10 trillion.

Oh, and the republicans love privatization, so who not just sell off all the government utilities, and deregulate all the rest to set their own rates, as they see fit. Eventually there'll be competition, once the existing utilities raise rates up by 1000%. Surely it'll be a boon for small businesses who want to compete with the big boys.

Cynicism is too easy, but anyway, my bet is Trump will have PLENTY of crises to defend trillion dollar deficits in no time, and it'll be a matter of life or death, so we'll just have to accept it. And some of us will have $1000 extra money from reduced income taxes to pay for any extra $10,000 in the cost of living. And that new inflation will justify keeping borrowing rates for billionaires low forever.

And who knows, what's next. Certainly Donald Trump doesn't know. I heard a phrase that Trump's supporters took him seriously and the media took his words literally, and perhaps that can explain how an empty windbag can get 60 million people voting for him. And so perhaps he does have the magic ear, to say what the forgotten people want him to say, and perhaps he'll find actions, besides the stand "cut taxes, borrow and spend" GOP plan, and perhaps even God himself will intervene. Heck GWB claimed God spoke to him, so why not Donald?

Donald said to the Pharaoh "Let my people go", and the Establishment Pharaoh tried to say no, and the people had other ideas. So perhaps what's next are the ten plagues of Egypt? And then we'll be living in the desert for 40 years eating the Manna from God, until we've ended our gold-idols and such. Anyway, we're back to the old testament days, so its all credible to the credulous. As Joseph sang "Any dream will do..."