[xenadu02]

You're half-right. Not everything Trump does will be horrible and bad. We should judge him by his actual actions.

I'm 95% confident he is going to be a disaster (and so will this Republican congress) but maybe this country needs to experience some pain to understand that both sides aren't equal. Nevertheless I can't lay blame until action is actually taken and the results are known.

[astrodust]

"We can't press charges when someone's driving drunk until they crash into something or kill somebody. Our hands our tied!"

[yazaddaruvala]

"We can't press charges when someone's driving [seemingly] drunk until, [we know for a fact they are drunk or,] they crash into something or kill somebody. Our hands our tied!"

Be careful, your hubris is making conclusions you don't have facts for. You're more than likely right, but its a bad habit to start.

[astrodust]

Exhibit A: The "blind trust" that is anything but.

Exhibit B: Mass-terminating appointees before they're formally replaced leaving huge parts of the government rudderless for months.

Nearly everything about this presidency is off the charts batshit insane. There is no way this thing would pass a political breathalizer.

Have you listened to anything he's said? Did George W. Bush teach people nothing?

[yazaddaruvala]

I'm just saying.. we don't know. Your heuristics may help inform you slightly, but it is the future and by definition we cannot know. Otherwise if you really do know - you shouldn't be wasting time here complaining, you could be making a lot of money.

Having a different management style is just that: different, not "batshit insane". You really can't judge until the results are in.

For example, people questioned the way Job's ran his teams at Apple. At some point in time that was "batshit insane". To be frank, even today Job's management style is "batshit insane", but no one can question it because it worked.

Building a rocket ship company that planned to steal away revenue from Lockheed-Martin was "batshit insane", but Musk was able to pull it off.

Another example, losing half your army trekking through the Alps with elephants was "batshit insane", but Hannibal was one of the only generals in existence that could have destroyed Rome. Hannibal may not be the best example though, he happened to be outsmarted at the last minute, and acted emotionally rather than continue his objective - losing everything in the process.

I'm just trying to explain to you (while Trump will likely cause WW3): In general by jumping to conclusions, prior to having the data, you do yourself and the world a disservice.

[cmdrfred]

> off the charts batshit insane

I suggest you become more of a student of history. At very least it will leave you with bigger charts.

[astrodust]

Name another president that's generated as many scandals prior to entering office. Name another president that's won the electoral college but lost the popular vote by over two million votes. Name another president who's actively hostile against several major branches of government. Name another president who's apparently been collaborating with a major foreign adversary.

There's been candidates for office with crazier ideas, with fewer qualifications, with more scandals, but none have ever been elected before. Ths path is well trod by tinpot dictators, not US presidents.

In terms of US history, the only thing missing is Trump killing someone in a duel on the White House lawn to really put this over the top.

[cmdrfred]

>Name another president that's generated as many scandals prior to entering office

John Quincy Adams, he called the sitting presidents wife a whore during his campaign. I'd argue Hillary Clinton had more scandals prior to office, but she lost.

>Name another president that's won the electoral college but lost the popular vote by over two million votes

Name another president who ran when there was over 310 million Americans.

>Name another president who's actively hostile against several major branches of government

Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight "beware the military industrial complex" Eisenhower, and JFK.

>Name another president who's apparently been collaborating with a major foreign adversary.

Well if the standard of evidence on that is "unnamed sources" and top secret documents nobody is going to see for a few decades. All of them according to my unnamed source in my top secret document.

In the interest of fairness may I note that Hillary Clinton's state department approved a sale of 20% of this nations uranium to Russia and shortly thereafter she received a few million dollar donation to the Clinton foundation from a Russian weapons manufacturer who had directly benefited from that deal. Clearly she didn't think Russia was a threat when she was cashing their checks.

[MichaelGG]

How are you evaluating your confidence in him being a disaster? What're your priors? What criteria do you have for evaluating presidents after their terms? What's your track record in predicting presidential success?

How are you determining what parts of disasters are attributed to the presidency/government vs things only lightly influenced by that? We can agree that hurricanes in one year aren't caused by presidential actions that same year. What about epidemics? Large economic shifts?

I don't mean this as Trump support, just wondering how people get things like "95% confidence" and "disaster". How do they objectively define these things and avoid their biases?