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by skwee357 590 days ago
And this is the problem we have with democracy, and why it's doomed to, eventually, die. People tend to believe words. I guess it fine when words are the only thing you can rely on, but in this case, we have history and past performance. And as someone who is not that interested in US politics, from my understanding, his past performance is terrible by all measures.

But I guess this is something that will never change. The older I become, the more apparently I see that it does not matter WHAT you do, it only matters how you SPEAK about what you (will) do, whether it be in politics or in a corporate environment. I'm not the kind of person who regrets things in life, but if I could travel back in time and give my younger self one advice, it would be "focus on becoming a great orator", as this opens any door regardless of the level of experience.

Edit: to clarify, in order to not reply to each comment individually, I might have used the word "terrible" harshly. The thing with politics is that as a complete outsider to the US, I don't have a reliable way to know what policies were proposed and what were adopted/rejected, nor the long term effect of them on the country. The only thing I can rely on, is information available online. His track record is not covered in a good light online.

Sure, you can say that information online is skewed in one direction, but this is true to an insider, as some comments have demonstrated. The results of a particular policy and its application are subjective rather than objective. My entire premise was to demonstrate that actions are meaningless in the eye of the public.

Theoretically, this means that you get a "get out of jail" card no matter what you do in life, as longs as you can articulate your words properly.

5 comments

> his past performance is terrible by all measures.

Which was partially a good thing, since he failed to dismantle Obamacare or build a wall at the Mexican border, even though those were two very explicit campaign promises.

Who knows what he'll do or not do this time around.

Hopefully more golf that taxpayers pay hundreds of millions for just like last time: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/31/fac...
Remember when he campaigned on criticizing Obama for playing so much golf?
We do know what he will do. It’s pretty much guaranteed he will pick even more Supreme Court justices, making it even more right wing than it currently is. That will have a lasting multi-decades impact. He will nominate more federal judges. He will cancel any investigation in his own crimes.

Remember that Obamacare was saved by a single vote from McCain, who is now dead.

This is precisely why the word stupid is thrown around. It never helps to call a stupid person stupid, because they invariably double down.
This is what the election is teaching me: people don't care a lot about what you do, they care much more about what you say. You just have to make people feel good.
Abraham accords. Isis. Tax cuts. Booming economy of 2018-2020. Remain in Mexico. Far lower illegal immigration. People remember the actions too.

“From my understanding, his past performance was terrible too”

Depends on what you focus on. If you listen to soundbites it sounds like a circus. There’s a lot of drama displacing and stepping on toes of the entrenched players in the system.

> ISIS

Are we remembering the same 2010s?

Also, all of what you’re quoting stemmed from the Obama era (except the moving of the US embassy)

Trump raised taxes on the middle class. The economy was substantially worse under Trump - he spoiled the opportunity Obama gave him. He killed a lot of people with his COVID response. Our debt and deficits spiked under Trump as he drained tax dollars into the wealthy’s pockets.

It’s not so much that people remember the actions, it’s that they remember the right’s white washing of those actions.

> Isis

Isis was already losing in 2017 after they lost Raqqa and Mosul. Trump played no part in it.

> Tax cuts

America is already stacked with an insane deficit and debts. Tax cuts don't see like a good thing in that situation.

> Booming economy

Yes, the economy he inherited from Obama and perpetuated by spending ever more public money and increasing the deficit.

> Remain in Mexico

This only concerns 35k people which is a laughable amount.

> Far lower illegal immigrantion

Not if you compare to the end of Bidens term.

We're also still waiting for that wall to happen. Another lie of course.

Republicans also voted against a bi-partisan bill to reduce immigration.

> If you listen to soundbites it sound like a circus

Fucking a pornstar while you're wife is at home with your newly born kid that might also play a role. But somehow the party of the nuclear family doesn't see a problem with that.

I think you’re right on a lot of details here, but here’s a chart of illegal encounters over the past few years. It has boomed under the current admin.

The bipartisan bill would have allowed in two million people a year. It threw a few scraps to border control. Great bill to look like they’re doing something while intentionally allowing the situation to continue.

https://images.app.goo.gl/SFw49kHkssw1jtV37

The bill would have put a cap on immigration where there is no cap currently.

That would have been a net positive.

Don't let perfect be the enemy.

> his past performance is terrible by all measures.

What was terrible for you? He didn't start new wars, he did the abraham accords. He put in a policy of -2 regulations for every new regulation. He was much better on spending UP UNTIL COVID than Biden was.

What was so bad? He might speak like a crazy person, but his policies weren't that bad.

His policies were terrible. He broke off several key international treaties. He instituted the family separation policy. He broke down federal institutions that could have helped fight COVID.

In what way was he better on spending? He managed to increase the deficit every single year, even before COVID.

> He might speak like a crazy person.

He does speak like a crazy person. He advocates for crazy policies. People from his administration are crazy people and advocate for crazy policies.