[IAmGraydon]

The fact that he has done countless things that are harmful to the US and not a single thing that is in the country's best interests tells me all I need to know. Either he's aligned with an enemy or he just hates the country and wants to destroy it.

[RobotToaster]

Or he and his associates can make a lot of money out of crashing the economy and buying up assets for pennies.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by greed.

[rapind]

Yeah I think the most obvious explanation is looting and ego (to explain the ballroom and putting his name everywhere). I also think there's an awful lot of foreign influence around him and his family and friends before and during his term(s). I mean if I'm a foreign actor seeing your leader's keen interest in looting, I'll probably make him an offer or two...

[salawat]

>Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by greed.

Not considering greed a blatant demonstration of malice has to be the single dumbest thing our society has normalized.

[berdario]

I think this is denialism of the profit that the USA extracts with its crimes.

The most recent example include the profits from Venezuelan oil:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgn7p7g79wo

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/trump-administration-manda...

That money is held in a US treasury account. In February the estimated price from the first 50 M barrels was $2.8bn... with the USA+Israel bombing of Iran, the price of course would have increased since.

> It is not clear what portion of the revenues from the sale - which analysts expect to raise about $2.8bn (£2.1bn) - would be shared with Venezuela.

But let's assume that the USA is going to retain "only" 5% of it: that's still 140 million $ of money flowing in, in perpetuity.

Not to mention that having control of the whole 2.8 billion $ also buys further room for loan and deals made on the USA's preferred currency and preferred terms... Or the expropriation of CITGO.

Of course, that money flowing in will be mostly in the pocket of Trump itself, of the billionaires surrounding him, of the military industrial complex (you have to replenish the weapons stockpiles, after all) and all of the federal contractors (that includes most of the FAANG!)... Lots of people in the USA "labor aristocracy" are going to see material benefit from it.

Ultimately, there's still going to be lots of poor people in the USA who won't be able to afford insulin, and there's going to be lots of resentment abroad (not only in Venezuela)... And one could split hair that Maduro's kidnapping is in the USA's interest, but not in its "best interest" (or similarly trying to argue a no-true-scotman for the definition of "USA's interest")

Not to mention, but it's not only Trump's: it's everyone who he surrounds himself with: JD Vance, Pam Bondi (until a few days ago?), Pete Hegseth, the military generals that didn't get kicked out by Hegseth, etc.

They're all complicit, and they're all going along with him.

And of course, if the Democrats will return to power in the next few elections, I don't expect them to relinquish the leverage and resources that Trump got them, just like Obama and Biden didn't pull out of Afghanistan for several years.

Of course, we saw with AIPAC and JStreet that US lobbying is seeing tons of money from abroad: but those are two different faces of the same medal: the oligarchs and the bourgeoisie have common interests across different countries, and the USA is definitely influencing politicians abroad as much, if not more, than moneyed interests abroad are influencing politicians in the USA.

The problem is not only Trump

[mr_toad]

> That money is held in a US treasury account. In February the estimated price from the first 50 M barrels was $2.8bn... with the USA+Israel bombing of Iran, the price of course would have increased since.

That’s chicken feed compared to the amounts that have been wiped off the stock markets.

[AngryData]

I mean on their own those are nice numbers, but you also have to add in the extra military costs of blowing crap up and it starts to seem like chump change to me. We just had a 1.5 trillion defense spending proposal.

[9dev]

> that's still 140 million $ of money flowing in, in perpetuity.

Oh hey, that's roughly enough to cover for Trump's new renovation plans!

[rapind]

> The problem is not only Trump

Trump, if the US makes it through this administration, might be a boon longterm if it wakes up the populace. The blatantly obvious corruption and grift might just do the trick. Those are some pretty big ifs though.

[hax0ron3]

I disagree with probably the majority of Trump's main policy ideas, but I think a strong case can be made that his immigration policies are in the country's best interests. Not all of them, but as a whole.

[idiotsecant]

Immigrants are the lifeblood of America and always have been. Reject them and you lose what literally made America great.

Do you think, on average, a native born American is more useful to America than one who moves here?

[hax0ron3]

Currently, probably yes. If American immigration policy was reshaped to favor immigration of people from high-performing societies, then it would be the opposite.

[idiotsecant]

What color are the people in these 'high performing societies'? I think I have a guess.

Did 'high performing societies' build the railroads? Mine the steel? Forge it? Did 'high performing societies' build the culture we enjoy today?

Here's a secret that you should know but evidently life has never taught you: people who have to struggle to survive are generally smarter, more vigorous, more honorable people. They understand the toll in sweat and blood that the wrong decision takes. They are exactly who we need.

We don't need a nation of pampered trust fund man-children, turning up their delicate noses at everyone not a member of a 'high performing society'.

[InsideOutSanta]

Immigration in general is good for a country, and relatively uncontrolled immigration is one of the reasons for America's prior economic strength.

Even if you disagree, Trump's policies have not been effective at anything, apart from creating headlines.

These same headlines have secondary negative effects for the US, like hurting international tourism.

[Larrikin]

Why do you think that?

[hax0ron3]

Illegal immigration brings masses of people from more corrupt, disordered, and perhaps lower average intelligence societies into the US in conditions that make it hard for even the ones who are capable of assimilation to assimilate. It also constitutes a massive flouting of the law for the benefit of business, which sets a bad precedent and lowers public trust in institutions. It also contributes to rising racial tensions that encourage the growth of ethnic tribalism and weaken trust in liberalism.

[avidiax]

If you really want to get rid of illegal immigrants, you don't need ICE doing sweeps.

Just make them unemployable. Setup an effective employment eligibility system, and require that employers verify the workers in the system before any payment over $100. Collect biometrics from workers and verify against IRS records. Employers that flout this get fines of 10x wages paid, up to N% of revenue, and maybe jailtime for owners and managers that knowingly violate.

What we have in the U.S. is a bunch of people and politicians loudly decrying illegal immigration and illegal employment, but enjoying the fruits of that illegal employment while paying a fraction of what legal workers would have to be paid.

There's huge appetite for a police state against the little guy, and no appetite for that same police state against business owners and managers.

[AnthonyMouse]

There's a better way than that. The way the US tax system actually works is incredibly misleading:

1) We pretend to have an income tax but then make it work like a consumption tax in practice. Ordinary people put earnings in excess of spending in a 401k and defer the tax until they want to spend the money. Rich people defer capital gains indefinitely until they want to spend the money. It's an income tax on paper but a consumption tax in practice, and doing it that way is much more complicated than just using a consumption tax.

2) We pretend to have a progressive income tax, but then impose benefits phase outs that fully cancel out the difference in marginal rates between the poor and the rich. Convert the benefits to cash and eliminate the phase outs and you get something which is equally if not more progressive, significantly more efficient and dramatically less complicated.

So, you can throw all of that out and replace it with a flat rate consumption tax and a UBI and it would be as close to a Pareto optimal improvement as anything in politics ever is.

Which also makes a huge amount of headway against the illegal immigration problem, because another disadvantage of pretending to have an income tax is that it effectively subsidizes anyone paying people under the table since then they're not paying the tax. Whereas if people working under the table still have to pay the consumption tax on everything they buy, and they also don't receive the UBI because they're not lawful residents, they'd be at a disadvantage relative to ordinary citizens, instead of the existing system where breaking the rules makes you better off.

[mothballed]

The tax code is inefficient on purpose. A simple uniform system is politically infeasible, due to the fact our political system relies on pretending to give special favors to every tailored interest group individually (making the tax code even bigger every time).

We arent at a loss of what to change to make it simpler/optimal. We're at a loss at how to make anyone proposing that not lose the election when everyone else is telling each group they'll lose their special carveous and how about I sweeten the deal some more.

[hax0ron3]

I agree that your idea would be better. That said, it is still quite possible that even Trump's immigration approach is overall more good than bad for the country.

[unsnap_biceps]

It's really not. They're deporting less people than Biden did during the same time[1]. They're spending record amounts of money per person deported as well.

I don't disagree that we should be deporting people faster, but this is not the way to accomplish that goal at all. Nor should we be building huge detention facilities. We should be making the process go smoother and faster, not holding people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_in_the_second_Trum...

[fakedang]

Trump's immigration approach is not an approach - it's just an excuse for him to create his own Gestapo.

What was the point of sending ICE, a "domestic" agency, to the Winter Olympics, or letting them take over duties from the TSA? What does an "Immigration and Customs Enforcement" agency have anything to do at a foreign country? What's the point of the Secret Service then?

[9dev]

> perhaps lower average intelligence societies

This is nothing but racism. Intelligence is distributed evenly across humanity.

On an unrelated note, how high do you think the rate of American citizens with literacy level 1 is?

[hax0ron3]

Intelligence at least as measured by IQ tests is not distributed evenly across humanity. Intelligence as measured by scientific achievements is also not distributed evenly across humanity. Now, this does not mean that intelligence is necessarily not distributed evenly across humanity. For example, I imagine that Germans in 1 AD probably had about the same innate biological intelligence level as Germans in 1800. Yet Germans in 1 AD had few intellectual achievements, whereas in 1800 were some of the most intellectually achieving people in the world. So clearly there is more going on than just biologically innate intelligence. Yet certainly there is some good reason to believe that some human groups have more innate biological intelligence potential than others. I don't think it's racism to claim this. It would be racism to advocate, for example, for treating a high-performing person like a low-performing person because he comes from a low-performing ethnic group. Which I'm not. Like I said in another comment, my attitude to illegal immigration is neutral. But from the point of view of what is best for the United States as a country, which is different from what I personally want, I think it's probably best to encourage immigration of average-high-intelligence groups rather than average-low-intelligence ones.

[tptacek]

I don't think you'll be able to provide evidence for the uneven distribution of IQ across nationalities.

[throw0101c]

> Illegal immigration brings masses of people from more corrupt, disordered […]

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." — Donald Trump, June 16, 2015

* https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-f...

Never mind that illegal/undocumented immigrants have lower crime and incarceration rates than native-born Americans:

* https://www.cato.org/blog/why-do-illegal-immigrants-have-low...

* https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014704117

[rapind]

What blows my mind is how liberals and progressives (of which I count myself a member) don't see to care that this is the policy that pushed Trump into office. Without it he would have flopped with just his MAGA core.

All you need to do to fix illegal immigration is to go after the employers. You know, actually enforce the laws. Streamline it. Declare it a national emergency and put more onerous requirements on businesses to verify legal status. Send ICE to businesses to investigate them instead of kidnapping people.

You'll probably find out pretty quickly that agriculture is extremely dependent on illegal labour, but so be it. Bring it into the light and have an actual debate. The current approach is all for show, or at worst, intimidation.

[rootusrootus]

The dems spend a disproportionate amount of effort courting tiny voting blocs (e.g. trans) and immigrants unable to vote at all. It is frustrating.

But it does seem to be what their base wants. Keeps the higher moral ground without the irritating responsibility to govern.