President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Aquila89 » Sun May 06, 2018 8:32 am

Crimson847 wrote:First, there's more to her story than the affair. Specifically, her account is that she slept with Trump right around the time Barron was born. Cheating on your wife is one thing; cheating on her while she's in the hospital giving birth to your baby (or near as dammit to that) is a whole other level of shittiness.


Barron was born in March 2006, the encounter between Trump and Daniels allegedly happened in July 2006, so not so near it. It's not worse than Natasha Stoynoff's story who claims that Trump sexually assaulted her in December 2005 - while Melania was pregnant with Barron. Trump said Stoynoff (along with all the other accusers) is a liar, and his supporters either believed him or didn't care. It would've been the same with Stormy.

Crimson847 wrote:Then, according to her, Trump prevented her from publishing her story by having one of his buddies at the Enquirer do a "catch-and-kill" on it, and sent someone to threaten her in front of her daughter.


Yeah, according to her. Trump says she's lying, and his supporters believe him. I think it would've been no different in October 2016.

But this is a thing we could argue over endlessly, since there's no way to prove what would've happened. I can't imagine the story being a major influence on the election, no matter when it's released, but maybe you're right. We'll never know.
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Last edited by Aquila89 on Wed May 09, 2018 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby gisambards » Sun May 06, 2018 10:22 am

There's a real tendency to exaggerate the extent of Trump's ability to blag his way out of stuff. The election was actually very close. Another scandal for the Trump team could well have made a difference. While there is a core group of supporters who probably would let him get away with anything, they are far from the majority of people who voted for him.
Also of note is that the arguments for why the allegations against Trump didn't matter were based entirely on the credibility of those claims. They weren't excusing negative behaviour, they were denying it took place - they dismissed the women making allegations as liars, and with the Access Hollywood tape, the term "locker room talk" wasn't meant to suggest that bragging about sexual assault was okay, it was meant to indicate that what he was saying was all braggadocio with no basis in fact. As such, increasing evidence of misconduct would probably have begun to undermine that argument.

This narrative that Trump's victory was inevitable because of some sort of ability to overcome any scandal doesn't really hold water based on how the election actually went down. The scandals almost certainly were hurting Trump's chances, just not enough to counteract other factors that led to him winning.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Aquila89 » Sun May 06, 2018 10:27 am

gisambards wrote:Also of note is that the arguments for why the allegations against Trump didn't matter were based entirely on the credibility of those claims. They weren't excusing negative behaviour, they were denying it took place - they dismissed the women making allegations as liars


Yes, but I was trying to imagine what would have happened if Stormy Daniels hadn't been paid off. Without that, her allegations would not have been any more credible than the allegations of the women who accused Trump of sexual harassment, and would've been dismissed similarly.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby gisambards » Sun May 06, 2018 10:41 am

Aquila89 wrote:
gisambards wrote:Also of note is that the arguments for why the allegations against Trump didn't matter were based entirely on the credibility of those claims. They weren't excusing negative behaviour, they were denying it took place - they dismissed the women making allegations as liars


Yes, but I was trying to imagine what would have happened if Stormy Daniels hadn't been paid off. Without that, her allegations would not have been any more credible than the allegations of the women who accused Trump of sexual harassment, and would've been dismissed similarly.


Yes, in actuality, it probably wouldn't have made much of a tangible difference. But it could have, just as any scandal could. It's fairly hard to predict the outcome of a breaking scandal, as it's not uncommon for politicians to end up brought down by scandals that actually don't seem as bad as other stuff they're known to have done. And I'm more taking umbrage with the idea that Trump is scandal-proof. Yes, he's managed to argue his way out of most of them so far to the satisfaction of most of his voter base, but that doesn't mean they're not actually having an impact on the scores of undecided voters that actually decide elections.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Aquila89 » Sun May 06, 2018 12:23 pm

gisambards wrote: And I'm more taking umbrage with the idea that Trump is scandal-proof. Yes, he's managed to argue his way out of most of them so far to the satisfaction of most of his voter base, but that doesn't mean they're not actually having an impact on the scores of undecided voters that actually decide elections.


Since December 2017, Trump's approval rating has increased from 36,5% to 42%. Despite the Mueller investigation, despite the Stormy Daniels scandal, despite the high turnover rate of his administration, despite the dumb shit he says every other day, he's getting more popular.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby gisambards » Sun May 06, 2018 10:46 pm

Aquila89 wrote:
gisambards wrote: And I'm more taking umbrage with the idea that Trump is scandal-proof. Yes, he's managed to argue his way out of most of them so far to the satisfaction of most of his voter base, but that doesn't mean they're not actually having an impact on the scores of undecided voters that actually decide elections.


Since December 2017, Trump's approval rating has increased from 36,5% to 42%. Despite the Mueller investigation, despite the Stormy Daniels scandal, despite the high turnover rate of his administration, despite the dumb shit he says every other day, he's getting more popular.


This bump is likely mostly due to what are being considered by his supporters a series of foreign policy victories - and it's worth pointing out that the increase has been pretty negligible given that. He's selling it that he's pretty much solved the Korean crisis, while also standing up to Russia and targeting the Assad regime, and yet all that's done is make him go from abnormally low approval ratings to moderately low. If he was the dangerously unstoppable force he seems to keep being presented as, surely his approval ratings would be rocketing through the roof right now, scandals be damned?
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Mon May 07, 2018 12:42 am

I don't actually think the Stormy scandal matters: Everyone knows by now that Trump is a pretty shitty human being, it's kinda priced into their thoughts of him. While this does give me license to smirk all smugly at any religious type who voted for Trump--I may be a sinner, but at least we'll both be unethical together (and I won't be lying to myself about it)--it won't really make a dent in his approval. Hell, Newt Gingrich cheated on his...second? Third?...wife while she was going through chemo, and he's still pretty popular. And that was around twenty years ago. The 'moral majority' has never really been about the morality, just the policy, and that's what it is here.

As for the increase in approval, GDP and growth is looking good even if the tax bill has been predictably milquetoast. There's this North Korea thing (and he was actually on the outs before then, closing in on 40 flat) and he hasn't defended any white supremacists lately. He's even been--dare I say it--a little more boring on Twitter, or at least not dropping to new lows. And despite all that improvement, he's not really killing it on the approval rating. I suspect that Charlottesville, the Hollywood Access Tape, Comey, all that, it solidifies a low ceiling that I suspect is below 50%.

I don't believe Trump is Teflon or a genius, he just has the devil's luck. Just when he was about to slip below 40% again, a North Korean testing site collapsed and suddenly they're at the table.

With that said...I don't know. Everyone carps back to Nixon, where his support was pretty high until it suddenly wasn't and the GOP was protecting him until they suddenly weren't. I don't think the same would happen here as much as if it's proven that Trump colluded with Russia or the economy tanks, all the moderates and independents will go running for the hills and he'll probably be rocking a 30% approval rate.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Crimson847 » Mon May 07, 2018 1:27 am

From all indications, the first bump in his approval rating this year was due to the tax bill bringing NeverTrump Republicans home and generating a lot of good buzz for Republicans via the wave of corporate bonus announcements. It coincided with a major bump for the GOP on the generic ballot and a sudden change in attitude toward Trump among conservative skeptics.

The second bump in the past week is less clear. Looking at 538, most of the bump comes from just one poll: a recent Ipsos poll that produced a really bad result for Democrats on both Trump's approval rating and the generic congressional ballot. Until more polling data confirms that result, it may well just be statistical noise.

Assuming that poll is capturing something real, just from the timing I have two guesses. The first is that people are crediting Trump for North Korea's diplomatic overtures. The second is that people are starting to forget about the stuff the GOP passed last year. The public has always had a short memory, and it's been five months since the tax bill and eight months since the ACA repeal went down in flames.
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"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Crimson847 » Wed May 09, 2018 9:48 pm

An update on the above: the GOP's bump on the generic ballot is already receding considerably as new data comes in, but Trump's approval rating bump appears to be more enduring, which is more consistent with the North Korea explanation than the voter forgetfulness explanation.
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"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Aquila89 » Fri May 18, 2018 8:18 am

Bill Gates met Trump twice since he was elected, in December 2016 and in March 2017. He talked about these meetings recently at an event for his foundation:

So when I first talked to him it was actually kind of scary how much he knew about my daughter’s appearance. Melinda [Gates’s wife] didn’t like that too well.

In both of those two meetings, he asked me if vaccines weren’t a bad thing because he was considering a commission to look into ill-effects of vaccines and somebody – I think it was Robert Kennedy Jr – was advising him that vaccines were causing bad things. And I said no, that’s a dead end, that would be a bad thing, don’t do that.

Both times he wanted to know if there was a difference between HIV and HPV so I was able to explain that those are rarely confused with each other.


Gates was also weirded out by Trump's habit of referring to himself in the third person.

Well, let's look on the positive side - Trump didn't create a commission on the bad effects of vaccines.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby onewordlouder » Fri May 18, 2018 9:34 am

YET
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby blehblah » Sat May 19, 2018 2:59 pm

Aquila89 wrote:Bill Gates met Trump twice since he was elected, in December 2016 and in March 2017.

[SNIP]

Gates was also weirded out by Trump's habit of referring to himself in the third person.

Well, let's look on the positive side - Trump didn't create a commission on the bad effects of vaccines.


There was also this tidbit:

Gates told the audience how Trump had encountered his daughter Jennifer, now 22, at a horse show in Florida. “And then about 20 minutes later he flew in on a helicopter to the same place,” the Microsoft co-founder said. “So clearly he had been driven away but he wanted to make a grand entrance in a helicopter.”

Gates himself met Trump for the first time in New York in December 2016, he recalled: “So when I first talked to him it was actually kind of scary how much he knew about my daughter’s appearance. Melinda [Gates’s wife] didn’t like that too well.”


Yeah... awkward.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Windy » Wed May 23, 2018 11:18 am

Remember back in 2016 where we were all worshipping polls and then we found out the universe is a chaotic and unpredictable place and we have to discard everything we think we know about how the world works? Good times.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby Absentia » Wed May 23, 2018 6:28 pm

There was nothing wrong with the polls, we all just learned a valuable lesson about not ignoring the margin of error.
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Re: President Trump makes himself an even BIGGER asshole

Postby iMURDAu » Thu May 24, 2018 10:46 pm

Raising tariffs on imported vehicles and treating long time trade partners as if they're robbing us blind is only going to make the cost of vehicles go up in America.

You're the CEO of a furrin carmaker. You now have to pay extra to import vehicles. Will you pay the upgrade fee and pass it on to the end user or invest a jakillion dollars in a random U.S. city and hope the workforce doesn't try to unionize? You're passing the buck to the consumer or you're out of business.

Trump thinks there are dormant autoworkers just sitting there waiting to see the clouds spell out "Get Back To The Factory". That's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. He's like Dubya. Great for comedy not so much for the people living working in America.
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