Hey! Non-Americans!

Vompatti wrote: It seems a lot of leftists are jealous of a powerful and dangerous man like him.

This comment is almost completely meaningless. It barely warrents a reply, but I'd like to invite you to expand. If you can.

I don't think it's jealousy. Regardless of his power the man is transparrently not fit for purpose.

Blacksword wrote: Vompatti wrote: It seems a lot of leftists are jealous of a powerful and dangerous man like him. This comment is almost completely meaningless. It barely warrents a reply, but I'd like to invite you to expand. If you can. I don't think it's jealousy. Regardless of his power the man is transparrently not fit for purpose.

What Vompatti says makes sense to me. His childish behaviour shows that, not only for his complete lack of diplomacy and political view, but at first place by his total lack of an in-depht dealing with presidential issues.

Peter wrote: Yep, Sean--that cartoon says it all. I especially like how the globe is about to fall. Nice touch!

chopper wrote: Some of the stuff he puts on Twitter is unbelievable. I also liked the mental test he passed in which he had to tell the time and identify a lion. What I'm wondering is - is he really as stupid as he appears to be? (A bit like Boris really).

Depends how you measure stupid. He's run big businesses with varying degrees of success over the years, so he must have something between his ears. That's not automatically a qualification to run a country, of course. I'm inclined to think he's merely a charmless, crass arsehole who doesn't give a sh*t what people think, has no social skills and an enormous fragile ego from a lifetime of getting what he wants. For that reason alone he is unsuitable for the top job. That is self evident IMO.

People forget, he was voted into power not by an overwhelming majority of American people, but thanks to the electoral college votes. There was no mass appetite for change as his fanboys would claim; merely a mistrust of Hillary Clinton; for good reason IMO. Had the dems fielded a better candidate they would have won, but such is their vanity and desperation to shoehorn any woman into office to affirm their PC credentials, they blew it, then acted all shocked and hurt afterwards.

Yeah I don't think the Dems would've won with the best of 'em--  the angry frustrated culturalist xenophobic jingoists won the day.

SteveG wrote: ^ Wasn't the popular voting 51% for Hillary, 49% for Trump. That's no small minority!

Ok, I didn't realise it was that tight. The voter turnout was high too, over 58% IIRC.

It does seem bizarre, at least to many outsiders, that there would such a cultural shift from one extreme to the other over 8 years.

Blacksword wrote: chopper wrote: Some of the stuff he puts on Twitter is unbelievable. I also liked the mental test he passed in which he had to tell the time and identify a lion. What I'm wondering is - is he really as stupid as he appears to be? (A bit like Boris really). Depends how you measure stupid. He's run big businesses with varying degrees of success over the years, so he must have something between his ears. That's not automatically a qualification to run a country, of course. I'm inclined to think he's merely a charmless, crass arsehole who doesn't give a sh*t what people think, has no social skills and an enormous fragile ego from a lifetime of getting what he wants. For that reason alone he is unsuitable for the top job. That is self evident IMO. People forget, he was voted into power not by an overwhelming majority of American people, but thanks to the electoral college votes. There was no mass appetite for change as his fanboys would claim; merely a mistrust of Hillary Clinton; for good reason IMO. Had the dems fielded a better candidate they would have won, but such is their vanity and desperation to shoehorn any woman into office to affirm their PC credentials, they blew it, then acted all shocked and hurt afterwards.

zachfive wrote: A good place to take this conversation would be to talk about how bad the electoral college is and what we can do to fix it or get a new system. At the very least we need to get rid of this gerrymandering BS.

Well, that is a conversation for Americans, obviously--no one else can or should make that change happen.

That was not the purpose of this thread. (Anyone is free to start such a thread, though.)

This thread had one simple purpose: faced with a daily barrage of American voices on the subject from CNN (who don't seek out many opinions from outside) I just wanted to hear from some folks from overseas, and I have convenient access to some smart, thoughtful ones here. US politics has a global impact, so I wanted to get a better sense of how various countries and peoples are responding to the current administration.

I got the ball rolling with my strong feelings on it, but diverse opinions are welcome--I'm not here to pick a fight or tell people they are wrong.

Thanks for your input!

Edited by Peter - January 24 2018 at 06:43

So, Vompatti, attacking the press as "the enemy of the people" (and thus encouraging vigilante attacks upon the real people in the press), attacking the judiciary, attacking the FBI and CIA, stirring up Palestinian rage, pointing the finger of fear and anger at Hispanics as "the other," putting your family in the Whitehouse as if they are royalty, and cozying up to America's biggest enemy and the most powerful dictator in the world are insignificant political changes?