Originally Posted by BlackBellamy
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Sure you can! But it's the same pizza wherever you go. Biden pizza. Clinton pizza. Obama deep dish, but it's all the same. Trump is the Hawaiian pizza of pizzas. Everyone has an extreme opinion about the ham and pineapple, there is no middle ground. But at least that last pie is fun.
Trump is corrupt. Here is my list of recent administrations in corruption order: Bush II, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Trump, Obama, Ford, Bush I, Reagan, Carter. He's right in the middle for me. Opinions might differ, but I place low-level self-aggrandizement and nepotism a lot lower on the scale than blatant pay-for-play Clinton Foundation shenanigans or starting a war and actually legalizing torture so that your friends in Halliburton can get paid.
I hear your points. Most of them are just opinions like mine. You say he handled the Covid crisis badly and his focus is wrong but I disagree. I don't think anyone would have handled it any better and that too much reliance on scientists is a good way to get yourself killed. Like the Sith, scientists only think in absolutes. Scientists shouldn't be in charge of anything. You say he's pardoning people who obstructed investigations, but personally I'm absolutely horrified what happened to Roger Stone and I wouldn't have Trump's discipline in waiting until afterwards to commute his sentence. I don't think anyone other than Stone that Trump pardoned was in any way involved with him.
The only thing I'm going to have to disagree hard on a factual basis is the international situation. First your comment about legitimizing the Norks. North Korea is a legitimate sovereign nation-state and has been for a very long time. They have a border, armed forces and a government; they have international relations such as they are, they trade, and most importantly they can back up their nationhood with a giant pretty mushroom cloud. Not talking to them, not having relations with them is childish spite that does nothing except make them shoot missiles over Japan to show everyone they're still there. Trump went there, he talked to him a couple of times, they exchanged letters and sent a visitor back, it was real nice. Where is the disgrace? Oh we're descending to their level oh noes. We're not at their level. We're the mightiest of them all, but we should show some respect. We bombed the fuck out of them in the 50s and they came back stronger than ever. They took their respect, framed it, put it on the wall and stopped making noise. They've been recognized by the Master MC, the dream of every tin-pot nation and aspiring rapper everywhere.
I can give back on China, but you have to admit they hate him and haven't made any aggressive moves because they're not sure what he'll do. It was Obama's failed pivot-to-Asia that enraged them with our explicit talk of containment and their reaction was to build a dozen islands and claim the entire South China Sea. I like Trump's method, where he's just shitting on them constantly and banning their companies and arresting their executives and keeping them off-balance. I guess I'll take my containment like that.
But for Russia, you gotta pay attention. He fucked them economically. His sanctions screwed their off-shore oil business, they put a halt to the nearly-complete gas pipeline, and if you notice the ruble, which was on a solid run-up in the years before he got elected (thanks flexible Obama!) went into a free-fall in 2016 and has been doing pretty bad until very recently. Militarily I already mentioned the NATO expenditures, but we're also selling lethal weapons to the Ukronazis (I can't resist calling them that), and we effectively moved the eastern NATO border closer to him by 400 miles. There are US armored brigades practicing in Lithuania. Do you know the Poles are going to be getting the Abrams tank? Putin knows. His best buddy Lukashenko is having some kind of big crisis, and it's partly because our friends in the Ukraine (read: the CIA) put out ads in the Belarus media asking for Russian ex-soldiers who had combat experience in the Donbass to work as 'security' guards in some foreign land like Morocco for big bucks, and when they had 33 of them they put them up in a hotel, had them miss their flight, put them up in another hotel this close to Lukashenko's residence and then informed the Belarussian security forces that these guys were plotting a coup and the poor saps were promptly arrested and this caused a giant giant stink which destabilized everything because an enraged Putin pulled his support. The best is that the Ukraine immediately demanded formal extradition of those 33 guys because they were obvious Donbass war criminals, and those are some trials that Putin wants to avoid at all costs. Well played deliverers of lethal aid to the Ukraine, well played! There is a small chance that the Belarussian situation might cause the downfall of Putin. Now that would be some tasty four-dimensional cake!
We could do better than Trump, sure. I mean it's possible. I can't think of a single qualified individual in the entire world that could do the job better though. I mean I don't know everyone of course, but I'm given candidates by the parties, by the media, and they're like here you go, these are the men and women, go choose among them. I looked at everyone they gave us in 2016 both parties, and now 2020 same thing and what have you got? Not a single person with the executive experience, with a tough management style, no one with force and energy. No one just speaking their minds. All just a bunch of fucking caretakers and pretenders and one aging Communist. Every single one of them looks like a person who can't act until they confer, until they reach consensus, until enough people lick their assholes to tell them how right they are.
What saddens me the most I think is not the lack of qualified challengers for Trump but that there is no one waiting in the wings. Think about 2024. Who we're gonna get? Beto again? Haley? Gaetz? I mean I'm ready to vote for another television personality or whatever. Too bad Captain Picard can't run. Avery Brooks is gonna be 76, otherwise a sure vote from me. Brad Pitt? So handsome and just the right age but...yeah no. I wish Marlon Brando was alive. He knew about respect.
At least the spirit lives on.
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08-14-2020, 03:20 AM
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