What has Trump done now?

[Marty_d]

Let's not forget that these idiots elected him.  Twice.

 

They knew what they were getting the second time.  So either they decided they wanted him anyway or were to lazy to vote against him.

[rgmwa]

His approval rating has actually gone up over the last three weeks even though his net approval rating is still negative by about 5%. His ‘big, beautiful bill’ that makes the rich richer and cuts Medicade has just scraped through the House by one vote, the bond yield has gone up again, stocks seem to be on their way down and they have lost their triple-A credit rating so it probably won’t be long before his approval rating goes south again. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Apparentl Walmart increased their prices and he ripped right into them.. The party of the free market..pffft!

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-walmart-eat-tariffs-prices-b2753079.html

 

Now, he looks to be screwing the American economy.. when prices rise and employment falls, and the poop hits the fan, he will probably come under quite some pressure. By then, it will eb too late because of economc lag/inertia.

 

But, it isn't his fault.. It is the fault of the people who knew, or should bloody well ought to have known what he was going to do... andf still voted him in..

 

Feel sorry for the vast minority of Americans that voted the other way.. But the democratsa did shoot themselves in the foot.

[red750]

I can't get over the unbridaled hatred MAGA supporters have for moderates and Democrats. FB comments by them in reply to some of the articles I copy and post, or to other comments, is vitriolic and downright threatening. And some of the things we take as normal, like Medicare, PBS medications, Centrelink benefits is considered to be communist. We can have idealogical differences between left and right here, but it doesn't come anywhere near as aggressive as I have seen in the States.

[facthunter]

Give it time and it will if 2GB and Murdoch have their way.  R.G. Menzies would be  a Leftist today. Nev

[red750]

Melania Trump has created a contoversial legal precedent by co-signing a peice of legislation with her husband.

 

https://www.wownews.info/archives/8561

[Marty_d]

The Maga movement is a far right cult. It's the modern equivalent of the Brownshirts in 1930s Germany.

The rest of the USA needs to wake up and fight this movement before it's too late. Their democracy is already fractured by this evil man and his followers. It will shatter completely if they don't stand up to it 

[rgmwa]

The German population didn’t stand up to Hitler and the Brownshirts and the non-MAGA US population is no better organised unfortunately. The country’s best hope is Trump’s stupidity and incompetence.

[old man emu]

I watched a video about the causes of WWI. At one part it was talking about Kaiser Wilhelm. It said that he was bombastic. Liked pomp and circumstance and getting about in lavish uniforms. He would make a proclamation today and rescind it tomorrow. As I was hearing this I could only think of Trump.

[Jerry_Atrick]

In criminal law, when waorking out the mental element, there are two lenses the law will look at when judging an act - would a rational person have done the same thing.. and would an average person have done the same thing. When you think that these concepts have developed over centuries, the law at least things the average person does not quite hit the standard of the rational person. The notions of both are, of course subjective. And, the rationality of someone will depend on the context. For example, the builder I use is completely rational when it comes to building and has done some amazing things very innovatively. However, when it comes to managing his financial affairs, he is almost completely irrational. Sadly, a lot of people have little interest in politics, apart from the fact they know they are getting screwed by the system. Juts watch Punter Poltiics or Gary's Economics on youtube for some great content about how the average person is getting screwed to the benefiit of corporations and high net-worth individuals.

 

Regardless of who gets in, nothing really changes. Things are marginally better under moderate governments (they are hardly left wing), but the status quo remains. And when governments are tight for money, they squeeze the average people harder... The impact is crushing, people are more pissed off as they see all of the concessions given to the upper end of town when they don't really need it.. The resentment to all sides of politics grows, but they aren't interested enough to delve into it. The sensational press, paid for by the corporates, etc, seed hatred with headlines and, if the readers care to read further, out of context reporting or downright lies, of which it is rare any press regulator holds them truly to account. Of course, the press are sowing hatred in sensatiuonalising things, and the leaders, who often lack moral compasses, use sound bytes to futher the division as they know most people won't hear beyond them. Chump is the consummate.. Sleepy Joe Biden, etc.. Even the trade wars, where he managed to convince his follwers that the exporters would pay them and not jack up their prices.. And let's not forget personal prejudices, which are often passed on from the generation before..  Cast your mind back to your school days.. Dagos, wogs (skips was a much later term), jews, slope-heads, etc.. Kids don't just hatch prejudices.

 

All of this is mixing together with an increasing wealth and social gap, conditioned to believe it is the fault if immigrants, education, progressiveness (now called woke), etc (that is not to say there aren't issues in these things, but they are not the root cause of the issues of wealth and social gaps, and being squeezed out). Muchof Europe was poor before WWII, but Germany was doing it worse because of the controls put on them after WWi. This continual opression led to resentment, which led to acquiescence, if not support of third reich (riech meaning empire). Similar type of language to today - grand sounding, etc. People were pissed off, saw some early improvements when the Nazis took over, and thought this is better than what they had, so lets roll with it. Like Chump, the Nazis started subliminaly dismantling protections and freedoms, and it wasn't until it was too late, the sleepy average person woke up.

 

The same is happening in the USA today. It is partially the failure of the moderates. For all their chest beating of levelling things up and working more the average American, there has been not much in the years they have been in place. Yes, it wasn't as bad as the Republicans, but that doesn't mean things have improved. The minimum wage hasn't moved since 2008, and there have been democrat and republican givernments in that time. Medicaid/Obama Care was a game changer, but, like the abortion issue, only impacts those that are sick enough to need to use it. Otherwise, under both administrations, it has been getting harder and harder for the lower and middle, and easier and easier for the wealthy.

 

So, it does not surprise me that the majority support, or acquiesce to MAGA. I know Trumps ratings are negative at the moment, but when push comes to shove in the USA, who are they all going to vote for. I don't hink anyone picked the win like it was - both houses and the presidecy. It was a sharp rebuke The voter turnout amoongst the eligible population was the same as the last population, significantly up against historical elections, while the percentage against the total population of voting age was down from the last election, but looks around average historically, so increased voter apathy cannot be used as an excuse.

 

It is only going to get uglier before it gets better. But the world is now crying out for leaders who will take bold steps to improve the living standards of the majority of the population and deal with the iussues faced by most of the population. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any willing to do this, at least in the time required to do so.

[Marty_d]

Interesting talk from an historian on the radio the other day, about the why civilisations fall.

He reckons it's inequality. When a country / city state / whatever has true equality, it's stronger. Everyone has a stake in the status quo.

However when you get growing inequality and only those with wealth and power are invested in the status quo, things go bad.

[rgmwa]

America is the epitome of the Land of Inequality. 

[Red]

Greenland gives Mr Sh1t for brains the finger.

Probably the reason behind his latest tariff threat to Europe.

Well done Greenland, our Spineless PM should take note.

 

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/greenland-dumps-donald-trump-signs-lucrative-minerals-deal-with-europe-in-a-major-blow-to-the-president/articleshow/121364193.cms

[onetrack]

I was under the impression, Chump wanted Greenland for it's reputed reserves of rare earth minerals?? But here we have Europeans searching for anorthosite?

 

Despite myself being a former miner and reasonably cluey on minerals, I've never heard of anorthosite - but a little Googling shows the Europeans regard it as the Holy Grail for a waste-free source of Alumina, Silica and Calcium Oxide - with all three minerals being in demand.

 

The apparent beauty of anorthosite is its ability to supply a good amount of alumina with no environmentally-unfriendly waste product, as current bauxite mining for alumina does.

We mine a lot of bauxite here in Western Australia for alumina, and the waste product from bauxite processing is a toxic red mud with corrosive high alkalinity, and containing dangerous levels of heavy metals.

The red mud is currently stored in large tailings dams and no-one has found a use for it, nor can it be successfully re-processed to produce anything economically.

 

In another twist, the Appalachian Mts contain large reserves of anorthosite! 

[nomadpete]

Wow. The plot thickens.

[pmccarthy]

There was a plan to use red mud to neutralise acid mine drainage from old dumps. But the regulators couldn’t get their heads around that idea.

[kgwilson]

Tell Trump our red mud is full or rare earth minerals & he can have it cheap for less than 1k/tonne plus 20% tariff.😀

[Marty_d]

... Or start the bargaining at $2k/ton plus 40% tariff so he thinks he's getting a bargain.

[nomadpete]

They are practising a less obvious policy of eugenics.

The elite (wealthiest) designate themselves as 'chosen ones'.

 

In order to 'save the human race' the elites must breed up, and let the weakest die off.

So, they stop wasing money supporting the vulnerable individuals - they only weaken the race anyway.

[rgmwa]

He was talking to the press at the weekend saying he is very annoyed with Putin for continuing to bomb Ukraine. He apparently can't understand what's got into Putin. He was a good friend of his but now he can't understand why Putin won't stop fighting. 

What a complete moron.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-26/donald-trump-launches-putin-tirade-over-russia-kyiv-attacks/105336682

 

It shows he has little understanding of politics at all.. especially foreign affairs (except of the intimate type, I guess, given his wives come fro Eastern Europe..)

 

Putin has back pedalled on everything he said he would do, and he can't work out what has gone wrong with Putin - he has known him for years and you're fake news...

 

If it wasn't America, it would be a comedy.. But I guess there is one thing to come out of it, a reduced American relevance

[rgmwa]

I think it shows his inability to comprehend that while he believes he’s the envy of all and the smartest person in the room, the reality is most the rest of the world sees how weak he is. The narcissist can’t see how he can be wrong about anything, which makes him easy to manipulate. Putin and Zelensky and many other world leaders have worked him out long ago but unfortunately he likes Putin and doesn’t like Zelensky. 

[onetrack]

Trump thrives on all the lightweight stuff, he's as shallow as a birdbath in midsummer. He's a BS-artist of the highest level, has zero credibility as regards anything he says or promises ("I will end the Ukraine War on Day One"), totally reverses decisions in breathtakingly rapid time, is totally consumed by his own opinions, and is easily influenced or changes direction merely by stroking his ego.

 

But by far, the most frightening part of Trumps personality is the way he worships wealth and uses the Presidency as a simple extension of his business aims. His promotion of cryptocurrency (the favourite haunt of drug syndicates and global crime gangs) and his constant massaging of the uber-wealthy, should be ringing alarm bells all through the U.S. Govt and legal circles.

 

Trump dinners with billionaires - https://www.wired.com/story/people-paying-millions-donald-trump-mar-a-lago/

 

But no-one does anything about it, because he also thrives on bullying, abuse and threatening behaviour that is exacerbated by the massive power he wields. His use of "executive orders" is frightening, he's found he can use "executive orders" to do anything he wants, and uses them to bypass all the normal Governmental controls.

 

In times past, Presidential executive orders were rarely used, and only in extreme cases of urgent and critical decision-making. Roosevelt was the only other big user of executive orders, but Roosevelt was a humanitarian individual and did what was needed to assist his fellow Americans.

Roosevelt only used the majority of his executive orders during the Great Depression and during WW2, periods that did require urgent and major decisions.

[facthunter]

He's a sucker for flattery and  tolerates NO opposition and IS losing his Judgement IF he EVER had Much. HE is using office for Personal power and Money. In the dictionary under Corrupt HE should be shown as an example of the extreme form. USA , What have you DONE.? USA's reputation is trashed world wide and what about the Debt?  Nev

[red750]

Love your birdbath simile, onetrack, spot on.