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[misko27]

Trump's goons are revving up the tyranny engine full-throttle

you should've destroyed the Tea Party when you had the chance

I'm not sure I would have taken Sergarr's goons beating up Tea partiers over this outcome, honestly. If you had your way, they'd finally have been proven right that there was a government conspiracy to suppress them, and the smugness would be too much for my poor heart to bear.

you didn't, and now they will destroy you

Well when we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

Oceana has ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia, anything else is not goodfact citizen!

The future will be better tomorrow.

[Sergarr]

Trump's goons are revving up the tyranny engine full-throttle

you should've destroyed the Tea Party when you had the chance

I'm not sure I would have taken Sergarr's goons beating up Tea partiers over this outcome, honestly. If you had your way, they'd finally have been proven right that there was a government conspiracy to suppress them, and the smugness would be too much for my poor heart to bear.

Better having some oppression than having raging lunatics terrorizing the country. And before you say "but Benjamin said that freedom > security all the time", existence of police proves that wrong.

Tea Party was just a few days away from destroying the entire world's economy with default for their petty gain, none of the actual terrorist groups have even got close to being able to do that much damage.

[McTraveller]

I think you guys miss a lot of the point. I think the problem with the Democratic party is they come across as "we know better than you" which offends people, even if the ideas they propose are actually good.  The Republican / Tea Party seems to be more like "eh, we'll tell you what you want to hear" and then go and do their own thing.

The Democrat party wholly and entirely has an image issue, not a policy one, and I'd say the Republican party has more a policy issue than an image one, though they still have a pretty significant image issue - so that's kind of telling.

Both parties, though, have the fundamental issue in that they are trying to, generally speaking, decide rules and policies to which large groups of people are subject when those large groups might not like those rules.  It's exacerbated by the fact that, because it's government, it's essentially saying "even though you don't want to do this, we're going take your resources (taxes) to do it anyway, and we'll prevent you from doing some things you want to do by restrictive policies."  It doesn't even matter if those policies are good and helpful on the whole or not - it's the feeling of "I'm being forced to pay for something with no consideration to how I think" thing.

It's a side effect of the unwillingness of the parties to compromise, which sends the message that individuals don't need to compromise, so you end up with all these people just stonewalling and saying "I'm right, you're wrong, I'm going to take my ball and go home, and when I'm in power, I'm going to take down all your castles and build my own instead."  Progress halts.

So forget about the nonsense about "why did we lose the election" and all that kind of status-related nonsense.  Instead focus on how we can bring people together and solve problems, regardless of the party label.

[Frumple]

One of the parties being unwilling to compromise. Do get that straight, heh. Chunk of the dem's legislative problems the last decade or two (at least) has been a willingness to compromise... when the other side involved is a bad faith actor that doesn't intend to keep their side of things going at all. You want to bring people together substantially, you're going to have to figure out how to fix that latter bit. Lotta' folks want to compromise, but they start getting prickly when it sequentially buggers them.

The way it's being argued in here makes it sound like there's absolutely no hope for these places and the only fate is to become ghost towns. I know frumple is saying otherwise, but at the same time, possible solutions keep getting shot down.

*shrugs* Maybe those towns just weren't meant to be. There's no rule that says there needs to be a way to solve this problem. Maybe there isn't, at least not for a price we are willing to pay.

Oi, don't get what I'm saying wrong. There's still going to be rural towns, for all sorts of varying reasons. You're still going to have economic enclaves (or whatever they end up being called) based around whatever crap can operate under the burden of working in those conditions and maintain competitiveness, and there's going to be a fair chunk of folks out there willing to pay the extra costs involved in order to live outside a city. It's just that, yeah, a lot of these places are going to become ghost towns. It's going to take freakishly unlikely shit happening for the rural/lower density populations to be able to maintain quantity and quality of life with the demographics it has now and in the areas they're in now, much less grow in a way it's not functionally dying because it's staying relatively static when everything else isn't.

Solutions that are going to be able to work are pretty much known, and have been for a while now. You have to retrain, you have to reorganize the economies of the areas (that can manage it) around industries that aren't (as) effected by the economic problems involved (i.e. close to nothing that involves physical goods, little that involves a lot of necessary interpersonal wheeling and dealing, etc., etc.), you have to get the portions of the population that will necessarily be unable to manage that (because there's going to be less jobs out here, and they're going to be pretty damn different for a lot of folks, too) either some sort of support or the means and willingness to go somewhere that they can support themselves through work they can manage.

You need education investment, subsidies and government investment (because it's going to take an actor that's not operating off profit motive to spearhead this, period) in said industries to get them to critical mass and start investing in these areas under their own volition in meaningful amounts, welfare and various sorts of other easement that either makes the movement involved with that tenable for families that currently can't afford it without functionally destroying themselves financially or make the lower income folks stuck in these shitholes not have to live like shit because of it (and so might just be able to start accruing the resources necessary to get out or transition to an industry more able to support them). Way to get low expertise folks to realize and accept that they're not (all, anyway) going to be able to live a good life on that, anymore and particularly out here, and how to live with that. Lot of these areas are still going to be screwed, because there ain't a single damn thing you can do about that that's going to be particularly sustainable, but that's how you get the populations in them a path forward. Gonna' be a fair amount of that that paths to somewhere else, location and living style wise, but that's seriously about all we really got that'll work on the scale we need it to.

Problem's getting people to do that, when it means more government involvement, less pride, a fair bit of pulling up your roots on top of it, and a great deal of personal level uncertainty regardless. The fact that one of our two major political parties has spent the last few generations actively trying to sabotage the country's raw physical ability to deal with stuff like this doesn't exactly help either, heh.

[martinuzz]

In response to Trump scrapping an international abortion fund, our Dutch minister of developmental aid, Lilianne Ploumen, has founded a new international anti-abortion fund, which will help people in the 40 poor developing countries that just saw their funding scrapped by Trump, to get advise about family planning, and help with safe abortion.

She says : "I know this might be kicking against Trump's sore leg but I don't care. The interest of millions of women, especially those in poor African countries are much more important than mr Trump. Banning abortion does not lead to less abortions. It leads to more of the abortions being carried out in dark rooms, and more deaths of pregnant mothers. With this measure I intend to compensate for the financial blow of Trump's measure, so women can be in charge of their own body. I fully respect mr Trumps descision on the matter, but that does not mean I agree, or have to act in accordance."

Trump's decree has left aid organisations in Africa with a sudden hole in their budget of 600 million dollars. Ploumen hopes to raise as much money before too long, with a broad coalition of the willing behind her proposal.

[McTraveller]

...scrapping an international abortion fund...

I don't know about this one actually - my initial response is why the heck would a country be spending its taxpayer's money on social programs in other countries at all?  I don't care if it's abortion or hotwheels collectibles; why is our *government* spending money like that?  If people want to support that kind of thing in other countries, go ahead, but why is that a federal government thing?

[misko27]

Trump's goons are revving up the tyranny engine full-throttle

you should've destroyed the Tea Party when you had the chance

I'm not sure I would have taken Sergarr's goons beating up Tea partiers over this outcome, honestly. If you had your way, they'd finally have been proven right that there was a government conspiracy to suppress them, and the smugness would be too much for my poor heart to bear.

Better having some oppression than having raging lunatics terrorizing the country. And before you say "but Benjamin said that freedom > security all the time", existence of police proves that wrong.

Tea Party was just a few days away from destroying the entire world's economy with default for their petty gain, none of the actual terrorist groups have even got close to being able to do that much damage.

And the existence of police as an organ of legitimate state violence is one of democracies bigger internal tensions. Let me put it differently. Being in the Tea Party is not a crime. There exists no law that would imprison them, much less justify them being crushed. Using democracy to tank democracy is an accepted and necessary risk of democracy. You remind me a lot of Rousseau actually. He was the most radical of the liberals like John Locke, but where he differed was *after* achieving the perfect wonderful state of democracy he wanted, then he was perfectly fine with the use of the overwhelming power of state repression to crush those who foolishly thought they were not being represented.

Be thankful that the founding fathers had the foresight to gift upon us such a wonderful filibustering machine as Congress so as to keep Trump at bay. If Congress manages to stump the Trump where no one else could, I'll strongly consider taking back some of my many complaints about the system. And while Trump can do a lot of damage with executive orders, we'll live if that's it.

In response to Trump scrapping an international abortion fund, our Dutch minister of developmental aid, Lilianne Ploumen, has founded a new international anti-abortion fund, which will help people in the 40 poor developing countries that just saw their funding scrapped by Trump, to get advise about family planning, and help with safe abortion.

This sentence confuses me.

...scrapping an international abortion fund...

I don't know about this one actually - my initial response is why the heck would a country spending its taxpayer's money on social programs in other countries at all?  I don't care if it's abortion or hotwheels collectibles; why is our *government* spending money like that?  If people want to support that kind of thing in other countries, go ahead, but why is that a federal government thing?

It's a pittance is why. $600 million is pocket change for the federal government. Paul Ryan has trillion-dollar hole in his tax budget due to Trump's policies. Nasa, one of the smallest departments in the government, has an annual budget of $18.4 billion. Meanwhile, it does an important job of improving conditions abroad (which, if you see the migration crisis in Europe, should be self-evidently important) why improving the US's international standing and prestige, while allowing the US to have some say and influence abroad in those countries and provide it's experience. And of course, if it's UN related they obviously don't do self-funding. And, again, pocket-change. Trump could loan you that himself!

[martinuzz]

In response to Trump scrapping an international abortion fund, our Dutch minister of developmental aid, Lilianne Ploumen, has founded a new international anti-abortion fund, which will help people in the 40 poor developing countries that just saw their funding scrapped by Trump, to get advise about family planning, and help with safe abortion.

Ohshi.. good catch. Dunno why I wrote 'anti-'. Let me go back and fix that in the original post hehe.

[smjjames]

In response to Trump scrapping an international abortion fund, our Dutch minister of developmental aid, Lilianne Ploumen, has founded a new international anti-abortion fund, which will help people in the 40 poor developing countries that just saw their funding scrapped by Trump, to get advise about family planning, and help with safe abortion.

Ohshi.. good catch. Dunno why I wrote 'anti-'. Let me go back and fix that in the original post hehe.

Maybe you meant anti anti-abortion? heh

[McTraveller]

$600 million is pocket change for the federal government.

$600M here, $600M there, now you're talking real money!

[MrRoboto75]

small loan of 600 million dollars

[Silverthrone]

It was, it would seem, incredibly shrewd of the Trump campaign to turn itself into a way-of-life movement and an identity. An awful lot of people have invested a lot of their own personalities into Trump's presidency, and once you have done that, they cannot do wrong.

People who would never ordinarily tolerate such nonsense as "alternative facts" appear to be prepared to overlook and forgive it, in various ways. Such as "Oh, but mass media didn't do better", or "Other presidents have done it, chill out!", or "Who cares, it's just the inauguration numbers!". Shutting up the departments that he does not like becomes a positive, and emphasising environmental concerns a negative. Because that is what happens when you identify too deeply with such things; You are right, thus it is right, and those against it are wrong. And more to the point, against what you are, against you.
Thus, for instance, 'pussy grabbing' does not apply as harassment, or a grotty and unworthy action for a presidential candidate. It becomes a minor little thing that happened years ago, and furthermore, is also probably a lie by the [disagreeable parts of the media spectrum]. Very few other candidates and presidents in the past could have hoped to come out of that particular incident entirely unharmed.

Naturally, there is a lot more to the Trump presidency than just this. Claiming that TrumpLife^TM is what won the election is quite the same nonsense as the idea that some internet enthusiasts with disconnection issues managed to "meme" him into the presidency all on their own. It helped, no doubt, but is merely part of it all.
And, of course, it is not something new. Not historically nor recently. Barack Obama had quite the help from a similar effect. That effect was vital to allow Putin to claim the throne. However, President Trump knows branding very well (and is, effectively, a walking, talking brand himself by now, rather than an individual), and know precisely how to stoke and direct it. There is a lot of faith and self-value invested in him, and he is jolly well going to use it.

[LoSboccacc]

it has to be said tho that minor things have been blown out of proportion by the presses in one of the largest smear campaigns the free world ever witnessed, creating this situation where actual, major issues with Trump persona are drown in the noise.

Like have you seen the video proof of Trump crowd? there's a big jump if you look at the clock from before to after the inauguration. Trump couldn't had as many viewers as Obama, that's for sure*, but it doesn't help proving a point constantly trying to manipulate raw data into a narrative. And the more they do, the worse it'll get.

What I don't understand is that they don't need to do that, they have enough bad stuff as it is against him.


* being friday vs sunday, being in a leftist city, rioters scaring people, area being blocked off, Trump being unpopular, what have you, there's no chance Trump could have had more.

[Neonivek]

The media might be terrible, but Trump plays them like a fiddle.

Well... It is easy to play a self-playing piano.

Talking as if the media are acting against their interests. When it is more that Trump is giving them everything they want, while also making sure they don't do anything he doesn't want.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

However, President Trump knows branding very well (and is, effectively, a walking, talking brand himself by now, rather than an individual), and know precisely how to stoke and direct it.

Of course.  A large number of the places labelled 'Trump' are not owned by him or his family, but instead lease the usage of the name from him in order to get prestige it holds as a brand which goes on to provide a good amount of money for him.