I know a lot of Trumpies and none of them think along those lines. I don't know of anyone, Trumpy or otherwise, that sees the world economy or culture as a zero sum game. If some other country does well, it's not perceived to be at our expense. And while a lot of folks love the idea of the US military being so dominant, everyone's tired of paying for them to go wear themselves out in one campaign of nation-building after another. It's the NYT that laments the human cost of us failing to maintain order in some distant 3rd world country torn by violence, not the Trumpies.

What created the Trumpies, imo, was the romantic idea of a straight talking Washington outsider that was the antithesis of "business as usual". He was going to go in and kick ass and take names. All the entrenched interests were going to be packing their bags and hitting the road. He was a real person, as opposed to the typical politician that used politically correct platitudes to tell the immediate crowd what they wanted to hear.

I can see the charms of the ideas, but we ended up with a reality TV goof that makes most folks cringe every time he opens his mouth.



Great point.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

"He was a real person, as opposed to the typical politician that used politically correct platitudes to tell the immediate crowd what they wanted to hear.

I can see the charms of the ideas, but we ended up with a reality TV goof that makes most folks cringe every time he opens his mouth. "


What was interesting is that except for the point 1 percent, most Trumpers would never like a guy like Trump. I think they were looking for "something" and during the campaign he managed to make the voters that he was that something that they were looking for.

What I can't figure out is how the hell he STILL has 2 out of 5 people supporting him.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
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http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Take the significance you assign to "people loathe WA DC "business as usual"" and triple it. Then Trump's ~50% approval rating makes sense.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Donny Two Scoops is no Ronaldus Magnus, but both definitely were (and are) on a mission during their first terms. I voted the Libertarian ticket in 2016 and would do so again if I had to do it all over. That said, we just handed out $1/hour pay raises to all our hourly employees and raised the new-hire wage by that same $1 per hour (our airline customers agreed to new contracts with us which allowed us to do so, and they're all enjoying significant profit increases these last 18 months or so, so they can afford it), so I think the Manhattan real estate developer's economic "literacy" is somewhat higher than his foreign policy/military literacy (and that isn't saying much, to be honest). The May jobs report (which saw the U6 unemployment rate fall to 7.6% and the U3 unemployment rate drop to 3.8%) was good, but how much of that is due to the guy in the White House and how much to other forces that were a long time in coming? I don't know.

To be honest; at this point I'm not planning on even voting in 2020 if the choices are the current man in the White House and the list of candidates currently being touted by the Dems. Kamala Harris? Elizabeth Warren? Corey Booker? A host of other wannabes and ne'er do wells? The Three Stooges theme comes immediately to mind. ;-)

I was in my very early 20s when Reagan -- who'd been a successful two-term governor of California, meaning he was a seasoned politician -- took office and I was happy to vote for him in both '80 and '84, first as a way of brooming Jimmy Carter from office and second in support of his economic policies and military buildup (we were well on our way to a 600-ship Navy and a revitalized Marine Corps at the time, and the economy was booming) when Walter Mondale ran against him.

While politics wasn't nearly as polarized back during the Reagan years as it is today, others have pointed out that he was considered by many in the media to be a "dumb cowboy," much of which was due to his "aw shucks" demeanor, which was something he'd deliberately cultivated. You can read his personal correspondence with various leaders (including Pope John Paul II) during his time in office (especially his first term) and see that he was razor-sharp and calculating when it came to his agenda and what he wanted done. He knew how to wield the levers of government effectively and he went about doing so. Plus, he knew how to lobby Congress and get to a win-win, compromise-if-necessary condition when it came to dealing with that branch of government. Can we say the same thing about the fellow running things today? I'll defer to others' opinions on that point. ;-)

To me, Jimmy Carter was an enervating force on our military and we were hurting somewhat in several areas (personnel, spare parts, new equipment, somewhat dodgy capabilities and competence... you name it). It was relatively early in the post-Vietnam years and the national hangover from that had had an effect on a military that was still largely ran by veterans of that war. Carter was gun-shy, too, and he simply didn't inspire any confidence in a lot of us. Reagan was the opposite, I felt. At the time, it looked like he said what he meant, and meant what he said. Lots of blue-collar union workers also supported Reagan, especially in the 1980 election. They were the famous "Reagan Democrats" that the media today says migrated, to an extent, to the orange-haired Manhattan real estate developer. I don't know about that.

In 1984, no one I knew wanted to take a chance on a liberal Minnesota politician with Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party roots (DFL is the socially and economically liberal Minnesota political party from which Mondale sprang), even if he had been a US senator and former US vice-president (under Carter, which I personally considered a strike against him). I remember many of us, sitting around during an overseas deployment and watching the race on the old AFRTS military TV network at this-or-that NATO or US military base we were spending a few days at, saying "RYFKM?" when it came to Mondale. Today, we'd probably say the same "RYFKM?" thing about Republican and Democratic politics in general. LOL!

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Take the significance you assign to "people loathe WA DC "business as usual"" and triple it. Then Trump's ~50% approval rating makes sense.



But considering Trump is simply continuing the "business as usual" and in most cases doing it far worse, the approval ratings really don't make a lot of sense.

The average voter doesn't watch much what politicians "do". They form their opinions re. what politicians say, or more correctly, what the media reports that the politicians say/mean. From that perspective, Trumpies don't perceive their guy as "business as usual". Every time the media pounds us with Trump's latest outrage, Trumpies smile to each other knowingly.

Re. BK's post above. I joined the Marines 13 months into the Reagan presidency. What I found was a Marine Corps being revitalized, in equipment and training sure, but mostly it was a matter of esprit de' corps. The 70's were hard on the military. Vietnam was clusterf**k of leaders that wouldn't let the military win the old fashioned way. Pound the other side, win, then go home. Instead the civilian leaders just sent guys to die and most of the military leadership didn't have the balls to say "no". Then Nixon came on board, he understood pound, win, go home, but his focus was getting out of Vietnam so that made every additional casualty just as futile.

It ripped the guts out of the military, especially the Army because their absorbance of military values are not as deep as the Marines. Its a matter of military training traditions. The Marines will attempt to make malleable youngsters green to their bone morrow. The Army just kinda slaps some green paint on the kid and calls it a day.

Back on topic. In the early years everyone in the Marines was older and senior to me. They all spoke of the bad years of the 70's. The disaster of Vietnam and the pain of the rest of that decade where most folks just marked time in miserable self-pity in our "National Malaise" as Carter put it.

But then Reagan happened. It was plain to see how electrifying the difference was. Everyone was proud again, something desperately important to the Marines. Folks were standing tall and good shit was getting done. The Vietnam era was finally put behind us. The older guys spoke of this rapid transition from "the bad old days" to Reagan's Marine Corps, with amazement.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

The older guys spoke of this rapid transition from "the bad old days" to Reagan's Marine Corps, with amazement. ///

Well yes Reagan was president, but wouldn't it have been the same under any president? I mean the war ended and there was a certain amount of time needed for everyone to get over it, and Reagan just happened to be there at this time. If Reagan had been president in 1968 or 72 I'm sure he would have done the exact same thing as Nixon or his predecessor. Or do you think he would have fought the hawks back then???

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What Reagan did was special. He was really good in front of a camera. Except for those that were sure to dislike any GOP president, Reagan's pride in America, his infectious good-natured enthusiasm, just shone like a beacon thru Carter's malaise. I can't come up with another GOP president that was much good in front of a camera. Certainly Obama was a fine orator tho.

If we put in Reagan in '68 I think he would have done it the same as Nixon. Nixon gets a bad rap because no one liked him personally then or now. He's become the poster child for misbehavior, when his offenses look kinda tame by today's standards. Nixon did a lot of really good shit. His grasp of foreign policy, I would argue, was orders of magnitude ahead of any president we've had in, I dunno, maybe forever. Also, much of what we value today, what the lefties value today, was created by Nixon. Important social and environmental legislation, and of course the end of the terrifying Soviet-China axis. Folks today forget that in the 50s and 60s, the Soviets and Chinese were a monolith of allied aggression against "the free world" and their expressed desire for global hegemony was scary as hell. It was Nixon that encouraged China to put space in between themselves and the Soviets, and encouraged them to start producing consumer products for export.

I don't think that Reagan would have "gone to China", but I do think that he's have recognized Vietnam for a quagmire of our creation (failing to try win) and campaigned on finding us a way out like Nixon did.

To imagine Reagan in for Johnson, just imagine president Goldwater without the "lets nuke 'em".

If Reagan had been Kennedy's VP however and had taken over in 64(?) instead of Johnson, Vietnam would have been very different. Reagan would not have burned thru >50k lives trying to keep the fight on page 2 and therefore not distract folks from his social agenda. Folks tend to credit Johnson with the civil right's emphasis (and legislation), but it was broader than that. It was sweeping the nation, not just the executive branch, not just DC and not just the Dems. Truman desegragated the military. Ike desegregated the schools. The trend was clear. Reagan would probably have applied a lighter federal touch tho. He's have tried to let the states do it their way, some of them would have failed, which would have let to some conflict to force them to get with the program.

Reagan would not have gone for the war on poverty. Another war that Johnson lost at incredible expense.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Umm, China and Russia were not "a monolith of allied agression", they were pretty close to shooting nukes at each other in the late 60s and had killed a bunch of each other's soldiers. Nixon was smart enough to realize that they were not actually "a monolith of allied agression" againt the free world and that they never were.

I agree with much of what else you said, but HW Bush was the best foreign policy president at least post WWII. His management of the dissolution of the USSR and invasion of Kuwait were handled about as well as you could have hoped.