President Donald J. Trump

[SredniVashtar]

At least you admit it, although you're far too modest.  Wasn't it Europe that gave us Marxism, Socialism, Fascism, and their various derivatives?  For the most part those have been and are foreign concepts here.  I wouldn't be so quick to sneer at those who don't welcome any of that. 

Pretty much all the major parties in Western Europe are Leftist/Big Government.  When every party is Leftist, the label no longer really differentiates so of course it would cause confusion.

And you're right, Obama would fit in quite well there.  So would the rest of our 'Progressives', whose ascendency here is a fairly recent phenomenon.  Now that most people understand who they are, look at the political landscape here from the state level on up.

I wouldn't call the current UK government 'leftist' by any stretch of the imagination. They would unravel almost all the achievements of post-war Labour if they thought they would get away with it, but they have to chip away instead. Even the previous Labour government was pretty mild, which is why there has been such a retrenchment with the current set-up of that party, where there's been a big swing to the left.

Sooner or later, over there, people will come to realise that they are getting a raw deal and will come to resent it, just as people have done in Europe. You have a system that disproportionately benefits entrenched moneyed interests and it will lead to serious problems if left uncorrected. It's riddled with potential problems, but the only way you will be able to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism is from a left perspective. Basically, the whole trend of history is the weak v the strong and you have to pick a side. I don't 'sneer' at people who don't understand that, I just think they're wrong and misguided. If the serious flaws in the system continue to be ignored, and people are angry enough, it leads to civil unrest, if not outright revolution.

[Inglorious Bitch]

I don't come on here to build bridges, merely to burn them. Anyway, being gratuitously offensive is all part of my charm. You stupid cunt.

[ItsOver]

Feel the love.    

[Yorkshire pud]

Feel the love.    

T'was always thus.

[Humilia Lepus Foramen]

Basically, the whole trend of history is the weak v the strong and you have to pick a side. I don't 'sneer' at people who don't understand that, I just think they're wrong and misguided. If the serious flaws in the system continue to be ignored, and people are angry enough, it leads to civil unrest, if not outright revolution.

And I take it you align yourself with "the weak"?  Such as the janitors and uneducated people you ridiculed a few posts ago?  How heroic.

I guess the biggest irony about Herr Trump is that he was elected via the electoral college, when previously the only way that most of his supporters got into any sort of college was if they were employed as a janitor.

After the election I heard progressives here mocking rust belt laborers, throwing them under the bus for not voting democrat. 

They said their jobs aren't coming back and they just need to accept it (a sentiment apparently shared by Obama). http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWNA899320090714

Reminds me of how the people behind Obamacare pretended to be for the little guys while simultaneously laughing at them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkqn6wsrUfs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adrdmmh7bMo

Truly, a party of the people.

[Yorkshire pud]

And I take it you align yourself with "the weak"?  Such as the janitors and uneducated people you ridiculed a few posts ago?  How heroic.

Hmm, that's the thing. The 'weak' are frequently not uneducated, nor even the smallest in number. They just happen to be the least represented in the circles that matter. Don't believe me? 98% of the planet's wealth is divided (and this has been investigated by academics), by six people. Not 6%, six individuals, On a planet with 7 billion people, who own the other 2%. The French, Russian and other revolutions were borne out of the common people saying enough is enough, and they were contributing to the wealth only the very few enjoyed.

After the election I heard progressives here mocking rust belt laborers, throwing them under the bus for not voting democrat. 

They said their jobs aren't coming back and they just need to accept it (a sentiment apparently shared by Obama). http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWNA899320090714

Reminds me of how the people behind Obamacare pretended to be for the little guys while simultaneously laughing at them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkqn6wsrUfs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adrdmmh7bMo

Truly, a party of the people.

A single swallow a summer does not make. Just because one or even a dozen assholes mock the poor sods who lost their steel making jobs, doesn't mean every Democrat. Just as its ridiculous to accuse all Reps of being KKK members or creationists.

[ItsOver]

“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”

Swoon. 



http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/12/02/top-15-quotes-secretary-defense-nominee-james-mattis/

[Juan]

Who are these six people?

[Yorkshire pud]

Who are these six people?

I could tell you, but they'd not only kill you, they'd kill me too. That'll ruin our day.

[SciFiAuthor]

That kind of thinking might make some sort of vague sense in the bubble of American politics, but if you are anywhere else it tends to get you blank looks. People over there can, with a straight face, talk about a conventional figure like Obama as a 'Marxist', when in Europe he'd line up fairly comfortably with any ordinary politician on the centre-right. I don't pretend to know all the details of Obamacare, but it sounded like it had been so eroded by compromise that there was barely anything left to discuss. But to some of you it was the second coming of Che Guevara.

That's just because continental Europe has always been a hotbed of extreme ideology on both the right and left and that attitude has slowly infected the UK over the last 40 years. We're simply the last place that still knows what a centrist actually is, though I have a sneaking suspicion that the same things that propelled Trump into power is about to take hold in Europe.

Obamacare is a good example. We simply knew what it really was. It was a system designed from the outset for failure to be replaced by a single-payer system by the next Democratic president. What it was not was a healthcare plan. Instead it was a scheme to compel people to pay healthcare premiums by fining them for not doing it, and then raise those premiums to such an extent that people would be more open to a full socialized medicine program because they could no longer afford private insurance. As a scheme it worked beautifully, my premium for 2017 more than doubled and other than my mortgage payment is now the biggest bill I have. But, since Hillary didn't get elected, it will be replaced by something that will, hopefully, at least have the intent of actually working going for it.

There are some fairly broad goals that you would subscribe to, if you were on the left, but other than that it's up for grabs, with vastly different shades of views under a pretty large tent. I've never heard people use the word 'leftist', though, without it being packaged together into a sneer about how intolerant they are. Some are, some aren't, and it's too general and lazy to have much purchase with sensible people. Granted, the same can be said of 'right-winger', although people on the right are more likely to accept that denomination with complacency, even pride.

I can really only speak for the American left, but to be honest, I can't tell what they believe. What you term as "vastly different shades of views" to me just seems like ideological schizophrenia. If people actually espoused Marxism, then I would refer to them as Marxists. But they don't -- Das Kapital isn't exactly on the NYT best seller list here. Instead they hold an amalgam of bizarre, cobbled together ideas designed specifically to create coalitions of voting blocs that can win elections.

But at the same time, there is no actual ideology. There can't be one. It would prevent them from holding together a political party that caters to both virulently anti-homosexual people, such as Muslims in general and much of black America, and yet also caters to LGBT rights groups all while acting as though a large section of the party doesn't want them tossed off buildings to please Allah.

So what exactly do you label a group of people that have no core, consistent ideology? Democrats doesn't work because I hold a similar dim view of the Green Party. The only thing I can think of is Leftists. Or dingbats.

I feel much the same about the right, incidentally, and accept the label of "right-wing" readily as a result instead of trying to explain my centrist, moderately libertarian outlook.

[pyewacket]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dAmroKyzGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvF_D4tVfYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3GfCmbPDN0

[K_Dubb]

Part of the problem is that Americans tend to be rather spoiled and haven't been through the problems that have made a larger state necessary. That's why they don't see the whole issue of Europe with much sophistication - they just don't get it. WW2 is still within living memory to many people here, and that makes a big difference. You also have much more in terms of natural resources than most countries, and your location makes you regard yourselves as an island unto yourselves. It's not your fault, but it's true all the same.

Oh, I have to hoot at this!  We get it, all right.  We aren't surprised that within a few generations your democratic experiments vote themselves states that resemble the benevolent sovereigns you're used to.  We also aren't surprised that the jaw-dropping paternalism that led you to enslave half the globe continues to assert itself like a pernicious weed, blindly convinced your way is the only way.

I like your writing, Shreddy, but you are fundamentally a garden-variety chauvinist who can't see past the end of your nose.  If you ever advocated a single thing that departed from European secular orthodoxy I'd fall out of my very comfortable chair.  Surely you have some intellectual kinkiness, or do you save that for the stews?

[Jackstar]

FIFY. I deplore this fashionable American illiteracy of yours. I don't want to be the only one flying the flag for correct spelling in this place.

I adore that you and I could quite literally be the same poster, except that you don't use profanity, and I have freedom and civil rights--such as they are remaining.

[Jackstar]

98% of the planet's wealth is divided (and this has been investigated by academics), by six people. Not 6%, six individuals,

Which of them is keeping the other five from conducting experiments that combine jet fuel with carbon nanotubes? Be specific.

[Yorkshire pud]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dAmroKyzGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvF_D4tVfYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3GfCmbPDN0

K of K will be in a flat spin when he sees those...Jewish bloke (very conservative), condemning liberals.. what a dilemma.

[Jackstar]

(please keep up)

Nanotubes, chap. If you don't do the required reading, you're never going to make it past the first page of your midterm--and that is gonna be more than half your grade.

[Yorkshire pud]

Trump and Senda are twins!

http://mashable.com/2016/12/02/donald-trump-blocking-people-twitter/

[paladin1991]

Part of the problem is that Americans tend to be rather spoiled and haven't been through the problems that have made a larger state necessary. That's why they don't see the whole issue of Europe with much sophistication - they just don't get it. WW2 is still within living memory to many people here, and that makes a big difference. You also have much more in terms of natural resources than most countries, and your location makes you regard yourselves as an island unto yourselves. It's not your fault, but it's true all the same.

Actually, WW2 is within living memory of a great many volk here in Los Estados Unidos.  When I am at the VFW, the older dudes quaff their Scotch like it's tap water and pontificate quite readily about the ass rape that is Europe, europeon politics and it's ppl.   The consensus seems to be that the Euros had us over to settle their shit.  Twice.  Next time, fuck 'em. 

I also remember fm school, that the general opinion of the U.S. is that we were separated fm Europe by the Atlantic Ocean by our creator.  For obvious  reasons. 

[pyewacket]

Actually, WW2 is within living memory of a great many volk here in Los Estados Unidos.  When I am at the VFW, the older dudes quaff their Scotch like it's tap water and pontificate quite readily about the ass rape that is Europe, europeon politics and it's ppl.   The consensus seems to be that the Euros had us over to settle their shit.  Twice.  Next time, fuck 'em. 

I also remember fm school, that the general opinion of the U.S. is that we were separated fm Europe by the Atlantic Ocean by our creator.  For obvious  reasons.

Don't forget The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP).

[chefist]

Trump just called out PRC with talks with Taiwan...KILLER! LOLZ

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-spoke-with-taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen-1480718423

[chefist]

Trump and Senda are twins!

http://mashable.com/2016/12/02/donald-trump-blocking-people-twitter/

This facility gets a 3.9 on Google...not the best, but the highest in your neck of the woods...

https://www.cygnethealth.co.uk/locations/cygnet-hospital-harrogate/

[Walks_At_Night]

I would not have minded sitting in on this call to listen..............................

MANILA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump invited Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte to the White House next year during a "very engaging, animated" phone conversation, a Duterte aide said on Friday, amid rocky relations between their two countries.

Both guys shoot from the hip.

[Dr. MD MD]

We're all still waiting on Trump to select his secretary of state, who is essentially our diplomat to the world. My problem is I don't like any of the potential choices. Bolton is too much of a hawkish neocon to be a good diplomat. Guiliani is too slippery. Petraeus has too many problems and conflicts of interest. Corker was a proponent of the Iraq war. So, this leaves Romney. Fucking magic underwear wearing Romney! Were there really no other likely candidates?!  :

[Walks_At_Night]

Trump just called out PRC with talks with Taiwan...KILLER! LOLZ

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-spoke-with-taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen-1480718423

Well that will get Jinping Xi's and the PRC National Congresses attention.  No doubt about that.   
It will be fascinating and possibly terrifying to see the Trumpster's next move.   This is probably his
response to Xi's One Belt, One Road  Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere-reborn power play.


Hopefully there aren't any Soybean farmers or speculators on Bellgab - it could get wild.............

[Humilia Lepus Foramen]

We're all still waiting on Trump to select his secretary of state, who is essentially our diplomat to the world. My problem is I don't like any of the potential choices. Bolton is too much of a hawkish neocon to be a good diplomat. Guiliani is too slippery. Petraeus has too many problems and conflicts of interest. Corker was a proponent of the Iraq war. So, this leaves Romney. Fucking magic underwear wearing Romney! Were there really no other likely candidates?!  :

I know it's a long shot, but what do you think of Tulsi Gabbard?

[Jackstar]

secretary of state, who is essentially our diplomat to the world. My problem is I don't like any of the potential choices

[Big Chicken]

I know it's a long shot, but what do you think of Tulsi Gabbard?

Whoa Nellie.  That would drive Barky O right out of his gourd!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dr. MD MD]

I know it's a long shot, but what do you think of Tulsi Gabbard?

While i actually agree with a lot of her political decisions there's no way they would give state to a democrat. I think she's being considered for another cabinet position though, isn't she?

[ItsOver]

We're all still waiting on Trump to select his secretary of state, who is essentially our diplomat to the world. My problem is I don't like any of the potential choices. Bolton is too much of a hawkish neocon to be a good diplomat. Guiliani is too slippery. Petraeus has too many problems and conflicts of interest. Corker was a proponent of the Iraq war. So, this leaves Romney. Fucking magic underwear wearing Romney! Were there really no other likely candidates?!  :

Eh, Trump could do a lot worse.

[Dr. MD MD]

Eh, Trump could do a lot worse.

Truer words were never spoken.