Understanding Trump

[SBenson]

This thread is to discuss -

What is Trump saying and what are his voters & supporters hearing?

This is very different from the media narrative. We should focus on first person speeches and interviews.

This thread is NOT meant for partisan fist fights. As we all know that is not tolerated on TMC.

This is merely an attempt to understand the "Trump phenomenon" and it's current and future implications.

This is a bit of what is being discussed in DaveT's thread. But I hate to hijack that thread, no less - permanently, on this topic. So I thought it makes sense for a separate thread.

Moderators are free to lock or delete this thread if for what ever reason if this doesn't work (gets out of hand).

Now that we are done with the meta. Some real meat:

***

I found Trump's inauguration speech to be very heard to listen to. But I found this transcript. This is a GREAT read in understanding what his supporters are hearing and why he is 'ticking'.

Also sheds a lot of light into his road map. Truly a great read, whether you love him or hate him (you should know your enemy).

Donald Trump’s full inauguration speech transcript, annotated

 

[pGo]

Thanks for the thread. I can tell you this exercise will end up being a lot more difficult than understanding the market in general. And we know that market is unpredictable and sometimes irrational.

 

[austinEV]

I think this is a fine idea, if we refine it a bit to mean "Understanding the Impact trump and his actions/policies have on the markets in particluar TSLA". I grow weary of this conversation in other threads:

user 1:"Elon is having another meeting with Trump"
user 2:"OMG I hate Trump"
User 3:"Trump is great"
User 2:"you are worse than hitler"

The first part was a literal fact, and important for market watchers. The rest was a result of someone inferring political endorsement by the first commentator. I detest Trump, but we don't need to politically litigate every time we discuss him.

Another fact: "Since the election the market is up and TSLA is up"

I wasn't endorsing Trump, just stating a fact. I wish we would all learn the difference. Studying Trump as a phenomenon and market psychology is a skill we are going to need to learn to survive.

 

[Vitold]

Is it really necessary? Here's my executive summary:

Pandering to ultra conservatives and disenfranchised while making money left and right. Seems like it also involves military and God somehow.

 

[SBenson]

Is it really necessary? Here's my executive summary:

Pandering to ultra conservatives and disenfranchised while making money left and right. Seems like it also involves military and God somehow.

Ultra conservatives used to be very pro-trade. Trump is not. So how do you explain pandering?

Much of the establishment Republicans hated Trump and provided no support, in fact actively undermined his election campaign. Yet he won. How do you explain that?

Look at Trumps personal life. Does he look like a "conservative" in any shape or form?

Point is that there are no simple answers to these questions and hence the need for research and discussion.

 

[TEG]

I view it as a general vote of "no confidence" in government. People wanted a shake-up and so they picked someone with no political experience to go and tear things apart.

One of his lines "what have you got to lose?" may have ended up getting more votes than expected.
People voting with "I wish government was different" will come to find out what they get from that approach.
Some people may think "Let's give this outsider a try and see what happens"... But it seems like a Pandora's box that got opened.

 

[Vitold]

Politicians think ahead so we should also try to figure out who they (I think it's useful to keep in mind that he signs things that other people write) are willing to take away from to give it to those who will vote for them in the future.

EDIT: I just hope that they don't plan on starting another (cold) war and fund our economy through military spending.

 

[Trnsl8r]

I view it as a general vote of "no confidence" in government. People wanted a shake-up and so they picked someone with no political experience to go and tear things apart.

One of his lines "what have you got to lose?" may have ended up getting more votes than expected.
People voting with "I wish government was different" will come to find out what they get from that approach.
Some people may think "Let's give this outsider a try and see what happens"... But it seems like a Pandora's box that got opened.

Exactly this. Sweden experienced something similar in the 90's. The ND party got a few seats in parliament and used it to wreck havoc for one election cycle. I saw it as a shot across the bow to the established parties as "shape up or else", and it did force the two major blocks to work better together while ND self-imploded and quickly got booted out. The whole story is here: New Democracy (Sweden) - Wikipedia

The stark difference is of course that a minority party in parliament is very different from four years as president...

 

[Haxster]

The stark difference is of course that a minority party in parliament is very different from four years as president...

Four years. I hope not.

The insights on this thread do nothing to help me understand a scorched-earth/rebuild mentality. The world is too dangerous for reckless leaders with 100 year-old political correctness values.

Even after just two weeks in office, it's not hard to find more than ample grounds for impeachment. If only the weasels in Washington had the guts to do it. Maybe they're waiting to build a case against Pence for a double impeachment.

 

[hacer]

Understanding Trump is quite different from understanding those who voted for him. The latter are a diverse group with quite differing interests and motivations.

While it's hard to predict what Trump will do (beyond that which he's already told us, and almost no matter how outlandish what he's said has been, he really is going to at least try to do it). I think most of his actions can be explained by what motivates him which mostly are: (1) What feeds his ego (2) what makes him money (3) what hurts his enemies (real or perceived) and (4) what gives him pleasure. There may also be a possibility of (5) that which serves Putin. His racism falls within (3). I think all of his technical ideas (build a wall, ban Muslims, America first, etc.) are simply means to the ends above.

 

[Chopr147]

I live in NY and have seen and heard about Trump for more than 25 years now. I have always thought of him as a gasbag and jerk. But personally he has never been considered a conservative. More Liberal minded on social issues but I think he changed some to pull in the large sections of religious right. He has openly accepted gays and gets called Homophobic. Puts women and blacks,hispanics in high, power positions and gets called Xenophobic, racist and any other name the nuts can come up with. (Not withstanding his vulgar comments) I'm not endorsing Trump but like the OP said "We should focus on first person speeches and interviews." I don't get my news from TV or newspapers. There are many news sites but it can be tough to wade thru the muck and find the truth.
As far as Trump being elected:
1) terrible Democratic candidate!
Both parties have become so comfortable. Lincoln said something like "some labored while others did not but enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits" or words to that effect. This feeling of being screwed by our leaders in the name of globalism is sweeping the world. England, Austria, Netherlands ,Italy and now France's Le Pen has gained popularity. This goes far beyond Trump and the USA. Brexit etc...... Germany is next. Merkel is all but done. Her open border policy has all but cooked any chance of re-election.
I am giving Trump a chance and hopeful it works out for America. That is the goal right?

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Understanding Trump is quite different from understanding those who voted for him. The latter are a diverse group with quite differing interests and motivations.

For one perspective on why many people in the Rustbelt voted for President Trump, I recommend this interview: 'Glass House' Chronicles The Sharp Decline Of An All-American Factory Town

tldr; Capitalism that didn't take into account cultural needs destroyed working people's dignity, and they are lashing out to avenge their humiliation at the hands of Reaganomics.

This is only 1 perspective though. Genuine fear of terrorism, fear of being overrun by Hispanics, devastating losses in the "culture war", particularly around gay issues, and loss of national pride are other reasons. People often had multiple combinations of these when choosing to vote for Trump in both the Primary and General elections.

 

[kort677]

As far as Trump being elected:
1) terrible Democratic candidate!

this is the only factually correct statement in this thread.

 

[Trnsl8r]

... and today this happened: Elon Musk joins court fight against Trump travel ban

 

[Vitold]

Ultra conservatives used to be very pro-trade. Trump is not. So how do you explain pandering?

Much of the establishment Republicans hated Trump and provided no support, in fact actively undermined his election campaign. Yet he won. How do you explain that?

Look at Trumps personal life. Does he look like a "conservative" in any shape or form?

Point is that there are no simple answers to these questions and hence the need for research and discussion.

Trump is all about making deals and keeping his 'brand' untarnished. I believe that he made deals with Republicans similar to the deal he wanted to make with Kasich:

according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer[...]:
Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?
When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.
Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?
“Making America great again” was the casual reply.

Here's another one to back it up - Trump commenting about his worth in response to Forbes article about him:

"I don't think they give me value for brand and my brand is very valuable."

Btw, did you know that Trump's pick, Betsy DeVos is a sister of Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater Worldwide (from Wikipedia):

From 1997 to 2010, Blackwater was awarded $2 billion in government security contracts,[23] more than $1.6 billion of which were unclassified federal contracts and an unknown amount of classified work.[24] From 2001 to 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates

Do you think this is just a coincidence and Trump picked her personally?

 

[kort677]

interesting, would you be probing hillary's connections like this?

 

[Vitold]

interesting, would you be probing hillary's connections like this?

Although Clinton voted for Iraq war and led Libya intervention she would likely be less cozy with people like Eric. Anyway, she lost - what does it matter now?

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation)

We had Iraq war because of drummed up WMD. Now the message appears to be "terrorists are everywhere". Coincidence? I don't think so.

 

[AudubonB]

Poll: Is there any chance of this thread staying on topic?

• A: 1%
• B: 0.1%

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

There isn't anything particularly all that alarming to me about his inauguration speech. If I was a Trump supporter it's the one speech I would use to show that's he's not too shabby. It's pretty devoid of the behaviors that I find problematic. His CIA speech after the inauguration is a much better example at illustrating those behaviors. At what the rest of us are hearing.

Is there really a Trump phenomenon? Or is really just the nationalistic trend across the world that's been taking place first with Brexit, and then with Trump? It's not too surprising to have blowback when everything has become so global. Of course people are going to be left out when China is the de facto factory for the world, and when jobs are being outsourced to India.

But, he doesn't have as many supporters as one might be led to believe. Our elections are really designed to force people to choose between basically coke or pepsi with no options for a third choice. If there is a third choice usually they act as a spoiler. We don't have ranked based voting to allow for a viable third part candidate. So we either had people that didn't vote because they didn't like either choice, or the voted purely based on party. Or in some cases they likely voted purely on gender. It's not hard to see that society demands more from a woman than a man.

For me personally the hard part to stomach is the lie. Where Trump says something sucks, and then he says he'll fix it. That it's going to be wonderful and glorious. Where he doesn't tell you how he's going to get from X to Y. I tend to be someone that see's the complexities in things, and the tradeoffs that our necessary. I don't believe in quick and easy fixes.

Two things I really hated from 2016:

Elon introducing and selling the FSD package on AP 2.0
Trump being elected

Why? They both have their foundations in a lie. You can disagree with me today, but give me a year before agreeing or disagreeing with me.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

Much of the establishment Republicans hated Trump and provided no support, in fact actively undermined his election campaign. Yet he won. How do you explain that?

Look at Trumps personal life. Does he look like a "conservative" in any shape or form?

It's my observation that when people have lost their way of life, the 'culture war' stuff falls by the wayside. Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and still get elected. Hell, I think he could have been openly pro-choice and won.

What Donald Trump offered people was a return to a past where good paying jobs were easy to find for Americans of working class background. That's powerful to people who are struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table. That's powerful to communities where opiates and other drugs have become the escape from hopelessness.

Trump is certainly no Republican and no conservative. The GOP establishment follows him because he hijacked their voter base and ghostbusted Reaganomics. The voters know they've been played for fools and that the economy worked for the global financial elite at the cost of the average worker. Bye bye Reagan... Trump is the new sheriff in town.