The Trump Presidency 2.0

[ThunderHorse]

I vote on the issues too, which is why I continue to vote Republican. For me personally, it’s how the message is being communicated and what I see as an abuse of power and the trampling of constitutional rights when it seems convenient to the “greater good”. We used to be about free trade, strong alliances, and an independent press.

This current administration seems dead set on up-ending those traditions, the most recent example being Bezo’s gutting of the Washington post.

I don't think you have changed. Just as I don't think I have. @Marauder06 and I share some fairly liberal view. I used to vote Democrat, A LOT. I think I have posts on here talking about voting for Obama (2x).

But I'm interested to know where the current administration is "trampling" on constitutional rights that Biden, Obama, and Bush were not already trampling. If you're talking about removing criminal aliens at gun point, well, that used to be a bi-partisan and well supported issue. Immigration used to be an 80/20 issue. I can agree with you that at times I don't like the messaging. But using the "presidential" style of messaging is what lost Republicans elections.

Free Trade, honestly, free trade gutted our industrial base. NAFTA and admitting China to the WTO screwed us a ton. Under Trump we've seen a wild amount of investment come back on the high tech side of the house. If anything as a country we acted incredibly stupid with trade and made our economy delicate and possibly weak instead of resilient. Our economy not being resilient and full of redundancies is a national security threat.

Bezos gutting the Washington Post specifically one of the best Sports Sections in the World has been odd to see. We have all these newspapers owned by Billionaires and instead of funding them to bring back journalism's credibility we have just value extraction. I don't see what Bezos is doing as tied to Trump, because his decisions will lead to a decline in subscriptions.

Strong Alliances, remember this quote from Washington:

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent
alliances with any portion of the foreign world—so
far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it—for let
me not be understood as capable of patronizing
infidelity to existing engagements (I hold the maxim
no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that
honesty is always the best policy)—I repeat it
therefore, let those engagements be observed in their
genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary
and would be unwise to extend them.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistor...ress.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In certain ways our allies have lived on welfare from us instead of investing in their own protection. We have been the world's police force and remain the city upon the hill. But in some sense we must look inward and fix our country.

 

[RackMaster]

As for free trade, Canada is a great example. We have Dairy cartels that artificially inflate the price with quotas and force farmers to dump over production into the drain. Then the government restricts the amount of American dairy able to be imported. Spread misinformation to keep Canadian's from buying it. Oh and they manipulate our dollar to keep it low, so our exports keep flowing at discounted rates because we can't equally compete internationally.

I forgot the insanely high tariffs on US goods, that have been there long before Trump. Tariffs on imports have been in place in Canada since the 1800's.