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Well, consider that these days, it's easier to dig up dirt on the opposition. If someone paid enough money, we could find plenty of dirt of former President Bush Jr. I think Trump winning likely symbolized that we've always had people who will overlook the most heinous things, for the right price. It's always been there. I think this time the opportunity showed itself.
At least with former President Bush, he never flaunted being immoral. Bush admitted to his drunk driving. He admitted that he made mistakes in the past and tried to rectify them. Trump has that "so what" mentality. Bush never seemed very smart to me. However, when I think about the days following September 11, 2001, I think he was the kind of leader we needed during the last 3 months of 2001. He was firm, tough, but humble. During that time when I was a teenager, I wasn't embarrassed that he was the President of the USA.
What I see with Trump, he talks to the gutter. He goes down to the level of the gutter. However, I don't think some of Trump's zealots care that the U.N. is laughing at Trump. They likely see it as "well, screw the U.N. America first". I think about the Bush supporter base. I think of God, Family, Country, and Main Street. When i think about Trump, I think of Al Bundy, Roseanne, Bart Simpson, Homer Simpson, Monty Burns.
While it seems we have similar "appreciation" for all that Trump is and/or is not, I am not as inclined to equate him to past presidents in terms of Trump's embarrassing qualities. Trump tops them all in more than a few rather unique and obvious ways, and I don't think it's a matter of it being "easier to dig up dirt on the opposition," though there may be some truth to that too. Regardless, there really is no need to "dig up" anything on Trump since he took office. Trump embarrasses himself and this country on a regular basis. Nobody needed to "dig up" how he got the whole of the U.N. laughing at him for example...
Bush Jr. had some whoppers too. Perhaps more than any POTUS before him (that I can recall). I was also embarrassed by "Mission Accomplished" Bush too. Leading us toward the invasion of Iraq goes a bit beyond embarrassment to say the least.
Maybe we can be grateful that Trump is just more embarrassing than even Bush Jr. until Trump also commits the United States to far more serious trouble.
While it seems we have similar "appreciation" for all that Trump is and/or is not, I am not as inclined to equate him to past presidents in terms of Trump's embarrassing qualities. Trump tops them all in more than a few rather unique and obvious ways, and I don't think it's a matter of it being "easier to dig up dirt on the opposition," though there may be some truth to that too. Regardless, there really is no need to "dig up" anything on Trump since he took office. Trump embarrasses himself and this country on a regular basis. Nobody needed to "dig up" how he got the whole of the U.N. laughing at him for example...
Bush Jr. had some whoppers too. Perhaps more than any POTUS before him (that I can recall). I was also embarrassed by "Mission Accomplished" Bush too. Leading us toward the invasion of Iraq goes a bit beyond embarrassment to say the least.
Maybe we can be grateful that Trump is just more embarrassing than even Bush Jr. until Trump also commits the United States to far more serious trouble.
Bush's legacy will indeed be Iraq, and that was quite stupid looking back. I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone. However, after while, it wasn't worth it.
With Bush, he wasn't very smart. He could have gone about the war on terror better than that. However, with Trump, he's a combination of not very smart and seeking to make the world angry. There is no doubt the USA could defeat North Korea in a ground war. However, Kim Jung Un is crazy and has nothing to lose by shooting nukes at us. President Trump kept poking at North Korea over and over. Bush suspected there were WMDs in Iraq. With Bush, we didn't know (and I suspect Bush wasn't cognizant of this either) what Iraq was capable of. With North Korea, we know what the Kim dynasty is capable of. Trump knows what kind of crazy Kim Jung Un is, and he kept on poking the proverbial bear. And then he tried to kiss Kim Jung Un's rear end.
The Iraq invasion turned into a fiasco because we went into it blindly. North Korea, we know what kind of crazy that involves. Bush embarrassed due to stupidity. Trump embarrasses because he's intent on angering and alienating alot of people. It's like he's daring someone to do something stupid.
And the most embarrassing President we've had was Nixon. Watergate Scandal.
"Unfortunately, the Perception Gap study suggests that neither the media nor the universities are likely to remedy Americans’ inability to hear each other: It found that the best educated and most politically interested Americans are more likely to vilify their political adversaries than their less educated, less tuned-in peers.
Americans who rarely or never follow the news are surprisingly good at estimating the views of people with whom they disagree. On average, they misjudge the preferences of political adversaries by less than ten percent. Those who follow the news most of the time, by contrast, are terrible at understanding their adversaries. On average, they believe that the share of their political adversaries who endorse extreme views is about 30 percent higher than it is in reality.
Perhaps because institutions of higher learning tend to be dominated by liberals, Republicans who have gone to college are not more likely to caricature their ideological adversaries than those who dropped out of high school. But among Democrats, education seems to make the problem much worse. Democrats who have a high school degree suffer from a greater perception gap than those who don’t. Democrats who went to college harbor greater misunderstandings than those who didn’t. And those with a postgrad degree have a way more skewed view of Republicans than anybody else."
Bush's legacy will indeed be Iraq, and that was quite stupid looking back. I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone. However, after while, it wasn't worth it.
With Bush, he wasn't very smart. He could have gone about the war on terror better than that. However, with Trump, he's a combination of not very smart and seeking to make the world angry. There is no doubt the USA could defeat North Korea in a ground war. However, Kim Jung Un is crazy and has nothing to lose by shooting nukes at us. President Trump kept poking at North Korea over and over. Bush suspected there were WMDs in Iraq. With Bush, we didn't know (and I suspect Bush wasn't cognizant of this either) what Iraq was capable of. With North Korea, we know what the Kim dynasty is capable of. Trump knows what kind of crazy Kim Jung Un is, and he kept on poking the proverbial bear. And then he tried to kiss Kim Jung Un's rear end.
The Iraq invasion turned into a fiasco because we went into it blindly. North Korea, we know what kind of crazy that involves. Bush embarrassed due to stupidity. Trump embarrasses because he's intent on angering and alienating alot of people. It's like he's daring someone to do something stupid.
And the most embarrassing President we've had was Nixon. Watergate Scandal.
I believe you are a little younger than a lot of old timers who comment in this thread as if they too believe it boils down to a matter of who can defeat these problem dictators and countries, but what is now very different from the past is the possibility of unconventional warfare up to and including nuclear retaliation...
Crazy is the notion that any country like the United States can truly put down these threats militarily and not invite a catastrophe that so far we've been able to mostly avoid. The calculation or better put..., the miscalculation of what happens when a country like North Korea or Iran or any agent with a back-pack nuke finds their way to retaliate. Retaliate as surely they will one way or another, posing a risk no intelligence agency can factor like in the good old days when it was simply a matter of conventional warfare. Even 9/11 demonstrates how lesser adversaries hardly that large in number or sophistication can exact incredible destruction in so many new ways unknown in the past.
All to say that avoiding provocation let alone military strikes in this new day and age is paramount. Pretty much a last resort if and when we are in fact attacked. Negotiations, sanctions, international cooperation and coordination, sure, but this Trump is doing, essentially in unilateral fashion, as if he is king, is not the sort of leadership we need today. Never mind all the unnecessary and ridiculous inciteful rhetoric. Please!
Seems too many old-timers are still voting however...
"Unfortunately, the Perception Gap study suggests that neither the media nor the universities are likely to remedy Americans’ inability to hear each other: It found that the best educated and most politically interested Americans are more likely to vilify their political adversaries than their less educated, less tuned-in peers.
Americans who rarely or never follow the news are surprisingly good at estimating the views of people with whom they disagree. On average, they misjudge the preferences of political adversaries by less than ten percent. Those who follow the news most of the time, by contrast, are terrible at understanding their adversaries. On average, they believe that the share of their political adversaries who endorse extreme views is about 30 percent higher than it is in reality.
Perhaps because institutions of higher learning tend to be dominated by liberals, Republicans who have gone to college are not more likely to caricature their ideological adversaries than those who dropped out of high school. But among Democrats, education seems to make the problem much worse. Democrats who have a high school degree suffer from a greater perception gap than those who don’t. Democrats who went to college harbor greater misunderstandings than those who didn’t. And those with a postgrad degree have a way more skewed view of Republicans than anybody else."
Seems to be an argument the less is more when it comes to understanding politics. I have a hard time accepting all this "new study" would have us assume to be true. Seems somewhat contradictory here...
"Americans who rarely or never follow the news are surprisingly good at estimating the views of people with whom they disagree."
While at the same time the author laments, "It is deeply worrying that Americans now have so little understanding of their political adversaries."
I've always believed the more we know, the better informed, the better our objectivity and judgement tends to be. Also that "ignorance is the biggest problem on the planet," but no doubt good judgement can also be a matter of other attributes too, like the ability to think critically.
I've started more than a few threads about this sort of thing. This one didn't get very far, but you might find interesting for additional consideration...
I believe you are a little younger than a lot of old timers who comment in this thread as if they too believe it boils down to a matter of who can defeat some of these problem dictators and countries, but what is now very different from the past is the possibility of nuclear warfare...
Crazy is the notion that any country like the United States can truly put down these threats militarily and not invite a catastrophe that so far we've been able to mostly avoid. The calculation or better put..., the miscalculation of what happens when a country like North Korea or Iran or any agent with a back-pack nuke finds their way to retaliate. Retaliate as surely they will one way or another, posing a risk we simply can't factor like in the good old days when it was simply a matter of conventional warfare. Even 9/11 demonstrates how lesser adversaries, hardly that large in number or sophistication can exact incredible destruction in so many new ways unknown in the past.
All to say that avoiding provocation let alone military strikes in this new day and age is paramount. Pretty much a last resort if and when we are in fact attacked. Negotiations, sanctions, international cooperation and coordination, sure, but this Trump is doing essentially in unilateral fashion, as if he is king, is not the sort of leadership we need today.
Seems too many old-timers are still voting however...
I'm 33 years old. I'm likely younger than many of the people on CD.
It is paramount to avoid provocation as much as possible. I was pointing out the difference between Bush and Trump. Bush made some bad decisions, and did stupid things. He went into Iraq with the idea of finding those weapons. Well, it led to a long war. He got us into a conflict due to fear and went about it in a very stupid way. Trump, on the other hand, seems intent on daring people to get in a fight with him. Trump's case isn't a matter of stupid. It's a matter of taunting the world. Trump has this "I am king" mentality.
The problem isn't old people voting. We have young people who have a similar outlook.
I'm 33 years old. I'm likely younger than many of the people on CD.
It is paramount to avoid provocation as much as possible. I was pointing out the difference between Bush and Trump. Bush made some bad decisions, and did stupid things. He went into Iraq with the idea of finding those weapons. Well, it led to a long war. He got us into a conflict due to fear and went about it in a very stupid way. Trump, on the other hand, seems intent on daring people to get in a fight with him. Trump's case isn't a matter of stupid. It's a matter of taunting the world. Trump has this "I am king" mentality.
The problem isn't old people voting. We have young people who have a similar outlook.
I'm almost twice your age, but I've always put my greatest faith in the younger generation to help all of us make progress from one generation to the next, as the numbers also tend to demonstrate with Trump too...
More Old than Young
Throughout his campaign, Trump was consistently more popular among older voters than he had been among younger ones. Pew found in January 2016 that Trump's ratings among Republican voters were highest with those 40 years and older, and this trend held true as more voters switched to supporting him in March 2016. Pew also found in their study, conducted in April and May 2016, that warmth toward Trump increases with age, and coldness toward him decreased. A full 45 percent of Republicans aged 18‒29 feel coldly toward Trump, while just 37 percent feel warmly toward him. Conversely, 49 percent of those aged 30‒49 feel warmly toward him, 60 percent of those aged 50‒64 do, as did 56 percent of those over 65 years of age.
And according to Pew's data, in a face-off with Clinton Trump was expected to capture just 30 percent of the vote among those 18‒29 years of age. The proportion of those who preferred Trump to Clinton increased with each age bracket, but it is not until voters pass 65 years of age that Trump got the advantage.
You really should include some source when making statements like these, because although some people seem to think that simply saying so makes it so (and of course this works with all too many people), the facts remain...
Trump’s International Ratings Remain Low, Especially Among Key Allies
I was quick to attempt a find that might support your claim, because I've traveled abroad and though I know there are people everywhere who will get behind just about anything or anyone, I have yet to encounter a foreigner who doesn't think America essentially "lost its mind" when it made Trump POTUS. Same with other American travelers who have reported the same thing from their travels...
Well, he is very popular in Israel, for example. A town in the North was named after him recently, Ramat Trump.
In France, which is typically not fond of the US, Donald Trump is very popular among a segment of the population - this segment is a minority, but not a small one. This is new for US President there.
Well, he is very popular in Israel, for example. A town in the North was named after him recently, Ramat Trump.
In France, which is typically not fond of the US, Donald Trump is very popular among a segment of the population - this segment is a minority, but not a small one. This is new for US President there.
He's popular in Israel, but here in the USA, Trump, in spite of winning the electorate, lost the popular vote. While he's popular in Israel, he's not popular in much of Europe. As for France, he's still not popular among the majority. And it is the majority opinion that counts the most in France.
And you also really need to look at how he's perceived. He's the President of the USA, not the rest of the world.
He's popular in Israel, but here in the USA, Trump, in spite of winning the electorate, lost the popular vote. While he's popular in Israel, he's not popular in much of Europe. As for France, he's still not popular among the majority. And it is the majority opinion that counts the most in France.
And you also really need to look at how he's perceived. He's the President of the USA, not the rest of the world.
I said he was more popular than previous US presidents, and so, for a US President he is popular. That doesn't mean that most people like him.
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