Trump inauguration

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The news outlets have repeatedly pointed out how many of Trump's administration are billionaires- it seems Trump is going to run the White House like a Fortune 500 company.

[Highlord Laan]

I'm not worried about Il Duce II. He's a grandstanding snake oil salesman only capable of talking out his anus. It's the wannabe-fascist theocrats, just-this-side of junta enabling asshats, throwback to the 50's career politicos, and outright motherfucking evil white nationalists that the aforementioned inbred backwoods cousin fucking snaggletoothed redneck morons handed all three branches of the government with cheers of making murrikkka great again that have my attention.

Which is an of itself speaks all that need said about them. If you're not a barely literate male WASP that beats women and hates brown people in the name of Jesus, than you are everything wrong with uhmurrika and need to be lined up and shot with all the other muslim terrorist loving deviant trans homo baby Jesus haters, you filthy pinko commie hippie nazi.

[Imperial528]

I am worried about Trump due to his position which includes significant foreign diplomacy when his ego makes tissue paper seem like carbon steel, combined with his impulsive need to seek out almost immediate or knee-jerk retribution to anyone who so much as gives him a look of disapproval.

And the people he surrounds himself with will be all to happy to indulge him in this.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, that and the fact that he's surrounded himself with Iran hawks, and his Secretary of State nominee is already trading threats with China over the Pacific islands.

[Joun_Lord]

the aforementioned inbred backwoods cousin fucking snaggletoothed redneck morons handed all three branches of the government with cheers of making murrikkka great again that have my attention.

While I agree with pretty much everything else, I must point out it wasn't only those sorts of pieces of human garbage who handed Trump the election (I'm sure our fucked up Electoral College had something to do with it too). Don't discount their contributions to the sorry show but to label all of Trump supporters as that does a disservice to any future Democratic efforts and kinda reinforces why the wig wearing windbag won.

Despite the derision and jabs at Trumps campaign slogan for some people who voted for Trump making America Grrrrrrrrrreat again resonated with them because for them America is no longer great again. For all the factory workers, minors, blue collar 9 to 5 bastards out of work, living in areas comparable to shitty 3rd world countries, America is these days not so great for them.

They were left behind economically, socially, and politically. They are desperate people, not bad people, but people who want to work, want to pay for their rent, to feed their families, to be given some respect and to be noticed. Unfortunately the only time they are noticed by liberals tends to be when they are shit on. When liberals turn their noses up in disgust and label all southerners, blue collar workers, rural miners, poor white people and more as backwards, hateful, bigots clinging to gods and guns. And to be fair they do cling to god and guns, for some religion is all they have left. Hunting is part of their culture, owning a gun a right of passage, and hunting can even be a necessary part of putting food on their plates.

For these people it, rightfully or wrongly, seems like liberals are assaulting them constantly, attacking their culture, their way of life when they aren't talking down about their culture and way of life. That liberals only care about "social justice" and helping others while giving no shits to all the people out of work, all the towns shrinking, all the entire regions completely economically devastated.

Conservatives probably don't care of course, liberals probably do care about poor rural people even if they need to do more to express it, to not come off as so hostile, to maybe do some of that respecting of cultures they preach about. But the fact conservatives, the fact people like Trump actually gave lip service to these people, gave them a voice, put on national tv how they felt after so long of being ignored, its unfortunately only too easy to see why some people voted for him. Why some people accepted even the slim chance of America being made great again that Trump offered, that tiny hope.

Sadly, and this is despite being a definite non-fan of Hillary Clinton, she would have probably been better for rural and blue collar voters then Trumpo the Clown. But Hillary had the same problem as most liberals, an inability to show any care for them beyond to go against them. Her being very pro-gun control didn't help her but what probably really killed her chances was her remark about putting coal miners out of business (even if right after she said she wasn't going to forget them). That remark made people irrationally afraid. Certainly killed alot of appeal she had for some people.

Those people didn't vote for Hillary because they were racist, sexist, or they find their cousins sexually appealing, they voted against her because they saw her as no friend of theirs, as someone who saw them as just racist, sexist, cousin fuckers only worthy of being looked down upon.

If people don't want a repeat of Trump, don't want themselves not appealing to a significant portion of the country, they need to understand that, that Trump won because he sounded more friendly towards a group of very scared, very desperate people. And they need to understand they themselves need to extend their own hand of friendship.

Also maybe have someone running who doesn't run such a sorry ass campaign, just a thought.

[Highlord Laan]

Thing is, the only way anyone can pull off being in the corner of the average and below average citizen is to be directly, openly, and brazenly against not only the political establishment and societal elite, but also against the gigantic corporations and their moguls, the unstoppable big business interests, and every asshole in a suit backing them in the halls of power, and defending them against the law.

And after all that, the idiots still won't vote them into office no matter what information is presented, no matter what the truth is, and no matter how for the interests of the people being shat on they are, because all it takes is for the opposing force to wave a flag, call the people fighting for the 99% unmurrican socialists, and that any attempts to level the scales and playing field is evil.

Because everyone would rather guzzle down their pretty little kool-aid flavored party lies than choke down anything even approaching the bitter truth.

Am I saying that everyone not wearing a suit and serving as part of the problem is fucked by way of a broken, undermined and completely corrupted system that has never and will never be used for the betterment of the people as a whole and exists only to perpetuate itself and the interests of the very people that bought it? Yes, yes I am. After the last forty or so years, anyone that continues to have faith in the american system is a deluded moron.

[TheFeniX]

Thing is, the only way anyone can pull off being in the corner of the average and below average citizen is to be directly, openly, and brazenly against not only the political establishment and societal elite, but also against the gigantic corporations and their moguls, the unstoppable big business interests, and every asshole in a suit backing them in the halls of power, and defending them against the law.

If those people are white, they vote Republican. If those people are a minority, they vote Democrat.

But the failings (and triumphs) of the two-party system are pretty evident. Trump showed that if you can court the large (now, that is) anti-establishment Republican base in the primaries to get the nomination: you're getting X% of the vote no matter what. The people who pull the "straight Republican ticket" lever in the voting booth aren't going to turn around and actually think about voting Democrat or third-party. Same for a Democrat. Maybe if you... I don't know, used a Bible as a fleshlight, they might consider NOT VOTING. But to actually cast a vote for "the enemy?" Pfft.

NOTE: By triumph, I'm talking about Obama. Who kicked Clinton to the curb to get the nomination in 2008.

As long as "straight X ticket" is still a major player in U.S. politics, the system is going to be garbage. That's a failing of the system, but also the voters. And from what I can see, the parties are rallying more and more while moderates have no fucking desire to get involved.

The Simpsons holds true even today:

You could give, literally, anyone the Republican or Democrat nomination, as long as their bullshit doesn't exclude them from being president as a matter of course (such as, being space aliens), and they will be a threat to the other side if people aren't motivated enough by your candidate enough to go out and vote. And no, history has shown (even before now): "He/she is better than X" does not work. It didn't work for Kerry against GW and it didn't work for Romney vs Obama. Essentially, People vote FOR a candidate, not against one. If they don't feel like voting for you, they just stay home.

From what I know (I've said this before and once again, please correct me if I'm wrong): it's not as if Republicans actually showed up in record numbers to vote for Trump. Motivated by 8 years of Obama, the idea of Hillary Clinton being president, and "Make mururiocaikn greapinalnfastest!" they couldn't win the popular vote against said Hillary goddamn Clinton? They just voted in about the same numbers they always do. How fucking shitty is the Republican base? Garbage-tier.

But no one showed up to vote for Clinton liked they did for Obama, twice. Democrats got lazy in a system that elects 1 of 2 candidates. So... sucks for them (read: us). I'm kind of mad because Democrats lost against a Ryu spamming Hadoukens.

I mean... ok, I've been hitting the Whiskey pretty hard tonight, but I'm going to roll with it and rant about something I've been thinking about for a while, since this whole shitstorm started. Please call me a moron if need be: In 2008, I still had a fairly large conservative streak, but even I was done with Republicans after 8 years of GW. So, everyone is talking about HRC and I'm groaning because I'm old school in my distaste for her after the AWB AND her bullshit about the Hot Coffee mod. So, "out of nowhere" this Obama guy (a fucking BLACK GUY) kicks the most establishment politician to the curb and gets the nomination.

Fast-forward 8 years later and the candidate they are railroading through the primary is the same lady who couldn't beat out "Mr. HE HAS NO EXPERIENCE! Also, he's black. I mean, that's not an issue, but come on people: that's totally an issue even in the DNC" Obama within the ranks of HER OWN GODDAMN PARTY! Did this not worry anyone else? Because it worried the fuck out of me. Not even because "SHELL TAKE YUR GUNZ!!!," but because she couldn't stop a nobody from stealing her spotlight in her own primary 8 years ago and... she's relevant in 2016... why?

Then the Sanders thing started. They essentially had to conspire to kick out some old guy because he was giving her too many issues in the primary. This is... this is (was) not good++. Obama would have devoured a guy like Sanders.

Am I crazy (read: drunk) here or is HRC just not pres candidate material? Then again, she STILL won the popular vote against Trump, so maybe I am stupid. But I was in Texas in 2008. People were laughing about a black guy (note: they were not using the term "Black Guy") winning the primary. Then they were laughing about the idea of him winning the election. Off-topic: then the same (white) people spent 8 years talking about how "he's not really black." Damn I fucking hate Texas. Anyways, the guy people were laughing at kicked HRC to the curb.

And in 2016, it was either vote for her or..... the other thing over there. U.S. politics.... AMERICA, FUCK YEA!

[ray245]

It doesn't help that Hillary basically feels that she is destined to be the first Female President of the USA. Everyone was supposed to let way for her to become the President.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hillary Clinton just had too much baggage, too many people who hated her. That's only partly her fault- the Republicans had basically been preparing for her run, systematically digging up and throwing every bit of mud both real and fabricated they could at her.

And yet, she still beat the Orange Rapist by nearly three million in the popular vote, after the blatant Russian and FBI interference and despite voter suppression laws around the country.

It should never have been that close, but its hard to see this election as a repudiation of Clinton personally when its really more a thorough indictment of our elections system and failing government institutions.

Still, I agree that Sanders should have been a wake up call, much more than it was. Now, I respect Bernie Sanders' achievements, but by conventional "wisdom", a self-proclaimed socialist or social democrat should have been utterly unelectable in an American election, much less a relatively obscure Senator running against Hillary "Inevitable" Clinton. Instead... well, if the Democrats didn't have super delegates, and he'd managed to win just a few more states, we'd have been looking at a very different Presidential race.

The Democratic leadership should have figured out the moment Sanders became a serious contender in Iowa and New Hampshire that their was a large segment of the Left wing electorate, beyond the usual fringe third party types, who wanted an alternative to the Chosen One they were trying to shove down our throats, and that they either needed to ditch Clinton, or do much more effective damage control on her image.

Edit: On that note, I wonder if Warren could have taken the nomination from Clinton. Warren, likewise, was seen as a principled progressive, and indeed the progressive anti-Clinton vote really only coalesced around Bernie Sanders, as I recall, after it became clear Warren wouldn't run. And Clinton's reliance on "first female President" and her camp's accusations of sexism (largely bullshit or exaggerated) against Sanders and his supporters would have probably carried far less weight against Warren, for obvious reasons.

[Elfdart]

The news outlets have repeatedly pointed out how many of Trump's administration are billionaires- it seems Trump is going to run the White House like a Fortune 500 company.

It's going to be half Harding/half Nixon, only without any of the good parts of either one.

[General Zod]

Conservatives actually think that you should run a country like you run a business. It's a dangerous attitude but his picks aren't exactly a shock.

[cosmicalstorm]

The rioters face 10 years?

[The Romulan Republic]

Source?

If true, that seems rather harsher than I would normally expect rioters to get, unless they killed someone or something.

But on the other hand...

Don't start shit at a Presidential inauguration.

[Simon_Jester]

Conservatives actually think that you should run a country like you run a business. It's a dangerous attitude but his picks aren't exactly a shock.

I really hope that one or two percent of the people who now believe that learn their lessons from watching someone actually try to do it. Not even Bush the Younger did that.

Hillary Clinton just had too much baggage, too many people who hated her. That's only partly her fault- the Republicans had basically been preparing for her run, systematically digging up and throwing every bit of mud both real and fabricated they could at her.

And yet, she still beat the Orange Rapist by nearly three million in the popular vote, after the blatant Russian and FBI interference and despite voter suppression laws around the country.

It should never have been that close, but its hard to see this election as a repudiation of Clinton personally when its really more a thorough indictment of our elections system and failing government institutions.

Well, it repudiates her insofar as the electorate collectively labeled her "slightly better than Trumpolini, but not by much." How would you feel if you ran against an orange rapist and out of every 140 voters only 71 of them thought you should win? While several dozen people said "meh, I'll sit this one out?"

[The Romulan Republic]

True. But on the other hand, the fact remains that, if we determined the result by the popular vote (you know, democracy), she would have won handily. Not by as much as she should have, and their's really no erasing the shame of losing to fucking Trump, but then, she also faced unprecedented and illegal outside interference in the election.

Of course, you could counter by saying that that interference was only able to be so damaging because of her personal baggage and reputation, and counter that by saying that much of the public perception of her was crafted by the Republican machine. And so on.

You can't put the outcome down to any one factor. As I've said before, it was close enough (about 1-200,000 votes across three states) that their's about half a dozen things, at least, that individually could have changed the result if they'd been just slightly different.

I do think that any other comparably high-profile Democrat (i.e. Biden, Obama if he could have run again), running in her place and on her platform, probably would have won. I won't venture a guess on weather Bernie could have won (though he might have had a somewhat different platform in any case), as a socialist being a major party nominee in the US would be pretty much uncharted territory.

[cosmicalstorm]

Source for 10 year claim is DM. Not quoting because on phone
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rison.html

[Raj Ahten]

Day one of his administration and Trump has already reached Baghdad Bob levels of obvious bullshiting. Who here caught his press secretary's statements about his inauguration crowd being the biggest ever, any photo evidence to the contrary being false etc? I guess Trump wants to run his media ops worse than his pal Putin. Obvious lies as truth with official propaganda fronts in the form of breitbart. At least RT only posits the truth as unknowable. Trump land now has "alternative facts" according to his shills. 30% will still lap it up.

[Elfdart]

Day one of his administration and Trump has already reached Baghdad Bob levels of obvious bullshiting. Who here caught his press secretary's statements about his inauguration crowd being the biggest ever, any photo evidence to the contrary being false etc? I guess Trump wants to run his media ops worse than his pal Putin. Obvious lies as truth with official propaganda fronts in the form of breitbart. At least RT only posits the truth as unknowable. Trump land now has "alternative facts" according to his shills. 30% will still lap it up.

If Trump or his lackeys had charisma, they'd be like this guy:

[Block]

The rioters face 10 years?

Probably UP to 10 years based on a number of factors like how much stuff they stole/broke.

[Joun_Lord]

This whole back and forth about inauguration numbers annoys me. People want to make it seem like a big deal of tRump got big or small numbers when these days I don't think it matters. Most people who wanted to see the inauguration probably aren't going to go and brave the crowds but just watch it on tv or online. This is especially true with how tense the situation on the ground was supposed to be with counter marches, protests, an army of army men sectioning up the city, and Scott Baio, the horror.

Apparently the fuck did get extremely high rating on tv for the inauguration so its not like people weren't interested. Probably interested in it the same way people are interesting in watching a car wreck but thats just my opinion.

Also there is apparently some hubbub about "lyin' lame stream media" going all George Zimmerman on the inauguration and using incorrect pictures. This has me torn, on the one hand I do think the media is lying fucks who would do that because they did that before but on the other hand Trump is cunt who even something as trivial as fucks who showed up to watch him flap his jowls I don't want to give him.

[The Romulan Republic]

According to Robert Reich on Facebook:

Trump tweeted this morning: “Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago!”
Actually, Nielsen reported that 30.6 million viewers watched inaugural coverage between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Friday. The appropriate comparison is to Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, when 38 million viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen. (Second inaugurations never summon the viewership of first inaugurations.)

[Raj Ahten]

This whole back and forth about inauguration numbers annoys me. People want to make it seem like a big deal of tRump got big or small numbers when these days I don't think it matters. .

Trump himself seems to care a great deal about the numbers; he won't shut up about them. His surrogates won't stop talking about it either. More of the presidency as reality show. The ratings are all that matters!

Also multiple sources (look at virtually any news organizations reporting on this. Here is The Guardian's article for example) go over the available evidence and show Trump is full of it. No need to be torn between the media and Trump on this one.

If personal accounts matter I've been to multiple inaugurations and Trump's was pretty sparse, especially compared to Obama's first one. That Trump and his team are willing to put the claims out they did only shows the world how much of a train wreck of yes men bowing down to the Leader his administration is.

[Joun_Lord]

Of course Trump cares, Trump wants to use the long straight crowd, swollen with people, throbbing with excitement ready to released in a shower of patriotism to show how he is a proud and erect President. The crowd only filling half the mall, small and flaccid, would not show what a big President he is, a real limp display on his part.

And I don't doubt that his inauguration was tiny and laughable (maybe it was cold out?) I also don't doubt there was an agenda being pushed by both sides. The media and Trump both have reason to outright lie and distort facts and both have a history of doing so. I'm not going to believe either one outright, actually try to look at opposing viewpoints.

While its likely that there was considerably fewer people then Obama first inaug (though to be fair that was historic, that was exciting, this was.......not) its also possible the media might have used pics from earlier in the day or later in the day to try to prove their own point just like how the Trump team is probably using camera angles like a chubby person on tinder to make themselves look better.

You can't believe either side is my real problem.

[Raj Ahten]

You can't believe either side is my real problem.

Then look at the evidence you can independently verify then. Such as WMATA's ridership numbers. Or the number of Bus parking permits issued by the District of Columbia for various events. Or just look for real sourcing in the stories you see. There is a difference between an anonymous intelligence agency source being the sole basis for a media report and one that gets info from multiple sources willing to go on the record for instance. Reports using sources like the aforementioned ridership figures, on the ground photographs and interviews with actual attributed witnesses should be taken as far more credible.

Also for the Photos being shown with the crowds in comparison between 2009 and 2017, both were taken 45 minutes before the respective speeches began (at least according to the NYtimes). That easily accounts for more people flowing in for a photograph taken later being different in that graphic you linked to.

Also the point has been made, by others better than me, that part of the point of Trump's blatant lies and "alternative facts" is to sow uncertainty. After all If basic facts are in dispute by the each side how can you trust anything? The answer is to use a bit of critical thinking and weigh the news you read based on the quality of its reporting rather than become a total cynic.

[Dragon Angel]

"Alternative facts", more like "political correctness".

See what I did there.

Gods the irony is amazing.