Donald Trump
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All right, time for a more serious post. Disclaimer: I'm Eastern European, have never set foot in the US and that's just an outsider's perspective based on limited information.
The reasons for Trump's victory go back to the 1990s. It's there that an alarming trend appeared in the US economy: a concentration of capital and widening of the gap between the elite and the middle class. This process has been going for a quarter of a century now and the small incremental changes have caused a qualitative difference: the American dream is no longer there. The country is run by an oligarchy, the middle class is dwindling and there are more and more social realities perceived as injustice by many people. Medical care and education are turning into luxury commodities. Most people have to incur massive debt to even get a shot at the career they want. This means a whole lot of people are disillusioned and unhappy with the status quo. Hilary was a corrupt member of the oligarchy and based her campaign on beautiful-sounding and empty slogans which failed to resonate with the disenchanted masses. Trump managed to portray himself as a rebel, a true patriot who would really change things. He played on the nostalgia for the good ol' days when the American dream was alive and kicking (make America great again), the disappointment with the present and an optimistic picture of the future. What do I expect to happen? A slick politician with an excellent PR team won the campaign playing on people's emotions. Now the dust will settle, the actual presidency will begin, the emotional outbursts will settle down and a large portion of the Democrat and Republican supporters will realize in consternation something which should've been obvious from the start: Trump isn't a rebel against the establishment. He's part of it. He's a fucking billionaire, for God's sake! He has also proven his willingness to give contradictory promises left and right and I expect him not to fulfill them at all. Hillary supporters will be pleasantly surprised. Trump supporters are in for a rough awakening: it's going to be more or less business as usual. In the short term, this means Trump was probably the lesser evil than the militaristic Hilary. I suppose less third-world countries will get a taste of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. That's not bad at all. It might, however, cause a long-term problem: the social and economic conditions which allowed for Trump's election won't go away. The oligarchy will continue to get richer and most others will get poorer. Even the most short-sighted will eventually realize Trump is a wolf in a dollar-green suit hiding behind the mask of a patriotic, down-to-earth good ol' boy. The resentment and disillusionment will grow and fester and this might create the correct political climate for a future politician who will actually be radical and extreme, will make outrageous promises and might actually believe in them and work to fulfill them. We'll see how it goes but let's see I won't be exactly surprised if the US of A gets a taste of what a real radical politician looks like in the not-so-distant future. You have to be realistic about these things.
Logen Ninefingers | |
" Really nice post, I agree with what you say - I'm western european with family in the US - and your conclusion too. ...hopefully we'll be wrong... "Metas rotate all the time, eventually the developers will buff melee"
PoE 2013-2018 |
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" I live in Germany, but I'm not German. Legal immigrant :P GGG banning all political discussion shortly after getting acquired by China is a weird coincidence.
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" I expect a lot from Trump. It's going to take a lot of deal making and compromise for him to be effective, and I expect there will be a lot of things passed, that I don't necessarily agree with. Such is the nature of reality. A few things come to mind: Stop the shift towards Globalism. If monopolies aren't good, what makes people think a world government monopoly would be any different? Stop destabilizing other nations. Yes, there are terrible places in the world, but destabilizing them only makes them worse for the people who have to live there. Do these interventionists have any idea how freaking hard it is to get by in many parts of the world? Whether a sociopolitical system in one country is bleak or not, messing around with it the same as wrecking a fragile ecosystem. No more living breathing document Supreme Court hacks. I don't necessarily want a bunch of things reversed, but we certainly don't need new justices with an agenda that they check off as carelessly as if they are ordering fries with ranch dressing. Scrap the Rumsfeld BS plan and rebuild the US military before it becomes obsolete (We don't need an invading army, but we do need to bring back 2+1 Theater operations capability for deterrence) Stop throttling businesses with **needless** regulation (some is definitely necessary) Clean out and prosecute the IRS criminals who used the department to exercise political agendas. Spring Cleaning at the EPA. There's zero accountability there now. That organization needs to be rebuilt, with efficiency and achievable goals. Realistic and actually enforced immigration. The USA needs immigrants. We just can't take everyone all at once. Sanctuary cities are festering sores - not because of immigrants, but because of the increased lawlessness that goes along with a city that defies the federal government. Quit putting a stick in the hornet's nest with Police accountability. The whole effort to bait one side and blame another only makes things worse. There are some problems that can be fixed if they are willing to actually try to figure out what the root cause is. Drain the terrorist swamp. Government officials who can't even admit the problem need to be sent packing, or investigated and put in jail if they are colluding. On the unlikely to be achieved, but still wished for list: Accountability for Academics. There needs to be a separation of education and politics in the class room. Teachers shouldn't be preaching their political ideology any more than they should be teaching religious ideology. Eventually, We're going to need some sort of freedom of thought amendment. It would be better to start working on that now, before technology is in place to seriously abuse it. "The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
PoE Origins - Piety's story http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2081910 |
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" Arrest them all and throw them in a big pit to live with each other. Once cell phone per 25 people and let them fight over it. Since they despise the rural class so much, they could all be vegans and feed themselves from organic farms that they worked themselves. Maybe if they managed to produce excess food they could trade it for chicken tendies. "The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
PoE Origins - Piety's story http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2081910 |
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" Trump won despite the disadvantages. Bernie partially had the outsider aspect. Bernie had consistency, and he didn't have the negativity of either candidate. Trump offered a political revolution. The polling was partially rigged - but people responding were also intentionally deceptive with their answers. Why? because they trusted the media about as much as they trusted Hillary to be honest. It didn't start with Trump. Just as kids are smart enough to discover what's happening with Santa Claus, they are smart enough to realize when adults are lying through their teeth about a lot of other things. Those impressions stick. The next two generations are going to be far more skeptical. That's not good news for the existing liberal machine. It will be good news for old fashioned liberals who just want people to get a fair shake and be treated decently. "The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
PoE Origins - Piety's story http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2081910 |
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Gotta love all those C list celebs, actors and pop stars crying
"I'm moving to Canada now because Trump is Hitler, he's a racist, he's going to kill all non-whites etc." So why move to Canada, why not Mexico? Because Canada is clean, low crime, 99% white? "Duh, obviously... ***processing*** ...fuck." Owned. "Im smartest. Your stoped. Dael wiht it."
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"My point is this. Bernie got his ass handed to him in the primary. Bernie was in the exact same position Trump was in- fighting to make a name for himself (which he did), despite an overwhelming handicap (which was clear), despite his "own" party fighting him (which they were), despite literally everyone telling you HRC was going to win. My point is that I see a lot of pissed off naval gazing from the left, saying that Bernie would have won, that he was cheated, etc. Yet in nearly identical circumstances, two vastly different outcomes occurred. So, something smells a bit rotten. A comprehensive, easy on the eyes loot filter:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1245785 Need a chill group exiles to hang with? Join us: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1251403 |
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4chan has evolved lel.
Spoiler
 GGG banning all political discussion shortly after getting acquired by China is a weird coincidence.
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lol
 age and treachery will triumph over youth and skill!
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