Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
ZephMarshack wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
leashyourkids wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
rogers park bryan wrote:
JORR what is your hope? You must be sickened by the Trump platform (healthcare, tax cuts for rich)
Yeah, I'm not a fan of Trump no matter how many times I'm called a "Trumpet" in this forum. But barring real crimes, we just have to gut out four years and then hope there is a candidate worth supporting.
My hope would be that instead of fighting Trump Democrats tried to work with him. He's not a conservative. He likes to make deals. Stroke his ego and he's pliable. I think a lot of progress could be made and a lot of old school Republicans would be very angry. That's not likely to happen though.
Work with him on what? What does the guy actually believe in? Building a wall? He is an idiot figurehead who offers nothing. Do you place any blame on him or is it just on Democrats for not "working with him"? Not to mention the fact that Republicans can't even write a bill that their own party agrees with.
Let me ask you this: what expectations do you have of a president? Is he just there as a figurehead or is he supposed to be involved in the political process? If he is, why wouldn't you be criticizing him for not doing that? The president of the U.S. has the maturity of a 12-year-old, and instead of blaming him for his own lack of basic knowledge, understanding, intellectual curiosity, or ability, you criticize others for not lowering their standards and humoring his ridiculousness in the name of "working with him" (which probably wouldn't even work anyway).
Maybe we should just hire homeless people at $2 an hour to build our roads and then bitch when the people driving on the roads can't adapt to bridges with gaps in them or expressways with no pavement.
I wouldn't put it in terms of "placing blame". Some of the things you say above are true, but it's not like Trump is some idiot that can't have a reasonable discussion like Baby McNown. He's not a conservative ideologue like Ryan or Cruz. There is agreement to be found with Trump on things you and I would support if Democrats weren't so busy trying to RESIST.
Which things? Wasn't the whole point of leash's post asking for specifics?
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This is a fucking message board and I don't think any U.S. Congressmen post here. I'm not providing "specifics". I'm just pointing out that Trump seems to be a pragmatic guy whether you like his style or not. I'm sure he'd be more than willing to deal with Democrats. Whether there would be enough reasonable and moderate Republicans in that case, who knows?
I understand that Trump is a crude vulgarian who is off-putting and he has insulted probably over half the people in Washington. But there is a long tradition in this country of what we call the "loyal opposition". There's nothing negative about that. In fact, it's noble. But ever since Bill Clinton we've seen signs of what I would call a "disloyal opposition". And now it's full on RESISTANCE to a duly elected president. Constant over-the-top comparisons to Hitler and Mussolini. Really absurd.
Again, why is this criticism vocalized so much more when it's a Republican occupying the presidency than it is when it's a Democrat? I hated Obama but one thing he can't be accused of is failure to reach across the aisle (a standard you're not even holding Trump to, as apparently the onus is on the Dems to reach out to him), and there was absolutely no receptiveness when he did so, even for his Heritage Institute-approved Obamacare. Indeed, most articles explicitly praised the "rationality" of Congressional Republicans of just roadblocking every single piece of legislation and judicial nominee Obama attempted to push after 2010. Now that the Republicans, who control both the Senate and the House, can't accomplish anything, the fault apparently still lies with the powerless Democrats.
Guys like James Toomey will even cop to the fact that they had no idea they'd be asked to actually pass positive legislation rather than just getting to vote no on everything and blame everything on Hillary, just like they did with Obama.Most of the RESISTANCE stuff is coming from the Democratic base,
not the people in Congress; this is why you saw so many protests against Dems who didn't attempt to block every single one of Trump's Cabinet nominees. This is also why you're seeing voters contemplating objectively counterproductive moves like primarying Machin in West Virginia for not being liberal enough; those pushes aren't being made by the top brass of the party. What great policies exactly have the Democrats actually held up with all of their disloyal opposition? Bi-partisanship for the sake of bi-partisanship is an utterly empty goal both in theory and in practice, and I didn't realize it still appealed to anyone who's not Aaron Sorkin, Michael Bloomberg, or a protege of David Broder.