I doubt it.
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President Trump moment of glory.
- Thread starter Faithofchristian
- Start date
I doubt it.
It goes back and forth. I've seen the same thing on both sides, so no one can claim the high ground here.
I agree overall with what you're saying, but unfortunately for America, that's what politics has been for a very long time. All I can say for myself is that, for every issue I've discussed here, my views have remained relatively consistent with my overall political ideals, long before Trump ever entered the arena.
That's part of the reason why I'm somewhat contentious towards those who have been attacking Trump for many of the same things that they've given a pass to for just about everyone else before Trump. That reveals that their principles are not consistent - or (more likely) they have no principles at all. They can claim "false equivalence" all they want, but it's so transparent to me.
Because we shouldn't have had to pay them one red cent for taking over our embassy and holding our citizens hostage from 1979-81. Not to mention their interference in the 1980 presidential election (New Reports Say 1980 Reagan Campaign Tried to Delay Hostage Release).
The $400 million for fighter jets was an agreement with a regime which the Iranian revolutionaries overthrew. Once the Shah was gone, then the agreement should have been considered null and void. Iran loses the money.
Besides, why give them money for that? That's like saying the families of the 9/11 bombers should be able to sue the airlines for wrongful death. It's ludicrous.
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
Whole lotta analysts who disagree with you there, but please, other than uninformed pundit rhetoric, where'd you hear this?
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
I didn't claim either "side" could. Stop trying to reduce everything to good/bad, either/or sides, because that's the root of the problem
that's good
If you ever see me attacking Trump for anything I've given anyone else a pass for, please, by all means call me on it. I must say, however, IMHO, when it comes to hypocritical pass giving, Trump supporters seem to do it an awful lot. That being said, reducing every political discussion to "yeah, but what about the time So and so did such and such?" really isn't helping things.
Fair enough.
I wasn't referring to you at all. I was mainly referring to some of the media-inspired stuff and the words/actions of the politicos and pundits.
I think the main source of my ire is rooted in such bitter disappointment in the Democratic Party, of which I was a proud member up until the 1990s when they started moving away from being the party of the working man to nothing more than Republicans in sheep's clothing, with the only real difference being gender and identity issues (which are not nearly as important as economic justice, in my opinion). Even Obama, as much praise as he gets, a lot of people on the left thought of him as "Bush Lite."
They also were more the party of peace (notwithstanding the divisions between hawks and doves in the 60s and 70s) - peace with Vietnam, peace with Russia, peace in Korea, and elsewhere around the world. Why they're the ones leading the war cry these days is truly mystifying to me.
The latest I've noticed in the news is Robert De Niro. Here he is saying, "**** Trump," yet I remember a few years ago (when he was acting like Cliven Bundy) with his property tax dispute in upstate NY. These kinds of people abound, and frankly, I'm sick of them and their BS.
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
All fair points. None of it justifies lying or intentionally misleading the gullible about the other "side's" politicians, which you'll recall is how this tangent started.
True enough, although one could also say that none of the criticism leveled at Trump over this meeting with Kim is really warranted or justified. For Pete's sake, this is the first time a US president has met with the North Korean leader, and it could be an important first step towards peace. This is an historic occasion. And yet, all anyone can do is complain and find fault. What's up with that?
It gives one the impression that some people are so blinded by hatred towards Trump that they'll condemn anything and everything he does. It may not justify doing just the opposite (by either endlessly worshiping Trump or reflexively condemning Obama or Hillary), but I can see how it happens, given the nature and tone of the overall debate I've seen ever since Trump was elected.
It's nothing short of pathetic when someone blows a single positive fact about Trump into "omg he's your hero!" I think Trump is mostly a moron wrapped in a spray tan. Especially when he opens his mouth. But the left now sees "a single positive about Trump" as "Trump worship." Over the year I've learned it's actually true the left made Trump happen, and this silliness will get him elected once again.
As the president would say: "SAD!"
US had a trade surplus last year wbut th Canada so Trump is nuts going into a trad war with them.
No, Mr. President. The US doesn't have a trade deficit with Canada
Obama inherited unemployment due to a recession. When Obama left unemployment was at four percent, Trump inherited an outstanding unemployment rate which he declared fake news until it suited him.
Yes I’m very serious.
Suspicious is a great word. There is something going on.
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
I'm not on the left, and if you can think of a better phrase than hero myth for giving Trump credit for things he didn't do, like stopping IS , I'd like tl hear it.
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
I guess it's a question of priorities, like all diplomacy. What's more important to you, holding a grudge over something that happened 40 years ago, or a non-nuclear armed Iran?
To return is to give something back to someone, according to the dictionary. They are synonyms.
Shushersbedamned
Well-Known Member
It's a question of common sense. What is possible, holding a grudge for over 40 years or a non-nuclear armed Iran?
Shushersbedamned
Well-Known Member
Nobody has stopped ISIS and your arguing who pretends they did it?
Shushersbedamned
Well-Known Member
If you're insinuating a plot... I say, sounds jolly dangerous....
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I see that you still don't know how to use a dictionary.
Oxford English Dictionary defines return as,
“Give, put, or send (something) back to a place or person.”
return | Definition of return in English by Oxford Dictionaries
Face to face diplomacy is indeed important, but perhaps more should be expected of any president, including Trump. Especially since all Trump got in return arguably amounts to a net loss for him and America. Consider,
Despite the hype, the only face you can really put on Kim Jong-un's promise to denuclearize North Korea is that it was no more substantial than anyone would normally consider the promise of someone to repay a debt who has never repaid a debt before.
That's to say, not only has the North made the same promise over and over again since 1985, but this time was no different at all: The promise was made "...without a single specific about how to accomplish it. There’s no agreement on inspections. North Korea doesn’t have to declare the facilities it has, much less dismantle them, to say nothing of destroying actual warheads."
Compound that fact with this: In exchange for a most likely meaningless promise, Trump gave Kim Jong-un some real deals at no cost to Jong-un. He promised to end joint South Korean/American military exercises. Those have been dismissed in this thread as mere "saber rattling" and of no real significance, but think again! By all accounts, the concession shocked both the South Korean and the U.S. military leaderships.
U.S. troops are typically rotated in and out of South Korea every few years in staggered stages so that some troops are always more or less brand new. Consequently, joint exercises are key to bringing the troops up to combat readiness in order to meet any N. Korean aggression. By ending those exercises, Trump has in effect unilaterally agreed to degrade the effectiveness of both American and South Korean forces should the North attack. That's precisely what the military leaderships found so shocking.
I say, "unilaterally", because he didn't so much as get even a mere promise from the North to end their own readiness exercises in return.
Beyond that, Trump legitimatized North Korean propaganda by agreeing with Jong-un that our joint exercises were indeed, "provocative". That might prove quite useful to all the wrong people.
And going even further, Trump either came dangerously close to, or actually did, legitimatize the most ruthless and barbaric dictatorship on earth at the moment. Asked about North Korea's human rights abuses, which are widely recognized as the worst in the world today, Trump downplayed them as equal to any other "bad" nation's abuses, "It's a rough situation over there. It's rough in a lot of places, by the way." But he went much further than that towards legitimatizing Jong-un's oppression of his people, saying things like, "he loves his country very much", and that the North Korean people have a "great fervor" for Jong-un, just as if Jong-un were legitimately elected by a majority popular vote. He didn't even stop there, either.
Now it's true that Trump got a promise to denuclearize the North, and he even got a promise that the North would participate in peace talks. Both of those things are good. But I see them as about as much worth as the words of a known backslider and promise breaker, for that is precisely what the North is. Check out the history of their promises to denuclearize, for example.
It's curious to me that so many people who see Trump's act of tearing up the accord with Iran, an accord that included the actual boots on the ground, periodic inspections of Iranian sites for compliance would praise Trump for significantly reducing the nuclear threat from North Korean when he got no more from the North but a promise -- the same promise, basically, as the North has ignored time and again in the past. I can only believe excessive partisan thinking has blinded them to the facts, or to blinded them to the significance of the facts.
Furthermore, I am puzzled by the persistence of the myth that Trump is some kind of genius at making deals.
But I will acknowledge that a ray of light here is Trump has met Kim Jong-un face to face. That does indeed count for something. More than one diplomatic outcome in history has depended on the face to face meetings of leaders. I think no one can deny that. But whether the Singapore meeting proves in the end to be as fruitful as the face to face meetings of Churchill and Roosevelt, or as disastrous as the face to face meeting of Hitler and Chamberlain -- or something altogether other than those meetings -- only time will tell.