It is worrisome to have the most powerful man in the world to call anyone who disagrees with him fake, liars.
Well, it would indeed be worrisome if a majority took his rants seriously. But they (we) don’t.
Part of the perception problem (and the citizen divided between pro- and anti-Trumpers) is that the Trumpers take him seriously but not literally, while the Anti’s take him literally but not seriously.
I had an old VP that had a saying that applies to Trump: He’s DIRECTIONALLY correct, but not ACCURATE.
what’s more it is WORKING, because there are so many people out there he believe if someone from the media criticizes trump they must be from the left and they must be lying because all the media if fake and lying (except when they agree like fox).
News flash: The half of the US that’s conservative stopped taking the Times, Post, and major networks seriously at least 20 years ago. All you have to do is pull some video from the early Chris Christie years when he was fabulously popular in a blue state, and the roars of approval that Newt and other candidates got going back in multiple elections when they lambasted the media.
Why? Because most of Fox and talk radio shtick comes from the MSM. The right wing talkers call them out on their most egregious BS and pick them apart with factoids. Now, they don’t always do so honestly, but they are honest enough to have sown substantial suspicion over the years, to the point that no conservative looks at any MSM outlet, or Times, or the Post, without the clear understanding that they’re trying to sell you a narrative.
So, I’d say that the “suspicion” that you believe Trump is sowing was actually sown decades ago. To me, the left hears Trump’s criticism of the media and is SHOCKED; the right hears it, and things “yea, we already knew that.”
Think back back to the scandals in our society on both sides.. a great many required the press to reveal and share the truth.
Two thoughts. First, any respect given to the press is not owned by them; it must be earned. The second is that everything that you accuse Trump of doing verses the MSM the left has been doing to Fox and the right-wing talkers for years. Remember, Obama tried to restrict the Fox NEWS team from access, and the Fox NEWS team is award-winning; it’s the Fox PUNDITS that the left believes are screwy. So, the left has no moral authority to demand that Trump stop attacking the press when they themselves have been doing the same for years.
this scares the hell out of me, and doesn’t even seem to register with many as an issue.
It doesn't with me, either. The solution is for americans to get up off their lazy asses and read multiple outlets, just like they do in Europe, where different outlets self-identify as “conservative”, “left of center”, and whatever. Europe’s done just fine with biased outlets, we need to do so as well.
all of which makes trade and peter navarro’s protectionist nationalism seem like a tame issue. what i don’t get is how do capitalists, where i assume we still call ourselves that, how do capitalists square tariffs against nation state competitors with emulating their behavior?
You don’t; if you try, it’s like dropping your weapons in the middle of a war.
The goal is free and fair trade; if the Chinese (big bear in the room) don’t want to be fair, then you use tariffs to grab them by the neck and you squeeze until their economy falters and they start to get worried about civilian uprisings again.
If the chinese are dumping steel and it is as good of steel as we make, the god damn let’s buy a shitload of steel at bargain basement prices and fix all our bridges, let’s buy this stuff and build cars and sell them to the world at cheaper prices and let’s encourage people in Pittsburgh (a generalization) to not follow in daddy’s footsteps and work the friggin mills in a dying industry.
Yea great. I’m sure all the laid off workers will love their soup kitchens.
BTW, steel’s not a dying industry. You’re never going to be able to build a car out of microchips.
the last thing in the world we should be doing is setting up these artificial tariffs to prop up industries that have been flailing for 50 years.
Disagree. Nations which must acquire key commodities from other nations are by definition in an inferior position to those nations. Every commodity that was essential forty years ago still is today; we’ve just added additional ones, like semiconductors.
Everyone, even coal companies know coal is in its final stretch.. there is almost nothing good about it except that we have a lot and it avoids change so it is easier.
Yep. What we need to do is stretch it out as long as possible, so the adjustment to the workforce is incremental and manageable rather than abrupt and dislocating. To me, this falls explicitly into the role of government defined in the Preamble when it says “promote the general welfare”. Hastening the death of the coal industry by regulation is not promoting the general welfare.
Can we influence education to train the next generation to be better prepared so they don’t have to work tearing the tops of mountains off or crawling into the bowels of the earth to cart out buckets of filthy coal to further and unnecessarily pollute a limited resource (this planet)?
Sure. We need the cost of solar panels to drop another 50% or so. We’ll get there.
i would argue that innovation and allowing the best ideas to win is what makes this country what it was and is and we simply need to continue down that path. Govt. definitely had a role, but it isnt or shouldnt be picking winners in business and industry. it should be in looking out into the future and trying to guide this country, and the world into it.
Well, I agree with that. That’s why the government shouldn’t be subsidizing solar or hastening the demise of coal. If you do so, that’s the very definition of “picking winners and losers”.
