Are We Feeling Liberated Yet? - Trump thread #141

[Spandauer]

King Donald has bigly new tariffs, First Lady Elmo turns out to be ballot box poison and 'Pick Me Girl' Vance is a meanie to the EU.

(But at least the penguins on the Heard and McDonald Islands are wearing suits)

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5297058-trumpmusk-the-doge-and-pony-show-continues-trump-thread-140

Like Ginsburg not standing aside in time for Biden to get younger judges in ...

Unhinged. Totally unhinged. It doesn’t say in the article, but I would imagine the Australian concerned is not white skinned. Or is that too simplistic? And does writing that make me racist?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/australian-with-us-working-visa-detained-insulted-deported

Quite. And I’d be willing to put any amount of money on Biden’s acuity being considerably better than Trump’s.

The democrats may well have run the wrong campaign and pulling out half way through was a disaster but a significant proportion of American voters didn’t have an issue with putting someone who frequently makes gaffes in speeches and has little grasp of anything in the White House.

I would say it’s more likely than not unfortunately.

More realist than racist I’d say. Although, I’m white British and was pulled aside and searched or had bags searched 3 times in one day once. It became a bit of a joke on that trip. I think we ended up with 5 flights and 6 searches each. The only explanation we ever got is we had non US passports so I wouldn’t guarantee that being white is any protection if border agents feel like they are being given free rein by Trump.

Was that under a particular colour of “regime”, @RafaistheKingofClay? Or is that actually irrelevant, I wonder? I remember arriving at JFK on my first trip to the States, when Reagan was President, and being absolutely stunned at the way the Border Control people behaved even then, though I had a return ticket! They seemed more relaxed on my later visits, though I now realise the last time I went was 20 years ago, also when a Republican was President.

As an American citizen that goes in and out regularly, I've never been given a particularly hard time (white, obviously fairly well-to-do, non-threatening) but I will say that I've thought for a long time the experience at border control is almost completely dependent on how the individual staff member approaches their job. In the past, some of them were perfectly fine and some were clearly cosplaying semi-fascist militaristic pricks. I shudder to imagine how their number will increase in this regime.

They used to pretty universally say, Welcome Home, which always made me feel a bit teary. These days they're more likely to regard you with suspicion for having left the country in the first place, and I found that during the Biden years too.

I was just listening to this, which I found really interesting - young influencers talking about a range of things, but Biden's mental state amongst them.

And I agree that the loss of mental acuity would be a much more compelling argument if we hadn't spent the last ten years listening to the fermented horse turds falling out of Diaper Don's mouth on a daily basis.

Forgot the link

From what I read earlier there are at least 3 books out (or nearly out) talking about Biden's decline in the last months before he pulled out.

I should confess @Wallaw and @Spandauer that I don't know much about Maher and would rather take your words for it.

Nonetheless my point remains, if Trump is great in rl and not a ginormous, narcissistic cunting arsehole pos that his "TV appearances" as president and his regime present, with no morals and as thick as fuck to boot, then that would be worse.

I have to caveat this with the fact that despite being a native New Yorker, I have never met Donald Trump, but have known people who have - mostly representing people in legal proceedings against him, although admittedly in his pre-frontal lobe dissolution days. And their assessment is that he's exactly as he appears, but with an almost incredible sense of self-preservation.

That said, I would suspect that it's exactly the fact that he is a ginormous, narcissistic, cunting, immoral arsehole pos that enables him to be charming enough from time to time to manipulate people when it suits him. And especially people with inflated senses of self, like Bill Maher.

In the past, some of them were perfectly fine and some were clearly cosplaying semi-fascist militaristic pricks.

Two decades ago, (white) dh decided to take several of his (brown) Colombian engineers to a industry exhibition in the US. It became a bit of a company joke that he was the only one taken aside for a strip search when the others could well have been drug smugglers.

I used to return home to the UK, via Miami, three times a year. I once got a suspicious comment on why was I transiting the US so often!

On another tack, I'm wondering when our beef prices are going to rise due to increased exports to China (our beef is really nice) and whether we'll be deluged with shitty, hormone-riddled American pork.

We and the EU are resisting all attempts to force us to buy chlorinated chicken and hormone fed US beef. Hopefully, Kiwis will hold fast too. I believe that China has swivelled to Oz for beef.

I have an issue with how Oz cattle can be legally transported unwatered, for up to 48hrs.

I'm not buying the narrative that had Harris stood from the off the Democrats could have won.

The Donald will go after anyone who goes against him or is believed to have 'got one over' on him. I wonder if Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll are waiting for the knock on the door again? He's got his list and he's checking it twice.

fortune.com/2025/04/10/trump-orders-anonymous-author-former-top-cybersecurity-official-first-term/

Taylor, who left the Trump administration in 2019, was later revealed to be the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed in 2018 that was sharply critical of Trump. The person writing the essay described themselves as part of a secret “resistance” to counter Trump’s “misguided impulses,” and its publication touched off a leak investigation in Trump’s first White House.

Taylor later published a book under the pen name “Anonymous” and publicly revealed his identity days before the 2020 election.
Trump said Wednesday that Taylor was “like a traitor” and that his writings about “confidential” meetings were “like spying.”
“I think he’s guilty of treason,” he said.

@SerendipityJane Based on a DeepChat answer on why voters rejected Harris, I would agree with you.

Meanwhile I hear the Senate is moving to recover the power to set tariffs

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-09/delta-s-ceo-says-airline-won-t-pay-tariffs-on-any-airbus-planes

A red one. And it was 8months after 9/11 which will explain some of it. They were all very nice about it. It could have been worse.

It’s just that when we asked because it couldn’t possibly just be random by that point they were quite honest about it being because we were travelling on British passports. Suspect if we’d have been black or brown and that was the reason they’d have been a lot less honest about any profiling.

Yes, it's one of the things the young'uns talk about on the podcast I linked - one of the guys says he thinks the Dems had lost a year before Biden dropped out. Certainly the fate of incumbents worldwide backs that up.

The Donald will go after anyone who goes against him or is believed to have 'got one over' on him. I wonder if Stormy Daniels and E. Jean Carroll are waiting for the knock on the door again? He's got his list and he's checking it twice.

Yes. About those lists ...

(Fact checked)

As expected.

Looks like there will be some bargain packages then. More opportunities for the poorer countries in the world to visit the US now.

Every cloud and all that.

A lesser mortal would be terrified at seeing this pop up in FB as they pressed "Post" for the above quip ...

My Facebook feed is FULL of adverts for trips to the USA
its really quite pathetic.

The US Government is subjecting people to polygraph tests who they think are not sufficiently loyal according to Alt National Parks

What a shame.

President Donald Trump’s physician pronounced him “fully fit” to execute the duties of the presidency, according to a memo released by the White House on Sunday.

The 78-year-old president “exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health,” wrote Sean Barbabella, the physician to the president.

apnews.com/article/trump-physical-weight-loss-oldest-president-75913b1e114cec64ae0acab1389118b2#

Trump on his annual physical: “I felt I was in very good shape. Good heart. A good soul. Very good soul… took a cognitive test. I don’t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right.” A normal person doesn’t brag about passing a basic cognitive test where you have to identify an elephant and remember what day it is

https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1911019891852783699

Nice of the good doctors at Walter Reed to attempt to look for his soul. Is that routine in a medical stateside?