Idiotam habemus - Trumpum the Bigly XXX - Trump thread #143

[Spandauer]

No grey smoke necessary.

First 100 days have come and gone. Vance has killed the Pope, Musk is melting away and Trump's tariffs are on a slow boat to China.

Coming soon... Bigly's Birthday Parade. What could possibly go wrong?

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5315681-has-the-us-crossed-the-rubicon-trump-thread-142

I had a bizarre conversation at church this morning with someone whose son is studying A Level Politics and American politics as part of that. He claims that Democrats are coming round to Trump as they see how much he has achieved 🤯

I didn’t argue but that is certainly not what I am seeing at all, I studied politics at degree level and am very across traditional and social media and I wonder what slant the tutor is putting on it all. I think the Democrats have been slow to stand up to him with some exceptions, but I think even those who are more reticent are not necessarily approving.

@Evenstar is this person studying in the UK???

@OrangeCrushes yes they are, it was very strange

Anecdotally, none of my American Democrat family members are 'coming around' at all. Thank god.

Vaguely reminded me of :

I am glad to hear that @OrangeCrushes it would be incredibly difficult for me I know, I suppose equivalent to family members here “coming round” to far right extremism

Name some of those 'achievements' sonny. Now count them against the non-achievements. Christ on a bloody bike.

The problem you'll face is that the other side will have decided what an "achievement" is.

Best strategy is not to engage, and just vote. Remember a good proportion of those making the MAGA noise will not and have never voted. In a land of 64% turnout you can take that to the bank. That's why the margin doesn't match the music.

This doesn't gel with Drumpf's very low approval ratings or with any Democratic voters evidence that I can point to...

However this is from NYT today.
(But I would argue that twas ever thus)
One Thing Helping Trump’s Approval Rating: Some People Are Not Paying Attention.

Voters were more likely to approve of President Trump’s job performance if they had not been following some of the major news stories of his first 100 days in office, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll found.

...One inevitable complication in understanding how attention paid to stories in the news corresponds with political support is that consumers can design a media diet of information from only one side or perspective.
Some outlets pass over entire stories, and the language used by different outlets is sometimes so wildly divergent that people may not even recognize two stories as being about the same topic.
But voters who said they had not heard much about recent news events had one thing in common: They were much more likely to get their news from social media.
There is some evidence that Mr. Trump’s approval ratings may be falling among voters who pay little attention to the news. It is harder to know whether that drop is more because they are unhappy with current economic conditions and blaming the new administration or because they are dissatisfied with the news that has filtered through.

One Thing Helping Trump’s Approval Rating: Some People Are Not Paying Attention.

cf. "Soverentee, innit ?"

Maybe it's because I exist in an echo chamber, but I don't know of anyone who's 'come around' to Trump.

I do think, however, that some of his outside the norm choices for cabinet positions, like Gabbard and RFK, scoop up some of the people on the fringes of both the left and right - people who are pretty far outside the mainstream in one direction or other. But I think that's one of the basic characteristics of populism?

There are a few very unhappy Quataries who have lost the "No one is stupid enough to take this off our hands" bet.

The jet, a lavishly configured version of Boeing's largest passenger aircraft, has been lingering without a buyer since being put up for sale in 2020, according to aircraft listings and aviation analysts

https://www.newsweek.com/qatar-gift-trump-unsold-plane-2072564

The best bit is they did this once before.

It's still not beyond the bounds of possibility that - despite clearly having fuck all intention of actually doing any good (except for himself) Trump could end up leaving the world a better place when he dies than when he found it. And not just by dying.

I think there is more than a hint of truth in my original jest that the moment Trump suggested he'd intervene to make peace between India and Pakistan, they seemed to find their own way.

You'd have to have the sort of mind that could understand why Hitler is probably the best thing that ever happened in the history of European unity. And that is where I probably should be on a list somewhere. Well another list.

That is fucking hilarious.🤣

Luckily I have a surfeit of laughs, as I laughed when SCOTUS were stupid enough to make their ruling. Obviously it would bite them.

The recent case on nationwide injunctions was also amusing. It's clearly dawned on some Supremes that if they don't back the power of courts to issue such injunctions, then they raise the question "what is the point of courts ?".

‘The Democrats are coming round due to all the good things Trump has done’ has come of social media somewhere. It’s been floating around on Twitter and other places since just before the 100days. It come up on my feed a lot.

Never from actual Democrats though. Odd that.

Guess that question had to come up sometime.

Once got into a long discussion on difference between UK and US Supreme Court on a fairly conservative US chat forum. It was to do with one of those end of life ‘army’ cases that was in the media a lot. Not sure which one. Genuinely difficult for most of them to understand quite how independent of the executive branch the U.K. Supreme Court is compared to SCOTUS.

@RafaistheKingofClay I find it quite concerning that someone is putting this view across to Sixth Formers and what agenda they might have, we all know what kind of people are pro-Trump here.

Some balance ?

And right on cue, mentioning India picks up the story that India are really pissed with Trump. Seems they don't like the fact the he is trying to hide the might of the Indian army in negotiating with Pakistan. And also they are mightily ticked off that it seems Apple have pulled a billion-dollar investment in India.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/india-us-trade-deal-donald-trump-narendra-modi-operation-sindoor/articleshow/121183374.cms

India has been projecting itself as a cautious player in US President Donald Trump's global tariff war-measured, diplomatic, and reluctant to escalate. But that script is changing fast.

This week, New Delhi lodged a formal complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organization, challenging what it described as “arbitrary and discriminatory” tariffs on Indian pharmaceutical and auto exports.It’s a rare move for India. More than a technical trade dispute, the WTO filing is a signal: India is no longer playing defense in its economic relationship with Washington. India is now willing to take the fight to the global stage, and in doing so, it is borrowing directly from China’s playbook, a Bloomberg report said.China’s influence, India’s awakeningThe timing isn’t coincidental.

Just days earlier, the US and China announced a dramatic de-escalation after playing tit-for-tat in the tariff war. After Beijing hit back with retaliatory tariffs and disrupted US access to rare earth metals, Washington blinked. A deal was reached: US tariffs on Chinese goods were slashed from 145% to 30%."The US has chickened out,” read one widely circulated Chinese social media post, a Financial Times report said. “The US blinked first,” echoed Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis.India seems to have taken note.

That TOL article made for very interesting reading and emphasised the difference between Trump's statements, which his loyal followers take as fact, and India's version.

And the Trumpy Director of FEMA says "No, I have no plans yet for this year's disasters.

Does Trump even know how to count?

“Trump has claimed a $1.2 trillion investment deal from Qatar. Qatar’s annual GDP is a bit less than $250 billion per year. So he’s claiming an investment that would require every dollar every Qatari earned over the next five years,”

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-fake-investment-total_n_682788bce4b0a2fcab729d2a

CNN reporting that Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an 'aggressive' form of prostate cancer.

Damn, if anyone deserves a peaceful retirement Joe does.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/18/politics/joe-biden-prostate-cancer

Just popped up as breaking news on my phone @AcrossthePond55. I doubt we’ll see anything vaguely resembling empathy from TOO™️.