Oh, peacemaker, peacemaker make me some peace - Trump Thread #167

[Spandauer]

Many, many more months of the Mango Mussolini's maniacal merde.

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5545753-green-is-the-new-blue-trump-thread-166

I think this sort of thing works in Trump's favour. Some of my US friends were and continue to be very vocal about it. On the one hand there are the Trump MAGA idolators, who will turn out in droves to vote for him, no matter how openly offensive in words and deeds he is.

On the other hand there are people (fewer) who would vote Democrat because that's their party or because they want their vote to count against the madness.

And in the middle are many, very MANY eligible voters shrugging and saying "well, I don't like either guy so I won't be voting". Thus Trump gets in with a resounding majority, largely because his adherents are the ones who can be arsed to go out and vote and no-one to succeed against him due to apathy and "sitting it out".

Kamala Harris was absolutely not perfect and @AcrossthePond55 is right, it was a bl~~dy debacle with Biden. But I struggle to see how the hell she could have been a worse, or more divisive, president than Trump?

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Fine. Sit it out. Do nothing. But if we do that, we can't really complain at a result that distresses us and infuriates the world. We could have voted against. We did nothing.

Sadly, I too think the Dem candidate will need to be white, preferably male and preferably straight. Kamala Harris's time has unfortunately passed and the country isn't ready for AOC.

Obama became the Dem candidate from relative obscurity so maybe there's someone hiding in plain sight.

(The Guardian)

US releases list of 86 countries subject to new tariffs
As nations are scrambling to find out if they are subject to the new tariffs imposed on Thursday by the Trump administration, for supposedly failing to crack down on forced labor, the US trade representative’s office has provided a list of nations or economic blocs supposedly guilty of a “Failure to Impose and Effectively Enforce a Prohibition on the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor”.
According to a draft version of the Federal Register Notice:
On June 2, 2026, the Trade Representative determined that, in each of the 60 investigations, certain of the acts, polices, and practices of the economy at issue are actionable under sections 301(b) and 304(a) of the Trade Act. The Trade Representative also issued a comprehensive report, Acts, Policies, and Practices of Various Economies Related to the Failure to Impose and Effectively Enforce a Prohibition on the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor (Report).
Specifically, the Trade Representative determined that:
• The following 54 economies have failed to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor: Algeria; Angola; Argentina; Australia; the Bahamas; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Brazil; Cambodia; Chile; China, People’s Republic of; Colombia; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic; Egypt; El Salvador; Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Hong Kong, China; India; Iraq; Israel; Japan; Jordan; Kazakhstan; Kuwait; Libya; Malaysia; Morocco; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Nigeria; Norway; Oman; Peru; the Philippines; Qatar; Russia; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; South Africa; South Korea; Sri Lanka; Switzerland; Taiwan; Thailand; Trinidad and Tobago; Türkiye; United Arab Emirates; United Kingdom; Uruguay; Venezuela; and Vietnam.
• The following six economies have failed to effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor: Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico, and Pakistan.
Since there are 27 countries in the European Union, a total of 86 nations are subject to the new US tariffs which go into effect on Friday.

I quite like Mark Kelly. White, naval pilot, astronaut, smart. No idea if he is even willing to run for president. But he was being touted as one of Kamala's potential running mates last time. Not that I am a US citizen, but I think a former astronaut would have something no one else does.

It's so depressing and defeatist that the thinking on this thread is that the democrats can only go for a straight white male who is in his 50s as a candidate for POTUS.

I third this. No need to apologise. If it helps, I'm also a practising Christian. I have no interest in quoting the Bible to bash others and just try to live my life by trying to be a better person.
That said, I'm human and my report card says 'Could do better!'
I can live with this. I'm not Jesus.

@Talkinpeace

Who are the 50+ straight white men or women (sorry but its true)
who can NAIL the points such that grade schoolers (MAGAs) understand

Gavin Newsom 😉 Although he's antagonized MAGAts enough that I don't think they'd listen if he said the sky is blue. I'd add Mayor Pete, he doesn't meet the 'straight' requirement.

For females, how about Abigail Spanberger (46) newly elected Gov of Virginia or Elissa Slotkin former HoR, now Senator for Michigan (50). Both strong white females 'of a certain age', but unfortunately I don't think either of them have 'public recognition' factor of Gavin or Pete.

But I agree, we need a 'to the left' candidate who will appeal to a broad range of voters. 'Radical' enough for the AOC/Bernie brigade yet 'centrist' enough to appeal to the more moderate Dems and disaffected 'other' voters. Good luck to us in finding that needle in a haystack!

I think part of it is that there are just so many 'agendas' that people hold in their hearts as The Most Important. For some it's the war, others LGBTQ+ rights, others it's immigration, still others it's abortion/women's rights. There just doesn't seem to be one single issue that we can all unite with as The Most Important, like there was during the Viet Nam War. That makes it hard for any candidate to win over all the voters.

For the hardcore GOP it's as simple as 'Us vs Them' in whatever iteration they chose to swing it. No matter what the specific 'thing' is, it's always explained that 'They' are responsible for it.

I hear what you're saying.

I think the problem is that mostly due to the Electoral College system the Dem candidate is going to have to appeal to more than just the Dem voters. The Blue States on their own cannot get enough electoral votes to win. They need to get the votes of independents and disaffected GOP in Red and especially swing states. And those are the ones to whom a straight white 50ish male might appeal.

I posted on this yesterday, that I suspected he had changed the conditions after signing. And now confirmed.

The adults spend years on this, with it changing as the WH admin changes,
it is done and signed, presumably with him being told all. Then the man baby changes it. And he changes it without even understanding it, as his TRUTH yesterday showed.

Ha ha ha ha. Sorry to laugh. It's a serious subject I know.

I am familiar with the UK anti slavery laws, cos we all had to do training on it where I was. So after reading your post, and looking up what these new tarrifs are about etc, I looked up US "anti slavery laws", because after all, that is what the UK call it.

And ha ha ha.... now I see why the WH are calling it "forced labour".

But serious now. Does nobody in the WH read the news ? This has been a headline issue for at least a decade. Cotton from XJ in China makes headlines reguarly. There are long running international diplomatic spats over this.

Oh, and without looking it up, as a Trump level whataboutism, are the WH not aware the US still has slavery forced labour today. In fact I will look it up and post a link.

Modern Day Slavery in the United States: Exploring Forced Labor for Prison Inmates (humanrightsresearch.org)

By the way. My interweb usually blocks any sites with "human rights" in the title. But oddly anough, the above site was top result when I done a search.

This is utterly unnecessary. I know you have very strong opinions, and speak with great authority, but sometimes it would be nice to show a little respect to people who have different opinions from you.

I often agree with you on the other threads but even when I don't I wouldn't attack something you hold true with real conviction. I'm a bit shocked at some of your vehemence on here. I am also a practising Christian and think sometimes it's wise to just accept some people have come to a different conclusion from me, without it meaning they haven't read, studied, questioned.

You don't have a monopoly on being right, however much force and authority you speak with. Alienating people you don't agree with on this is unnecessary when these people are often your allies.

Agreed. @LizzieW1969 no need to apologise.

On his forced labour tarriffs. I looked into it a bit deeper. Esp because the UK is on the list. Because the UK has strong anti slavery laws, so stong in fact they are one of the few UK laws that are applied worldwide to Brit citizens and entities. So why are the UK on it?

And I found this on CBS :

"The new tariffs will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, which is when a separate set of 10% levies on most imports is scheduled to expire."

Ahh. So it really has fuck all to do with slavery or forced labour. It's just Trump being a money grabbing cunt after he had to pay back $80 billion to US citizens and entities after SCOTUS.

Sorry for the bad words. But honestly, how fucking low can they be that they use such a devastating issue to clutch at dollar bills from US importers ?

I can see the discussion now. " Mr President, if we put the tarriffs on forced labour, nobody will fight that in court".

Anyone who even casually follows this issue (such as me), will be well aware of the damge done to countries who take a principled position against forced labour. Canada for example, and their trade war with China a few years ago, when the Canadian Parliament voted to condemn the PRC for their use of forced Uigher labour in XJ.

What a dispicable bunch of money grabbing low lifes this US admin is.

Oh, by the way, for a post on another thread yesterday ( It was about the COMMIE NY Mayor doing a trial of free supervised events for kids in NY Parks), I looked up the US national debt to reply to a poster. Trump is adding trillions to it. Something like 34% of US national debt is his, and his alone.

Morning all, TRIPUS and interesting one today, if a depressing listen.

They say there’s talk in Washington of an imminent ground invasion in Iraq. There has been a movement of a large number of military medics to the region and the administration is starting to panic about the fact that 12 nights of bombing seems to have achieved the square root of fuck all.

That plus the fact even the Fox News hosts are starting to question things and the GOP are worrying about this dragging on into Midterm season.

I hope they’re wrong, because the casualties will be horrific.

So do I. What a strong man with such a strong record behind him. His wife was shot in the head as part of an assassination attempt, she was a US representative and it forced her to resign because she's never fully recovered. Also he pulls no punches, he is forceful, and the days of "if they go low we go higher" are gone. The democrats need a scrap dog to fight.
VP Jon Ossoff he talks sense.

Please bear in mind I know absolutely nothing and these are just people I follow!

It’s some sort of world when the only criticism the sitting President is concerned about is from the right-wing media who usually support him.

(I have no comments to make on Iran that are not uselessly abusive of Trump.)

I ain't keen on him, but I base that on one bit of legislation he introduced that is going through the system. It's the one about US port entry fees for ships not constructed in the USA. It's against UNCLOS so far as I can make out. It's a Jones act on steroids. And I recall it is one that Trump is claiming as his work. It predates the Iran war and all the freedom of navigation chatter.

So for that reason I am out. ( re Kelly)

I just looked it up. Bits like this :

"Section 202: Regular Tonnage Taxes: This section imposes new penalty on vessels which are owned or operated by a foreign entity of concern or registered to a foreign country of concern (defined as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea), as well as vessel owners who conduct significant amounts of business with the CCP-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC)."

Sure thing, all very noble and all that, but this is against Intl law. The law that is big in the news just now. And this bill predates all that. It is ultra protectionism.

Now I am totally for the nationalisation, or near nationalisation, of industries. As this act practically is. But I take the EU position on this re competition. Nationalise all you like, but do not compete internationally with it. If that makes sense.

It's like Ferguson Marine in Scotland. The Scottish Government nationalised it. And that is fantastic so far as I am concerned ( But it's a fucking disasterous fiasco in this case). The problem is if Ferguson were to compete with international commercial yards. And I think that would be wrong. And so does the EU.

SHIPS-for-America-ActSection-by-Section4.30.2025.pdf (senate.gov)

I was brought up as Christian yet strongly believe that religion has been used as a means to control populations and has no place in politics. This is a politics thread, that people feel the need to debate religion on it is worrying as it shows how much politics in America is embracing religion.

It's also worrying how people seem to lose sight of this and actually engage. By all means debate the intricacies of religion, just away from politics.

Just purely as a matter of interest, and this is about the WH and in general, not any spat on here, do you think different people should have different accountability levels according to what they state they believe ?

Personally, I don't usually care at all about what posters believe. In my view it is the subject that matters. Play the ball, not the player.

But we have seen the current WH has a lot of Christians, who make sure we know they are Christian. So, I do judge what they say differently.

And likewise, there are a couple of posters on MN who do a fair bit of proselytizing (not seen them post here), and when I see a post from them describing a people as "a cancer" for example, my first thought is " but you are a Christian". But I try not to mention that my "play the ball" comes into action.

But likes of Rubio. Is his Christianity fair play when it comes to commenting and judging what he says. Should he be held to a different standard than a secular politician? A higher standard?

I agree with everything you say here. It’s why I feel the need to call them out for their hypocrisy. It’s hard to avoid the subject of religion when the politicians regularly use it for their own ends.

But I agree that religion has frequently been used historically as a means of control, as indeed the current WH is doing.

Thank you,@Zonder, that’s appreciated. 🙂

If people want to bring religion to the table to justify their decisions - especially when those decisions have a bearing on other humans - then I don't feel much need to hold back.

That doesn't include anyone on this thread, as far as I can recall, so it's not directed at anyone personally.

No problem 😊

I can't understand why supposedly educated people are overthinking these tariffs. It's not like Trump hasn't told us what the plan is.

Scarp income tax and replace it with tariffs. That way his rich mates get a massive bung, and his moronic base will gladly pay for it.

It's already happened to some extent.

I mean the even the Founding Fathers spotted that loophole a mile off, which is why they removed the power to tax from POTUS.But when you plant in poisoned soil, your fruit is evil and will never nourish but only corrupt.

My re-reading of US history has only made the fact the US was created allowing slavery more and more relevant to today.

E2A: Comprehension.

I think it has been known for ages that he has been using it as taxation. That is why SCOTUS said no and he had to pay $80 billion back.

Now tagging his latest onto "forced labour" someone must have said to him " Do this because nobody will challenge such a noble cause".

He is a money grabbing prick.

But amazingly. his base seem to believe him when the says " Chyna pays it".