Countries where convicted felons CAN'T enter.. Will that help president Trump or hurt him?

MayCaesar

@jack

Jack... Sometimes you really surprise me with your inability to understand simple arguments.

Trump may deserve a harsh coverage, but not a coverage that is this harsh. As an analogy, if you steal a pack of cookies from Walmart, you deserve punishment - but, perhaps, you do not deserve capital punishment.

Delilah6120

@MayCaesar

Suppose you have a corrupt candidate that would implement the best policies imaginable, but steal $20 million dollars in the process. $20 million is almost nothing next to the size of the economy his decisions affect - would it really be a deal-breaker for you? What if the opposing candidate is not corrupt, but his policies are awful?

People seem to focus too much on the individual, and too little on the job.

There are degrees of everything. The level of corruption and amorality is analogous to the level of trust and support one deserves. If a presidential candidate has a proven history of being corrupt throughout his lifetime, then I would not vote for him. Strong character, strong conviction, integrity, honesty, compassion, fairness, intelligence, experience matter. Character matters. 

As for your second comment, you did not really say anything to negate my assessment. I did not say that Trump did not deserve a harsh coverage; I simply said that the coverage he received was unfairly harsh.

Like I said "He rightly deserves the harsh press coverage he gets as it is a DIRECT RESULT of the attention he himself has cultivated."

MayCaesar

@Delilah6120

Well, I can name a number of dictators that had all of the qualities you listed, and that is precisely what made the systems they created so efficient at disposing of "human waste". Aside from, I guess, compassion (this one is debatable), Lenin excelled at all of those, and there was literally no corruption in his government in the sense of violating the legal norms of the system... The result was rivers of blood flowing very steadily.

At least, it seems prudent to me to vote based on weighting of a number of issues, rather than having such strong deal-breakers. But, again, everyone is free to vote as they please.

Again, deserving a harsh press coverage does not imply deserving arbitrarily harsh press coverage. My reply was to jack's question.

Factfinder

@MayCaesar

Well, perhaps it would do this country some good to separate criminal investigations of candidates from the discussion of their policies. Even if Biden is actually extremely corrupt, in my view, this should not be a factor in discussing his candidacy: rather, it is a factor in figuring out what in the system allows him to be corrupt. As a presidential candidate, I personally am only interested in what he would do if elected. Whether he stole $20 million dollars somewhere is a pretty minor question compared to how he is going to try to spend trillions of taxpayer money.

As for Trump, I may be naive, but I really do not see the evidence of his court cases being politicized. He was implicated in countless misdoings long before he even ran back in 2016. He was always a slimy character, and I have little sympathy for him. I do agree though that he gets an unfairly harsh press coverage in general.

A little treasure chest of points made in this paragraph that I've reexamined and thought about. I agree with @Delilah6120 in that ones character over a life time allows us to see what we may get in the White House come November. Therefore if Biden has been corrupt for some time as the mounting evidence suggests he has, then that's most likely what we'll see from him in the future. If he took 40,000 grand once and now the Judiciary oversight committee has him in the tens of millions then there's no valid reason to trust him with trillions of tax payer money. So to your point how he got 20 million May, it is a just indicator of what he'd do with trillions of tax payer money. The high probability would be to adopt more spending schemes where let's face it, government isn't truly held accountable for all the dollars they spend. And how much better off or worse is the average American today due to the policies he established thus far? The money is going somewhere. And he's (Biden) has shown he'd at the very least act against our best interest in the short term for so called long term interest. The promise he made to the world at tax payer expense to uproot a basic foundational, economical, infrastructural, element of our auto industry revealed that about him with his ev decrees. Mean while the industry was moving in that direction anyway only without creating hardships on everyday people.

Trump has his legal issues too no doubt. And as you correctly pointed out he had them long before he ran back in 2016 which is why the opposition he did face was fierce to say the least. There was and there is legitimate concerns about him as well. No doubt he will be friendly to some large corporations and there will be ways he benefits that will take forever and a day to fully uncover so what would be the main difference between the two? Trump has shown no sign of any desire to please or appease world/national elites and their causes. Whatever he embarks on he does want to see the people of the United States as the beneficiaries instead of the cash cow. Up to this point anyway To me that makes him the better of two of the most slimy candidates I can remember running at the same time. Again, noting his failure on Jan 6 and potential wildcard status once elected, I cringe as I vote for him.

Trump will always get "unfairly" harsh press coverage because he has two things going against him, well three possibly. He's not very presidential, he calls out the press routinely, and he likes the attention of social media. So I agree it is a bit unfair in general while at the same time he brings much of it on himself and as all national candidates should experience, he will remain to be heavily scrutinized in the press. He simply lacks the charm that Ronald Reagan had to win them over.

MayCaesar

@Factfinder

I do not disagree that past corruption is a sign of upcoming stronger corruption. That is how incentives work: if someone has managed to get away with stealing a little consistently and now has the ability to partake in larger-scale stealing, there is little stopping them from doing so. I guess I should have made a more accurate argument: that corruption and policies should be considered separately, but both should be considered. In the current election it appears that 99% of the attention is on past, present or alleged future corruption and moral qualities of the candidates, and barely any on their actual policies. Yet it is the policies that are going to dominate the outcomes of their presidency.

I am not sure I agree with you though on the assessment of Trump. He does not come across as someone who really cares about the well-being of Americans or the state of the American economy, beyond its impact on his businesses and popularity. He has been known to switch stances back and forth, often within a single day, and his relations with and attitudes towards foreign leaders are all over the place. One day he will call Jinping an evil dictator, another he will fly to China and tell everyone how great of a system they have. He simply does not seem to have any principles, and everything he does is guided by his craving of public attention. Sometimes it feels that he deliberately makes an edgy comment or a joke just to rile everyone up. Kind of like an evil prankster in charge of a country of 340 millions.

My assessment of Trump as the better (less terrible?) of the two is based purely on his first presidency. Despite all the clownage he partook in, the actual policies he enacted were fairly reasonable, with the exception of a couple of domains such as immigration and foreign trade. It seems that, when it comes to things with this level of impact, he has enough consciousness to surround himself with serious advisors and actually listen to them. He is quick to be offended, so often he would fire an appointee out of nowhere and replace him/her with someone else - but, aside from that, he knows when to step back and let the people with some expertise do their job.

I expect his second presidency to be pretty much the same. Some regulations will be removed, taxes will be cut down a little, a few explosive blunders followed by repeals or reversals - and overall things will be quite steady. Unlike Biden's presidency which, if the first one is any indication, is going to keep strangling this economy. Perhaps $3.7 per gallon is not enough: let's get it up to 5 or 6 by 2028!

Factfinder

@MayCaesar

I am not sure I agree with you though on the assessment of Trump. He does not come across as someone who really cares about the well-being of Americans or the state of the American economy, beyond its impact on his businesses and popularity.

I agree with most of what you said as we seem to be pretty much on the same page. However I need to clarify something. I didn't mean that Trump personally cares about Americans or our economic status when I said: "Whatever he embarks on he does want to see the people of the United States as the beneficiaries instead of the cash cow." What I was referencing was his romanticizing about himself being seen as a champion of the people and of America. That self fulfilling legacy he sees as vital to his list of accomplishments and thus needs policy to reflect his aggrandizing portrayal of himself. Believe me the thought Trump 'cared' for people beyond their ability to get him elected never crossed my mind.

RexTheDog01

@jack When Trump is president he could simply land in any of those countries  given the military apparatus that escorts a president such as the football and it accompanying battalion of guards any country attempting an arrest has to be prepared to go to war with goliath and the hordes to place the cuffs on.

Did I win? Case Closed right? 'There is no law and order for the powerful of this world' that's logically the fact of it surely?   

Barnardot

@RexTheDog01 ;Did I win? Case Closed right?

Wrong. Trump just got convicted in a pubic court of law. At your remedial school for slow learner tards on the spectrum they will eventually teach you how to stop making giant gaffs.

jack

RexTheDog01 said:

@jack When Trump is president he could simply land in any of those countries  given the military apparatus that escorts a president such as the football and it accompanying battalion of guards any country attempting an arrest has to be prepared to go to war with goliath and the hordes to place the cuffs on.

Hello 01:

Well, of course, he COULD start a war, and probably will....  Several of 'em, to be honest.

excon

MayCaesar

Factfinder said:

@MayCaesar

I am not sure I agree with you though on the assessment of Trump. He does not come across as someone who really cares about the well-being of Americans or the state of the American economy, beyond its impact on his businesses and popularity.

I agree with most of what you said as we seem to be pretty much on the same page. However I need to clarify something. I didn't mean that Trump personally cares about Americans or our economic status when I said: "Whatever he embarks on he does want to see the people of the United States as the beneficiaries instead of the cash cow." What I was referencing was his romanticizing about himself being seen as a champion of the people and of America. That self fulfilling legacy he sees as vital to his list of accomplishments and thus needs policy to reflect his aggrandizing portrayal of himself. Believe me the thought Trump 'cared' for people beyond their ability to get him elected never crossed my mind.

Agreed. In this respect, Trump is almost comically opposite to the first president of this country, George Washington. When his presidential term came to an end, many people wanted him to stay and suggested that he become a king, or, at least, stays president until he dies as an exception - but he said that it would set up a terrible precedent and walked away. He was a humble (in a good way) and honest president who did not desire political power for its own sake and did not care nearly as much what people think of him as what impact his actions would have on him. Trump is pretty much the reverse of all of that.

I guess this is one of the numerous examples of a person who has very serious character flaws, but ends up not being nearly as bad as many of the people with better character when it comes to a particular position. There is a great movie on this called "Other People's Money": the main character arguably is deeply corrupt morally, and the antagonist is kind and honest and wants only the best for his workers - yet the latter's impracticality leads to his company getting close to bankruptcy. The main character steps in and takes over: it is not that he cares that much about the workers, but he knows what drives profitability and, along with enriching himself, turns the company around.

Good intentions do not mean much if they lead to disruptive actions. Joe Biden may be a very kind old man, but he just has no clue what he is doing. Shedding tears over the plight of the poor and raking up insane amounts of debt to temporarily help them does not make one a good president.