Did Trump "Drain" the swamp?

[Markk]

So, did Trump do a good job? It’s a simple question Doc…he either did, or he didn’t. The President whether you want to admit it or not is only a man, and they manage and everything goes downward…they get credit when things go good, or things go bad. Please focus my question. Are you saying that if AA and others below him performed bad you would not have blamed Trump?

To your point, Presidents can be assigned a simplistic and somewhat meaningless credit for the state of the economy, amidst a larger world of complexities, international events, corporate realities and pre-existing legislation that actually drives and defines that entity more than one guy in the White House.

To honor’s point, though, Trump had the greatest amount of control - out of so many aspects of his Presidency - on the worst possible decision of his term in office. He chose to repeatedly push the narrative of a ‘stolen election’ for his last two months, complete with lawsuits, bullshyte conspiracy theories and nonstop public whining … and then capped off that behavior by repeating it in front of a large public gathering one final time on January 6, during his last ditch attempt to undermine both democracy and the peaceful transition of power that has been a hallmark of our election process for over 200 years.

Did Trump do a ‘good job’? At what, using what criteria? Because for those things that he had the greatest control over, he has a questionable record and arguably - during his last days - charted a very dangerous path for this nation in order to serve his own personal needs and ego.

Maybe you think that Trump ‘not screwing up’ the economy for his first few years in office makes it worth voting for him again, but your willingness to ignore the huge, flaming orange elephant in the room as regards his promotion of insurrection is - to me, at least - just a bit too bizarre.

Pakes, so we have you and Honor saying that because of one thing, anything he did good should not be recognized, or basically erased. Unless, one breaks each item ( economy, foreign policy…etc..) exhaustively down. Yet you just basically said he did a bad job and unforgivable job because of one thing, without breaking it down piece by piece.

Again, I believe this whole exercise has been interesting.

[canpakes]

Pakes, so we have you and Honor saying that because of one thing, anything he did good should not be recognized, or basically erased. Unless, one breaks each item ( economy, foreign policy…etc..) exhaustively down. Yet you just basically said he did a bad job and unforgivable job because of one thing, without breaking it down piece by piece.

Nope. You should reread the previous posts, including one where I mentioned a specific action of the Trump Administration that I though was a good move.

But, his final actions re: the insurrection - and repeated push of the ‘stolen election’ lie since leaving office - disqualifies him from holding office in the future. I can’t think of anything else that he did that can make it worthwhile to overlook that in favor of re-electing him, especially given some of his other problems, and the lack of any overwhelmingly positive performance on most other issues, when compared to other Administrations.

My question for you would be why it’s necessary for you to assign an overall and vague ‘good’ or ‘bad’ rating for Trump’s time in office, as opposed to being willing to size up the many categories and actions that are part of those 4 years?

[Res Ipsa]

It's interesting to watch Res try to have a discussion about a complicated matter like the US COVID response as Markk demands Res acknowledge Trump did something right. Res contextualizes, Markk isolates.

Res: Trump did a lot that needs criticized and changed so we respond better in the future.

Markk: But he did good when he fast-tracked the vaccines.

Res: Fast-tracking vaccine development was an emergency action that should have involved more than removing testing requirements and other administrative blocks normally in place to ensure safety in the face of a global pandemic killing thousands every day. Those should have included measures taken by other countries that resulted in our medical professionals being exposed to risks, leaving the profession, or dying from the disease they had to be exposed to in order to do their jobs.

Markk: LOL, you just can't say Trump did a good job. I get it. We're still in high school and you belong to the rival school who looks just like our school but we have different colors and a different mascot so we hate each other with illogical passion. We both understand what's going on here. LOL.

Res: ....

Honor,

I’m just trying to wittle down some of the major issues Trump dealt with and whether he did a good or poor job on these issues, in an attempt to find some common ground…obviously all these items could have their own threads.

But it is a good exercise in itself seeing some struggle with this. I get it. If Res is not capable of just stating whether or not “he believes” Trump did a good job handling certain items, I guess he is not capable of doing so, I am. I believe Sean McVey did a great coaching the Ram’s and Urban Meyer did a beyond terrible job coaching the Jag’s…it is really not that hard or complicated expressing ones general opinion of performance Honor.

I believe Trump did a beyond terrible job of acting presidential…he is a moron in that department, however I think he did a good job with the economy, vaccines, and other “tasks”…and a poor job like the above and things being just a little flexible with folks, even within his own administration.

LOL! You didn’t ask me for an overall assessment of Trump’s performance as President or even on his overall performance with respect to the pandemic. You asked about one specific piece of what was done during the pandemic and demanded that I give a black or white answer when my actual answer is some aspects were done well and some weren’t. That’s my actual honest answer. I do think that watching you try to force nuanced opinions into black and white categories is interesting.

I have a base level of competent decision making that I expect from a president/administration. Part of that basic level of competency is planning for emergencies, recognizing emergencies, and using the mechanisms the government has available to it to react to the emergency. Approval of vaccines and treatments under EAUs is what I would expect from a competent administration. The FDA has had authority to issue EAUs for decades. That ability was strengthened during the Obama administration on a bi-partisan basis. The Republican Senate passed it by unanimous consent. I don’t get effusive about competent decision making.

The same with the use of public private partnerships. It isn’t something new or unique to Trump. It’s what other countries did much sooner. So, public-private partnership for vaccines is the kind of decision I expect, although I expect it quicker and without the short sighted America First nonsense that has left us more vulnerable to new variants because of the shortages of vaccines in other parts of the world.

So, in my opinion, the term “great” applies only if we are grading on curve that consists solely of Trump’s actions as President. To be “great,” a President would have to do something that significant exceeds my expectations of a basically competent administration. I’ve seen the current President make what I would describe as good and bad decisions. I’m not sure I’d describe any of them as great.

[Markk]

Pakes, so we have you and Honor saying that because of one thing, anything he did good should not be recognized, or basically erased. Unless, one breaks each item ( economy, foreign policy…etc..) exhaustively down. Yet you just basically said he did a bad job and unforgivable job because of one thing, without breaking it down piece by piece.

Nope. You should reread the previous posts, including one where I mentioned a specific action of the Trump Administration that I though was a good move.

But, his final actions re: the insurrection - and repeated push of the ‘stolen election’ lie since leaving office - disqualifies him from holding office in the future. I can’t think of anything else that he did that can make it worthwhile to overlook that in favor of re-electing him, especially given some of his other problems, and the lack of any overwhelmingly positive performance on most other issues, when compared to other Administrations.

My question for you would be why it’s necessary for you to assign an overall and vague ‘good’ or ‘bad’ rating for Trump’s time in office, as opposed to being willing to size up the many categories and actions that are part of those 4 years?

So you just double down on my point.

But this is interesting…LBJ is said to be a good president by history my many…because his work with civil rights and voting rights, among other items…but, he escalated Vietnam, and then bailed out and basically ran away from what he got us into…that led to 5Ok plus American lives and who knows how many SV and NV and Cambodian folks…can his accomplishments be separated, and should they be separated?

[Markk]

Honor,

I’m just trying to wittle down some of the major issues Trump dealt with and whether he did a good or poor job on these issues, in an attempt to find some common ground…obviously all these items could have their own threads.

But it is a good exercise in itself seeing some struggle with this. I get it. If Res is not capable of just stating whether or not “he believes” Trump did a good job handling certain items, I guess he is not capable of doing so, I am. I believe Sean McVey did a great coaching the Ram’s and Urban Meyer did a beyond terrible job coaching the Jag’s…it is really not that hard or complicated expressing ones general opinion of performance Honor.

I believe Trump did a beyond terrible job of acting presidential…he is a moron in that department, however I think he did a good job with the economy, vaccines, and other “tasks”…and a poor job like the above and things being just a little flexible with folks, even within his own administration.

LOL! You didn’t ask me for an overall assessment of Trump’s performance as President or even on his overall performance with respect to the pandemic. You asked about one specific piece of what was done during the pandemic and demanded that I give a black or white answer when my actual answer is some aspects were done well and some weren’t. That’s my actual honest answer. I do think that watching you try to force nuanced opinions into black and white categories is interesting.

I have a base level of competent decision making that I expect from a president/administration. Part of that basic level of competency is planning for emergencies, recognizing emergencies, and using the mechanisms the government has available to it to react to the emergency. Approval of vaccines and treatments under EAUs is what I would expect from a competent administration. The FDA has had authority to issue EAUs for decades. That ability was strengthened during the Obama administration on a bi-partisan basis. The Republican Senate passed it by unanimous consent. I don’t get effusive about competent decision making.

The same with the use of public private partnerships. It isn’t something new or unique to Trump. It’s what other countries did much sooner. So, public-private partnership for vaccines is the kind of decision I expect, although I expect it quicker and without the short sighted America First nonsense that has left us more vulnerable to new variants because of the shortages of vaccines in other parts of the world.

So, in my opinion, the term “great” applies only if we are grading on curve that consists solely of Trump’s actions as President. To be “great,” a President would have to do something that significant exceeds my expectations of a basically competent administration. I’ve seen the current President make what I would describe as good and bad decisions. I’m not sure I’d describe any of them as great.

Is spearheading his administration to get a vaccine in 11 months that normally takes 5 years, and saying he was going to do it ahead of time a great thing…to me it is, and I can generally say that with confidence.

[honorentheos]

...so we have you and Honor saying that because of one thing, anything he did good should not be recognized, or basically erased.

That "one thing" was an attempt to change the United States of America from a nation ruled by laws with elected representatives to a new authoritarian system of government that disregarded the Constitution and rule of law.

That's a bit like saying a man who paid to have his wife murdered should get some credit for taking the garbage out once. Attempted murder is just one thing, right?

It's mind-blowing that you would get behind him. He tried to overthrow the Constitution. How is it Republicans can't look around at the rest of the party and decide, "Yeah, we can do without that guy"?

[Res Ipsa]

LOL! You didn’t ask me for an overall assessment of Trump’s performance as President or even on his overall performance with respect to the pandemic. You asked about one specific piece of what was done during the pandemic and demanded that I give a black or white answer when my actual answer is some aspects were done well and some weren’t. That’s my actual honest answer. I do think that watching you try to force nuanced opinions into black and white categories is interesting.

I have a base level of competent decision making that I expect from a president/administration. Part of that basic level of competency is planning for emergencies, recognizing emergencies, and using the mechanisms the government has available to it to react to the emergency. Approval of vaccines and treatments under EAUs is what I would expect from a competent administration. The FDA has had authority to issue EAUs for decades. That ability was strengthened during the Obama administration on a bi-partisan basis. The Republican Senate passed it by unanimous consent. I don’t get effusive about competent decision making.

The same with the use of public private partnerships. It isn’t something new or unique to Trump. It’s what other countries did much sooner. So, public-private partnership for vaccines is the kind of decision I expect, although I expect it quicker and without the short sighted America First nonsense that has left us more vulnerable to new variants because of the shortages of vaccines in other parts of the world.

So, in my opinion, the term “great” applies only if we are grading on curve that consists solely of Trump’s actions as President. To be “great,” a President would have to do something that significant exceeds my expectations of a basically competent administration. I’ve seen the current President make what I would describe as good and bad decisions. I’m not sure I’d describe any of them as great.

Is spearheading his administration to get a vaccine in 11 months that normally takes 5 years, and saying he was going to do it ahead of time a great thing…to me it is, and I can generally say that with confidence.

You can, but you’d be ignoring the scientific facts that actually enabled many others to produce vaccines in a similar timeframe.

[canpakes]

So you just double down on my point.

No. You’re just pretending to not have seen my earlier post. : D

[Gadianton]

That "one thing" was an attempt to change the United States of America from a nation ruled by laws with elected representatives to a new authoritarian system of government that disregarded the Constitution and rule of law.

This is the correct answer.

Even if DT unilaterally brought economic prosperity that the world had never seen, his attempts to become dictator that ranged from everything from unprecedented executive orders to trying to steal the election, to firing or driving out as many people possible in government and replacing with unqualified yes-people, would undermine anything else positive. The White House being run by his family. Russia, Venezuela, China; a lot of authoritarian hell-holes out there have been economically prosperous at one time or another for a brief time. Ignoring the pandemic, something he could help with and initially did sorta try to help with, instead of going all-in on how to retain power for himself, undercut anything that could remotely be considered good. Trump is a classic personality cult on the road to a dictatorship. "power for the few in the name of the many". That's your guy.

As it stands, Trump wasn't "great for the economy"; but then again, a president's role isn't to be CEO of the American economy and make it great. We live in a market system where free markets make the economy great, not the dictates of government leaders. What the single leader and government can do, is help in those areas where markets are powerless, things like, oh, pandemics. Militaries --- those aspects of society where the rule of markets doesn't hold. That is, agents acting in their own self-interest produce sub-optimal outcomes for the whole as opposed to optimizing the outcome for the whole.

I can see why people don't get this. If I hadn't been forced to take an intro poli-sci class at BYU it never would have been on my radar either. So talking to my right-wing friend, he's made plenty of money in his career but barely graduated high school. He doesn't know what balance of powers means nor does he care. It's an easy concept that I also recall from 10th grade history, but barely. When the court cases were going to the Supreme Court over the election, my friend said he hoped they would overturn it. His reasoning? There could have been fraud, so if there's any possibility at all it's 50-50 in his mind, and then Trump filled 2 vacancies and so those two people owed him a favor. That's his business experience. He worked a lot with the city and if you help somebody out they've got to help you out. Sure, that didn't happen this time, but what's scary is that this is increasingly becoming what "the people" are hoping for. And it's all in the name of freedom, which is even weirder.

[Markk]

Is spearheading his administration to get a vaccine in 11 months that normally takes 5 years, and saying he was going to do it ahead of time a great thing…to me it is, and I can generally say that with confidence.

You can, but you’d be ignoring the scientific facts that actually enabled many others to produce vaccines in a similar timeframe.

And they too, did a great job…correct?