It's been just past 2 full days since Trump has been sworn in, and the carnage just continues.
The main issues circulating are whether or not 1.5 million people attended the inauguration. It seems pretty clear they did not, and his troupe is doubling down on this claim and turning it into a shit storm. They're also fanning the fact that the Women's March was terrible and left trash all over the place. Kellyanne Conway even insinuated that the march could not have been about Trump, after all he'd only been in office a day. What could they even have to protest about?
Not that Trump's words are binding or even remotely reliable, but he made a few curious claims in there. Here's a full annotated transcript. I'll let the Washington Post handle a lot of it, but a few lines struck me in particular.
...but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.
Says man who claimed he alone can fix this country.
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first.
I'm not sure how anyone can make a claim that previous administrations has acted with any other motivation than America First. Of course the details are important: it can be difficult to explain that an investment in a foreign interest is projected to be beneficial to the USA as well. Judgement and execution might end up incorrect, but the motivation has always been this.
I will fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never ever let you down.
Well, it took him about an hour to do just that (if I don't include his entire history on the campaign trail as a continuous letdown). Examples include: continuing the assault on basic fact and truth, throttling environmental regulations, temporarily shutting down the NPS's twitter account, scrubbed whitehouse.gov of a number of subsites. Classic flexing of bully muscles.
We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world
Or at least Russia? I literally can't think of a positive thing he's said about any other country. And he's said lots of negatives.
At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America
I imagine this comes with a concrete definition of "allegiance" in mind that goes way beyond a generally accepted set of requirements.
Great.
In the meantime, while everyone is caught up in the above, some seriously sinister stuff is happening. In addition to the assault on the press, Trump has made clear that
... he'd like to showcase the military
like they do in authoritarian communist countries. To show off the strength of the great leader.
... he will not release his taxes because no one cares about them
except 3/4 people polled said they did, and even half his supporters said they wanted to. And even if we go with his bullshit "under audit" thing, he should be able to release taxes from 2008 or before as a show of goodwill. Or if he sticks to that, his last 3-4 years of taxes could still be under audit by the time he leaves the White House in January 2021. In other words, this is a "when pigs fly" kind of promise.
... he will cancel our inclusion in the TPP
To be fair, I don't know enough about the TPP to assess it, but this seems like it fails the goodwill test.
... he will cancel NAFTA and renegotiate the terms
Again, I'm not a NAFTA expert but from all neutral accounts this would be an economic disaster.
... he will pull us out of the UN
And wow, talk about the opposite of goodwill and friendship.
... he will roll back environmental regulations
under the premise they are inherently damaging to the economy. There are some very advanced countries and some of our states that show this to be false.
I'm sure there's more, but I'm just one man and can only complain about so many things.
The main issues circulating are whether or not 1.5 million people attended the inauguration. It seems pretty clear they did not, and his troupe is doubling down on this claim and turning it into a shit storm. They're also fanning the fact that the Women's March was terrible and left trash all over the place. Kellyanne Conway even insinuated that the march could not have been about Trump, after all he'd only been in office a day. What could they even have to protest about?
Not that Trump's words are binding or even remotely reliable, but he made a few curious claims in there. Here's a full annotated transcript. I'll let the Washington Post handle a lot of it, but a few lines struck me in particular.
...but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.
Says man who claimed he alone can fix this country.
From th
Great.
In the meantime, while everyone is caught up in the above, some seriously sinister stuff is happening. In addition to the assault on the press, Trump has made clear that
... he'd like to showcase the military
like they do in authoritarian communist countries. To show off the strength of the great leader.
... he will not release his taxes because no one cares about them
except 3/4 people polled said they did, and even half his supporters said they wanted to. And even if we go with his bullshit "under audit" thing, he should be able to release taxes from 2008 or before as a show of goodwill. Or if he sticks to that, his last 3-4 years of taxes could still be under audit by the time he leaves the White House in January 2021. In other words, this is a "when pigs fly" kind of promise.
... he will cancel our inclusion in the TPP
To be fair, I don't know enough about the TPP to assess it, but this seems like it fails the goodwill test.
... he will cancel NAFTA and renegotiate the terms
Again, I'm not a NAFTA expert but from all neutral accounts this would be an economic disaster.
... he will pull us out of the UN
And wow, talk about the opposite of goodwill and friendship.
... he will roll back environmental regulations
under the premise they are inherently damaging to the economy. There are some very advanced countries and some of our states that show this to be false.
I'm sure there's more, but I'm just one man and can only complain about so many things.
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