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Post by pim on Jan 19, 2018 18:14:52 GMT 10
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Post by KTJ on Jan 19, 2018 19:44:20 GMT 10
from The Washington Post....The man-child in the White House reels wildly out of controlNo one, not even Trump's allies, can trust anything he says.By EUGENE ROBINSON | 7:46PM EST - Thursday, January 18, 2018President Donald J. Trump. — Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters.THE rude, petulant man-child in the Oval Office is reeling ever more wildly out of control, and those who cynically or slavishly pretend otherwise are doing a grave disservice to the nation — and to themselves.
How do you like him now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? President Trump convened a made-for-television summit at the White House and said he'd sign any immigration bill Congress passed. “I'll take the heat,” he boasted. So a bipartisan group of senators came up with a deal — and he rejected it out of hand, launching into an unhinged rant about “shithole countries”.
What about you, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan? You came up with a clever way to get Democrats to agree to a stopgap funding bill, dangling the possibility of a long-term renewal of the vital Children's Health Insurance Program. But the president tweeted that “CHIP should be part of a long term solution” and not a short-term measure to keep the government from shutting down.
Is this what you signed up for, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly? In a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, you said that some of Trum's campaign positions on immigration were “uninformed” and that there will never be a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. You reportedly added that whatever partial barrier gets built, Mexico won't pay for it. But the president slapped you down with another series of tweets, claiming that his promised wall “has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it” — and that Mexico will, too, pay for the wall, “directly or indirectly”.
How was your week, White House physician Ronny Jackson? You did what is expected of everyone who stands at the lectern in the briefing room: lavish the president with flowery, over-the-top, Dear Leader praise. He is in “excellent health,” you announced. But the test results you released, according to many other doctors, indicate that Trump suffers from moderate heart disease and is on the borderline between overweight and obese.
Having fun, Stephen K. Bannon and Corey Lewandowski? As bigwigs in the Trump campaign, you helped a manifestly unfit blowhard get elected president. This week, you did the White House a favor by stonewalling the House Intelligence Committee in a way that angered even the Republicans on the panel, which is hard to do. But you remain in the crosshairs of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation, and the best-case scenario is that you emerge unindicted but saddled with mountainous legal bills.
No one should feel sorry for those who choose to aid and abet this travesty of an administration. They made their choices. They elected to trust a man they know to be wholly untrustworthy, and to lie shamelessly to massage his swollen ego. At this point, I wouldn't believe Sarah Huckabee Sanders if she told me that water is wet and the sky is blue.
But the larger impact is something we all must worry about: One year into the Trump presidency, we effectively do not have a presidency at all.
As McConnell noted in frustration on Wednesday, he can't orchestrate passage of an immigration bill unless he knows what Trump is willing to sign. Likewise, Ryan can't pass spending legislation unless he knows what Trump will and will not accept. But the president has no fixed positions. His word is completely unreliable. How are congressional leaders supposed to do their jobs?
Regarding foreign policy, how can other nations take seriously anything Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says when he is subject to being countermanded on Twitter at any moment? What is the point of Jared Kushner's diplomacy, if you can call it that, in the Middle East? Does “America first” really mean anything, or is it just Trumpian hot air?
And why, at this point, do reporters even bother to attend Sanders's briefings, unless perhaps for the entertainment value? Past press secretaries all delivered pronouncements that were loaded with spin, but Sanders concocts laughable fantasies out of thin air — usually to “justify” crazy things Trump has said or tweeted.
The nation has never faced a situation like this: It is unwise to take literally or seriously anything the president and his official spokesmen say. An administration with no credibility cannot possibly lead.
Trump is incapable of growing into the job; if anything, he is becoming more erratic. I fear the day when a crisis arises and we must face it with a bratty pre-teen at the helm.• Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture for The Washington Post, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper's Style section. __________________________________________________________________________ Related to this topic: • VIDEO: Opinion | When we ask about Trump's fitness, we're not talking about cardio • Washington Post Opinions Staff: The Trump administration, in its own words • Fact Checker: Trump misfires with claim that military would ‘shut down’ • Washington Post Opinions Staff: Trump's checkup, a vulgar coverup, DACA dreams under threat — and it's only Thursday • Jennifer Rubin: Bannon's value to Mueller might be greater than Trump thinks • Jennifer Rubin: How the Republicans are blowing their blame game • Dana Milbank: Is Trump's doctor okay?www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-man-child-in-the-white-house-reels-wildly-out-of-control/2018/01/18/c41a9378-fc89-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html
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Post by matte on Jan 19, 2018 21:17:30 GMT 10
Donald Trump was elected as the President of the United States. If the American people don't want him, they will need to use the ballot box.
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Post by KTJ on Jan 19, 2018 21:19:32 GMT 10
Donald J. Trump is an IDIOT.
Just like YOU.
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Post by KTJ on Jan 19, 2018 21:20:19 GMT 10
One excellent thing about Donald Trump as Prez.
He is facilitating the downfall of America as the world's top dog.
And that is something to really celebrate.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2018 6:46:14 GMT 10
How long Trump remains Prez is defined by how long he has left in his term...2020 and if he wins again 2024. Resulting in a shithole nation that cannot no longer deny climate change. Unless a armed Antifa nutter takes him out.....but let me gaze into my crystal ball ......its a bit dusty from lack of use I'll polich it up a bit...rub rub rub.....do dee doo dum dum doodie ....oooop's ...smash tinkle tinkle bugger I drop it...so much for the forecast... <img src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/bbcode/video-preview.png" video="<iframe width="854" height="480" src=" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>" alt="Video Preview">
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Post by KTJ on Jan 20, 2018 9:39:35 GMT 10
Five hours and twenty minutes until the American federal government starts to shut down.
The Republicans are fighting with each other too much to pass a spending bill and the Democrats are refusing to support anything the Republicans propose.
Hilarious entertainment!!
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Post by pim on Jan 20, 2018 12:35:29 GMT 10
Their hypocrisy is stunning. If the party demands “law and order”, why do Republicans not hold the president accountable? Why do they remain silent when he so openly flouts our norms? The disappointing truth is that congressional Republicans are more interested in their help-the-rich agenda than in the future of our democracy.
And that’s the key, isn't it. As long as Trump supports and facilitates their help-the-rich agenda, the Republicans will go on watching Trump’s back. It's a foolproof plan ... until it isn't!
Even though this one dates back to the campaign year of 2016 it's useful because it gives a snapshot of "then" and it's instructive to compare with "now". Have these guys altered their views since then? Not at all! They've been making excuses for Donald Trump for quite a few years now.
And that last one's the kicker. The bit about becoming a liability that they can no longer tolerate. Then it'll be crunch time ...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2018 7:04:25 GMT 10
Trumpo to be impeached for anything relies on Robert Muellers FBI Russian probe and that is continuing well into 2018 if not longer.
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Post by KTJ on Jan 21, 2018 10:07:38 GMT 10
Republicans will continue to stay quiet about Trump until they wake up to the fact they are about to be decimated in the mid-term elections later this year, then they will suddenly dump Trump like a hot potato in a vain attempt to save their own miserable necks at the ballot box.
I think the mid-terms are basically the Democrats to lose. All they have to do is to forcefully connect GOP representatives and senators with the idiot Trump.
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Post by pim on Jan 21, 2018 12:26:33 GMT 10
I've been thinking about the title I gave this thread and it occurs to me that I've got it arse about. With the honorable exceptions of NZ and Canada, the other major English speaking nations of Australia, the U.K. and the U.S., while admittedly governed by free market, small government, low taxation, socially conservative parties, in each of those three parties they do so with their backs to the wall with electoral Armageddon bearing down on them.
In the US the Republicans have wedged themselves as the White Backlash Angry Whitefellas Party. With US demographics showing that the non-white "minorities" are poised to turn the U.S. into a majority non-white nation for the first time, it would appear that power is there for the taking for a party that aspires to government by mobilizing that emerging majority and forming an alliance with the White minority liberals on the east and west coasts. What's stopping them? What is the Democrats' problem and can they address it in time for the mid-terms?
In the UK the governing Tories became known as the Nasty Party as a result of the Thatcher years and, when they returned to power with the collapse of Blair Labour and its aftermath, they quickly returned to type, poisoned their well forevermore with the Brexit disaster and face the hitherto unthinkable prospect of being consigned to the scrapheap by an incoming Corbyn Labour Government. Corbyn!!! WTF!!!It would be like making Bob Brown PM of Australia!
And speaking of Australia our own pathetic bunch of Coalition conservatives are basically a bunch of post-colonial cultural cringe arse lickers, a "conga line of suckholes" which was one of Mark Latham's better lines before his tragic implosion into the sad Sky News redneck dog-whistling commentator that he is today.
What all three have in common is an utter inability to come up with any other model than trickle down economics as the basis of their policy mix. It informs everything they do which is why they see nothing wrong with massive tax breaks for the rich while screwing widows, orphans and anyone suffering under systemic and structural disadvantage. There isn't a minority that those governments haven't pissed off. In all three countries power is there for the taking for the progressive side of politics. All they have to do is get out the vote. Of the three, the progressive party best placed to take power is Shorten Labor in Australia, aided admittedly by Australia's compulsory voting regime but also by an Australian Labor Party that's policy rich, hungry for office and with a leadship team dripping with talent that runs rings around its Coalition opponents.
The UK also looks dodgy for the Tories but with the worry that the Labour leader Corbyn refuses to show leadership on the one policy elephant in the room that dominates the room and is called Brexit. The UK may well end up with a Corbyn Labour Government, but in a post Brexit Britain when in fact Corbyn should be leading the charge to keep Britain within the EU. But that's an issue for the Brits.
While in Australia and the U.K. there are conservative governments with backs to the wall hanging by the skin of their teeth, in the U.S. the Republicans have the White House, they control both houses of Congress and a swag of state governorships. It should be a case of Rampant Republicans and yet there they are beleaguered and besieged staring electoral destruction in the eye. And yet that should have been the case in 2016. Apparently one of the most savage and bitter condemnations that Hillary Clinton faces today wherever she goes in the U.S. is that in losing to a scrape-the-bottom-of-the-barrel opponent like Trump she lost an election that should have been a slam dunk for the Democrats.
The next elections, the mid-terms, should also be a slam dunk, but will they be? And what about the Big One in 2020? It's all there for the taking for the Democrats in both 2018 and 2020 but then that was true in 2016 as well. What is their problem? What's it gonna take for the Democrats to get their act together and inaugurate a Democratic Age? It won't just happen, they have to make it happen and they have to want it in their guts. What's keeping them?
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Post by KTJ on Jan 21, 2018 12:43:12 GMT 10
I've been thinking about the title I gave this thread and it occurs to me that I've got it arse about. Click on the Edit button above your original post and you can change the thread's title.
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Post by pim on Jan 21, 2018 13:51:43 GMT 10
Thanks but I won't because the first posts of the thread were consistent with the title and in fact it was those posts that gave me the insight that made me reconsider what the thread should be about. It's no more use trying to "reach" the Republicans than there's any point trying to reason with an Australian politician like Tony Abbott or Eric Abetz. Questions like "How long will it take for the Republicans to blah blah blah Trump"? or "How much longer will the Republicans put up with Trump's blah blah blah?" kinda miss the point. And since I was the one who posted those questions it falls to me to correct the record and admit they are the wrong questions! How long will it take the Republicans ...? How much longer will the Republicans put up with ...? These questions assume that the Republicans are capable of change for the better. The ghastly awful shit sandwich truth is that they aren't so stop worrying about what it will take to make the Republicans see the error of their ways and focus on the side of politics for whom the 2016 election should have been a slam dunk but wasn't. And that focuses the spotlight squarely where it should shine - and that's on the Democrats.
Trump represents the ultimate grotesque absurdity of what happens when for the past 37 years a nation like the United States allows trickle down economics to inform its politics, its policy making and its public discourse. If the US Constitution survives the Trump presidency - and that's down to the fight that the Democrats are prepared to wage to defend the US Constitution against the ravages of Trump populism - power will be there for the taking for the Democrats. The question is: do they want it badly enough?
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Post by KTJ on Jan 21, 2018 13:56:18 GMT 10
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the news media (and most of the public, the exception being the rightie haters) are having a love-fest with our pregnant, spunky female prime minister.
The righties are whinging that she deliberately got pregnant so she can continue to project “good news” stories via the women's magazines for years to come and prop up her government.
Talk about sour grapes from a bunch of stupid losers, eh? I reckon NZ dodged a bullet by electing a Labour/NZ First/Greens coalition government led by a pretty gen-x woman.
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Post by pim on Jan 21, 2018 14:00:18 GMT 10
With spectacular teeth and the cutest Kiwi eksint
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Post by KTJ on Jan 21, 2018 14:04:14 GMT 10
You're just jealous that you've got Malcolm Turnbull while we've got Jacinda Ardern (with the spectacular choppers and the gorgeous smile).
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Post by pim on Jan 21, 2018 14:15:30 GMT 10
I should have typed "spictecular"
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Post by matte on Jan 23, 2018 21:12:13 GMT 10
Mark my words, in 2020, Trump will win the election. It will be an 8 year presidency for Donald Trump. The United States is already on the upswing. Employers are employing more workers, manufacturing jobs are going back to the United States and companies are increasing the minimum wage of their workers - all without being told to by the government. This stuff takes time to have an economic and electoral impact, but it will.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2018 21:42:33 GMT 10
Trump is for those that don't think too hard....and plenty like that.
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Post by Yassir Rebob on Jan 23, 2018 21:46:04 GMT 10
Pim, if the ALP can rid itself of the SJW bullshite, , (let the Greens own that Mob)then they will romp it in, otherwise the COALation will continue to rule us
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Post by Yassir Rebob on Jan 23, 2018 21:51:13 GMT 10
Jordan Peterson for PM BTW
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Post by KTJ on Oct 19, 2019 8:39:39 GMT 10
from The Seattle Times…Mitch ‘The Grim Reaper’ McConnellBig plans of a Democratic president would be shredded if McConnell remains in charge.By DAVID HORSEY | 4:15PM PDT — Thursday, October 17, 2019IN this week’s 12-person Democratic debate, the presidential candidates kicked around plenty of big ideas, such as taxes on the super-rich, an assault-weapons ban and a Green New Deal, and they argued about whether Medicare For All or Medicare for All Who Want It would be the best scheme for health care. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren gobbled up the biggest share of scarce camera time, at least in part because she has so much to talk about — 50 ambitious plans for just about every challenge facing the nation.
One of the aspirants on that stage may win it all on the strength of such bold proposals, but, if she or he moves into the White House on January 20, 2021, none of those big plans would go anywhere if Senator Mitch McConnell is still majority leader in the U.S. Senate.
In 2009, Barack Obama had barely finished saying “so help me God” at his inauguration when McConnell pledged to make him a one-term president. McConnell did not succeed at that goal. Still, once Republicans regained control of the Senate in the 2010 mid-terms, Obama's legislative agenda ended up in McConnell's shredder. The same would happen with any of the current crop of Democratic contenders, from progressives like Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders to moderates like Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar.
In 2020, 34 Senate seats will be in play — 12 now held by Democrats and 24 by Republicans. Simple math would suggest that the D's have a 50% better chance of grabbing some new seats than the R's do, but American political math is far more complex. For starters, senators do not represent people, they represent chunks of land; some big, some small, some with lots of people and some with few. The Republicans tend to do much better in the emptier spaces, like Wyoming and South Dakota while the Democrats dominate in crowded places where their voters are all bunched together, like New Jersey and California. That means the GOP enjoys a structural advantage in senate elections because this country has a lot of wide open spaces.
McConnell now leads a 53-seat majority in the 100-member Senate. Democrats will need to take away four of those seats in order to bump McConnell into the minority (or three if they also have a Democratic vice-president who could break 50-50 tie votes). They have pretty good shots in Colorado, Maine and Arizona, and an outside chance in Iowa and North Carolina, but they also face an uphill battle in Alabama.
If Democrats run the table in 2020, they can eliminate a McConnell roadblock. Anything short of that, though, would leave the Kentucky senator in a position to nullify all the grand dreams of any new Democratic president.__________________________________________________________________________ • See more of David Horsey's cartoons at The Seattle Times HERE. www.seattletimes.com/opinion/mitch-the-grim-reaper-mcconnell
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Post by pim on Jun 1, 2020 14:46:22 GMT 10
As Minneapolis burns, Trump’s presidency is sinking deeper into crisis. And yet, he may still be re-elected
Third time’s the charm for Joe Biden: now he has an election to win and a country to save
Donald Trump blames everyone but himself for the coronavirus crisis. Will voters agree?
In Trump we trust: why continual disasters fail to shake the president's loyalists
May 31, 2020 The Conversation, Timothy J. Lynch, University of Melbourne
Violence has erupted across several US cities after the death of a black man, George Floyd, who was shown on video gasping for breath as a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck. The unrest poses serious challenges for President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as each man readies his campaign for the November 3 election.
If the coronavirus had not already posed a threat to civil discourse in the US, the latest flashpoint in American racial politics makes this presidential campaign potentially one of the most incendiary in history.
COVID-19 and Minneapolis may very well form the nexus within which the 2020 campaign will unfold. Trump’s critics have assailed his handling of both and questioned whether he can effectively lead the country in a moment of crisis.
And yet, he may not be any more vulnerable heading into the election.
A presidency in crisis?
As the incumbent, Trump certainly faces the most immediate challenges. Not since Franklin Roosevelt in the second world war has a US president presided over the deaths of so many Americans from a single cause.
The Axis powers and COVID-19 are not analogous, but any presidency is judged by its capacity to respond to enemies like these. With pandemic deaths now surpassing 100,000, Trump’s fortunes will be inexorably tied to this staggering (and still rising) figure.
Worse, the Minneapolis protests are showing how an already precarious social fabric has been frayed by the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Americans have not come together to fight the virus. Rather, they have allowed a public health disaster to deepen divisions along racial, economic, sectional and ideological lines.
Trump has, of course, often sought to gain from such divisions. But the magnitude and severity of the twin crises he is now facing will make this very difficult. By numerous measures, his is a presidency in crisis.
And yet.
Trump, a ferocious campaigner, will try to find ways to use both tragedies to his advantage and, importantly, makes things worse for his challenger.
For starters, Trump did not cause coronavirus. And he will continue to insist that his great geo-strategic adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, did.
And his is not the first presidency to be marked by the conflagration of several US cities.
Before Minneapolis, Detroit (1967), Los Angeles (1992) and Ferguson, Missouri (2014) were all the scenes of angry protests and riots over racial tensions that still haven’t healed.
And in the 19th century, 750,000 Americans were killed in a civil war that was fought over whether the enslavement of African-Americans was constitutional.
Trump may not have healed racial tensions in the US during his presidency. But, like coronavirus, he did not cause them.
How Trump can blame Democrats for Minneapolis
Not unhappily for Trump, Minneapolis is a largely Democratic city in a reliably blue state. He will campaign now on the failure of Democratic state leaders to answer the needs of black voters.
Trump will claim that decades of Democratic policies in Minnesota – including the eight years of the Obama administration – have caused Minneapolis to be one of the most racially unequal cities in the nation.
In 2016, Trump famously asked African-Americans whether Democratic leaders have done anything to improve their lives.
"What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump?"
He will repeat this mantra in the coming months.
It also certainly helps that his support among Republican voters has never wavered, no matter how shocking his behaviour.
He has enjoyed a stable 80% approval rating with GOP voters throughout the coronavirus crisis. This has helped keep his approval rating among all voters steady as the pandemic has worsened, hovering between 40 and 50%.
These are not terrible numbers. Yes, Trump’s leadership has contributed to a series of disasters. But if the polls are correct, he has so far avoided the kinds of catastrophe that could imperil his chances of re-election.
Why this moment is challenging for Biden
Biden should be able to make a good case to the American people at this moment that he is the more effective leader.
But this has not yet been reflected in polls, most of which continue to give the Democrat only a lukewarm advantage over Trump in the election.
The other problem is that the Democratic party remains discordant. And Biden has not yet shown a capacity to heal it.
Race has also long been a source of division within Biden’s party. Southern Democrats, for instance, were the key agents of slavery in the 19th century and the segregation that followed it into the 20th.
After the 1960s, Democrats sought to make themselves the natural home of African-American voters as the Republican party courted disaffected white Southern voters. The Democrats largely succeeded on that front – the party routinely gets around 85-90% of black votes in presidential elections.
The challenge for Biden now is how to retain African-American loyalty to his party, while evading responsibility for the socio-economic failures of Democratic policies in cities like Minneapolis.
He is also a white northerner (from Delaware). Between 1964 and 2008, only three Democrats were elected president. All of them were southerners.
To compensate, Biden has had to rely on racial politics to separate himself from his primary challenger – Bernie Sanders struggled to channel black aspirations – and from Republicans. And this has, at times, caused him to court controversy.
In 2012, he warned African-Americans that then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would put them “all back in chains”. And just over a week ago, he angered black voters by suggesting those who would support Trump in the election “ain’t black”.
Biden is far better than Trump on racial issues and should be able to use the current crises to present himself as a more natural “consoler-in-chief”, but instead, he has appeared somewhat flatfooted and derided for being racially patronising.
The opportunities COVID-19 and the Minneapolis unrest might afford his campaign remain elusive.
There is reason for hope
America enters the final months of the 2020 campaign in a state of despair and disrepair. The choice is between an opportunistic incumbent and a tin-eared challenger.
But the US has faced serious challenges before – and emerged stronger. Neither the civil war in the 19th century or the Spanish flu pandemic in the early 20th halted the extraordinary growth in power that followed both.
Moreover, the US constitution remains intact and federalism has undergone something of a rebirth since the start of the pandemic. And there is a new generation of younger, more diverse, national leaders being forged in the fire of crisis to help lead the recovery.
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Post by KTJ on Jun 1, 2020 15:33:01 GMT 10
Not only is America a waning superpower, but it is a superpower starting to crumble before our very eyes.
It's interesting that Trump has just postponed the G7 meeting after Angela Merkel said she wouldn't attend and other leaders are putting out similar signals.
In other words, America is now gradually becoming irrelevant to other world leaders who aren't prepared to play Trump's stupid games anymore.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2020 17:44:23 GMT 10
USA is in chaos and hopefully all those protestors will vote at the next election instead of going eh.
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