For the most part, the lives of people who don't live in cities has not gotten better over the last generation, and they voted for change.
These differences are structural, and I don't think anybody knows how to make them better. You can tell people to give up their current lifestyle and move somewhere else with more opportunity and a completely different lifestyle, but that's a really hard sell.
Some other problems can, unfortunately, be fixed (only) over a long run - e.g. an opinion that "America is primarily for whites".
I mean, if I voted for Trump comments like these would make me want to vote for him again even more.
I think that we the best we can hope for is that the government is rendered unusable, and that the world is able to proceed into the information age free from the constant malice of the hegemonic state.
Better the devil you know.
By which, you surely mean, the next six.
> suffering damage to our nation that's truly irreparable
I think the past dozen presidential administrations have made it clear that good governance only happens by gentleman's agreement (Who is left out of such agreements is an exercise for the reader.) The executive has no shortage of knobs, dials, and levers that it can pull on, to inflict 'irreperable' damage, that the political system is not at all designed (Or has the will) to deal with.
Comparing to the post-WWII Presidents who failed to get a second term, Ford, Carter, and the first Bush, they all had much higher net approval ratings at almost all comparable times through their terms.
Carter and Ford both had approval ratings almost as low Trump's at this point, but they had much lower disapproval ratings, giving them much better nets.
Scroll down here for post-WWII President approval/disapproval/net rating charges over time compared to the current President over time [1].
[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...
I think we have a very good chance of un-electing him. He's alienated all but his most dedicated core base, and there's a huge list of Democratic primary candidates from which to whittle down the very strongest. Lots of people who voted for him did it with the mentality of "The establishment's bad; let's try something different. Drain the swamp. Things couldn't get any worse." Now those people are saying, "Oh."
> I think the past dozen presidential administrations have made it clear that good governance only happens by gentleman's agreement. The executive has no shortage of knobs, dials, and levers that it can pull on, to inflict 'irreperable' damage.
This is definitely true, unfortunately. A government is made of people, and no government system can withstand being populated by bad (or at least shortsighted) people. Most of those before Trump weren't massively better people than him, morally speaking. Even Obama quietly did some really shady things.
What they did have was tact, and intelligence, and self-control. They didn't take Putin's word over their own intelligence agencies (https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/695646320/andrew-mccabe-fbi-i...). They didn't display such erratic behavior that their own white-house staff called psychiatrists to ask if they should be worried (https://splinternews.com/white-house-staffers-reportedly-tol...). They didn't have a nuclear football installed in their personal residence (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/06/pentagon-nuc...).
Whatever objectives his predecessors had, they knew those couldn't happen if they literally endangered the society underpinning them.
The problem isn't that he has a nuclear football installed in his summer dacha.
The problem is that the nuclear football exists, and that there exist two men that can, at a whim, end the world.
Because government (in this case, a committee of the House of Representatives) is apolitical?
As for substantial discussion, it'll take a few days before anything can really be considered. As scandals go, 'generals sell nuclear tech to countries enemies' doesn't scan as very believable, even for corrupt officials. Give 'em a chance to respond and see what gets said.
You presume they have any interests that aren't self-serving. It's not a risk if you don't care about the consequence.
But you know how Trump is with international treaties; I'd guess this is mostly about letting nuclear tech companies sell regulated tech in violation of the conditions of the NTP.
http://ip3international.com/member/general-ret-john-m-jack-k...
This doesn't matter to Bolton of course, because he simply hates international treaties on pure principle.
https://themoscowproject.org/explainers/seychelles-uae-georg...
And here’s the copy-paste of the section “Rationale”
“The Rationale
The deal had three main rationales motivating the various parties.
The Middle East Marshall Plan would have provided an excuse to remove sanctions against Russia. US businesses would need to work with sanctioned Russian entities. Striking a deal that the Administration could sell as bringing power and economic development to the Middle East, as well as bolstering the struggling US civilian nuclear industry, might have softened Congressional support for sanctions, particularly among Republicans. The deal would involve potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in profit. Why Erik Prince would care: Corporate documents projected the plan would generate “$250 billion in revenue for US companies.” Billions of dollars from a project requiring a lot of private security would pique the interest of Prince, head of a private security company. Why Tom Barrack would care: Tom Barrack was reportedly looking to invest in the US nuclear industry, which would have received a huge windfall. Why Russia would care: This deal could also involve massive investment in Russian state-owned companies, which could explain why the CEO of RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev was at the Seychelles meeting. Dmitriev is close to Putin and is charged with shepherding foreign investment into Russia. There was an economic policy and geopolitical incentive. Middle Eastern countries are legitimately seeking nuclear power to support their growing populations. The Gulf states’ participation would have supported regional economic development. More fundamentally, this would also serve a broader geostrategic objective for the Gulf. As part of this deal, Russia would likely need to shift or soften its approach toward Iran and Syria. In exchange, they would not only receive a huge economic windfall, but would become more closely aligned with the US and the wealthy Gulf states. For the UAE, a deal like this would cement a relationship with the new Trump administration. MbZ’s attendance – even though the other attendees were far lower ranking – could be explained by the huge investment required and the potential geopolitical stakes. “
