The Guardian notes this morning that:
Donald Trump has appeared to soften his stance on a range of sweeping campaign pledges, saying in his first interview since being elected US president that he might not repeal Obamacare and admitting the prosecution of Hillary Clinton over confidential emails is not a priority.
I guess we should not be too surprised about this. Trump has been in business most of his life. He's used to advertising hype: as I often say, advertising is the only business dedicated to delivering unhappiness as a result of dissatisfaction.
And it may well be that we have to view his entire election campaign in this way. It was a disjointed episode of advertising based on very obviously false promises to induce a selection that was bound to disappoint those who opted for it.
Wait for a very angry electorate to emerge in that case.
And equally disaffected Democrats.
Trump may end up fuelling discontent with monied politics mire than we ever imagined.
As I have said before, I can live in hope.
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Keep in mind the Republican leadership doesn’t want Trump, they want Pence(who is arguably much worse.) They’ll be looking for a way to impeach him and make it look like the Democrats’ fault.
Good point and of course Trump is going to let down most of the people who voted for him. However I think you may be ignoring some of the more undemocratic and indeed fascistic elements of Trumpism and neo-nationalism in general. We have of course seen this over here with the attempt to bully the judges.
For example Trump will be able to get himself a pretty compliant Supreme Court. Already some Republican states gerrymander the congressional boundaries to help maintain control of the House. There is more and more effort made to discourage or prevent likely Democratic supporters from voting . There have already been attempts to intimidate the media , and in any case responsible media (those that are concerned about what they carry ) are under enormous financial pressure.
Many of those factors apply or could apply here as well but of course the right wing part of our media are not intimidated. They regard it as their job to do the intimidation.
All in all I’m afraid it’s political battle stations for the next few years for progressives. Start at Richmond Park ?
I wish Richmond Park was a start
But Labour are showing they are committed to keeping Tories in office
Agree 100%. But we shouldn’t be surprised. Politicians lie most of the time, as the late great George Carlin reminded us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGMc9g8eK0I.
Very much picking up on the point Tony_B and I were making in comments on one of your blogs yesterday, Richard. It was all ‘just talk’. On which point I read yesterday a well placed republican saying that Trump’s talk of ‘building a wall’ between the US and Mexico should not be taken literally and that it was meant as a metaphor for getting tough on immigration. I wonder how many Trump supporters realised that? Ultimately I think we’re going to find the US electorate has just been scammed. In truth this was Trump opening up the biggest business opportunity in history – for himself and his family that is. Witness the reports today that as far a potential conflicts of interest go he thinks it sufficient that his family will deal with that side of his many and various business activities while he focuses on being president. It’ll be interesting to see what steps he and his minions take to stiffle reporting of the many abuses of power and process that will undoubtedly follow. So much for ‘draining the swamp’.
I heard that claim too
And then I was on air with a completely mad (I use the word in the American sense of over the top) supply side economist who is in Trump’s team who believes that growth of 4 to 5% can be achieved by cutting US CT rates
He said on air ‘government is bad and all government spending is wasted’ and ‘we all know that is true’
Perhaps he was surprised that I disagreed….
Do not doubt the destructive power of the American right wing think tank economist
This is the man: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Moore_(economist)
What would you expect, Richard: Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, worked for Reagan on privatisation. Interesting that a piece of his work was found to be less than fact based. No doubt he’s involved in many of the networks that our home grown variety of libertarian economists are. With May in power here and Trump in the US they must be rubbing their hands with glee. Unfortunately we’ll pay for their madcap ideas in the not too distant future.
Agreed, entirely
Is it true that a certain Sarah Palin is going to be involved in Trump’s administration?
If so be advised that this is even worse than Trump being President.
Honest.
It could all be a rumour
We might all wake up soon in another, better universe
There again, I’m not betting on it
Meanwhile, coal/oil stocks have risen, and solar and wind stocks fallen. And I wouldn’t bet on that offshore wind farm near his Scottish golf course getting erected….must also be terrible news for his golf course neighbours who have had to put-up with intimidation and bullying.
But his Irish golf course is being eaten up by the sea because, according to his own people, of climate change.
Irony not lost on the Irish. More detail here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/may/26/donald-trump-wants-to-build-a-wall-to-save-his-golf-course-from-global-warming