monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Now you are criticizing him for honesty with a dash of humility?

If you check, you will find that a great many presidents have commented on how the job was more difficult than they first imagined.

I think I prefer the guy who recognizes the challenge is tougher than he first thought than an arrogant egoist who after 100 days remarks "Piece of cake! I figured running the country would be a lot tougher!"

Then it appears that you are indeed very naïve.

Here's where I have to admit that I got something quite wrong.

I had said, during the primaries and after, that Trump did not really want to be President. He didn't, I argued, want any part of getting up early to attend to daily briefings; he didn't want to sit quietly and listen when others briefed him on the myriad matters that would come before his desk; he certainly didn't want to do the massive amount of necessary reading and study; and he didn't want to alter his lifestyle from spoiled rich kid to dedicated and hard-working public servant.

What I got wrong in all this was in presuming that this man, though as clearly uneducated and unfamiliar with the office he was seeking, at least grasped, to some degree, the dimensions of the presidency. As it turns out, Trump was so uneducated about the presidency and about governance that he held in his head the ideas that the above quote makes completely evident.

How is that even possible? How could this guy have been that incredibly stupid? Obviously, though he'd tweeted and yelled about politics for years, he wasn't paying anything but the most shallow attention to what he tweeted and yelled about. And equally obvious is that he held such delusional notions about himself - his intelligence, his knowledge and his abilities - that he could just walk into this role (or presumably any role at all) and whip it into shape in a matter of days or weeks or months. I'm sure if you asked him about NASA, he'd say and believe that he could get a base built on Mars in a year or two, no problem. The attending set of notions here is that anyone not him is some species of idiot.

But what explains the thinking of those who supported (and still support) him? How could so many people on the right be blind to his lack of fitness (and here I'm setting aside the serious character issues) for this office? How is that possible?

Decades of denigration of politicians, politics and government (and more generally, denigration of expertise, education and knowledge) have produced a GOP base which conceives that anyone could walk into a government post (or a teacher's or professors job etc) and do the thing better than the people now in those jobs. "Common sense" is all that's needed, along with a firm hand and steadfast resolution. Those "elites" are weak. The common man strong. And of the "common men", the best are those who have made lots of money - hard nosed businessmen.

They bought Trump's pitch because they've been hearing it for half a century or more.

Whoa!

That seems far fetched.

It shouldn't be that tough to understand what is mean't when "snowflakes" is used and at least it makes some sense (snowflakes being obviously delicate), unlike "teabagger" which is merely a vulgar play on words.

I don't if the first guy who used "snowflake" had human ashes in mind, but everyone thereafter didn't. The first time I saw it used was when post-election reports came out about students so delicate they needed coloring books and playdoh therapy to deal with the trauma of Trump being elected.

In that context, it's a great metaphor.

"Cheese eater" on the other hand is a bit obtuse, although it's meaning in this forum (the only place I've seen it) is pretty clear.

That's not naivete.

"Sorry, father, but I didn't fully understand what might happen if I put a can of WD 40 into the microwave"

"No problem, son. Everybody makes mistakes. Once the bulldozers clear everything away, we'll just rebuild. You've done well to be honest and humble".

I don't understand conservatives. First they blame the underclass for being on welfare. Then, when the underclass goes out and gets good, high-paying jobs at demonstrations the Republicans denounce them as "paid protestors". Hey, at least they're working. Hell, you'd think Trump would be lauding Soros as a job creator.

Then there's this- if you want to be very specific about terms.

A primer.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/socialized-medicine-vs-single-payer-vs-what-we-have-now-212088%3Famp%3D1

In order to be completely accurate and avoid Europeans jumping out of their skin and Farmer from screaming again, only the Brits have socialized medicine. So says this writer.

Nor, alas, do a growing number of Americans.

I think that if the government is primarily responsible for funding healthcare, it's fair to call it socialized medicine, regardless of what stigma may or may not attach to the term. The fact that the author of the article you linked is blaming the Tories for failing to properly fund the UK healthcare system is proof that at least he believes it is socialized medicine.

What it's called is a ridiculous argument in which to engage, particularly if it is on the verge of collapsing as the author suggests.

This is another example though where a particular political party is blamed for something as if they are acting completely independent of the will of the people.

The Tories are in power because they won elections. As ignorant as many voters are, it's difficult to imagine that everyone voting Conservative did so with a complete lack of awareness of what is going on in the UK, while everyone voting Labor was fully knowledgeable.

It may be that the state of UK healthcare system is so dire that voters will in the upcoming election look to Labor to save it, but if they don't, it will mean that a) It's not perceived to be as dire as this gentleman suggests b) The voters believe it can be fixed by the Tories or c) The voters think there are more important issues at stake

.

Where did you get the idea that I believe Soros is paying hundreds of thousands of protesters?

Protesters, to be legitimate instances of free and democratic speech, either have to wear tri-corner hats or have to be bused in from GOP headquarters in DC to stop vote counts in some Florida jurisdiction. But aside from that, you make a compelling argument.

Except that the house being in ruins is something you've projected and is not based on current reality.

Just what does "uneducated (or educated) about the presidency" mean? Are you so educated? If so, please provide some details about how you acquired that education or experience. If not, then on what basis do you make these rather sweeping judgments?

You imply that people in government require skills that set them a bit above the rest of us ( except perhaps your favorite political commentators). I don't believe that is the case at all. There are indeed many educated and intelligent people in government, but the civil service bureaucrats comprising the great majority of them enjoy protected employment and a nearly complete absence of real accountability for what they achieve or don't achieve, compared to analogous folks in the private sector. The complacency, self-importance, and hierarchical focus that often results is well known and a staple of the literature of many countries

Those who make a career in elective office certainly develop the skills needed to win elections, but the details of our political history are filled with their follies and misdeeds in office. Trump has at least demonstrated those skills. As for the rest he will be judged in history by the results he achieves in office just as were his predecessors. Those judgments reveal many cases that confounded the contemporary opinions of the self-appointed elites of the day.

Of course if Trump had commented that the job was easier than he imagined, blatham would be going on about his arrogance

You have a gift, george. You can write a sentence like that one while pretending you aren't merely obtuse.

Here, let me give you a quick exercise. Compare the fitness (as I've described it) for the presidency between GHW Bush and Sarah Palin. When completed, do another between Jesse Ventura and Edward Meese.

Get back to me when you've completed the assignment.

Given the course of the first hundred days I think it would have been difficult, even for Trump, to claim that the job was easier than he imagined; such a statement would indicate something worse than arrogance.

And guess what? He didn't.

Merely more gorilla dust and BS.

The essence of wisdom and right understanding is in knowing and acknowledging where your knowledge and understanding ends Acknowledging those limits is a necessary precursor for extending them and learning something new. Denying them and merely bringing preconceptions to the problem can make the resolution of things appear smoother, but that's how follies such as the ACA came into being. The forthcoming collapse of the exchange markets is a good demonstration of that. The Supreme Court bailed Obama out on the penalty that was a "tax", but the fact is the young & healthy aren't buying; administrative costs in medicine are rising; and the market is collapsing as a result.

He couldn't.

This is how dictatorship starts. Just under a week ago Erdogan won a referendum giving him sweeping new powers.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39754909