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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   31635 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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For the last two weeks (basically since the whole tariff conversation kicked-off) I've ve been seeing comments here about how trump is "erratic", "stupid", "illiterate", and a "retard", about how he's going to tank the economy and usher in a new age of Democratic party rule, about how his supporters are all deep-throating cock-slobberes who deserve to loose everything.

I would like to propose an alternative take. What if The Art of The Deal is an accurate reflection of Trump's beliefs and and approach to the world? If that were the case, it would seem that theMotte may be seriously underestimating Donald Trump.

I recently started reading Art of The Deal and I found it interesting to contrast Scott's review of that book with his latest on "The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does" as Trump (or his ghostwriter if you prefer to continue believing that Trump is illiterate) makes a similar but inverse argument.

According to Trump (or Tony Schwartz) one of the key skills of a sucessful negotiator is the ability to remain focused on what is rather than what ought to be, or what people say. Scott alleges in his review that the purpose of a real-estate developer is to lie, and there is a naive "the purpose of a thing is what it does" interpretation where this is plainly true but I don't think Scott gives the Trump/Schwartian position enough credit.

Regardless of it's purported purpose, the "role" of planning boards and zoning laws is to prevent buildings from being built. in orderfor a building to be built the planning board must be thwarted.

Thus the Developer tells the Contractor to start pouring concrete. The planning board is going to approve this project, we're just waiting on the paperwork. The contractor starts pouring. The Developer then goes to the planning board and tells them, you might as well approve this project because we already started work and otherwise you'd have go down to the job-site and tell the Contractor to stop. The planning board approves the project.

Scott would characterize the Developer as having lied to the contractor about having the approval, but did they? The planning board did in fact approve the project after all. That the contractor beginning to pour without approval played a major part in the granting of approval is either of vital importance or completely irrelevant depending upon which side of the managerial versus working class divide you are sitting.

Another key element of the Trump/Schwartian approach is the idea that there are no "friends" and no "enemies" at the negotiating table. Only people who are willing to negotiate in good faith, and those who are not. People who refuse to negotiate at all are definitionally in the "not" catagory.

Finally, contra Scott, i would hold that rather than being vague and unsatisfying the solution of "find someone who knows more about the issue than I do and pay them to persue my prefered outcome" is sensible and actionable advice.

With these ideas in mind a lot of his allegedly "erratic" and "nonsensical" decisions regarding Tariffs, Zelenskyy, and Immigration start to look less "nonsensical" and more like deliberate tactical choices.

I voted for Trump three times and as far as I'm concerned this term has been nothing but a big wet fart so far. It's just been one embarrassing clusterfuck after another accompanied by a perpetual drumbeat of asspulled contradictory coping from his fanboys on Twitter.

  • Trump has a cockamamie idea about acquiring Greenland. Denmark promptly tells him to blow it out his ass, at which point Mr. Art of the Deal is completely out of ideas. He just lamely brings it up now and then seemingly at random, even though everyone knows it'll never happen, just to remind us what a limp dick he is.

  • Trump wants Canada to become a state. Maybe. Nobody seems sure whether he's serious about this or if it's just a rhetorical salvo in his ongoing mission to antagonize them for no comprehensible reason. In any event Canada tells him to blow statehood out of his ass too, and in the end the only result is to bail out the Canadian Liberal party.

  • Trump announces infinite tariffs on everything because he's a dumbfuck and thinks anyone will bother to build a factory here rather than just wait a little bit for this to blow over. He wipes a zillion dollars off the stock market and then mostly folds like a bitch anyway.

  • Edited to add: Oh yeah, and where the hell are my apocalyptic mass deportations?

Art of the Deal my fat ass. All this guy's selling me is the idea that he really is a boob and his first term was only as decent as it was because he wasn't really expecting to win or prepared to do anything.

Man, this is one of those times I read something and think living in the 80s must have been awesome. What kind of pissant planning commission would put up with that? Nowadays even in the small towns I work in, they'd tell you to go fuck yourself and call the cops on your concrete pour.

Scott would characterize the Developer as having lied to the contractor about having the approval, but did they?

Yes in your scenario, but it's not necessary. Try this:

Thus the Developer tells the Contractor to start pouring concrete. The building permit isn't their responsibility and the contractor is paid based on work done (not buildings constructed), so they have no reason to refuse. Worst case they get paid to tear up concrete afterwards. The contractor starts pouring.

If I was a contractor pouring concrete for Trump, I would want all the paperwork signed and notarized in triplicate before I lifted a finger. Because if his weird little scheme goes sideways, he will not absorb the costs, he will try to throw me under the bus and claim that he had never authorized me to start pouring.

There might be real estate developers whom I would trust to have my back (or not), but anyone who trusts Trump to not leave them hanging is to naive to run a business.

And?

...and therefore the scenario doesn't illustrate their point.

(or his ghostwriter if you prefer to continue believing that Trump is illiterate)

I don't think you have to believe Trump is unintelligent, let alone illiterate, to believe The Art of the Deal was ghostwritten. Ghostwriters can be used by someone who doesn't have the capacity to write a decent book, but more often than not, they're used by someone who can't be bothered to write a book although, if they hunkered down, they could. I'm perfectly willing to believe Trump could write a book by himself. I'm less willing to believe that he'd go through the trouble when he can pay someone to do it for him and rubber-stamp it.

Honestly, paying someone else to do something he couldn't be bothered to do would be very "on brand" for him the question is whether the art of the deal is an accurate representation of his worldview.

According to Trump (or Tony Schwartz) one of the key skills of a sucessful negotiator is the ability to remain focused on what is rather than what ought to be, or what people say.

Sure, but now we have what appears [to me] to be tactically-inconsistent backpedaling. Enhanced high-tech manufacturing capabilities were supposed to [by who?] be the goal but now only token tariffs remain in the most important areas- and yes, the US has weaknesses in this area that are so significant that major Chinese manufacturing firms being told to suspend shipments of that equipment to the US is probably a bigger deal than most give it credit for. The Americans might indeed not be in any position to unilaterally establish independent industry at this time.

And while people do indeed have incredibly short memories- people barely remember 2020-2022 these days and that economic cataclysm dwarfs any economic disturbance tariffs have caused (oh, market fell 10%? I don't hear reparations for the 30% inflation over the last 4 years in addition to all the authoritarian shit so I don't fucking care!)- my main problem is that the negotiations are highly public, but the timeframe is not.

Let's take the whole 51st State thing as an example. I feel that to start trying to accomplish that goal... well, the economic tactics are sound ones, but there's only a concept of a plan here, nothing more substantive [as perceived by the general public].

When working on any project, the answer to most questions [from a stability/investment mindset] cannot actually be the Underpants Gnomes strategy; we pour foundations so that we can accomplish the next step of the process, but to pour those foundations the finished product needs to be coherent. Is it self-sufficiency, like petroleum? Is it simply reduced dependence with an eye towards self-sufficiency? The last major economic reformer in US history, FDR, had the fireside chat specifically for this reason- massive and immediate reforms benefit from someone explaining why. That should be Vance, since he's capable of doing this whereas Trump is... very not, but I'm not hearing anything.

And doubly so if we're going to see dealmaking consistently in public- whereas right now, we just have the disruption. And yes, this sort of thing absolutely is bad for American provinces like Canada and the EU; to the point that I see the offer of statehood as an early buy-out package for performers capable of being disruptive to larger goals before the layoffs begin... which, you'll recall, was exactly what was occurring around that time.

I've been seeing comments here about how trump is "erratic", "stupid", "illiterate", and a "retard", about how he's going to tank the economy and usher in a new age of Democratic party rule, about how his supporters are all deep-throating cock-slobberes who deserve to lose everything.

The only real criticism is "erratic", the other ones are all just incoherent screaming (same with "corrupt"; I have yet to hear how substantiated/used outside of a thought-terminating argument).

Scott would characterize the Developer as having lied to the contractor about having the approval, but did they?

Yes, and I don't understand how you can even question it. Remember again the original claim: "they're going to approve it, we're just waiting on the paperwork". Not only does this falsely imply that the approval has been agreed upon (which is why the contractor should go ahead and start), it contains the explicit falsehood "we're just waiting on the paperwork". The developer is not "just waiting on the paperwork", they are trying to gain leverage to force the planning board to capitulate. This is a very clear lie.

If you don't understand, is it because you missed the part where the planning board approved the project?

If not, how is telling the contractor "The planning board is going to approve this project" a lie? Where is the falsehood? Where is the deciet?

Nobody said anything about a preexisting agreement. They said an agreement would be made and that statement was correct. An agreement was made.

If not, how is telling the contractor "The planning board is going to approve this project" a lie? Where is the falsehood? Where is the deciet?

First, because the planning board was not going to approve it at the time that was said. Second, and more importantly, you left out the very clear deceit I already cited: the developer is not in fact "just waiting on paperwork", he is engaged in manipulation to apply leverage to the planning board so that they will approve it.

Nobody said anything about a preexisting agreement.

It is very clearly implied, as otherwise the contractor would not go ahead.

They said an agreement would be made and that statement was correct. An agreement was made.

Yes, only because of the lies the developer told. That doesn't count as an accurate reporting of facts.

Your hypothetical scenario is not some clever bargaining flourish. It is a dirty lie that only a scumbag would engage in. I have pointed out the express and implied untruths that the developer says. If that isn't enough for you to call it a lie, then I lack the means to persuade you I guess.

Yes, it's all lies. Big mean Trump is fooling the innocent construction company and permit offices of NYC, all of whom are completely non-corrupt innocent idealists seeking only the best for everyone.

Back in reality, trump is a NYC real estate developer the same as all the others. Everyone involved knows the game. Trump didn't make the game this broken, NY politicians did. Trump has always been critical of them, and engaged in theatrics to expose them - e.g. writing a book, public clashes with Ed Koch over what later became Trump skating rink, etc. This is what led him to enter politics.

What would you have preferred he do? Be the only honest real estate developer and go bankrupt cause nothing gets built? (Similarly, I don't fault Soros for breaking the pound.)

What would you have preferred he do? Be the only honest real estate developer and go bankrupt cause nothing gets built?

Yes. "Everyone else does this too, it's how the game is" is not and has never been an excuse for immoral behavior. You are responsible for your conduct, no matter the circumstances you find yourself in.

What’s immoral about finding an end run around retarded awful laws and rules?

Lying, and not following the law, are both immoral without a sufficiently good reason. "I want to make money" isn't remotely good enough of a reason to lie and break the law.

‘Shit needs to get done and these kinds of adversarial boards aren’t doing what they’re supposed to’

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Perhaps, but the issue here isn't everyone else doing it, it is specifically the government and system that enacts and enforces the rules. If that system doesn't play by its own rules, then playing by those rules will only hurt you. You can not expect a system without enforced rules to produce any other result, because even if you play by the rules others will not.

We aren't talking about "does this system produce good outcomes", though. We are talking about "is it wrong for someone to do bad things because that's what the system incentivizes", which IMO it is.

What I'm saying though is that it isn't the people who are wrong, it's the system.

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Following the rules as-written as opposed to the rules as-enforced doesn't make you a paragon of morality; it makes you a chump.

Doesn't this "Art of the Deal" lens prove too much?

Can you find any economist who thinks universal tariffs are a good idea? Any published literature on it?

Maybe they're deliberate tactical choices, but to what gain? The markets lost something like $10t in value since he announced them. Losses on this scale were certain while any recovery afterwards is more speculative due to the loss of confidence. Is whatever Trump thinks he's going to gain from this worth that risk?

Almost certainly no. Just because you may be doing this as a tactical choice doesn't shield you from your choice mathing out to erratic and retarded.

Doesn't this "Trump is a buffoon and the people who voted for him a bunch of deep-throating cock-slobberes" lens prove too much? Why is the principle of charity only being applied in one direction here?

I consider myself using the deliberate tactical choices lens here. Valuate the choices by its effects: it's bad!

Stated another way, I interpret your post as saying: don't judge Trump by the virtues of his choices, judge him by the results. See how he punks the planning boards who don't let shit get built? Great. Now lets apply that standard to his universal tariffs.

When I do that, they still seem like a disaster.

How can you claim to be "evaluating a choice by it's effects" when those effects have yet to manifest and there is significant disagreement regarding what those effects will be and what "bad" even means in this context?

Well, he caused quite a market crash with his announcements, even though the market was likely aware that he would not go through with his tariffs.

I think that few people claim that starting trade wars with most countries in the world (plus a few uninhabited islands) would go well for the US economy. The disagreement over the effects on the economy seem more to be about if the per capita GDP of the US (89k$/a) would fall to the level of Denmark (72k$/a) or to the level of Estonia (33k$/a).

Apart from the markets, in the international community he managed to disabuse people of the notion that the US is a steadfast partner who will not fuck you over because their commander in chief has just read another book, and also most of the belief that official announcements by the POTUS are more reliable than The Onion.

Well, what does a good outcome look like to you?

Every way I can think of to measure this universal tariff move looks bad, regardless of how many dimensions of chess I use.

Aside from maybe demonstrating that the coffee shop revolutionary liberals suddenly love capitalism and are hypocrites. That has been amusing but not really worth the cost.

Are the people who called Trump supporters "a bunch of deep-throating cock-slobberes" in the motte with us right now?

I'm pretty sure they are.

Yes. In this thread even.

Not with those exact words (as that would be against the rules), but yes, we clearly have them.

Ah damn, I did not expect that. I stand corrected.

trump is "erratic", "stupid", "illiterate", and a "retard"

Erratic? Definitely. Stupid? In a sense. Illiterate? No. Retard? By the medical definition, of course not.

I prefer the term "buffoon" myself.

his supporters are all deep-throating cock-slobberes

I'm assuming that's supposed to be "cock-slobberers". I wouldn't call all his supporters that, but a decent chunk, roughly about 33-37% of the country certainly are. I'm confident enough in that assertion that I'd be willing to bet money on it, if such a market existed.

With these ideas in mind a lot of his allegedly "erratic" and "nonsensical" decisions regarding Tariffs, Zelenskyy, and Immigration start to look less "nonsensical" and more like deliberate tactical choices.

There's two big problems with the "4D Chess, Art Of The Deal, Trust The Plan" style of arguments.

  1. It's deployed as yet another everything-proof shield for any of Trump's actions. Trump cultists desperately, desperately want any reason to love the man, so there's an extensive distributed search to come up with any reason to do so. This is just like how woke academics searched for any reason not to blame black people for their own problems, and ended up coming up with unfalsifiable ideas like "structural racism" as the cause for everything. When the motivated reasoning is this blatant, you should be suspicious of the purported results.

  2. Where are the actual results? Trump has already had a full term where he was full of erratic actions. Where are his successes where the erratic behavior clearly led to a good outcome? Note that there are going to be happy accidents every once in a while, so we would expect at least a few good results even if we made an RNG simulator the President. Trump certainly had a few good results during his first term, but they were mostly just him acting like a conventional politician, e.g. Operation Warp Speed (which Trump later disavowed, because of course he did) or his SCOTUS nominations (more of McConnell's victory really, but Trump gets some credit for not buffoonishly sabotaging it in some way).

I wouldn't call all his supporters that, but a decent chunk, roughly about 33-37% of the country certainly are.

33-37%/Trump-supporting % of the country = % of Trump supporters that are "deep-throating cock-slobberes" - I'm assuming less than half the country supports Trump, at this point, so "33-37%" is actually 67-80% (before factoring in "the evaporative cooling of group beliefs")

Yes, they've essentially captured the Republican party in its entirety by this point. Criticizing or even disagreeing with Dear Leader too consistently is seen as a crime worthy of (political) death, no matter the topic or how wrong Trump is.

You should read patriots.win. I'm guessing that it is peak MAGA. And yet they engage in lively debates, with comments calling out Donald when he makes mistakes, and getting upvotes.

Criticizing appointments

If only Trump knew ...

Unfortunately, bad appointments has been one of Trump's glaring weak points. 28 upvotes, 12 hours ago

Sure, there's always been a bit of dissent around the fringes (/pol/ has had similar debates). But these people are nowhere close to being in the driver's seat when it comes to MAGA. The tariffs debacle was really the ultimate test, as it was 1) a big policy that 2) affects something almost everyone cares about (the economy) and 3) had a pretty significant flip-flop in a very short timeframe. Basically everyone should have been pissed either when the tariffs were announced, or when the tariffs were significantly watered down.

"Not in the driver's seat" and "political death" are vastly different.

If, come the 2026 midterm or 2028 presidential elections, the economy was looking decent to strong and there had been significant progress towards any of the following goals; balancing US trade deficiets, restoring US shipbuilding capacity, or peace in Ukraine. Would you update your priors? Or is being an anti-populist such a core component of your identity that you would deny reality to protect your ego?

If the latter, how is your claim that "Trump is a buffoon" any less of a fully general "everything proof" argument?

US shipbuilding capacity isn't going to be restored without first breaking the various unions involved, which isn't going to happen. Even after that you'd need someone who could build things from the ground up -- maybe Musk has someone at Tesla who could do this. But it would probably require hiring a lot of foreign experts, too.

Ukraine seems unlikely to happen due to the intransigence of the parties (in particular Putin, who thinks he can get it all eventually) but if it does I'm sure it will be spun as surrendering to Putin (which it wouldn't be, but Ukraine would lose significant territory)

Strong economy (which would mean back to trendline without strong inflation, NOT merely a return to positive growth), trade deficit narrowed by a lot (really doesn't matter since the thesis of tariff criticism is that they are bad for the economy so this is fully covered by that item, but the volatility, reputational loss and immediate financial pain needs to not all be for naught), peace in Ukraine with a Ukraine-favoring resolution would make me update my assessment.

US shipbuilding is very "who cares", and I'm not sure how to judge a successful policy since fixing it would take decades of reform. Certainly, having revenue from US gov purchases of ships go up would not count.

I already give Trump credit for destroying wokeism or at least hastening it's demise. I also gave him credit for announcing a buildup of the military, which is a good idea. Hopefully he actually goes through with it and doesn't waffle.

I don't find balancing US trade deficits to be a priority. Something like reshoring (high tech) manufacturing though, sure.

Yes, it would be great if he could restore US shipbuilding.

Peace in Ukraine is highly contingent on what the peace looks like. If it's effectively "force Ukraine to surrender and give up huge swathes of land that they wouldn't need to if Biden were still around" is not a good peace. If it was "ceasefire at current lines, and Ukraine protected from future invasions by European guarantees", that'd be reasonable.

So that is a "no" then, you would not update your priors.

This is pretty low effort and seems meant only to antagonize and not actually get at the other person's reasoning. Playing gotcha with "I asked you a yes or no question, and you gave me a couple of paragraphs of explanation but didn't say yes or no therefore you didn't answer my question" is obnoxious. If you genuinely believe you still do not have an answer:

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

>Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

Honestly it must be said that these rules are often honored more in the breach than in practice, but this one-liner just stands out as egregiously "ZING! I am not arguing to understand but to score points."

@TheAntipopulist is one of the specific users i had in mind writing the OP.

Their three paragraphs here and replies elsewhere in this thread can be summarized as; "even if the populists are sucessful (which they wont be) it will be for reasons outside thier control and thus not count."

So cutting to the chase, no the anti populist is not going to be updating his priors regarding populism and populists.

With that in mind do you really think they are arguing to understand rather to score points? A large portion of the users' output (along with thier user name) is little more than casual disparagement of anyone outside the managerial class.

Casual disparagement that you are not just tolerating but actively defending from push-back.

Their three paragraphs here and replies elsewhere in this thread can be summarized as; "even if the populists are sucessful (which they wont be) it will be for reasons outside thier control and thus not count."

All three specify circumstances under which he would update, and some of them aren't even all that demanding. None of them require things outside the government's control or at least not wildly more than your list that he was replying to. Reading "here are three ways I would update" as "I wouldn't update" is... certainly a thing someone said on the Internet today.

Honestly, you're not making much sense. You don't seem to be reading what the words in front of you actually say, but what your opinion of the person posting them leads you to expect to be there.

No they did not specify any circumstances under which they would update, they explained why even if x y and z were to happen they are not high priorities and thus beneath consideration. While there is a throw-away line about giving Trump credit for setting "wokeness" back a bit the possibility that Trump and the people who voted for him might genuinly believe the things they claim to believe is dismissed out of hand.

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I sincerely don't understand how you're coming to that conclusion based on what I wrote.

Where are the actual results? Trump has already had a full term where he was full of erratic actions. Where are his successes where the erratic behavior clearly led to a good outcome?

Ukraine seems like an obvious example of the success of the "madman" diplomatic style to me. Trump (allegedly) threatened to bomb Russia if Putin invaded [this, as I understand it, would be a big no-no by conventional diplomatic wisdom] and as a result millions of Russians and Ukrainians were spared tremendous pain...for a few years, until Biden and his more conventional and "less erratic" foreign policy took over.

I definitely do not think that Trump is beyond criticism. But I do think that "madman diplomacy" can work – and Trump isn't the first leader to use it effectively.

That's a stretch since Russia didn't invade any country during Obama's first term either. Even if you think Trump really did prevent a war during his first term he didn't do anything substantive to fix any underlying issues, so he just can-kicked.

Are you taking the position that the "little green men" wrre totally not Russian special forces and that anyone who says otherwise is an Alex Jones-tier conspiracy theorist?

Because if not, Georgia, Ukraine and Maldova would all like a word.

No, I agree little green men were Russian. It's just a question of timing. Moldova was in the 90s, Georgia was 2008, Crimea was 2014. None of those happened under Obama's first term, nor Bush 2's first term.

Not really sure what the first term has to do with it – Russia invaded Ukraine in Obama's second term and successfully annexed Crimea, but that was almost certainly because of intervening events, not because Putin prefers invading in people's second terms (a courtesy he did not extend to Biden).

From a certain perspective all politics is can-kicking. I think that Trump's erratic actions in his first term (threatening to bomb Russia if they invaded Ukraine) led to a good outcome (Ukraine not being invaded). You're right that we can't split the timeline to test a counterfactual, but that's true in all cases, by which logic politicians should never get credit for anything good that happens.

I could be persuaded it was a coincidence if there was good evidence that Putin had an internal clock set to 2023 for some reason (e.g ongoing modernization efforts made Russia much more lethal in 2023 than in 2021) but considering that Trump sent lethal aid to Ukraine, it might have been in Putin's interest to invade even sooner – but he didn't for some reason. At the risk of oversimplifying, I find "Putin being 5% persuaded that Trump might actually strike the Kremlin" a very parsimonious reason.

It's not the fact that it's the first term, it's that Russia's actions don't follow a predictable clock. Blaming Biden for Ukraine being invaded is almost as bad as blaming Trump for COVID happening under his watch. Russia is the primary determinant of how Russia acts. Maybe Biden withdrawing from Afghanistan slightly helped goad Russia to invade, and maybe Trump's threats might have had some small impact, but they were not the primary determinants by any means.

From a certain perspective all politics is can-kicking.

Not at all. If the debt explodes to 99% of bankruptcy during one leader's term, and the bankruptcy happens under his successor, would we say the first leader was great and only the second one was the issue? Obviously not. The first guy set the powder and lit the fuse, it doesn't really matter if the bomb only went off when he wasn't in charge.

While it's true to some degree that we can't know with perfect accuracy unless we had a time machine that let us rerun the presidency with the alt candidate, some actions are clearer than others, e.g. I doubt if Biden had another term that we'd have a tariff-induced market crash. Maybe Biden could have caused a crash in another way, but Trump owns his own stupid actions in this universe.

Russia is the primary determinant of how Russia acts. Maybe Biden withdrawing from Afghanistan slightly helped goad Russia to invade, and maybe Trump's threats might have had some small impact, but they were not the primary determinants by any means.

I would say Russia is actually relatively reactive on the international stage. However, I don't think Afghanistan had much to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think that the Biden administration's non-erratic approach to Ukraine policy is more to blame. As we have seen, it was incapable of deterrence.

If you don't think that Trump's threats (which were effectively an informal security guarantee of Ukraine) have any impact, then it seems to me that Ukraine's continual asking for NATO membership or security guarantees is pointless, since "Russia is the primary determinant of how Russia acts" and they will invade Ukraine regardless of security guarantees. (Put in that light, it kinda seems like NATO is pointless.) Is this your position?

Maybe Biden could have caused a crash in another way, but Trump owns his own stupid actions in this universe.

Right, but in your telling, not his smart ones. Deterring Russia is not to his credit, but the stock market crash is.

Blaming Biden for Ukraine being invaded is almost as bad as blaming Trump for COVID happening under his watch.

Funny, because I do blame both of them for those things.

For Biden: what the fuck else do you think Hunter was doing there? The Ds have been angling for that war for years and have been playing stupid games in Ukraine even back when he was VP.

For Trump: massive partisan riots broke out and weren't controlled. Law and order gave way to burn, loot, murder in literally every major city and he did what, hold a Bible upside down? And the money printing began under him- the Ds continued it, sure, but that was a bad move from the get-go.

The point is you should blame them for the response they had to the event, not the fact that the event happened under their watch. There's not much evidence to say that Biden instigated Russia to invade, and its obviously ludicrous to insinuate that Trump caused COVID.

Hunter was in Ukraine being corrupt. I've not seen any compelling evidence saying he was there to goad Russia to invade.

BLM riots breaking out during Trump's term isn't really Trump's fault. He might have instigated it to some small degree, but it was primarily caused by the high point of woke mania. I agree Trump didn't really respond to it (nor COVID more broadly) well, but that's a separate discussion

The point is you should blame them for the response they had to the event, not the fact that the event happened under their watch.

If they had the means and opportunity to prevent "the event", it is perfectly reasonable to blame them for the event happening under their watch. Putin is not, in fact, a implacable force of nature.

It would seem to me that, if we take the pouring of concrete as an analogy for Trump's policies, then in all cases, the parties opposing him (China, Ukraine, the courts, respectively) are all refusing to accede to his demands, and are attempting to go to the contractor directly and tell them to stop.

Literally just lying might work fine in business as long as you avoid legal troubles, the same way that stiffing contractors might end up working out perfectly fine if you're the bigger company but proper governing is a different beast entirely. Risk taking like that in real estate just means you might pay for a few fines if the zoning board says no, risk taking in government can mean tons of people lose their jobs, lose their homes, or even die depending on what you're taking a risk for.

And unlike with venues or contractors where there's plenty of fish in the sea so pissing them off isn't too bad, there is not another Canada or UK or EU to turn to. You can poke the bears a little especially with a country as powerful as ours but this is an iterative game and defecting is way less useful. Likewise there's a reason why his measures still have us at -8% from 6 months ago and Polymarket has been hovering around 50% chance of recession, people and the overall market want and need long-term reliability.

Edit: And not even to mention, what are we getting out of it? Even if we settle into a "win" for him on getting high tariffs implemented, there's plenty of strong evidence that it will hurt the economy, reduce downstream jobs that use those inputs, and make us poorer.

Edit2: Also here's a really great example of how this approach seems to be failing, Canada. Everything was lined up for a Conservative victory, it was basically taken as a given. PP would have been really Trump friendly. Instead he rallied the Canadians so hard that the odds have shifted massively and Carney will be elected not just as a liberal party pick, but an anti-Trump pick.

Politics is an iterative game, and defecting so hard with aggression towards Canada has most likely lost him in the long run. And there is no other Canada to turn to, he can't just run off like you could with contractors or venues or city zoning boards. Our closest and friendliest neighbor economically and geographically has been pushed away

Our closest and friendliest neighbor economically and geographically has been pushed away

Please don't mistake politicking for reality -- we are right here and not going anywhere. (not least, but not only -- because we can't)

Contra point on Canada. PP was never the "pro-Trump" pick. He's Trudeau lite, instrad of Carney as Trudeau 2.0. Trump supporters cheering him on are missing the point just as badly as Trump haters cheering his downfall. Frankly there is no pro-Trump option in the Laurentian elite, and there is unlikely to ever be with the current arrangement of Canadaian politics. You would need one of two things to happen- a PM from Alberta, or the current Canadian politcal class to have it hammered into their skulls that they are truly a vassal of the US, probably by a trade war that crashes their economy but leaves America unnoticably effected.

PP might not be perfectly Trump aligned but in the question of who would be more accommodating of MAGA idealogy and Trump foreign policy, it's definitely him over Carney.

Is it really "lying" though if the statement is objectively true?

By the same token, if the statement is true, where exactly did "the defection" occur?

You seem to be arguing for a concept "truth" that is independent of ground level reality.

You said

Scott would characterize the Developer as having lied to the contractor about having the approval, but did they? The planning board did in fact approve the project after all. That the contractor beginning to pour without approval played a major part in the granting of approval is either of vital importance or completely irrelevant depending upon which side of the managerial versus working class divide you are sitting.

I think yes, they did lie. They made a guarantee that they knew had decently high chances of not being true and did not express this to the contractor. Even if we don't label it as lying, it is certainly misleading and it is done so intentionally as most people in good faith understand the contractor to mean "Is the project currently approved?" and playing tricky semantics doesn't absolve the developer of deceit. The developer could simply express the truth "It is not currently approved but I am confident in my ability to get it done and believe the chances would be all but guaranteed if we pour early" if they wished for honesty.

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