That is not stream of consciousness. — Punshhh

What is it if not?

Just talking without a script.

What’s the difference?

Stream of consciousness is an ecstatic state, more like the trance of a medium. What Trump is doing is showmanship, it might look the same but it is a charade, if he's claiming it's stream of consciousness. I don't think he is making that claim, I don't think he wants to disguise his showmanship, it works and people like it.

Stream of consciousness is an ecstatic state, — Punshhh

No, that’s not stream of consciousness. Nor is he claiming to do it. It’s something @ArguingWAristotleTiff mentioned in a post.

Well anyway, Trump is a showman, any stream of consciousness he appears to be performing is little more than a conjuring trick, like Billy Graham. I don't want to be disparaging to Billy Graham, but he new how to work a crowd.

More like a stream of fiction, confabulation, boasts and mendacity. Saying whatever comes into an addled mind is not a virtue. But as we've all learned, useless to argue against the cult of Trump - where facts don't matter, reason holds no sway.

A question for everyone:

Can only a politician be a capable President?

Can only a politician be a capable President? — Brett

Can a president be an effective leader without being a capable politician?

The general consensus here seems to be no.

Edit: but what’s a capable politician, one that can win the Democratic nomination or one that serves his constituency?

A 'capable politician' is one who can persuade even those who disagree with her to follow her lead.

These guys, or lady's are in short supply at the moment.

Yes they are. Many more like e.g. Speaker Pelosi are needed ...

Can only a politician be a capable President? — Brett

Yes, Eisenhower. Consistently ranked in the top 10 Presidents by both parties.

I see a capable President as just a President who is capable of achieving his objectives, not that those objectives are necessarily good. An effective, capable President is not necessarily a good President. I can think of worse things than an incapable President.

I think this has gone off the rails a bit from what I meant in my post.

What I was getting at was the charges against a Trump that he was ignorant and incompetent when it came to both domestic and foreign policy, that he was an amateur.

Is it necessary for a President to have come up through the political ranks. For instance, can Bloomberg be a reasonably successful a President? And are we seeing the beginning of the end of politicians as we’ve known them, and is that a good or bad thing? Look at the Democrats running for President and the apparent disinterest in them.

Eisenhower's an interesting example. Presumably his war record served him well in that post-war period of uncertainty.

Just vote for Bernie, thanks

Bern Against the Machine! FtB! :up:

Yes they are. Many more like e.g. Speaker Pelosi are needed ...

You're lucky, there aren't many here in the UK.

Eisenhower's an interesting example. Presumably his war record served him well in that post-war period of uncertainty. — Brett

Eisenhower is a great example of someone coming into politics with a stellar career in another field. And keeping the Western Alliance during WW2 intact did show great leadership qualities. And then look at his policies especially the Interstate Highway System. Few if any infrastructure programs match in scale and importance of this government project. And done by a Republican!

Is this part of the problem people have with Trump, that he doesn’t behave like a politician? And does that matter?

This discussion is about the US vs Iran; maybe you can repost your question in the dump Trump thread.

Okay.

Trump is a politician. Just with a new flavour. Not being a career politician doesn't make one not to be a politician. Eisenhower as a President was also a politician.

Trump basically doesn't believe that he could win any democrats over so why even bother? He doubles down on the polarization of the American voting population. What would benefit him is if everything is seen as part of a 'culture war'.

Why I think that Trump is a lousy president is because his administration is simply a confused mess and because he is inept in leadership. The talented ones in the Trump administration (yes, I believe there have been those) usually simply quit. It all is genuinely confusing. NATO is brain dead, US allies in the Middle East are either confused or simply play him (or his son-in-law, which is a total disaster), allies in the Far East are quite clueless what the US will do. The Trump-Putin bromance is bizarre. The only thing where Trump is persistent and goes on with a plan is basically appeasing and doing favors to his campaign donors. Their agenda is met indeed. So it's the American system on steroids with Trump. But that doesn't stop people hallucinating that "Trump will drain the swamp". Then
Some people think this is great, some enjoy Trump as being this stampeding elephant in the China shop. Bring out the popcorn! Others simply enjoy that he annoys democrats. Well, if the role of the President is to be annoying...

Basically still after four years many of Trump's supporters pin hopes to him which won't happen. There was a similar (if totally different) hope when Obama got into power.

And then there are the people who don't know or care much about foreign or domestic policy and who would doze off if actual goverment policies would be discussed, for them listening to Trump might be fun. Because, hell, he's one of them!

(Btw. the threads are mixed up, this talk ought to be in the Trump thread and vice versa, as Baden said, so let's talk Trump there.)

FOX News & WSJ fellow Newscorp daily the NY Post ran this W_hy's T_rump F_ree article:

The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was ‘imminent’ or not, & was my team in agreement. The answer to both is a strong YES., but it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past! — tRUMP tweet, 1.13.19

Admission of guilt.

If not, dear MAGAts, then tell me/us what the hell I'm/we're missing. :brow:

No, I do not believe that we are seeing a "Wag the Dog" scenario play out. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Who should we believe, Tiff: y'all, or our lying eyes? :shade:

UPDATE:

"Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani have demolished Trump’s claims of innocence"

~Neil Katyal, Op-Ed, Washington Post, 1.15.20

I would question this; members of the Iranian government or groups close to and funded by Iran have repeatedly supported the destruction of Israel. The destruction of a Jewish state and its replacement by an Islamic one would be a HUGE win on a religious front for nearly the entire Islamic world including Iran. — BitconnectCarlos

Ok this is an answer to your remark on the Trump thread.

There's three counterarguments to your opinion.

First, there is no unified Islamic front. In fact, there is a bitter fight ongoing between the Sunni states and the Shia Iran. Typically the allies (and the US would call them proxies) of Iran are Shiite or non-Sunni Muslims like the Alawite family ruling Syria. Yemen and Syria and also Iraq are battlefields of this inter-Muslim rivalry, which has caused a lot of bloodshed already.

In the case of Palestine this is blurred because Palestinians are Sunni Muslims hence Iran being supportive of Hamas is simply realpolitik for Hamas (as Hamas is not in good terms with the Palestinian Authorities on the West Bank).

Secondly, culture of over-the-top ranting is a really a trademark of the Middle East. In Europe and the West, it's totally the other way around: here ranting sounds like basically being Hitler, and every however populist a politician is, they will not want to be like him. To "strongly oppose" should send alarm bells here, in the Middle East it would be hardly noticed.

Thirdly, the Islamic Republic of Iran is an theocracy. Funding might be important in the US, but how the Iranian coffers are filled by oil money doesn't matter so much to the mullahs in power. Iran can fund organizations that lob few rockets into Israel here and there, because it knows that Israel won't retaliate by destroying Tehran with a nuke. Use of nuclear weapons truly has it's own logic and don't think that either side would take their use lightly. The last time nuclear weapons were thought as just more powerful weapons than conventional weapons ready to be used if necessary was by the US before the Soviet Union detonated it's first nuclear bomb. Then the whole concept changed.

Hey ssu, I just want to point out before I really respond that I don't consider us in a "debate" here. A debate implies that we're both fixed in opposing positions and we're trying our best to convince the other person that we're right. I don't really see that here.

I consider this more of a discussion. I'm engaging you here because you actually seem to hold a pretty deep knowledge of facts and history which can sometimes be hard to find on a forum full of theoreticians. I'd like to learn from you, and maybe you have something to gain from engaging with me. That's why I'm discussing with you. It's not score internet points against a stranger.

In any case, I did read your last point and I don't really disagree with anything that you've said.

I did pose a question that last time that I would have liked you to answer. There's not really a right or wrong answer to it, I'm just curious where you'd fall here.

In regard to the nuclear threat, a good way to measure risk is to take into account both the odds of X happening as well as the amount of damage caused by X. In the case of nuclear war the odds of a nuclear strike by Iran are [probably] small (I think we both agree that it's small, but we probably disagree on how small. 1% and .00001% are both small but very, very different figures.) The amount of damage would of course be unfathomable. I'd be interested to see if you'd be willing to throw out a % here within the next 50-100 years that either Iran or a nuclear weapon from Iran is used against Israel.

Use of nuclear weapons truly has it's own logic and don't think that either side would take their use lightly.

Yes, it definitely shouldn't be taken lightly. If human beings were perfectly rational in the western sense of striving for self-preservation and happiness the odds of nuclear war would be 0%. I think any student of history knows that humans just aren't like that.

At least the Bush administration attempted (and succeeded) to manufacture consent. The Trump administration thought they could pull the trigger and that the cart would lead the horse.

Hey ssu, I just want to point out before I really respond that I don't consider us in a "debate" here. A debate implies that we're both fixed in opposing positions and we're trying our best to convince the other person that we're right. I don't really see that here.

I consider this more of a discussion. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure. English isn't my first language, hence I didn't notice the difference between a debate and discussion. Note taken.

I did pose a question that last time that I would have liked you to answer. There's not really a right or wrong answer to it, I'm just curious where you'd fall here. — BitconnectCarlos

Discussing nuclear war is a very problematic topic, but interesting. They are not ordinary weapons or basically have become something else than just potent weapons.

The first thing to notice is the scare that it creates. Let's think about nuclear radiation first. Nuclear radiation and it's effects are something that people cannot understand and what the effects (unfortunately) differ in estimations wildly. Hence when a deadly Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, the tsunami itself which killed nearly 16 000 people was brushed off as the focus was totally on the Fukushima nuclear plant, which killed by radiation...nobody. The only deaths that happen were during the evacuation of 170 000 people. If we get so scared of an accident in a nuclear power plant, how afraid do we got from the use of nuclear weapons.

There's the image of "Nuclear armageddon", and nuclear winter. There is the assumption that once nuclear weapons are started to be used, it escalates to all out use of the weapons. And then all life on the World is at peril. This all makes nuclear weapons something totally different from other weapons: Nuclear weapons aren't just a weapon system, they are a belief system.

Just think about it: let's say as an example that tactical nuclear weapons are used in a conflict in the Middle East towards military targets, air bases or tank formations on the field. The actual casualties wouldn't be huge, perhaps several thousand at worst, as armies understand to spread their forces not to create obvious targets, yet think of the impact it would have even on people here and everywhere else. How would people react to news that there's a nuclear war going on the Middle East? I bet MANY people would feel uncomfortable about it and have anxiety over it, even if none of their relatives or friends would be in danger. Would you think the politicians of World, starting from the Pope to your local prime minister or president, would stay silent? Would you think that the media would cover the issue with cool objecivity? No. The media would milk the panic the most it can and try to glue us to follow the coverage. Many people would assume that WW3 has started, even if we are talking about a regional war.

Hence the use of nuclear weapons is a huge political issue.

So it's more than about probabilities. In fact, I would argue that a continuing slow pace civil war kills as many as a nuclear strike would, and we are blissfully ignorant about it. Syrian civil war has killed over 100 000 people, and the Yugoslav civil war killed 130 000 - 140 000 people. Estimates of the Iraq war (after 2003) differ wildly (from 110 000 - 600 000). The way how people are killed matters.

@ArguingWAristotleTiff Something that gets lost in all this argument of whether Soleimani was a bad enough guy to deserve to die is that Trump executed nine people in that attack including an Iraqi official. It wasn't just Soleimani. Even a half-arsed ethical argument should attempt to question the justification for killing the others too. But you won't find one MSM outlet doing that. Nor have we been talking about it here. Why? They were presumably real waking talking people with lives and families too before Trump blew them into little pieces. And if there was no imminent threat (which now seems the case) that was murder, right?

Terrorism. Simple.

Terrorist minds threaten the Western World.