The Art Of The Deal?

 

"First, the President-elect must make a stab at uniting the country, after a scorched-earth campaign in which he consciously tore at the nation's gender, racial and economic fault lines to build a movement to win power. He's practicing some unusual humility.

 

"I pledge to every citizen of our lands that I will be the president for the American people," Trump said in his victory speech Tuesday. "For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, for which there were a few people, I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so we can work together and unify our great country."

 

But his challenges were on clear display Wednesday as protests broke out from Boston to Los Angeles."

 

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The crazies with their foreheads painted "not my president" don't bother me.  They can march around the big cities all they want.  Rain will come.  Snow and wind will come and they will go home.  The progressive cause has taken a mighty hit but it will re-assert itself.

There are two real question facing the US as to what sort of president will Trump be.

1.   Thus far he looks to me to be a man who will run a tight ship deciding major issues himself and will make deals with whomever has the power to enable him to reach his goals.

IMO that means that the Republicans in Congress will either go along with Trump's legislative proposals or see Trump go across the aisle to seek votes.

A good example would be whatever it is that Trump decides that he  wants to do about the obvious failure that is the ACA, presently sinking under the weight of far higher costs than expected and smaller enrollments.   Democrats understand that the law must be modified to survive and to preserve the increase in health care coverage that it has brought.  The hardline Republicans in both Houses of Congress want to destroy Obamacare and they have no realistic alternative other than the usual blather about private health accounts.   Trump will not want to alienate his working class followers.  Why would Trump not make a deal with the Democrats to get what he wants and needs?

2.   There is also a danger that the neocon faction among Trump's advisers will succeed in achieving power in his cabinet.  The appointment of John Bolton to State, would be ,IMO, an unmitigated disaster.  pl 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-transition/index.html

Comments

[FourthAndLong]

Seems to me Shelly and the Ziocons own him lock stock and barrel. But I've been wrong before. They are something like the Borg in that resistance is futile. J

[FourthAndLong]

That it is. But medical care has always been for the priveleged historically. Emergency care and first aid excepted. Believing politicians actually care about the public is sort of like thinking parents will be around forever to look out for you, or worse. Egotist desire for a legacy is the best bet.

[FourthAndLong]

Soon to be the emperor Nero administration? Just kidding but for the people looking to do him in, what a clever idea. If he starts with that stuff he will be toast in no time.

[different clue]

Anna,

Madame Secretary had always been aGAINST single payer. I remember her saying near the start of this campaign something like " whatever system of health care we have will HAVE to have Private Insurance at the very core."

[different clue]

Anna,

Then again, perhaps Adelson will discover himself to have been a strung-along. Time will tell.

[sillybill]

KHC,
Yes, Trump is the legit POTUS - just as Obama was before him.
People are mad because when the blah guy was elected, it was the Repub side saying that not only was his presidency not legit but he wasn't even an American. And they even said "He's not my president". Remember the "Kenyan, socialist, muslim, usurper"?
And the little cherry on top is that Trump was one of the lead 'birthers'.
So it's possible that some lefties will be bent for a while about certain hypocrites. They'll calm down after a while. Hopefully then we can get around to dismantling the Democratic party and building a tool more appropriate for the job.
On a lighter note, I think Bill Clinton will end up being Trumps favorite ex pres advisor. They'll hang out in the warroom drinking Scotch and moaning about their wives and the Israelis.

[FourthAndLong]

Makes sense. I thought the 8 year pattern (8 years of one Pres implies next Pres is from other party except for 1988 and FDR) was, so compelling that any decent political scientist might have been surprised if the Republican did Not win. But we we're told the R was Trump, a manifest Bozo, and thus it could not happen. But Brexit wasn't supposed to happen either. Zillions of people have been shafted over the last decades and hatred for their leaders (who actually called them deplorable, right to their faces in front of God & everyone). . . . The elite became jackasses in addition to ruthless tyrants hovering up all created wealth if financial manipulation can be called creation. Maybe Trump intuited or fathomed all of that Zeitgeist, who knows, but he must have known he had a damn good chance if he could win the nomination if even a nitwit like me, can see a simple pattern like that. Those other rubrics are fascinating. I suspected there were more patterns to be discerned.

[kooshy]

Here is the link on email I got from the pathetic Move On,

http://act.moveon.org/event/Solidarity_gatherings/?source=couragecampaign

[Edward Amame]

Col Lang

The guy who ghost-wrote his book "the Art of the Deal" said Trump had no attention span and little curiosity. The accountant who did his taxes said it was Ivana who asked all the questions. So no, I don't KNOW that, I just SUSPECT that. And to answer your last question, I'm a grown up, so hell to the no.

[Edward Amame]

Col Lang

What's triangulating gonna get him? The GOP's already wary of him. Why alienate them further? They have all the power. They can shoot down any deal they don't like. Compromising with the Dems is not how the GOP does biz and the Dems can't stand him. That would leave him a president without a base of support.

And what exactly would he be going to the Dems to get? A wall? Tax cuts for the rich? More $$$ for the military? Term limits? A hiring freeze to reduce the federal workforce?

[Bryn P]

Isn't it wonderful how the Remoaners here in the UK and the Clintonistas over there are so unwilling to accept that they lost both the elections. Do they believe, like the bureaucrats in the EU, that a democratic decision by their electorates should only apply when THEY win and that the vote should be re-run until the "right" decision is reached?

[hans]

Trump's one of the cleverest guys to come down the road in quite a while; he was picking up on the troubles of the middle class at least 20 - 25 years ago. Anybody developing real estate at his level would've been blind not to catch it.

Somewhere along the way - maybe after his 3rd or 4th billion - he got bored with it and got distracted into reality tv. And his RT experience taught him a lot: he learned how to turn on an audience, and keep 'em turned on for years. The more outrageous he was the better his ratings. When he got bored w that what next? He was in a wonderful position - the perfect position - to become the ultimate outsider. Tons of money and access to the best brand marketers.

And his audience, now called constituents, had grown enormously - every turn of the corporate screw created more. And nobody was doing a damn thing for any of them; instead the pols who should've been helping had joined up with the guys sticking it to 'em.

Watching him go all politically incorrect was to watch a thing of beauty - every time he let a good one fly the media dolts started sputtering like wet hens. But he amused them so they gave him endless coverage. The worse the gaffe, the more airtime.

But those gaffes were calculated - he did the thing a 1,000 guys wished they had the guts to do, and they love him for it.

The other benefit was the media thought him totally daft, like some lout who went out in public and scratched his hemorrhoids with a potato brush and howled - hey, this guy ain't serious. So he kept building his appeal among the Deplorables. Under the radar.

A while back he showed up in Detroit at the Detroit Economic Club and harangued a roomful of auto execs, Ford's among them, and told the Ford execs point-blank if they moved a plant to Mexico he'd slap on a helluva tariff and nobody would buy their cars. Nothing like that had ever happened before. And before the day was out every working stiff in the country knew about it. And the rest as is said is history.

I'm not sure what he plans to do, but nobody should underrate him. I think we'll have a very interesting few years ahead. Think I'll invest in popcorn.

[r whitman]

Are you an ACA participant?? There you go with the cost again. Forget the crooked government costs. The ACA people have health care which they did not have before. Several small businesses that I know have sent their employees to the ACA for health insurance and subsidize their premiums instead of screwing with insurance companies.

You need to divorce actual health care from the cost of health care. Health care is beneficial and in some cases curative. The cost is a racket like most government subsidy programs

[fjdixon]

Documentation:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/11/trump-woolsey-was-there-a-bait-and-switch/

[Huntly]

"Why would Trump not make a deal with the Democrats to get what he wants and needs?"
Flawed as it is, any Democrat who works with Trump to gut the ACA should be run out of office. We've had 4+ years of GOP obstructionism, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[turcopolier]

Huntly

Your assumption that he will want to "gut" the ACA is unjustified until you see what he proposes. As for the rest that is merely revenge at the expense of the Republic. This is not a game. pl