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Trump's first year as a president

Pomerlaw

Member
I'm curious to know what americans think of Trump's first year as POTUS.

From the outside (I'm from Canada), my overall impression is that Trump is hurting America's image in the world. Also, I think his views on the environment are a disaster and dangerous for the future. But what about the US internal affairs?

The economy seems to be going really well in the States, but my guess is it's much more about the global economy than anything Trump could have done. The employment level was already going up when Obama was there, after we all had to deal with the economic crisis.

Then there is the tax bill, which did pass, but seems to be badly perceived from Americans.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/26/politics/donald-trump-credit-year/index.html


A year of accomplishments
For much of the year, it appeared that Trump would end 2017 with a barren record.
But now, he has secured the most sweeping tax overhaul bill in 30 years, one that slashes the corporate rate by 14% and will give most Americans, for now at least, a bump in their paycheck.
The stock market is roaring, up 5,000 points since he took office. Gross domestic product growth was 3.3% in the third quarter after struggling along at around 2% annually while Barack Obama was President. Trump and his Republican partners have installed a new, conservative Supreme Court justice and are confirming appellate judges at a record-breaking clip. The tax deal fulfilled another Republican priority, repealing the individual mandate, a plank of the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Trump is also in the process of hiking defense spending.
"This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment, by any objective standard," a satisfied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday, reflecting on his party's performance.
Meanwhile, Trump has fulfilled or moved toward honoring campaign commitments on ending the Iran deal, withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, leaving or renegotiating multilateral free trade deals and reorienting US foreign policy with his "America First" philosophy. ISIS has been routed in Iraq and Syria. Trump's administration has secured the toughest-ever sanctions against North Korea, which were reinforced again last week.
The administration has taken an ax to regulations, loosening government oversight in the economy and eradicating Democratic rules in areas ranging from school lunches to the number of dolphins and sea turtles who can be killed in swordfishing nets off the West Coast.
 
Econmey is soaring, unemployment at a record all time low, and illegal immigrantion way down. I guess he needs to work on his flowery speeches and photo ops.
 

SDCowboy

Member
I feel there is both really good and equally awful. Sadly, more to the latter.

I don't like his approach to global politics, at all. I don't have an issue with him trying to be tougher in our favor, but I don't like the way he goes about it, nor the extent. I also don't like his stance on healthcare.

On the flip side, I can't argue with the economic results at home, and Trump's admin deserves some credit for it - even though it's not like he inherited a bad economy.
 

Narroo

Member
Terrible year in office. You'd have to be delusional to give Trump credit for the economy, which most Trump supporters are. Granted the stock market did go up because they 'expected' Trump to be friendly to business, but that just goes to show how arbitrary the stock market is; much of it is literally based on what people-human beings- feel, and not what is actually happening. The stock market isn't even good indicator of global economic health--it's more of a canary in the cold mine. As long as it doesn't drop dead, it's up's and downs usually don't mean much.

Aside from that, he hasn't managed to accomplish much that's positive. His main piece of legislation, the tax bill, is incredibly controversial. God knows I nearly had my taxes tripled to quadrupled until they fixed part of it at last second, so I barely survived the 'tax cut.' I'm not confident in what they did pass.

His other accomplishments are presidential appointments, but almost all of them seem to be terrible. At best, he's appointment incompetent sycophants to head government agencies or to the bench, at worst he's appointment directors to actively destroy government agencies for the sake of it, and doing so by making them as harmful as possible.

He's also tarnished America's global image and destroyed what trust we had with other nations. This is important because we can't so much as interact with other countries properly without some sort of trust. Who want's to sign a good trade deal with us if Trump--or the next American president--suddenly comes out and tear's everything up? And does it in as a dramatic fashion as possible? The guy's gone around and pissed everyone off to boot. The USA isn't a magical island that produces everything it needs by itself; our quality of life is directly related to what international alliances we have. While the effects are not instantaneous this guy is going to wreck the USA both economically and politically.

That part is scary given China's rising star. You can argue about all the crap that the USA has pulled over the years, but China is the country that's trying to make a system to publicly score it's citizens based on how loyal they are. China is the country that's enacting a soft genocide on one of it's own territories, Tibet. China is the country that freaks out and bans people, or punishes countries, if someone is too friendly with someone on the wrong side of politics in China. China is the country that deifies it's head leaders thoughts. A world ruled by China is a scary thought, and it will not end well. And honestly, China doesn't really like the US much either. I wouldn't count on them being too benevolent to the US. One could hope for the EU to fill in the slack, but that looks unlikely at this point. International politics is important, and Trump is absolutely awful on this front.

Aside from that, Trump repeatedly shows himself to be petty and vindictive on Twitter of all things. He's an idiot that's causing trouble and encouraging conflict in the US. Trump is a pivotal moment in US history and not a good one; in 100 years they're going to be using Trump as the point to mark when the clear USA fell from being a prosperous well-to-do country to a second rate, inefficient, corrupt, pitiable nation.
 
He really he hasn't done anything but make America worse.

Everything that is going good is from Obama's presidency. Who knows what will happen with CHIP and social security. Hopefully CHIP gets refunded. If our growth gets to big too fast we will have another recession.
 

xStoyax

Banned
He's stuck to his campaign promises better than most after taking offices. Looking forward to seeing my paycheck increase thanks to the tax cuts.

As far as i'm concerned, every day that I wake up & Hillary isn't President is a great day. :)
 
I hate Trump, but the first year has been fine.
I'm pretty excited about the repeal of the ACA mandate and the new tax plan which will help me out.
 

entremet

Member
Not disastrous, but I don't care for the conservative direction since I don't think it's sustainable.

There's also a clear lack of vision for the future. Trump is mostly pinning for an America of halcyon days--a robust blue-collar economy, protectionism, unwarranted fears of immigrants, who are vital to economic development and are more well behaved and economically productive than natural born citizens as an aggregate. He seems completely disconnected from the everchanging world.

Where is the smart grid? Where is the focus on renewables and energy independence? Where is the focus on adapting to the new economy instead of keeping some on life support for votes like coal mining? Where is the investment in education? The infrastructure plan he mentioned is a good start, but it lacks specifics. Moreover, the net neutrality ruling was a travesty.

I personally get tired of Trump is Satan/Hitler/etc. personified invectives that are all over the net since it's rather lazy analysis. But the Trump administration is not one of my favorites for the reasons I've outlined above. I will keep my thoughts on the man to myself. I'll just say he's been an embarrassment to the office.
 

womfalcs3

Banned
He should've started with infrastructure instead of healthcare and taxes. That should've at least showed bipartisan support, instead of creating future legislative foes.
 

ape2man

Member
Econmey is soaring, unemployment at a record all time low, and illegal immigrantion way down. I guess he needs to work on his flowery speeches and photo ops.

This is every republican president everytime. riding on the economic fixes democratic presidents did. And republican presidents fuck up.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
It seems he's going short term without thinking about the future.

He won't be here anyway.

As for the economy... The stock market is a fragile thing. Aren't we due for a drop? What about inflation if things keep going this way?
 

MaddenNFL64

Member
hasn't done jack shit except destroy our standing on the world stage, and made us a world laughing stock. Also sabatoging healthcare to sooth his own ego, while hurting americans in the process, and giving away billions to the rich.

Thankfully most of his crap can be reversed with democratic victories. As always a democrat has to fix shit the repubs fuck up.
 
Asking for a objective opinion on Trump on Gaf will not go well. You have threads about whats a good pizza that turns into a political argument. I guess that's one thing Trump did.. He polarized America like never before.
 
hasn't done jack shit except destroy our standing on the world stage, and made us a world laughing stock. Also sabatoging healthcare to sooth his own ego, while hurting americans in the process, and giving away billions to the rich.

Thankfully most of his crap can be reversed with democratic victories. As always a democrat has to fix shit the repubs fuck up.

I'm pretty poor, but not poor enough for entitlements or ACA subsidies.
I'm thankful the ACA mandate is gone because now I don't have to flush $3000/year down the toilet on a shitty bronze plan.
 

Ke0

Member
Outside looking in, he seems like a pretty terrible President. Economy is doing well thanks to Obama so you kinda have to try and fuck that up. He seems to not care or have done anything to actually help his base, coal is still dying, rural communities are still dying, people are still dying to the opioid issues.

He and many politicians keep wanting to go back to the "old days", where you had prosperity and all this other stuff. His voters and him both know it's bc they system were only for white people back in those days, but they still try to recreate those days and enact things that they think will get them back to the times by hurting PoC particularly black Americans but not hurt white people, but I'm pretty sure the politicians know it hurts white people too but the ones it does hurt they don't care about bc they're poor.
 

JordanN

Banned
As a libertarian, I despise politicians who censor the press, embezzle tax dollars for themselves, and mix religion with the state together.

Trump is the worst embodiment of that.

However, I still tend to be objective and non-delusional. Ever since the purge, I've come to my own inclusion that he isn't literally Hitler™ getting ready to patrol the streets with death squads like all the exaggerations made him out to be.

What's funny is I find life to be more bearable now that there aren't Trump threads being posted every second like GAF use to have. Trump may be President but he doesn't have to dominate the agenda if you know? You don't talk about him.
 
Considering every democrat I know thought Trump would tank the economy I'd say the DJIA having the strongest year in years is a huge success.

It's so disingenuous to credit Obama for a strong economy in December of 2017 when you would have happily blamed Trump if it was in the gutter.

fTcNQz6.png


I'm not happy he's the president, but he has had success and he's not literally Hitler.
 

xStoyax

Banned
Considering every democrat I know thought Trump would tank the economy I'd say the DJIA having the strongest year in years is a huge success.

It's so disingenuous to credit Obama for a strong economy in December of 2017 when you would have happily blamed Trump if it was in the gutter.

fTcNQz6.png


I'm not happy he's the president, but he has had success and he's not literally Hitler.

YUP...Just look at all the fake news last year around this time

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-wall-street-effect-markets-230164

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/24/investing/stocks-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/index.html
 

Sadsic

Member
This president, Donald Trump, is extremely partisan, incompetent and dangerous - he has been stoking a lot of division in the country, even though he is the leader of it. A lot of his rhetoric and policy has been heavily directed towards only the people who funded or voted for his presidency, leaving virtually half of the country in a continuous state of extreme anger and panic. This is in comparison to Obama, who spent virtually his entire first term trying to be as bipartisan as possible with "the other side" - the current president has had harsh, nasty rhetoric that has divided the America greatly during his first year. This, I think will have terrible consequences for the remainder of my life living in this country.

He has also been quite a terrible leader within his own executive branch, with multiple cabinet or cabinet-level employees leaving in record time, many over corruption charges, or just being truly unable to work within the dysfunction that is the current White House. This includes Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci, Sean Spicer, Tom Price, and Omarosa Manigault all being fired or "released" in the first year. It is also likely that Betsy DeVos, Gary Cohn, Jeff Sessions, Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, Ryan Zinke, Dina Powell and Paul Winfree will all be gone within the next year as well.

This is also not mentioning that literally every cabinet in the executive branch is missing hundreds of positions, leaving essentially every function of the Donald Trump-led Executive Government to be in various states of disarray, which for some reason seems to be part of the strategy of the president, in some sort of absurd "Starve the Beast" model. The most obvious crisis from this disarray has been the ongoing mismanagement of Puerto Rico, which has been in a constant state of blackout for over three months now on much of the island, with many citizens lacking even drinking water or other basic utilities. There does not look to be any hope for repairing the energy grid to the island anytime soon and the government has more or less abandoned large-scale repair to the island, leaving much of the population to relocate to nearby Florida instead. Essentially, if any crisis unfolds in America of any sort over the next few years, the government will be unable to help on a large scale in any capacity, which is quite disturbing.

On the global stage, Donald Trump has been a strange leader, starting initially from a place of some sort of neo-isolationism, but has mostly backed off this platform after realizing how much America is woven into the fabric of literally all of human society currently - he has not called China currency manipulators, not ended NAFTA, still supports the EU, has participated in large offenses in the middle east still and has saber rattled against North Korea just as all of his predecessors have, in direct opposition to his many campaign promises on foreign policy. That being said, he has more or less failed at all or almost of his foreign policy goals, as he has destabilized the middle east even further, starting a new crisis between Qatar and the rest of the Gulf States, created multiple Travel Bans that have been found illegal, and also ineffectual, nearly started nuclear war with North Korea (and still likely to attack), and has more or less destroyed the soft power of the US for generations to come in the world. The world sees Donald Trump and sees a clown, and this does the US no favors.

Trump has also been under multiple independent investigations during his entire term as president so far due to extreme accusations of corruption and possibly even treason, which has so far led to a series of arrests, recusals and possibly a pathway towards his own impeachment, all of which is pretty unheard of in the first year of a US presidency.

Ultimately, while the Trump white house has so far been a laundry list of mismanagement and incompetency, it has been ubiquitously powered by a rebel yell from white Americans, who stand in arms with the current president, nominally due to "economic anxiety", but likely due to a demographic shift in power dynamics away from white America and onto the minorities of America, which are destined to become the majority in roughly 30 years. What we are currently seeing with the white American support of Donald Trump is likely just the beginning of a prolonged power struggle white Americans will have with the rest of America over the next 20-30 years, which will likely lead to an uptick in white supremacist terrorism over the next generation of American politics. Fortunately, there is no way for white America to win this battle - the majority of children are already not white, and once these children come of age, and the older generations die off, America will transform into a minority-majority state by roughly 2045.

This President is just a bump in the road to a liberal utopia basically.
 

Blood Borne

Member
Oh god, you actually think the economy and unemployment rate is because of Trump?

Good lord.
And you think it's because of Obama?

My main concern is the supreme Court. They're pretty much the arbiters of the constitution. Therefore, Trump putting in a man such as Gorsuch in the Supreme Court is a dream come true.

People don't understand the disaster we avoided by Hillary not winning. She would have put a leftist nutjob in the Supreme Court. If that happened, say goodbye to America. The constitution would be undermined. America would be come more totalitarian. 1st and 2nd ammendment would be in danger.

With that said, I rate Trump's first year excellent, solely for saving the constitution. Lots of Americans don't know the importance of Gorsuch in the court.
 
And you think it's because of Obama?

My main concern is the supreme Court. They're pretty much the arbiters of the constitution. Therefore, Trump putting in a man such as Gorsuch in the Supreme Court is a dream come true.

People don't understand the disaster we avoided by Hillary not winning. She would have put a leftist nutjob in the Supreme Court. If that happened, say goodbye to America. The constitution would be undermined. America would be come more totalitarian. 1st and 2nd ammendment would be in danger.

With that said, I rate Trump's first year excellent, solely for saving the constitution. Lots of Americans don't know the importance of Gorsuch in the court.

I’d say one more Supreme Court Justice to really stop the leftist nonsense
 

NYCrooner

Member
Is this the same GAF from the start of 2017? The pro-Trump levels are way higher than I recall them being.

That said, he’s been a shit show of a president from where I’m standing. I want to see his policies fail but also want the country to be successful. It’s a catch-22.
 

Blood Borne

Member
Is this the same GAF from the start of 2017? The pro-Trump levels are way higher than I recall them being.

That said, he’s been a shit show of a president from where I’m standing. I want to see his policies fail but also want the country to be successful. It’s a catch-22.
No it's not the same GAF. All the commies went to commieERA.

It being a catch 22 for you, shows that you put ideology/party before country.
 

TTOOLL

Member
Is this the same GAF from the start of 2017? The pro-Trump levels are way higher than I recall them being.

That said, he's been a shit show of a president from where I'm standing. I want to see his policies fail but also want the country to be successful. It's a catch-22.

I believe it's because now people won't dogpile you calling you a nazi/white supremacist/scum/racist etc.


About the first year, not any major chances imo. I don't know much about the tax bill so I won't comment on that.
 
It being a catch 22 for you, shows that you put ideology/party before country.

Says the person still supporting a serial sexual harasser, racist, idiot, and liar. Whew, the irony.

Also, the fact you consider anyone to the left of Dear Leader a communist says everything about you and the current state of the Republican party.
 
He has made some poor decisions and looked astoundingly weak, viewed from the outside. It seems like the majority of what he's "achieved" was in clearly demonstrating that the system of checks the US has in place actually work, despite the expansion of executive power under Bush and Obama.
 

Ubername

Banned
Says the person still supporting a serial sexual harasser, racist, idiot, and liar. Whew, the irony.

Also, the fact you consider anyone to the left of Dear Leader a communist says everything about you and the current state of the Republican party.

So one poster on gaf speaks for half a nation? Not that that's the most objectionable part of your post
 
Wtf at some of the comments here. Mostly juniors too. Odd


Pretty shocking that a grown man with a job, wife, and young son dislikes Trump but doesn't think he's doing a horrible job so far.

The "junior member" dismissals are so ridiculous. My posts aren't unreasonable.
 

pramod

Banned
Trump seems to be grading his own presidency on two things: jobs and jobs. Oh and maybe the stock market too.

So in this respect you have to admit he is doing a decent job. Although he probably isn't responsible for all the economic good news (Obama has to be given some credit), he hasn't destroyed the economy or tanked the stock market at least. He seems to be taking what Obama handed to him and at least maintaining the status quo.

So in that way, he is being a pretty good Tim Cook if you want to make the CEO analogy I guess.
 
So one poster on gaf speaks for half a nation? Not that that's the most objectionable part of your post

I'm confused. What part's more objectionable? Calling Trump a racist lying sexually harassing idiot? That's objective reality. And what half of the nation? 25% of the total voting population actually voted for him.

Also yes, this is the culmination of 50+ years of GOP racism, anti-intellectualism, and evangelical lunatic pandering. Pointing that out isn't unreasonable in the slightest.
 

Dunki

Member
Pretty Meh and forgettable regading decisions. He is bad but not like the worst ever like some people were saying. He is just there,

Only real thing I really aprove is the Jerusalem decision. Something presidents and candidates have promised like 20 years.
 

Aces&Eights

Member
One year isn't really enough time to judge. Usually, around the end of year 3 you can really see what difference a president has made.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Trades and relations with other nations are stronger than ever anything else is a false narrative.
 
Oh god, you actually think the economy and unemployment rate is because of Trump?

Good lord.

Good Lord.

Do you think any President is the main factor underlying the performance of the economy or the stock market? I hope you don't think the economic growth and private sector job creation you saw under Obama was because of him. Particularly when Democrats whined that the GOP Congress obstructed him at every turn and didn't do want he wanted to kick the economy into high gear.

You can't have it both ways. There's no causality especially as the economy got stronger towards the end of his 2nd term. Pres. Obama was trying to gut SS, Medicare, pushed for sequestration and went out of his way to allow the payroll tax holiday to expire which helped poor people.
 
Good Lord.

Do you think any President is the main factor underlying the performance of the economy or the stock market? I hope you don't think the economic growth and private sector job creation you saw under Obama was because of him. Particularly when Democrats whined that the GOP Congress obstructed him at every turn and didn't do want he wanted to kick the economy into high gear.

You can't have it both ways. There's no causality especially as the economy got stronger towards the end of his 2nd term. Pres. Obama was trying to gut SS, Medicare, pushed for sequestration and went out of his way to allow the payroll tax holiday to expire which helped poor people.

Obama is responsible for the turnaround due to all of the policies democrats implemented. Really he should have fucked over the financial ceos, but he didn't, and he could have (it was his decision to make).

The bailouts in particular were critical in the speed of recovery. But that was a turnaround, while Trump is adding policy on top of a soaring wave, and it'll take time to see what happens. Budget cuts to entitlements will slow the economy, Trump hasn't done that yet.
 
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