Does Trump Want To Be President?

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h_k_s
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by h_k_s »

Ormond wrote: June 24th, 2016, 10:20 am This thread will examine whether Donald Trump actually wants to be President. I will start by listing some arguments against, feel free to counter with the opposing case.

1) Trump is not doing the serious fund raising which is usually the backbone of a Presidential campaign.

2) Trump is not the building the nation wide organization necessary to identify swing voters and craft messages necessary to win them over.

3) Trump appears not to be modifying his message from the primary to the general election, as is standard in all other campaigns.

4) The salary of President wouldn't motivate Trump given he's already a billionaire.

5) Ideology doesn't seem to motivate Trump given his loose relationship with any stated position.

6) The Washington press corp will have a gotcha field day with Trump given how often he shifts his positions. In addition, they will dig their way in to the nitty gritty details of Trumps personal and business life, in the endless search for dirt.

7) Democrats will of course demonize Trump in a manner that will make their relationship with George Bush look like a love affair.

8) The last thing the Republican leaders want is for a President Trump to hang around, be successful and take over the party. Expect lots of quiet back stabbing behind the scenes.

9) Trump voters are not really loyal to Trump personally, they are just using him to make a larger point. If Trump should experience failures, I predict they will abandon him as quickly as they adopted him. Trump without the "we are winners!" message is nothing.

10) Actually being President is a huge pain in the butt, with seemingly insolvable problems being shoved in one's face on a daily basis. Is this really want Trump wants to do with the rest of his life?

Given the above, a theory to explain Trump.

Trump is a business man. His business is his brand, his name, himself. I think he entered the race to build his brand, and so far it's going great.

But what happens to his brand if he wins and then has a failed Presidency, due to a lack of support from all established power blocks?

I predict Trump's goal is to lose the race in a narrow vote so he can get out of all this Presidential hassle still claiming a triumph of sorts, and then carry on with the business of renting his now enhanced brand to the highest bidder.
Going back to the original post of the thread, which I always do for really old threads like this, it looks like becoming POTUS was important enough for Trump to spend a ton of his cash to first buy the GOP nomination and then to hold rallies all over the countryside to energize his base. He did have a message. The message was essentially that he was a deal maker and saw himself as better qualified to be POTUS than anybody else.

It turns out he was very lucky to be running against such a financially corrupt opponent. The election turned out to me more of a referendum against Hillary than a vote for anybody in particular.
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h_k_s
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by h_k_s »

Steve3007 wrote: December 6th, 2018, 11:22 am I agree that it's interesting to look at the OP of this topic with the benefit of the little bit of hindsight that we now have.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 70046.html

In private, at least, Trump seems to be perfectly open about the fact that, if given the chance, he will bankrupt the country for the sake of his own personal short term popularity, printing money and running up debt to fuel a short term economic boom on the assumption that he'll be out of office when the bust comes, and it can therefore be blamed on someone else. He's explicitly said this.

Looking at the state of major US stock indices over the last year, he may have to be careful that the bust doesn't come while he's still in office. Or maybe not. In politics it is always, always possible to blame someone else.
The second thing I always do for any really old thread is to look at the post that resurrected it from the dead -- and that is you Steve3007 .

One a philosophy you should not ever say "the fact that" unless it is really a fact. In Philosophy we take fact finding very seriously.

Ergo your "fact" is NOT a fact it is simply your opinion in the guise of a fact -- which is called Sophistry.

As in NCAA debate, whenever I find a fallacy I simply point it out and leave it at that.

Q.E.D.
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h_k_s
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by h_k_s »

UniversalAlien wrote: December 7th, 2018, 10:21 pm
Belindi wrote: December 7th, 2018, 9:01 am If anyone wants above all else to make a lot of money and /or personal power it must be all to his advantage to be President of the USA.I guess Trump really really wants to be President as long as he can wring a personal advantage from it.
Some truth to that - More than that he actually likes, even maybe loves, the job - the power, the prestige
- That is one, maybe even the main, reason 'they' hate him so much.

Again 'they' always want a US President to feel guilty, guilty about America's wealth and power
- They want a 'New World Order' where America should feel no different than the third world, which
admittedly the main world powers still exploit even while also helping them.

America wasted a good part of my generation in Vietnam and maybe should feel guilty about it
- Destroyed Iraq in a war that seems to go on for ever and should feel guilty about that.

But I don't think you can blame Trump for that - One reason he won is that he appeared to be the outsider
businessman not the machine politician that Clinton was.

Of course once he got in to office he is realizing the machine still rules.
Excellent points UniversalAlien .

Viet Nam was the fault of a string of President's starting with Ike and ending with Nixon.

Ford got us out of there and kept us out.

As for Trump, I think he could only be in it for the power. He already had fame with his TV reality show. And he already had wealth as inherited from his father.

Another reason people run for POTUS is the pure ego of it, and he also has plenty of that.

He looked pretty surprised the night he actually won. He had already said that he thought the odds were against him. Truth was however that the odds were against Hillary due to her lack of appeal and her financial corruption. Trump was/is financially corrupt also but it just was not as obvious in his case at the time.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Sy Borg »

I think that an outsider businessman who:

- declared his taxes like Presidents have to do

- separated from his business interests as any non-corrupt national, or even corporate, leader must do

- did not lie constantly https://www.politifact.com/personalitie ... ing/false/

- did not run an unstable shambles of an office where he talks up appointments of low talent yes men to do dirty work, but if they show they have some measure of conscience they are sacked and slammed on Twitter

- did not speak with praise about harsh dictators and break links with close allies, permanently losing the US the soft power of trust

Then I think he would be accepted. No one much baulked at wealthy outsider entertainers like Reagan or Schwartzenegger. The issue is the unusually juvenile and selfish character of the man himself.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Trump supporters sometimes claim that he is not in it for the money and point to his donating his salary as evidence. There are several problems with this. First, for someone who is as wealthy as he claims to be (we may get to see the tax returns he has been hiding) the salary is not a significant amount of money. Second, when he leaves office he will receive a pension for life that is equal to about half of his salary. He has not said anything about this. Third, he has done nothing but curry favor with plutocrats, especially those in the energy and finance, appointing them to cabinet positions and cutting regulations, allowing them to reap windfall profits. These are favors that will earn him much greater financial reward that his salary. Fourth, the Mueller investigation will soon reveal his illegal financial ties with the Russians.

So, yes. He wanted to be President, but not because he wanted to serve his country but as has always been the case with everything he has ever done, to benefit himself and his family (or at least some of his family). See the New York Times article on the Trump family tax fraud. While some are born with a silver spoon he was born with tax fraud. Being President may protect him from prosecution for the time being, but in time even some of his staunchest supporters may join the chorus in chanting “Lock him up”.

Day by day it is looking more and more like Humpty -Trumpty will have a great fall even though he will never get to sit on the wall that won’t get built.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by LuckyR »

Fooloso4 wrote: December 8th, 2018, 6:42 pm Trump supporters sometimes claim that he is not in it for the money and point to his donating his salary as evidence. There are several problems with this. First, for someone who is as wealthy as he claims to be (we may get to see the tax returns he has been hiding) the salary is not a significant amount of money. Second, when he leaves office he will receive a pension for life that is equal to about half of his salary. He has not said anything about this. Third, he has done nothing but curry favor with plutocrats, especially those in the energy and finance, appointing them to cabinet positions and cutting regulations, allowing them to reap windfall profits. These are favors that will earn him much greater financial reward that his salary. Fourth, the Mueller investigation will soon reveal his illegal financial ties with the Russians.

So, yes. He wanted to be President, but not because he wanted to serve his country but as has always been the case with everything he has ever done, to benefit himself and his family (or at least some of his family). See the New York Times article on the Trump family tax fraud. While some are born with a silver spoon he was born with tax fraud. Being President may protect him from prosecution for the time being, but in time even some of his staunchest supporters may join the chorus in chanting “Lock him up”.

Day by day it is looking more and more like Humpty -Trumpty will have a great fall even though he will never get to sit on the wall that won’t get built.
You're missing the point. The mango wants to be president because he wants to get back at Obama for embarrassing him at the White House press dinner, thus why he has tried to reverse every Obama legislative issue.

Of course he is going to profit handsomely and going to enjoy the attention and feel like he is the smartest and most powerful person in the room, but those are gravy.
"As usual... it depends."
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Fooloso4 »

LuckyR:
The mango wants to be president because he wants to get back at Obama …
True, and he is still intent on reversing everything the Obama administration did.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

h_k_s wrote:The second thing I always do for any really old thread is to look at the post that resurrected it from the dead -- and that is you @Steve3007 .
If by "resurrected it from the dead" you mean added a post to a topic that hasn't been active for a long time, the post was this one:

viewtopic.php?p=324983#p324983

by the poster called "Empiricist-Bruno", which came just under 2 years after the previous post.
One a philosophy you should not ever say "the fact that" unless it is really a fact. In Philosophy we take fact finding very seriously.
We also discuss what it means for something to be a fact or an opinion. The division is not entirely clear cut. "Donald Trump is lovely" is clearly pure opinion. "It is raining" is clearly a purported fact that is relatively easily verified or falsified. There's an area in the middle where purported facts can reasonably be contested. My statement that "given the chance, he will bankrupt the country for the sake of his own personal short term popularity" was something that I proposed as a fact - as an intended future course of action supported by evidence. As such, I wouldn't say it's an opinion in the sense that "Trump is lovely" is.
Ergo your "fact" is NOT a fact it is simply your opinion in the guise of a fact -- which is called Sophistry.
No, it's not sophistry. Sophistry, as the word is used today, usually in a pejorative sense, means the use of clever sounding, but false, arguments. I didn't present any clever sounding but false arguments. I simply made an assertion. I think you should have attacked my assertion not on the grounds of sophistry but on the grounds that, in your view, it's not sufficiently supported by evidence.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by h_k_s »

Steve3007 wrote: December 11th, 2018, 7:35 am
h_k_s wrote:The second thing I always do for any really old thread is to look at the post that resurrected it from the dead -- and that is you @Steve3007 .
If by "resurrected it from the dead" you mean added a post to a topic that hasn't been active for a long time, the post was this one:

viewtopic.php?p=324983#p324983

by the poster called "Empiricist-Bruno", which came just under 2 years after the previous post.
One a philosophy you should not ever say "the fact that" unless it is really a fact. In Philosophy we take fact finding very seriously.
We also discuss what it means for something to be a fact or an opinion. The division is not entirely clear cut. "Donald Trump is lovely" is clearly pure opinion. "It is raining" is clearly a purported fact that is relatively easily verified or falsified. There's an area in the middle where purported facts can reasonably be contested. My statement that "given the chance, he will bankrupt the country for the sake of his own personal short term popularity" was something that I proposed as a fact - as an intended future course of action supported by evidence. As such, I wouldn't say it's an opinion in the sense that "Trump is lovely" is.
Ergo your "fact" is NOT a fact it is simply your opinion in the guise of a fact -- which is called Sophistry.
No, it's not sophistry. Sophistry, as the word is used today, usually in a pejorative sense, means the use of clever sounding, but false, arguments. I didn't present any clever sounding but false arguments. I simply made an assertion. I think you should have attacked my assertion not on the grounds of sophistry but on the grounds that, in your view, it's not sufficiently supported by evidence.
Exactly right … clever sounding but false arguments.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

h_k_s wrote:Exactly right
What is exactly right?
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by h_k_s »

Steve3007 wrote: December 11th, 2018, 12:12 pm
h_k_s wrote:Exactly right
What is exactly right?
Means "that is exactly right."
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

What is exactly right? What are you referring to?
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

Do any US posters have a view as to how long this government shutdown will last and which side will back down first? Is it possible for a government shutdown like this to last indefinitely and simply result in the US Federal Government becoming permanently smaller by 800,000 people?

From News reports, it appears that President Trump is stuck between the Democrats who absolutely won't allow a situation to develop in which he can use numerous political rallies to boast that he got the wall built as promised, and the hard-line Republicans who absolutely won't allow him to back down or compromise. I've even read that the whole wall thing was only added to the election campaign as a handy single-word aide-memoire to remind candidate Trump to keep bringing up the subject of immigration.

What does a leader do when apparently stuck between these two seemingly unstoppable forces? Build an immovable object?
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Fooloso4 »

There is another factor here: there are some conservatives who applaud the shutdown as a way of shrinking government.

As I see it, it is a no win situation for Trump. Whichever way he turns he will face pushback. On the one hand he thrives on conflict with the opposition, but is hypersensitive to criticism from those he wants on his side. From some of the things that I have read it seems that his bigger concern is not the Republican majority but outspoken conservatives like Ann Coulter who have portrayed him as weak. It is, for Trump, always about his image.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

Yes, it seems that if the shutdown went on for long enough then it would amount to simply shrinking the size of the government by the salaries of 800,000 people. But I presume even the most extreme Libertarian advocate of small government would rather do it in a more controlled way than arbitrarily removing 800,000 people from the payroll. That's a bit like trying to lose weight by chopping your legs off.
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