The first 100 Global Trump days

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, April 24th, 2017 - 19 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, International, us politics, war - Tags:

Donald Trump’s had his first 100 days ruling his big chunk of the world.

Back in the dim ages of Obama’s second term – remember them – we could make out his mistakes across the world. Anything to do with Syria, or containing ISIS, anything with “Arab Spring” in it, all of that.

But at base he was withdrawing the U.S. from military invasions, sustaining internationalist platforms like the U.N., and addressing the big global risks like climate change.

What a difference a mere 100 days makes.

Assumptions that had sustained all prior U.S. presidents look ready to collapse:

1. The United States enjoys and will continue to enjoy uncontested military primacy, both globally, and in all strategic theaters.

– It only took some proper saber rattling for military historians to recall the last time the US and allies got its pants kicked all the way down the peninsula in Korea.

2. U.S. allies are the richest, most capable countries in the world.

– The E.U. and Japanese economies sputter, and the Australian one, like ours, is a property bubble stretched over fickle commodity cycles.

3. A richer and more globally integrated China will also be a freer and more peaceful China.

China remains the best denial of any relationship between growing wealth and growing political freedom.

4. Great-power war is obsolete.

And then Russia figured out how to screw the U.S. election in favour of Trump, got its moles into the whole administration, and really flexed into the Middle East.

5. The advance of democracy is unstoppable and irreversible.

But strangely too much democracy, applied too often, simply accelerates the media cycle into a bad binary star at base of which is a black hole of populism.

6. Globalisation is inexorable.

… until super-nationalism revives as it has.

7. Technological innovation will lead to greater human flourishing and freedom, and will disproportionately favour the United States.

We’re still a way from getting a clear answer on that.

When you’ve all finished rolling on the floor laughing with the assumptions, you’ll realize your incredulity is the distance between President Obama’s idealism and his grasp of global issues, and the efforts of the Donald Trump administration.

And we’ve only had the first 100 days.

19 comments on “The first 100 Global Trump days ”

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  1. Poission 1
    24 April 2017 at 1:07 pm

    While just 4 per cent of Trump’s supporters say they would back someone else if there was a redo of the election, fully 15 per cent of Clinton supporters say they would ditch her.

    http://www.smh.com.au/world/donald-trump-voters-dont-have-buyers-remorse-but-some-hillary-clinton-voters-do-20170423-gvqyji.html

    • joe90 1.1
      24 April 2017 at 2:06 pm

      So. Trump’s filled his cabinet and adviser ranks with Goldman Sachs alumni, predatory venture capitalists who make their living swindling underwater mortgage holders, and born to rule plutocratic loons determined to line the pockets of their fellow billionaires with taxpayer dollars.

      He’s appointed the an unreconstructed Confederate to roll back civil rights, harass immigrants and restart the War on Drugs and the first thing his SCOTUS appointee did was rubber stamp a man’s death sentence.

      He’s planning to increase military spending, upped the ante in the ME, given free rein to his Generals in Afghanistan and fomented war in the Korean peninsula.

      [To finance his increased military spending he intends to cut funding for science, disease prevention, medical research, transport, housing and education.]

      He’s in the process of taking healthcare away from 24 million people, tightening medicare and medicaid eligibility and shutting down public health, environmental and labour protections.

      He’s emboldened the nation’s theocratic loons in their all out assault on woman and their right to reproductive autonomy, LGBT folk, and those of a different faith.

      Meanwhile, on the streets of America the KKK, Neo-Nazis, and anti-Semitic White Nationalists are busy chanting hate and intolerance.

      But Hilary…..

      *spit*

      • RedLogix 1.1.1
        24 April 2017 at 2:15 pm

        By way of some balance:

        President Trump’s average approval rating is the lowest since Gallup began presidential approval surveys in 1953, the polling firm said Thursday.

        Trump’s approval rating has been as low as 39 percent since January, but averaged out at 41 percent. According to Gallup, the historical average approval of presidents is 61 percent.

        http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/329712-poll-trump-has-lowest-approval-rating-of-any-president-after

        • joe90 1.1.1.1
          24 April 2017 at 2:55 pm

          The rump that elected Trump is getting exactly what they wanted – a voice validating their bigotry and resentment.

          – yet 96 percent of those who supported him in November say they’d do it again today.

          http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-100-days-honeymoon-regrets-poll/story?id=46943338

          • RedLogix 1.1.1.1.1
            24 April 2017 at 2:59 pm

            Because Trump is delivering this disaffected ‘rump’ pretty much exactly what they wanted … disrupting and outraging the liberal, elite establishment.

          • marty mars 1.1.1.1.2
            24 April 2017 at 3:26 pm

            The clouds of war are building and trump supporters will be out practicing with their kids cos they will be the grunts that make America make a mistake again. Dum dum dum…

            • RedLogix 1.1.1.1.2.1
              24 April 2017 at 3:43 pm

              It was, however, to a very great extent a matter of social class. This isn’t just because so large a fraction of working class voters generally backed Trump; it’s also because Trump saw this from the beginning, and aimed his campaign squarely at the working class vote. His signature red ball cap was part of that—can you imagine Hillary Clinton wearing so proletarian a garment without absurdity?—but, as I pointed out a year ago, so was his deliberate strategy of saying (and tweeting) things that would get the liberal punditocracy to denounce him. The tones of sneering contempt and condescension they directed at him were all too familiar to his working class audiences, who have been treated to the same tones unceasingly by their soi-disant betters for decades now.

              Much of the pushback against Trump’s impending presidency, in turn, is heavily larded with that same sneering contempt and condescension—the unending claims, for example, that the only reason people could possibly have chosen to vote for Trump was because they were racist misogynistic morons, and the like.

              http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/the-hate-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.html

              • marty mars …
                24 April 2017 at 3:48 pm

                Yep shows even an archdruid can get it wrong – are you thinking the threat of war has reduced since the dump fuck got elected ?

                • RedLogix …
                  24 April 2017 at 4:22 pm

                  Not at all. I flew right past the North Korean border a fortnight ago, and at 40,000 ft a small part of me had my fingers crossed. It’s gotten worse since then.

                  If I had to make odds I’d say there’s a say 20% chance the sabre-rattling will spin out into a catastrophic war. But this means there’s an 80% chance there will be another kind of outcome altogether. One part of me thinks this is all insane, another part speculates that it just might be genius. After all Trump has done three impossible things already.

                  But none of this is Greer’s point is it? He’s not predicting Trump’s foreign policy (I doubt even Trump could do that) … but reflecting on why and how he reached the Presidency. On that I think he has some interesting things to say.

                  • marty mars …
                    24 April 2017 at 5:31 pm

                    and how he got there is less relevant (to me anyway) than what he will do whilst he is there.

                    My original comment was in relation to the supporters of trump, and how now that the drums of war are beating louder, they (or their children) will be the cannon fodder – I am sure many supporters of trump will be surprised when that happens because he was supposed to be into peace but there won’t imo be peace if you are trying to make america great again – in tough times there is really only one way to do that – war!

              • mauī …
                24 April 2017 at 8:35 pm

                Greer also said in a recent talk that Trump signs were first to pop up in economically decimated areas near where he lived, while the Hilary signs popped up in the affluent areas. I go along with that, Trump was able to speak to the poor Americans which now makes up a large percentage of Americans, while those same people couldn’t see the Clinton brand offering them anything different and had been continually let down by their policies. By the way Greer thinks Sanders would have walked all over Trump if the Democrat primaries weren’t rigged.

                Greer mentions this at 11:00 mins and 23:50 mins, but hey its probably worth watching the whole 2 and half hours!

            • ropata 1.1.1.1.2.2
              24 April 2017 at 4:56 pm

              Candidates for the next Darwin Awards, I suppose.

        • timeforacupoftea 1.1.1.2
          24 April 2017 at 6:56 pm

          thehill.com Fake News Site though.

    • Bill 1.2
      24 April 2017 at 4:54 pm

      All that proves is that the Russians haven’t switched off their brain wave disrupting thingee jig yet Poission.

      I’m sure there’ll be a completely apolitical report coming from some intelligence service or other real soon on that one.. solid and incontrovertible intel provided by the bears at NY zoo or some such.

  2. ropata 2
    24 April 2017 at 5:21 pm

    @Li_Politico has done daily tweets since the inauguration, first one here. A new piece of crap every day from there

    Day 1: pretty shit eh— Sassy Little Hobbit (@LI_politico) January 21, 2017

  3. Skeptic 3
    24 April 2017 at 5:53 pm

    From Reagan’s election onward there has been a growing class/education split in American politics. Much of this split has been fueled by the rise of the super-rich and their ostentatious misuse of their wealth coupled with the advertisement driven consumerism.

    As a nation the average American is still as generous and hospitable as they always were – or so visitors to there tell me. But, like all humans they’re very much prey to the seven deadly sins – excessively so.

    Because there is an undercurrent of fundamentalist Christianity throughout the US, especially the Protestant ethics, religiosity features strongly in elections.

    When you put these ingredients together, you have the making of King Donald by popular acclaim. The telling statistic alluded to above is “96% of those who supported Trump continue to do so.” Although the majority of Americans do not support Trump, in those key marginal counties that make up the swing states, Trump’s support has yet to be shaken,

    So unless there is a legal reason for impeachment, he’s here to stay, in my humble opinion. It’s also my considered opinion, that unless he does something to really upset those supporters, he may even win a second term – unless the Democrats get their shit together – which they aren’t doing at present.

  4. Macro 4
    24 April 2017 at 7:27 pm

    Actually Ad it is only 94 (95) days since the inauguration.
    An excellent site that updates on each and every F**K Up by the child presently resident in the White House is detailed here:
    https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/

  5. Frank Macskasy 5
    26 April 2017 at 9:17 pm

    China remains the best denial of any relationship between growing wealth and growing political freedom.

    If the 20th Century Cold War was a test between centralised state economies and pluralist-democracy capitalism, then the 21st Century Cold War appears to be a test between pluralist-democracy capitalism (the West); oligarchic-authoritarian capitalism (Russia) and centralised state politics/unfettered capitalism (China).

    So far, China appears to be doing remarkably well in this three-way contest, whilst Russia is bedevilled with cronyism and corruption and the West is experiencing a resurgent, inward-looking nationalism/protectionism tinged with neo-fascism.

    I’m not sure the Chinese system is one I would like to be living under.

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