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U.S. Image Suffers as Publics Around World Question Trump’s Leadership

Fenton said:
We are only alienating ourselves from our global competitors, Nation Sates, leaders and people who think America and its citizens need to be knocked down a peg or two.

The Paris Accord did just that, and Obama commited to it while trying to push a domestic agenda with respect to climate change that would have led to skyrocketing energy cost for poor and middle class

My State challeneged his " Clean power " EPA dictates, and won.

This Nation and its people owe the rest of the world NOTHING, and that includes explanations and or apologies for the choices we make in our democratic process

Massive and disproportionate American defense spending ( we out spent our NATO partners 30 to 1, spending 30 Trillion since 1949 ) kept our Western and Eastern NATO partners safe for decades, and who the **** are they to look down on us for the choices we make in our democracy ?

China signed onto the Paris Accord as did other US competitors because its would have stifled economic growth here while giving China and emerging economies a 5 year headstart over America.
Obama signed it, and yes our last Presidents policies and agenda were overtly anti-American and anti-American people.
Enter in Trump who ran on a platform of " America first " and he won. I wonder why after 8 years of a Progressive dip**** trying in earnest to damage the Nation he swore to protect ?
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Just wondering about the words I bolded. Please inform the uneducated exactly how the Paris Accord "would have stifled economic growth here".

Every time I read some climate denier, fossil fuel advocate ranting about Obama ruining the economy with his leftist environmentalist demands, I think about those poor folks who built horse-drawn carriages, manufactured buggy whips and other devices as gasoline powered vehicles began to appear. Technology growth will always harm some people as a majority sees benefits from technological change.
 
"Every time I read some climate denier" Sv
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Whatever.
That's NOT me.
I've been involvement in environmental matters since before graduating high school, both as a professional boat captain, and debating the issue formally before audience & judges.
"Please inform the uneducated exactly how the Paris Accord "would have stifled economic growth here"." Sv
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In many obvious ways.

a) A coal burning power plant can be built.

BUT !!

Building such a power plant with "clean coal" technology including carbon sequestration costs substantially more.

And that substantially higher cost of pollution reduction technology would then be reflected in higher kW/hr commercial power costs.
That in turn would stifle the broader economy, leaving both commercial rate payers, and residential rate payers paying $MORE for $electricity,
and thus having $less for everything else!
Less for home improvements > Lowe's & Home Depot
Less for new cars
Less for swimming pools
Less for a thousand etc.

Think it through!
Arresting pollution almost always costs more, sometimes substantially more. No exception to that standard comes to mind, except the obvious efficiency applications, spreading manure back onto the pasture, etc.

The sanity check is China. In Beijing the air pollution can be so bad one can't see two city blocks into the distance, and residence wear filter-masks for respiration.

Do you really think those slanty-eyed savages are so stupid they don't realize they could save money money money if they'd add enough pollution arresting technology to purify Bejing's air to the quality of an Amazon rain forest in a light refreshing tropical rain?

ASIANS AREN'T STUPID!!

They KNOW they've got a pollution problem.
They also know they're operating in a very competitive globalized economy.

So if you do the math with the precision that the Chi-Comm's politburo has, you should understand that however bad the pain of their severe, literally lethal pollution problems are in China, the pain of the remedy is worse,
at least for now.

Capisce?
 
reinoe said:
1. Compulsory military service where they guard European monuments from vandals. And it doesn't matter if there is compulsory military service. Most of them aren't meeting their NATO obligations because they're lazy.

2. Again, it doesn't matter how much is being spent. They're not meeting their NATO obligations. And in JAPAN's case they're literally using the American military as a substitute for their own defense.

3. From your own link...This is a list of countries by spending on development aid. And it doesn't include private donations. Europeans are slothful and indolent. We can add dishonest to the list.

4. They're bitter that Trump isn't promising them unlimited welfare.
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It's just strange that Donald Trump not only want NATO countries to speed up increases to their military budgets but also want to increase USA military, then USA's and allied countries' military budget already are a lot more than 50 % of the world's military spending. Who should they fight with all the extra spending, martians? Also for comparison Obama pledge that USA would contribute 3 billion dollars in total to the Green Climate Fund up until 2020. While Donald Trump want to increase USA yearly military spending with 50 billion dollars.

That Donald Trump could use his good relationship with Putin to accomplish mutual nuclear disarment if he wanted to keep Americans safe. Because it could mean tens of millions less Americans dead if the worst happend and you had a nuclear war while at the same save a lot of money. That a couple of hundred of nukes would be enough as a deterrent.

It's good to honest so I can admit I make a misstake in my earlier post, I forget to write per capita. That Denmark have had most causlities by capita in Afganistan while USA have had the highest total causlities. Also we are talking here about things that are funded by tax money but if you have data of private donation you can of course provide it.

Regarding Trump it's seems like he on purpous want to piss of close allieds. Like for example atackning the mayor of London on Twitter direct after the terror atack in London. While at the same time he can be nice and humble to brutale and fundamentalist dictatorship like Sauid Arabia.
 
If I had the time, I'd go look back at posts written by some of the conservatives who have declared "who cares what they think" in this thread and see if they said the same thing about Obama. Maybe some did... and that would be a great level of consistency. but I'd bet that we'd find a lot didn't.

And, from my recollection, the liberal position was a bit more moderate, mostly considering, from what I remember, the opinion of foreign countries wasn't quite as negative. Of course WHY that is would be for another discussion.
 
ModerateRN said:
According to the graph it didn't take long at all for us to rebuild ourselves after Bush. Hopefully the same is true after Trump.
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It took us about 8 years to recover from the trauma inflicted by the Bush presidency, and there was still a lot of work to be done. Just as we were recovering...
 
"Donald Trump ... want to increase USA military" B #53
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Yes.
It's sad.
A dude that wants to clean his roof-gutters but doesn't have a ladder may need to buy or borrow one to get that job done. That's the logic of acquisition, to accomplish what cannot otherwise be accomplished without the acquisition.

What does President Trump want to add to the U.S. military to accomplish that we can't now accomplish?
 
I wonder if it is reported in all these countries that supposedly say they don't like Trump what the average man on the street says about their county's leader.

If not then why do we care what they say about Trump?
 
M6 #57

Fair enough.

If you're a U.S. citizen living in the U.S. you might not need to know the current political leader of Spain, or Algeria, or Laos.
What they do there has very little if any affect on us here.

BUT !!

What the U.S. does can affect billions of humans, some living in places you've never heard of.

And it is the POWERFUL influence if not control POTUS has over not merely the U.S. but the world that render that particular office of disproportionate interest.
 
I think many people around the world are not comfortable with the fact that Donald Trump have thousands of nuke at his disposal. That you can really blame Clinton, Jeltsin and all the other American and Russian politicians for not doing enough nuclear disarmament during the 90’s. Especially now then you have Trump in USA and Putin in Russia.
 
"you can really blame Clinton" B #59
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There are numerous examples of presidents of a particular party seemingly going against type.

Establishing liaison w/ the Chi-comm leader Chairman Mao might have seemed a natural for a lefty Democrat. But it was Nixon that did that.

Obama could have tried, and might have succeeded in ending the U.S. War on marijuana. I gather by now most of our 50 States have marijuana or hemp legal by some standard, more soon to come.

BUT Obama had his head up, and knew that he would be judged as "the first Black president", and avoided that as part of his legacy. Ironic though that 3 of the 4 most recent U.S. presidents have used marijuana; and yet the War goes on.

Clinton would have been accused as loony liberal tree-hugging peacenick not smart enough to understand how deterrence (MAD) works.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Regarding Trump's finger on the button:

Soon before Nixon's premature departure from office, there was concern in Nixon's inner circle about Nixon's mental stability.
Nixon had been drinking to excess, and made comments that raised serious concerns about leaving the launch codes w/ him.
Some say the U.S. nuclear firing chain was notified of this, and at one point even instructed to suspend execution
on any nuclear weapon launch order from Nixon until it could be verified.

Whether some similar intervention has been made about Trump I don't know.

BUT !!

What we do know is, Trump has a titanic ego that rules him.
Trump has already begun fund-raising for his 2020 presidential re-election campaign.

BUT !!

If the Russia investigation unravels Trump, Trump may be unstable enough to punish the world for his public humiliation.

Bottom line: "don't buy any green bananas."
 
sear said:
Whatever.
That's NOT me.
I've been involvement in environmental matters since before graduating high school, both as a professional boat captain, and debating the issue formally before audience & judges.

In many obvious ways.

a) A coal burning power plant can be built.

BUT !!

Building such a power plant with "clean coal" technology including carbon sequestration costs substantially more.

And that substantially higher cost of pollution reduction technology would then be reflected in higher kW/hr commercial power costs.
That in turn would stifle the broader economy, leaving both commercial rate payers, and residential rate payers paying $MORE for $electricity,
and thus having $less for everything else!
Less for home improvements > Lowe's & Home Depot
Less for new cars
Less for swimming pools
Less for a thousand etc.

Think it through!
Arresting pollution almost always costs more, sometimes substantially more. No exception to that standard comes to mind, except the obvious efficiency applications, spreading manure back onto the pasture, etc.

The sanity check is China. In Beijing the air pollution can be so bad one can't see two city blocks into the distance, and residence wear filter-masks for respiration.

Do you really think those slanty-eyed savages are so stupid they don't realize they could save money money money if they'd add enough pollution arresting technology to purify Bejing's air to the quality of an Amazon rain forest in a light refreshing tropical rain?

ASIANS AREN'T STUPID!!

They KNOW they've got a pollution problem.
They also know they're operating in a very competitive globalized economy.

So if you do the math with the precision that the Chi-Comm's politburo has, you should understand that however bad the pain of their severe, literally lethal pollution problems are in China, the pain of the remedy is worse,
at least for now.

Capisce?
Click to expand...

Doesn't appear that you understand enough about the science and economics of renewable energy to be able to offer a valid argument in response to my question. My question: "Please inform the uneducated exactly how the Paris Accord "would have stifled economic growth here".

You offer us the example of a coal-fired power plant with the attempted justification that forcing "clean coal" technology on the plant would cause economic harm. First, the primary reason that coal fired plants are disappearing is not any environmental regulations, it is the simple fact that natural gas is much cheaper than coal - and cleaner. Second, renewable energy sources have seen prices drop dramatically during the past 10 years, which also argues against coal usage. Third, sticking with fossil fuel is the equivalent of carriage manufacturers arguing against gasoline-powerd vehicles; technology brings changes to society and has deep economic repercussions. Some people can see the value of change and some refuse to accept advancement.
 
sear said:
There are numerous examples of presidents of a particular party seemingly going against type.

Establishing liaison w/ the Chi-comm leader Chairman Mao might have seemed a natural for a lefty Democrat. But it was Nixon that did that.

Obama could have tried, and might have succeeded in ending the U.S. War on marijuana. I gather by now most of our 50 States have marijuana or hemp legal by some standard, more soon to come.

BUT Obama had his head up, and knew that he would be judged as "the first Black president", and avoided that as part of his legacy. Ironic though that 3 of the 4 most recent U.S. presidents have used marijuana; and yet the War goes on.

Clinton would have been accused as loony liberal tree-hugging peacenick not smart enough to understand how deterrence (MAD) works.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Regarding Trump's finger on the button:

Soon before Nixon's premature departure from office, there was concern in Nixon's inner circle about Nixon's mental stability.
Nixon had been drinking to excess, and made comments that raised serious concerns about leaving the launch codes w/ him.
Some say the U.S. nuclear firing chain was notified of this, and at one point even instructed to suspend execution
on any nuclear weapon launch order from Nixon until it could be verified.

Whether some similar intervention has been made about Trump I don't know.

BUT !!

What we do know is, Trump has a titanic ego that rules him.
Trump has already begun fund-raising for his 2020 presidential re-election campaign.

BUT !!

If the Russia investigation unravels Trump, Trump may be unstable enough to punish the world for his public humiliation.

Bottom line: "don't buy any green bananas."
Click to expand...

Yes, and to fair to Clinton it may have been congress that stopped more disarmament. Still it was bad because back then it was a real possibility for a lot more nuclear disarmament. That at the same time nobody can really know that happen in the future, like who could though a person like Trump could be president? Also, who know what will happen in Russia after Putin? What happen if you get a civil war in a country with thousands of nukes?


A very cynical reason for that USA and Russia haven’t disarmed more can be that the economic and political elite in USA and Russia will still die if you have “only” a couple of hundred nukes, because the capitals and big cities there most of the elite lives will still be destroyed. While also a large part of the people. That it people in more rural areas in USA and in other countries that will be saved by drastically reduce the number of nukes. While at the same time it’s the reason MAD would also work with only a couple hundred nukes because the threat would still be great for the political and economic elite.


Then it comes to Trump he will hopefully and probably not go totally bananas and both Russia and USA should have procedures to deal with crazy leaders and nukes. That the problem may more be that he isn’t exactly a good leader for calming down a situation so it’s doesn’t spiral out of control. Instead he more of a leader that can make a situation spiral out of control.
 
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