Trump v May

Farago's just been on stage telling the whooping and hollering "USA! USA!" mob that "our real friends in the world speak English."

So basically, if you don't speak English you can all fuck off.

This just keeps getting better and better.......

Trump has today outlined plans for his budget speech in which he proposes to increase the military budget by a whopping $54 BILLION!

In order to pay for this he proposes to slash environmental programmes and foreign aid.


Fortunately, global warming is a lie made up by scientists and the USA doesn't need to bribe foreigners with aid when they have a lot of big guns.

Extending the notion that "a good sized war is jolly decent for the economy and never hurts in the opinion poll ratings" from that other thread, I wonder who he'll target first?

My money's on Iran.

What chance he'll unearth some hitherto unseen document which proves they were behind some terrible atrocity which then gives him an excuse to send the troops in?

Even Trump isn't crazy enough to send troops into Iran.

xmiles wrote:Even Trump isn't crazy enough to send troops into Iran.

Maybe not but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that President Bannon is.

Go Bernie.

Holy fucking shit.

He edited it twice and still got it wrong.

This clown's got the nuclear codes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/03/president-trump-just-had-his-very-own-is-our-children-learning-moment/?utm_term=.0e9cfff3bc98#comments

And given the context of his tweet about education sent shortly after, it proves that the best humour is often unintentional.

Is he openly taking the piss now?

He tweeted this graph earlier today to back up his ridiculous claims that everything's getting better now that he's in charge:




Now I'm no statistician but I can read a fecking graph.

And this one shows that Obama inherited a right dog's dinner but then was able to turn things round and make everything a bit better.

And continued to do so throughout his entire tenure.

Is Trump gambling on the fact that his fans are too fecking stupid to understand this point?

Or, as I say, is he just taking the piss?

Just alternative facts.

Anyone hear David Goodhart on Radio 4 today?
His new book "The Road to Somewhere" is just out and takes a slightly different approach to explaining the rise of populism - based on social mobility and how people define themselves.
Instead of looking at politics in the traditional left/right perspective he basically says that the liberal economic "elite" (roughly 25% of the population) send their kids off to University where they get their personal identity partly from what they achieve rather than from their local community and become more "global" in perspective as a result. They are socially mobile could adapt to live almost anywhere in the world so he calls them "Anywheres". Nearly all modern politicians and business leaders are in this group.

The other 75% who self-identify with their birth area/community/region (the Somewheres) have had their communities systematically undermined by e.g. the destruction of the local polytechnic system and local apprenticeships etc amongst other things (something that Government is rapidly trying to backpedal from) which has affected local economies and left them feeling pissed off.
This (he feels) underpins Brexit, Trump, Le Pen etc.
Moreover he considers Brexit a "revenge vote" because although people genuinely know they'll be worse off out of the EU, they are more concerned about getting the message across than anything else. The research shows that only a tiny proportion of Leavers consider economic immigration to be an issue so that clearly wasn't the real reason for the referendum result.

As the book review says:

"David Goodhart’s compelling investigation of the new global politics reveals how the Somewhere backlash is a democratic response to the dominance of Anywhere interests, in everything from mass higher education to mass immigration."



In this morning's debate, he argued that the Anywheres (Theresa May's Government for example) will  accept they have cocked it up and start to consider local interests more e.g. the new Apprenticeship Levy.


Expect "The University of Bolton" to revert to being BIT and some desperate attempts to reinvigorate industry in Bolton sometime soon

Interesting but I am not sure that I am convinced by this analysis. These undoubtedly were protest votes but in my opinion the protests were woefully misguided. I would love to see more research into why people voted the way they did and why they believed it was in their interest to vote that way.

xmiles wrote:Interesting but I am not sure that I am convinced by this analysis. 

Possibly because of my shit precis

But it's an interesting idea and there's little doubt that people felt let down so this perspective is useful in trying to understand why.

To me it makes sense that people with limited social mobility would be most upset if the communities they are tied to were not looked after as they would find it more difficult to move away and start again somewhere else and would genuinely have fewer options whether they are steel workers in Oregon or Brits from formerly successful industrial towns like Sheffield where the industry - and local opportunities - have dried up. 

Not everyone can do a Norman Tebbitt and up sticks to find work in another part of the country or in another country altogether but University educated people will have been taught to adapt to a new community simply by going to Uni and they would be more likely to have the qualifications and global attitude that hallmark social mobility - and therefore adaptability in a changing world.

In Britain in particular, successive Governments made going away to University and having a degree the preferred route into employment at the expense of other educational approaches like doing an apprenticeship or going to a local Poly to get a technical qualification - perhaps as a response to the traditional industries they were allowing to die on their feet - or deliberately killing off. In this light, it's no surprise to me that so many felt that Government isn't working for them - both here and across the pond.

i grew up in Halliwell and most of the people i went to school with and know from that area would be classed as somewheres (me included up to a point) and they do feel that their way of life and the area they grew up in has been radically altered by people from other countries coming in and in their eyes taking over (my facebook feed would back all this up i have to trawl through all this on a daily basis).

Halliwell has always had a high Muslim population but the influx of people from Eastern Europe has caused a lot of issues in their minds, i don't live there anymore so can't comment on whether it's true or not but i know that that would have been one of the main reasons they voted for Brexit and continue to insist that it goes ahead.

I can understand their point of view up to a point but can't agree with some of the right wing views i have to constantly read on facebook

Norpig wrote:i grew up in Halliwell and most of the people i went to school with and know from that area would be classed as somewheres (me included up to a point) and they do feel that their way of life and the area they grew up in has been radically altered by people from other countries coming in and in their eyes taking over (my facebook feed would back all this up i have to trawl through all this on a daily basis).

Halliwell has always had a high Muslim population but the influx of people from Eastern Europe has caused a lot of issues in their minds, i don't live there anymore so can't comment on whether it's true or not but i know that that would have been one of the main reasons they voted for Brexit and continue to insist that it goes ahead.

I can understand their point of view up to a point but can't agree with some of the right wing views i have to constantly read on facebook

Halliwell is a good case in point.
Traditionally the area had full employment mainly in the mills which led to labour and skill shortages. 
Government incentivised cotton workers from Pakistan and Bangla Desh to come over and fill the vacant jobs when the industry was booming - and to supply a source of cheap labour when it began to decline.
As the mills closed, the Pakistani community (anywheres I guess seeing as they had moved continents to find work and therefore had the social mobility skills) simply adapted and diversified into e.g. catering or retail. In doing so, they survived better than the local somewheres who either moved out - not very far in most cases - or stayed around and watched the growing Pakistani community buy up the vacated shops and houses.
The rest is obvious.

Interesting result in the Dutch elections. Geert Wilder's anti-immigration populist party the PVV was widely expected to win but although they made a small gain, the biggest winner was the Green Left party who bagged an additional 10 seats and the ruling centre-right VVD held on to power.
With the French elections coming shortly we'll see if this reversal of the populist nationalist trend is gaining momentum in the EU or not.

The Cloggies have always been Green minded, and I look on the result as people opting for the Greens, to avoid coming down on the side of either of the main parties. GW was too radical in his views, and his language would have lost him many votes, even though many, apparently, felt he had the basics right. Rutte has come across as a decent chap, but they weren't taking on the immigration issue enough, (again, apparently).
Some are thinking this could be the end of the 'populism' approach, but don't be surprised if there is a backlash, when people think they are being dismissed because of this result, and decide to make sure their vote is counted.

gloswhite wrote:The Cloggies have always been Green minded, and I look on the result as people opting for the Greens, to avoid coming down on the side of either of the main parties. GW was too radical in his views, and his language would have lost him many votes, even though many, apparently, felt he had the basics right. Rutte has come across as a decent chap, but they weren't taking on the immigration issue enough, (again, apparently).
Some are thinking this could be the end of the 'populism' approach, but don't be surprised if there is a backlash, when people think they are being dismissed because of this result, and decide to make sure their vote is counted.

Rutte has a bit of the Tony Blair's about him so I'm not surprised he slipped a bit. Mind you Wilder looks like Beavis - or is it Butthead? - well one of 'em.
Let's see if Le Pen gets in.

Wonder if the French laugh at our soldiers if Marine is a girl's name?

Don't panic, we're sending in the Mary's!

wanderlust wrote:

gloswhite wrote:The Cloggies have always been Green minded, and I look on the result as people opting for the Greens, to avoid coming down on the side of either of the main parties. GW was too radical in his views, and his language would have lost him many votes, even though many, apparently, felt he had the basics right. Rutte has come across as a decent chap, but they weren't taking on the immigration issue enough, (again, apparently).
Some are thinking this could be the end of the 'populism' approach, but don't be surprised if there is a backlash, when people think they are being dismissed because of this result, and decide to make sure their vote is counted.

Rutte has a bit of the Tony Blair's about him so I'm not surprised he slipped a bit. Mind you Wilder looks like Beavis - or is it Butthead? - well one of 'em.
Let's see if Le Pen gets in.

Wonder if the French laugh at our soldiers if Marine is a girl's name?

Don't panic, we're sending in the Mary's!

haha. I bet if they did think that, they wouldn't say it to their faces 

Have you been listening in on Trump Tower Glos?