Trump/Putin disaster summit. And also overseas visit w/ NATO & UK.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The Projector-in-Chief always accuses his opponents of being Putin's stooge as a cover for how he actually is Putin's stooge. He has done it with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party as a whole, and now Germany. He is more transparent than a window.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Any European Country who doesnt pay 2% of their GDP in defense then should not have the audacity to criticize US foreign policy then since it is the US who is spending their own money to defend them.

Don't be an idiot. If a friend gives you something, knowing that it antagonizes your beliefs or is something you generally hate, of course you have the right to criticize them for it. The only thing is that in addition to criticism, they should be prepared to develop capabilities that enable them to have a more independent foreign policy.

If Europeans problem with the US is the fact that the US has military bases in Europe then they should tell that to the US and then I would support the US withdrawing their troops from European bases(except maybe the UK) .


The thing is Europe wants America to defend them but are not willing to spend their own money on it either to maintain their own defenses and that is the part which is maddening

Germans want Donald Trump to pull US troops out of Germany, poll finds

You must be logged in to read this quote.

As we've seen with Stormy Daniels, Trump is very adept at pulling out.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The timing by Mueller to indict those 12 Russian intelligence (gov) officials is perfect.
It gives trump and his boss, Putin, plenty of things to discuss in their meeting in Helsinki.
LOL.

[Progressive Pessimist]

The idea that this summit is sending "shock-waves" throughout the world confirms the fact that people have really short-term memories. This meeting went exactly how I figured it would, Trump said all of this stuff before and he will again. He is compromised. How much more evidence do we need? I want to borrow whatever most people use to insulate themselves from paying attention to the news and politics. Then maybe my stress level would decrease.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I’ve been holding my tongue so, so well for the last 2 years, but that’s it - everyone has to go, down to the local Republican Dog-Catcher.

Seconded! Though I have not been holding my tongue at all. In fact my tongue is pretty exhausted.

[Progressive Pessimist]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I love my state!

[Progressive Pessimist]

Never trump means NEVER.

Not in my view it doesn't. Only hard-line ideological extremists (such as many of the users on this website) would adhere to such a stance.

I'm sorry, but how is that? If you support the president 50% of the time, you are not a "Never Trump" voter, because you sometimes vote for him. "Never Trump" implies total opposition. That's not extremism; that's what the word "never" means.

#NeverTrump referred to the Republicans who refused to vote for Trump in the 2016 general election.  It didn't imply that the voters in question weren't going to vote GOP for other offices that same year, or that they'd abandon various GOP platform planks simply because Trump agreed with them on this or that issue.

Whether the hashtag in question still has meaning now that the election is over is something that I guess one could debate.  But it was never intended to imply that the user of the hashtag was going to disagree with Trump on every issue, just that they would never vote for him for president.

Fair enough, I guess. I do wonder how someone could feel that strongly that Trump should never be president (or that they couldn't in good conscience vote to make him president), and not feel similarly bound to oppose him after the inauguration—but perhaps that's because I'm not a Republican.

Mainly cause we believe that someone with Trump’s behavior and temperament should not be President.



Also The 2 issues we mainly disagree with Trump on (Tarrifs and Russia) is something most Republicans in Congress oppose him but really can’t do much to stop him due to how powerful the modern presidency has become . The third issue we disagree on him (Immigration) the Republicans in Congress did stop him as they didn’t fund the Wall or pass his immigration plan and really limited Trump to overturning executive orders on that issue.

This, I believe, is a key to the problem.  The Presidency has become increasingly powerful in recent decades.  It's been a worrying trend long before Trump, but at least with previous Presidents you could count on them being reasonable men with the country's best interests at heart (although their view of what was in the country's interests might be quite different than yours).  With Trump, the too-powerful Presidency is in the hands of an ill-informed and irresponsible egomaniac who's only out for himself.  Max Boot, the conservative columnist, summed this up well:

https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/1020375736736247808

We can only hope that one result of the wreckage of Trump's Presidency will be Congress finally starting to rein in the powers of the Executive Branch.

Though I appreciate Boot's current perspective, he serves as a reminder that the right wing paranoia and opposition to Obama during his tenure, regardless of what kind of Republican or conservative they identify as or affiliate with, gave rise to Trump and put us in the situation we are in now. Maybe they'll learn and do better when the next Democrat gets elected.