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Msg ID: 2756217 Trump is a divider, a fanatic. Biden is a uniter, searching for compromise  +3/-0     
Author:TheCrow
12/13/2022 4:10:00 PM

Trump is a divider, a fanatic. Biden is a uniter, searching for compromise so as to get things done. Go down a one way street by mistake and you have to find another way to return to your path; if you're on a two way street, you can turn around and find an alternate to your destination.

Nobody knows everything. Liberals or conservatives have part of the anwswer, as do pacifists and militants.

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail." 

(Quote from Maslow, Abraham Harold (1966). The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance. Harper & Row. ISBN n>978-0-8092-6130-7.)

Trump is hammer. He exerts force in one direction- he hammers screws, bolts, nuts into position because he lacks the subtlety to move in any direction but that one force in one direction. No issue in life is that simple, except that you live or you die. If you don't address intervening issues you speed toward the ultimate outcome- death.

On the other hand, a screwdriver, a wrench, anything more technologically advanced than the caveman's rock is versatile; and can address issues with multiple directions towards the end.

Trump is a joke as a politician, simplistic and unsophisticated at anything beyond real estate. In that, he's a hammer. Even a rivet needs a bucker to work with the hammer.

 

 

A brief history of world leaders laughing at Trump

Image without a caption
Analysis by 
Staff writer
December 4, 2019 at 8:48 a.m. EST
 
It was a key talking point during President Trump’s 2016 campaign, and even before it: The idea that other countries were laughing at the United States. “The world is laughing at us,” he said in May 2016. “They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity,” he said of Mexico in his campaign launch speech. He used the phrase “laughing at us” more than 50 times between 2011 and his election as president. Trump, the argument went, was going to make it stop.
 
 

Instead, Trump has been the object of repeated jest and even mockery by fellow world leaders. And it’s been caught on tape — again.

The most recent example came Tuesday, when the leaders of Canada, France, Holland and the United Kingdom seemed to be recounting Trump’s lengthy — and occasionally wild — interactions with reporters earlier in the day.

“He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the video, which was first released by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

“You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor,” he added later, motioning down from his chin.

Trump, on Wednesday, called Trudeau “two-faced” for the comments but still said he was a “nice guy." 

President Trump responded Dec. 4 to a video where Canada's Justin Trudeau, France's Emmanuel Macron and Britain's Boris Johnson appear to joke about him. (Video: The Washington Post)

Even more world leaders appeared to join in mocking Trump last year during his speech at the United Nations. Trump made one of his characteristically hyperbolic claims about his achievements as president — “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country” — and drew audible laughter.

Trump, apparently taken aback, responded, “Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay.” 

President Trump elicited laughter at the start of his address to world leaders Sept. 25 at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Video: Reuters)

(He later tried to argue that the world leaders were laughing with him rather than at him, but his real-time reaction didn’t exactly back that up. In addition, world leaders said anonymously that they were indeed having a laugh at Trump’s expense.)

Trump also drew laughter during the same speech from the German delegation, after he lodged a hyperbolic claim about their country’s reliance on Russian energy.

The year before, in 2017, then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull roasted Trump and his selective taste in polls during what was supposed to be an off-the-record dinner. But video soon leaked.

“We are winning in the polls. We are! We are! Not the fake polls. Not the fake polls,” Turnbull said. “They’re the ones we’re not winning in. We’re winning in the real polls. The online polls. They are so easy to win.”

Turnbull added: “I have this Russian guy. Believe me, it’s true. It is true.”

Turnbull explained later that it was “a good-humored roast” that “was affectionately lighthearted.”

That year, Turnbull’s world-leader neighbor, New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, recounted what could also be seen as some good-natured ribbing of Trump — but also seemed to have an edge. Here’s what she told a local reporter:

“I was waiting to walk out to be introduced at the East Asia Summit gala dinner, where we all paraded and while we were waiting, Trump in jest patted the person next to him on the shoulder, pointed at me and said, ‘This lady caused a lot of upset in her country,’ talking about the election.

“I said, ‘Well, you know, only maybe 40 percent,’ then he said it again, and I said, ‘You know,’ laughing, ‘no one marched when I was elected.’

“He laughed, and it was only afterwards that I reflect that it could have been taken in a very particular way – he did not seem offended.”

On a smaller scale, there was the time that Nordic leaders reenacted a photo of Trump and Saudi leaders with their hands on a glowing orb. The Nordic leaders instead used a soccer ball. 

And Trump isn’t the only member of his family who has drawn what appeared to be derision in a candid moment at a gathering of world leaders. Earlier this year, his daughter Ivanka Trump was talking at a Group of 20 summit with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron and the then-head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.

“As soon as you charge them with that economic aspect of it, a lot of people start listening who otherwise wouldn’t listen,” May said at one point.

Ivanka Trump responded, “And the same with the defense side of it, in terms of the whole business that’s been, sort of, male-dominated” — to which Lagarde gives an animated reaction that’s difficult to view as anything other than perplexed.

The French presidential palace later expressed regret that it had released such a clip. But given the reaction, you’d think leaders such as Macron and Trudeau would take care to avoid a repeat.

Unless, that is, they truly are just that exasperated.

 

By 
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.


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Msg ID: 2756218 Trump is a divider, a fanatic. Biden is a uniter, searching for compromise  +3/-0     
Author:TheCrow
12/13/2022 4:27:11 PM
Reply to: 2756217

Trump is a divider, a fanatic. Biden is a uniter, searching for compromise to resolve issues and get stuff done. Not always correct, but the only way to avoid mistaken acts is to not do anything.

From Inc.com:

When Joe Biden was an undergraduate at the University of Delaware in 1964, he was already planning to be president. Fifty-six years later, he finally got there. There's a lesson there for every leader and entrepreneur about persistence, and perseverance -- and also about the power of setting goals and sticking with them. 

What was Donald Trump doing in 1964? Playing basketball at New York Military Academy. Wait, what? Donald "Heelspurs" Trump was student athelete who later used a medical deferment to avoid the draft and serving his country? That's hypocrisy of the highest magnitude in a jingo like Trump, who threatened to use military force against Americans exercising their Constitutional right to demonstrate against his p[olicies and actions. And later incited violent protest, supported violent mobs 'protesting' congress affirming a presidential election...

Trump did do some positive things for America in his first three years but failed miserably in 2020, his last year. But- you could say that he did one thing for America in 2020: he demonstrated that Biden was a better choice as POTUS. He got Biden elected by causing record unemployment, the sharpest economic contraction since the Great Depression and contributing to excessive American deaths in the COVID pandemic.

 

 

Juan Williams: Who’s laughing at Biden now?

BY JUAN WILLIAMS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 12/12/22 9:30 AM ET
 
President Biden is slated to announce his 2024 campaign after the holidays.

He is going to need a winning slogan. 

I’ve got it.

“Slow and Steady.”

Boring, you say.

You are thinking like Donald Trump. 

Remember, the former president thought “Sleepy Joe” was a killer put-down when he faced Biden in the 2020 campaign. Trump lost by millions of votes.

Meanwhile, Biden keeps winning.

Arnon Mishkin, the Fox polling analyst, mentioned “Slow and Steady” as a slogan last summer after Biden’s success in passing nearly all his legislative agenda. 

“Slow and Steady” isn’t catchy, I complained.

With polls dancing in his head, Mishkin said the numbers showed voters wanted the opposite of the chaos, midnight tweets, and juvenile name calling common throughout the Trump presidency. 

Americans still want a “Slow and Steady” president — someone who gets things done and offers a reassuring presence. As the midterms approached, Mishkin listed Biden’s negatives and positives with voters and said Democrats were missing the obvious in not playing to Biden’s strengths.

I foolishly dismissed the conversation as the knotty product of a numbers guy’s mind. At the time, Biden’s poll numbers remained low and a red wave in the midterms was widely predicted.

Last week, I apologized.

Yes, Arnon, “Slow and Steady” now looks very good.

With Biden as their leader, Democrats gained a seat in the Senate. They also picked up control of two governors’ mansions and four state legislative houses — two in Michigan.

They did lose their majority in the House. But, with one race yet to be called, the GOP will gain 10 seats at most. Those Democratic defeats are far below the 25-seat average loss for the party in the White House since 1994. There was no red wave.

Biden looks so good at year’s end that conservative Republican champion Newt Gingrich wrote on his website that the GOP “must learn to quit underestimating Biden.” 

Gingrich’s column also drew parallels between Biden and two iconic GOP Presidents, Eisenhower and Reagan — leaders who were put down by their political opponents but proved to be consistent winners. The former Speaker described Biden as the Democrats’ “almost inevitable” nominee for president in 2024.

On the left, Biden’s past year is described in New York Magazine with the headline “Joe Biden’s Actually Not-At-All-Bad Year.”

That grudging assessment is now accepted wisdom among top Democrats.

With California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) declaration that he is backing Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, there is no serious challenge to Biden’s run for a second term.

Add in the Democratic National Committee’s proposed shuffle of the 2024 primary calendar at Biden’s direction — moving South Carolina to the front of the process and giving new prominence to Michigan and Georgia — and Biden wins again.

Primary voters in those states, especially Black voters, saved Biden’s campaign in 2020 and put him on a path to the nomination. Now, they are a wall of protection to ensure he stays the nominee in 2024. 

But what about the general election? 

Well, the only major declared Republican candidate is Trump.

Biden already beat Trump by over 7 million votes — and by a 306-232 margin in the electoral college. 

A Marquette University Law School poll conducted last month found Biden leading Trump by ten points and tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) among registered voters. 

“Slow and Steady” Biden already has a strong record to show to voters in the 2024 general election.

Biden passed major bipartisan legislation to fix our nation’s decrepit infrastructure. Another bill helps U.S. manufacturers compete with China. With the narrowest of Democratic majorities in the Senate, he won legislation lowering the cost of prescription drugs. And let’s not forget he put the COVID-19 pandemic largely in the rearview mirror.

For female voters and Black voters, he can say he put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. More than half the members of his cabinet — 13 of 25 — are women. A similar number identify as members of a minority group.

 

Mr. “Slow and Steady” has more wins coming.

 

As Congress wraps up a lame duck session this month, he is poised to sign a bill protecting same-sex marriage and interracial marriage.

He is also likely to get additional congressional funding to help Ukraine fight the war against Russia. 

With a steady hand, he has kept U.S. troops out of war while holding NATO allies together against Russian aggression.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is another loser to the “Slow and Steady” Biden. 

Not bad for a man derided by critics as a mentally challenged 80-year-old who sometimes stutters. Some still dismiss him as “Sleepy Joe.”

Reconsidering Jan. 6 in the long shadow of Northern Ireland’s TroublesThe Supreme Court gone rogue

I can’t wait to see the old guy, Mr. “Slow and Steady,” defy more low expectations in his next two years as president. 

Who knows, we might be talking about six more years?

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox


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