Jim_Smith
New
In my opinion the disagreement between leftists and rightists about Trump come down to a fundamental difference in morality being employed and reflects more often than not our tribalist tendencies. The difference I see that is employed is that people on the right are okay with Trump if he 'wins' in the end despite how he got there, while the left will despise him for his methods.
It is the left that is using underhanded means, abusing the power of the government, to accomplish their political goals of overturning a valid election - disenfranchising millions of US voters. They falsified interview reports with General Flynn, They used the fake dossier to falsify surveillance warrant applications to get information to use against Trump. Now they have a fake Ukraine hoax and are trying to impeach Trump for typical actions of many past presidents that the left is now calling impeachable. The left is trying to change our form of government with three independent branches to one more like a parliamentary system where the prime minister serves at the pleasure of the legislature. If they want to do that they should do it through legal means of amending the constitution instead of fake accusations, fake evidence, and false prosecutions.
What do you consider the bad things Trump has done? Why are they bad?This is moral competition between Deontology (How you do things matters) and Consequentialism (how you do things doesn't matter if the end result is good). Now to get back to tribalism, I think we see people play by one of the two standards when their team is the one being challenged. When Obama was under fire he was attacked for the ethics of his actions, when he was defended the consequences of his actions were relied upon. Then with Trump we have the same thing, but reversed by the parties, the democrats will attack his ethics (he's sexist, racist, imperialistic) while the republicans will point to the wins (no war in syria, de-escalation of N.Korea, no war in Iran). This is not to say that this distinction is writ in stone, but the majority of either party will follow one of these strategies depending on if they're playing offense or defense. So we see the two sides are playing two seperate games, however I would argue that we should actually be judging world leaders by their ethical temerity and not primarily by what trophies they win us, especially when we're on the same 'side'.
I hope we can all agree here that Trump does many things that are bad and many things that are good, some of those bad things outweigh much of the good, while some of the good things outweigh much of the bad.
There are a lot of things the left thinks are bad that I think are good:
Restricting entry to the US from countries that produce terrorists and where it is impossible to do background checks,
Fighting illegal immigration The US has millions of legal immigrants. Illegal immigration makes it harder for poor Americans to find jobs and it lowers their wages, It also allows criminals, drugs, and terrorists to enter the country.
Lowering business taxes and reducing unnecessary government regulation causes economic growth which increases wages, improves working conditions, and lowers unemployment. This helps poor people the most.
Trump allowed new oil and gas pipelines which lower energy and fuel costs and are safer for the environment than transporting oil by train. This reduces the cost of gasoline, heating homes, and the prices of manufactured goods - it helps poor people most.
Selecting judges that follow the intent of the law as written and not their personal whim. Trump is not selecting conservative judges that interpret the law according to their conservative values. The left does select judges that interpret the law according to progressive values. The judges Trump selects interpret the law according to the intent when the law was written. This seems like an obvious solution to rule by whim between left and right. Each side should be glad to have a judge that will interpret the law objectively rather than a judge that will interpret the law according to partisan objective. However the left acts like the fair compromise is an outrage.
While it is impossible to quantify ethics, and easy to quantify results I personally feel that the three things I cited as wins from Trump earlier (no war with Syria, Iran, N.Korea de-escalation) are very good things which outweigh much of the bad. I am sure at this point thanks to the Oded Yinon plan and the report from general Wesley Clark, as well as the constant attempts at framing the Syrians for gas attacks that the military industrial complex of the USA desperately wants to draw us into more forever wars which I find to be the greatest moral abomination a country can suffer, so I am very thankful Trump hasn't started war with any nations... however, he has still committed horrible acts of war against many countries. At this point in time, we know that sanctions kill untold thousands of civilians. We know that drone bombing kills civilians yet he continues to do both, furthermore the assassination of a General for arming guerilla fighters (a crime we are equally guilty of) is a horrific act of war and a war crime which will surely go unpunished.
On sanctions, 40,000 Venezualans killed http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf
potentially 500,000 Iraqi children killed according to Unicef https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7.weekend9
2/3rds of sanctions fail to achieve their purpose https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/seven-fallacies-of-economic-sanctions/
I can think of no act more cowardly and disgusting than waging war against a foreign nation by attacking its civilian populace. I do not support Trump, but no more than I detest the entirety of our current political atmosphere here in America, where we are economically squeezed to tacitly accept the indiscriminate slaughter of foreign populations on behalf of a handful of oligarchical interests within the military industrial complex. Our entire leadership has shown they are ethically unfit to represent the population, and if they are accepted? So too is the blood on their hands on all of ours as well.
I don't know any reason to think Trump is worse on the subject of war and sanctions than any of his political opponents and there are good reasons to think he is better.
More here:
What did Trump do that merits impeachment, and what is the evidence?
What does "white supremacist shit" have to do with Trump's immigration policy?
Can you say what actions Trump has taken that show he is Putin's puppet? Because there are a number of things he's done that seem to contradict that view.
Trump:
- Approved sale of weapons to Ukraine (which Obama would not do).
- Trump is exporting natural gas to Poland to reduce Russian influence in Europe.
- Trump approved oil pipelines in the US that will supply export facilities. (Obama would not approve them. US exports of oil hurts Russia because Russia also export oil.)
- Massacred Russian mercenaries in Syria
- Trump authorized a cruise missile attack on Syria, an ally of Russia
- US shot down a Syrian military jet.
I like most of what Trump is doing as President. Many of these are things a Democrat would not do and some another Republican would not do. All those things you say make him unfit may not actually be relevant to performance as President, or if they are relevant, maybe they are not true.
Trump:
- Lowered business taxes (helps poor US citizens by stimulating economic growth: jobs, wages, working conditions all improve)
- Reducing government regulation (encourages economic growth)
- Trying to stop illegal immigration (helps poor US citizens by reducing competition for jobs etc)
- Forced Mexico to police their border.
- Renegotiated the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico - helps the poor citizens by keeping jobs in the US
- Trying to stop unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft by China
- Wiped out ISIS
- Decertified the "Iran Deal"
- Banned travel from terrorist producing countries.
- Moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem - Trump makes US policy based on domestic considerations, rather than kow-towing to world opinion.
- Terminated TPP
- Withdrew the US from the Paris climate accord.
- Approved new oil pipelines in the US (which Obama would not do)
- Forced NATO allies to contribute more to the alliance.
- Appointing judges who believe the law should be interpreted according to the intent when it was passed rather than according to their personal preferences.
- Tariffs on foreign steel and aluminium to protect domestic industries vital to US national security.
- Reversed restrictions on coal powered electricity production helping to keep electricity prices low - high energy costs hurt the poor the most.
- Veterans Administration: - incompetent hospital employees can be fired.
- Criticizes the news media for false reporting.
- Refuses to submit to political correctness. (Political correctness is used to censor free speech.)