The Trump Presidency

[Zakalwe]

Never going to happen.

To pass Congress, a change to the Constitution requires a 2/3 majority of both the House and the Senate. The 535 seats in Congress currently stand at  273 (R) v 262 (D)... Republicans would need at least 321 sets to pass the proposal and send it to the State Letgislatures for ratification.

To ratify a Constitution change it requires a minimum of 75% of the states to agree. There are 49 Bicameral State Legislatures and one unicameral (Nebraska), so 50 Upper Houses and 49 Lower Houses, a total of 99 chambers. Republicans would need to control 75 of those chambers, but they only control 57.

Even if, somehow, it were to pass Congress though some Senate and House rules changes, it would never pass the ratification stage. No Democrat chamber is going to vote The Fat Orange Turd a third term.

You are assuming that the modern GOP gives a rancid rat's arse about the Constitution and the rules. Trumps owns the SCOTUS. His pet attack-dog, Musk, has shut-down USAID. They are trampling across the laws of the land and the mores of normal behaviour.

Lets be honest though. The chances of Trumpelthinskin actually surviving his second term are low. His chances or surviving that term without further major cognitive decline are close to zero. A third term is an irrelevance and is only a blatant attempt to curry favour by Andy Ogles. The GOP are going to rework the system to ensure that shaking their grasp on power will be very, very hard. Vance is ready to step in once Trump has served his usefulness and they wheel him off to dribble in a nursing home somewhere.

I personally think that we are watching the start of the collapse of the United States. If Musk stops Federal aid payments to citizens then a civil war won't be long behind. There's enough people out there that think that Luigi Mangione is actually a hero....

[raven]

Well, now we got a fun little trade war going on with you guys, eh?
That'll aboot bring down the price of eggs, fer sure, eh?
Gods, this timeline gets dumber and dumber with each day.

[Luke Pemberton]

The GOP are going to rework the system to ensure that shaking their grasp on power will be very, very hard. Vance is ready to step in once Trump has served his usefulness and they wheel him off to dribble in a nursing home somewhere.

I've held the belief for a while that Trump has just been a vehicle for the GOP.

I personally think that we are watching the start of the collapse of the United States. If Musk stops Federal aid payments to citizens then a civil war won't be long behind. There's enough people out there that think that Luigi Mangione is actually a hero....

Europe is no bed of roses. It is going to rip itself apart in the next 10 years. I do not think the EU project will survive the rise of the right. Populism is on the rise everywhere, and Europe has a knack for showing the world full-throttle fascism with extra shiny bits.

[Zakalwe]

Europe is no bed of roses. It is going to rip itself apart in the next 10 years. I do not think the EU project will survive the rise of the right. Populism is on the rise everywhere, and Europe has a knack for showing the world full-throttle fascism with extra shiny bits.

The EU is composed of individual countries, each with their own head of State. No-one Prime Minister has the control that the POTUS has.

[Luke Pemberton]

The EU is composed of individual countries, each with their own head of State. No-one Prime Minister has the control that the POTUS has.

I wasn't really comparing the EU and the US directly in terms of the power of POTUS, more that the EU is providing a focal point for dissent and populism. The political landscape is changing across Europe and that is going to be terrible for folk trying to get by on a day to day basis. The breaking up of the EU is what Putin wants. These are very worrying times globally.

[Peter B]

Well, now we got a fun little trade war going on with you guys, eh?
That'll aboot bring down the price of eggs, fer sure, eh?
Gods, this timeline gets dumber and dumber with each day.

Well, at least most of Australia has largely escaped the worst of the new tariffs, at 10%. Australia's territory of Norfolk Island will instead cop a 29% tariff...which doesn't make a lot of sense seeing as it apparently doesn't export anything to the USA.

Making even less sense is specifically listing Heard and McDonald Islands for a 10% tariff. First, the islands are another Australian territory, so why bother listing them separately from Australia? Second, they're uninhabited...by humans anyway.

[raven]

Clearly, those penguins are up to something. Feathers McGraw shall have his revenge!
Again!

[JayUtah]

Somebody must have told Trump that those noises Pingu makes are penguinish for "Trump has tiny hands," or something.

There's a great Twitter thread making the rounds showing that the tariff numbers are a stupid simple formula that misunderstands several basic economics metrics.

[Peter B]

Somebody must have told Trump that those noises Pingu makes are penguinish for "Trump has tiny hands," or something.

There's a great Twitter thread making the rounds showing that the tariff numbers are a stupid simple formula that misunderstands several basic economics metrics.

Is there any way you can point us to it?

Anyway, this video claims that Trump's economic advisers actually have a plan, and that there is at least some vague sort of logic behind it:

(24 minutes)

[Peter B]

Never mind, I assume this 10 minute video explains what's going on, including decoding the scary formula...

[JayUtah]

Never mind, I assume this 10 minute video explains what's going on...formula

Yes, that's what I was talking about. The interviewee James Suroweicki is the author of the Twitter thread, but the video explains it more smoothly. It does leave out the companion claim that this is the method that various LLM AIs spit out when you ask one to formulate a tariff policy. I'm not sure what if anything that proves. There's also the issue that the computation considers only trade deficits in goods, not in services. The U.S. runs a trade surplus with most countries for services.

[Trebor]

Well, now we got a fun little trade war going on with you guys, eh?
That'll aboot bring down the price of eggs, fer sure, eh?
Gods, this timeline gets dumber and dumber with each day.

Well, at least most of Australia has largely escaped the worst of the new tariffs, at 10%. Australia's territory of Norfolk Island will instead cop a 29% tariff...which doesn't make a lot of sense seeing as it apparently doesn't export anything to the USA.

Making even less sense is specifically listing Heard and McDonald Islands for a 10% tariff. First, the islands are another Australian territory, so why bother listing them separately from Australia? Second, they're uninhabited...by humans anyway.

Seems they have their own internet domain ".hm". Same for the rest, looks like they just downloaded the list of TLDs and used that.
I don't think these guys have any idea what they are doing.