Willis Hart Said: On Attempting to Meet a Trump Hater Halfway (Listing Some of His Accomplishments While Also Enumerating Some of His Weak Points) Yeah, they're just not interested in that anything short of despising the man 24/7 makes you at the very least, Trump adjacent (to use their moronic lingo). My advice would be to try and skirt the subject altogether and if that doesn't work just walk away.
Posted by Will "Take No Prisoners" Hart on Friday, June 16, 2023 at 8:18 PM.
Commentary: donald tRump has "accomplishments"? Is Willis saying he thinks donald tRump accomplished some good things as predisent? I mean, bad things can also be accomplished. Which, I'd say is the category that most of what donald accomplished as predisent falls into. Accomplishments that were harmful to the country. But I think that Willis is talking about accomplishments that were beneficial for the country.
So why doesn't he rattle off a few of these alleged accomplishments? Maybe he can't think of any? Is just guessing there must be some? Is that why he advises walking away? To avoid looking stupid when he can't come up with any?
Well, maybe Willis can't. I G00gled and found an interesting article (excerpts below). I'm not surprised that (by accident or because others in the dotard administration actually knew what they were doing) that some good things were accomplished. Though bad things (as per the article) were also accomplished (as the article notes).
| 30 Things Donald Trump Did as President You Might Have Missed... Trump's presidency may be best remembered for its cataclysmic end. But his four years as president also changed real American policy in lasting ways... We asked Politico's best-in-class policy reporters to recap some of the ways Trump changed the country while in office, for better or worse. 1/18/2021
01. Trump didn't repeal Obamacare -- he accidentally bolstered it. [donald trump tried to kill Obamacare, but instead] "grew government subsidizing of the exchanges by upwards of $20 billion per year". [see article for an explaination of how that happened]. Bad, Good. Though accidently. The intent was bad. 02. Trump refocused national security on great power competition. The 2018 Trump Administration strategy rewired the Defense Department's vast bureaucracy away from a focus on fighting insurgents and terrorists in the Middle East toward a long-term strategic competition with China and Russia. As a result, the military is changing how it trains personnel, which technologies it buys, and the geographic areas of the world where it prioritizes its forces. Good. 03. Trump failed to provide workplace guidance, making safety harder for workers. Arguably the most consequential decision Trump made involving American workers was something it chose not to do: It declined to implement a so-called "emergency temporary standard" when the coronavirus pandemic hit. ... [as a result] Americans still face a dangerously unpredictable range of safety conditions when they show up to work. Though OSHA has cited some companies for coronavirus-related transgressions, many large corporations received meager fines even in cases where workers died from Covid-19. Bad. 04. Trump boosted religious organizations in education. Bad? I'm guessing. Given that this was a Betsy DeVos rule change. 05. Trump's Interior Department set a new standard for ignoring Congress. [They] got away with it: Democrats complained but never followed through on a subpoena threat. By the final six months of the Trump administration, Interior officials completely stopped attending House hearings meant to flag issues with the department. The behavior all but guarantees that future administrations will follow suit. Bad. 06. Legal marijuana spreads across most of the country. Despite its anti-weed rhetoric, the Trump administration stood to the side as 18 states liberalized their marijuana laws from 2016 to 2020, including staunchly conservative states like Mississippi and South Dakota. Despite former Attorney General William Barr’s anti-trust scrutiny of cannabis deals, the federal government remained relatively hands-off on marijuana policy. Good. Though this "accomplishment" was achieved via inaction. 07. Trump curbed relief for defrauded students. Trump dismantled Obama-era policies that were designed to curb abuses by for-profit colleges, including rules designed to make it easier for borrowers to obtain loan forgiveness if they were cheated or duped by their college [under the direction of] Education Secretary Betsy DeVos... Bad. Though "Biden has already committed to swiftly reversing Trump’s changes to the rules". 08. Trump made it easier to prosecute financial crimes like money laundering. The Trump administration played a major but little-noticed role in pushing Congress to enact the most sweeping overhaul of financial crimes safeguards in decades, measures intended to stop money flowing to terrorists, drug traffickers and other wrongdoers. The legislation made its way into the National Defense Authorization Act... Good. 09. Trump shrank the food safety net -- a lot. Under Trump, the Agriculture Department scaled back the $60 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food support program for low-income Americans formerly known as food stamps. ... 755,000 Americans have lost their access to food aid under SNAP, according to the USDA's own estimates. Bad. 10. Millions of workers lost access to extra pay for long hours. Under Trump, the federal government rolled out a series of employer-friendly rules and decisions ... One of the most significant: His Labor Department finalized an overtime rule notably weaker than that issued under Obama, leaving millions of workers ineligible. Bad. 11. On gas emissions, Trump went the opposite direction from the rest of the world. ... The Trump rollbacks [of Obama-era rules aimed at cracking down on methane emissions] ... were considered so out of the norm that even oil companies such as BP and Shell publicly spoke out against them. Bad. 12. Trump imposed a near-ban on government use of Chinese drones. Like many Chinese products and services, Chinese-made drones became a focal point for the Trump administration. Federal agencies seeking to end China's dominance of the drone market, amid concerns that equipment could be used to spy, have looked for ways to bolster domestic production. Good? 13. Trump made it possible to follow the Pentagon's money. The Pentagon makes up the largest slice of discretionary spending in the federal budget, so it might surprise you that until Trump, no one had conducted an audit of where America's defense dollars go ... The overall exercise is seen as a milestone in the odyssey to someday verify where all our defense tax dollars are going. Good. 14. Trump goosed the economy with tax cuts... Trump's biggest legislative achievement was arguably the $1.5 trillion tax cut package Republicans pushed through Congress, which he said would super-charge the economy. The 2017 tax bill slashed individual and corporate tax rates and made dozens of other major changes to the tax code that affected virtually every facet of the economy, from small businesses to university endowments. Good?, no Bad! The language in Politico article suggests this a good accomplishment. I disagree. "Democrats [did] a good job of convincing voters it mainly benefited the wealthy"... as per Politico. Yeah, because that's the truth. That's what republicans ALWAYS do. Cut taxes for the rich and corporations. 15. Trump cracked down -- mostly successfully -- on unwanted calls and texts. For years the federal government made little headway against the plague of unwanted automated phone calls that have annoyed Americans -- 19 billion such calls last year alone. Despite plenty of rancor, Trump and his agency heads succeeded in working with Congress to make significant headway in curbing -- but not yet eliminating -- the annoyance. Good? That hasn't been my experience. I'm getting more of these annoying calls now then in the past. As are other family members of mine. 16. Trump exiled climate scientists from Washington... Officials refused to publicize dozens of studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change on the agriculture sector. The department even stopped the release of a plan on how to respond to the climate change crisis. Bad. 17. Trump took a big swing at finally fixing health-care technology. ... Early in 2020 ... the Trump administration released a big ball of rules meant to sweep aside barriers to sharing health information. The administration's rules have several targets but they focus on practices like "information blocking", whereby companies or providers might not release necessary data for competitive advantage... Good? As per the article "the Trump administration [due to the pandemic] has delayed the effective [implementation] date. 18. Trump rescinded rules protecting workers at federal contractors. ... In March 2017, Trump signed a Congressional Review Act resolution to revoke a regulation enacted under Obama the previous year that required businesses to publicly disclose any sexual harassment or labor law violations over the previous three years whenever they bid on large federal contracts. The goal of the rule was to prevent federal money from flowing to firms with a history of such infractions. Bad. 19. Trump went all-in on ending curbs on auto emissions, dividing the industry. ... he Obama administration’s plan would have required automakers to improve fuel efficiency by 5 percent per year, but the Trump administration rolled those targets back to just 1.5 percent improvement each year. Bad. 20. The anti-monopolists started winning -- despite Trump at first, then with his help. Bad!, later Good! And, no, not bad because I'm pro-monopoly. Bad because this isn't true. As per a 4/7/2024 Washington Monthly article, tRump's antitrust law was (under tRump) selectively applied to punish tRump enemies and reward his allies. My "good" is due to the fact that, "after he won the election, Biden committed to the cause like no other president had in modern times" [using the tRump era law]. 21. A big crackdown on legal immigrants. While it was no surprise to anyone who followed his 2016 presidential campaign that Trump wanted to crack down on illegal immigration at the southern border, his administration also imposed tighter restrictions on legal immigration, even of the high-skilled workers he claimed to want in the country. Bad. 22. Trump impeded regulation -- even though Republicans wanted it. Trump's EPA essentially blew up a bipartisan deal to more strictly regulate toxic chemicals that Americans are exposed to daily and instead tapped a group of chemicals industry experts to run and advise the program. Bad. 23. Trump rallied the world against China's 5G dominance. The Trump administration put national security concerns around 5G in the spotlight, arguing that Chinese equipment used to build next-generation Internet networks posed a surveillance threat to Western countries. Good? As per the article, "Many countries are still mulling whether they share the alarm coming from US officials". 24. Trump doled out billions in aid to farmers. Faced with years of declining prices and shrunken foreign markets, farmers have been struggling throughout the Trump administration. Trump officials have tried to mend food producers' finances by doling out billions in assistance in order to keep the industry afloat. Bad? As per the article "the vast majority of the aid went to traditional row crop farmers, many of whom were part of Trump's political base". 25. Trump rolled back rules on banks designed to prevent another financial crisis. Bad. The Biden administration has paid a price (and been blamed) for the consequences of these rollbacks. 26. Trump galvanized an anti-Silicon Valley movement in the GOP. Lawmakers furious at Silicon Valley have for years taken aim at Section 230, a crucial 1996 legal provision that shields online platforms from lawsuits over the user content they host or decide to restrict. But it was a niche issue until Trump escalated the attacks over allegations that social media companies are biased against conservatives. Bad. This is a personal grievance of tRump. And, even though he now has his own social media company, he's going to cash in a sell his shares as soon as he is able. So, he probably still doesn't care. Like if, Truth Social were to be sued. Or Twitter, now that Elon owns it. Or perhaps Rumble. I doubt Conservative would like that. 27. Trump reduced environmental approvals for infrastructure projects. The impact [is that] New projects can be more polluting or damaging to the environment over the long term and still be approved... Bad. 28. Trump's White House took quiet steps to promote US development of AI. Good? 29. Trump rolled back rules on racially segregated housing. Bad. 30. Trump made trade a top priority, but had only mixed results. ... Trump fell far short on his promise to negotiate bilateral trade deals to make up for his decision to pull out of the TPP... Bad. I dont' say bad because I'm a free trader. I say bad because the moves tRump took hurt US consumers and US farmers. Because the CORRECT way to address this problem would be through congress. But the republican party is pro-free trade. At least most of them are. And some Democrats. I agree with the Bernie Sanders position. |
Looks to me like most of the dotard administration's accomplishments were bad. The ones cited by this article, at least. But it's entirely possible that Willis likes some (or all) of those negative accomplishments. Or could (if he tried) come up with good accomplishments not cited in this article?
Note: The Politico article doesn't label any of these accomplishments good or bad. I did that. What follows the "good/bad" rating is my commentary.
In conclusion -- donald tRump was the worst president in US history, as a survey of historians has determined. (Released Feb 2024. The tally came from 154 presidential specialists who are current and recent members of the American Political Science Association. They were asked to give every president a score, from 0 to 100).
So, why is the Hartster defending dotard? And saying such idiotic defending only makes him "Trump adjacent"? I'm not aware of who (if anyone) is using this "lingo". I say people who defend tRump (the WORST president ever) aren't "tRump adjacent", they are trumpers... full stop.
I mean, if you can't take the "bold" stance to be 100 percent opposed to the horrible Orange Turd, that makes you part of the problem, not a part of the solution. IMO.
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