Here in the OT, we mostly know where we all stand politically. My left leaning and dislike of Trump is no secret. So I get that I don't get some things about Trump. Please help me understand this: Doesn't all of the stuff you hear about him and his administration bother you? Are you simply willing to overlook these things just so a conservative agenda can be enacted?
In general, you'll only ever see me talking about policy or my opinions on it. I literally cannot criticize the President (and I generally take it back to "previous Presidents". I don't write much of what I think about WJ Clinton, GW Bush, Obama, or Trump personally. In general, I even avoid writing what I think about their agenda. For instance, I don't mind talking about the pro-business aspects of the new Tax law, or how I fare under the ACA. But I won't say something like "Thank the Lord Obama is smart enough to pass the ACA" or "Our dear new Leader is Making America Great!" (Other than pointing out that I didn't vote for either).
Specifically I am asking about
Russia: Just yesterday the head of the NSA says he has not been told to try to shutdown future Russian hacking. And the sanctions passed by Congress have not been enacted by the President. And his National Security Advisor has plead guilty to a felony. Etc. His pandering to Russian interests is so obvious to me. Not you?
Not me, no. In the abstract, America is supposed to be strong enough to fend off attacks on us, diplomatically, informationally/intelligence-wise, militarily or economically (DIME). The fact that our media sources (mainstream or not) have by-and-large been co-opted into providing their own agenda is neither a novel occurrence nor one that hasn't been exploited to disastrous results. Without going into security matters, there have been many countries, peers and competitors, who have done one or more "acts of war" in attempts to destabilize our economy, turn popular opinion/add propaganda, weaken our military or weaken our alliances. When they fail, we generally don't do a whole lot (write your congressman if you aren't cool with that, not me.
).
For Russian "pandering" in general, I'd say that if you look to Putin's actions (now that I can talk about his nuclear weapons) in the wake of how he doesn't like what Trump is doing, you'd see that he doesn't pander to everything. I think you'd find that he generally (rightly or wrongly) puts the American economy first in much of his decision-making, whether it's tariffs, opening up new oil wells, new tax laws, different health care, selling off national park land, etc. You can absolutely say you disagree with him doing so, but I don't think you can say that he's constantly pandering to Russian interests.
Is it just that it's Russia that you think it's inappropriate to pander to? Or Gulf States? Or EU nations? Or China? Without going into a "Obama/Bush/Clinton did it!11!" realm, I'd say that we've bent over backwards to a lot of countries in the last two decades that I don't agree with, in many different (sometimes unilateral) actions (between granting MFN status, honoring disputed agreements, paying off hostage takers, negotiating with terrorists, paying off corrupt politicians, upending elections, etc), in the name of "national interests" that we plebians haven't been deigned smart enough to fathom. I don't know why with Trump it's a firestorm issue, other than the polarization around Hillary's loss (I don't want to say "Trump's win", b/c I think that if Rubio or Huckabee or Bush would've beaten her there would be similar aspects fueled by the losing party, who went all-in for her).
Security: You were the ones crying about the lack of security of Hillary's emails. Does it not bother you that Trump's staff cannot pass background checks?
The "lack of security" of Hillary's emails is about the 1977th-reason for me not to vote for her. I put much more into her pathological need to make herself look better while still doing all the dirty things to get ahead, and in thinking that rules don't apply to her. The "lack of security" of Hillary's emails was only the reasoning put forward for the questions of "why is it wrong to do what she did?" "Because it's illegal." "Why?" "Because we have rules in place to prevent security issues, like non-cleared personnel getting access to material classified such that 'release of such material would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to
national security if made publicly available'."
What I find interesting (if I could answer a question with a question) is this: If Trump (or anyone else) somehow did something illegal with illegal people to illegally make it so that the rightful winner of the Presidential election didn't win, wouldn't that be something that caused "grave (for Top Secret)" or "serious (for Secret)" damage to the US? All because Hillary thought that she was above the rules and was
grossly negligent extremely careless with her information security?
Infidelity: Two affairs - one with a porn star and one with a Playboy Bunny - in just the past few years. To quote the King of Siam: "Etc., etc., etc."
While I think those are both "alleged" at this point (I literally hadn't heard about a Playboy Bunny and the porn star is something that, if it did happen, happened a decade before he ran for President), I've long since given up on looking to the President for moral advice. The President of the United States ceased to be "the Greatest Man in America" about the time of Washington. As someone pointed out above, if infidelity, broken marriages and offenses against God were barriers to political entry, there would be a lot fewer candidates. I'm not looking to my President for what goes on in his or her bedroom. I'm looking to my President to act in the best interests of the country, not his- or herself.
This probably didn't answer everything the way you wanted, but one man's opinion on your questions.
