Okay, what can we realistically expect from a Trump presidency?

[onodera]

Or you can follow him to his country when he's deported.

[C0ckney]

You mean businesses like the construction business (illegal contruction workers) or real estate (I guess housekeeping services like those employed by real estate companies which own skyscrapers often employ illegal immigrants).

I am sure this will have an interesting effect on Trumps Megacorporation (which seems to do a lot in those 2 fields of business)

i'm that trump has engaged in such practices. his reputation as a businessman proceeds him after all...

[Giancarlo]

Or you can follow him to his country when he's deported.

He won't be deported.

[Aeson]

i would change the law to make deportation easy and instant, bypassing the courts and severely restricting or preferably removing any appeals.

There is already a way for the President to bypass habeas corpus and it's called martial law. That will not be popular even with Trump's base.

Also your plan would result in the deportation of many American citizens, since there is no recourse to a false accusation.

as for the economy, the impact is certainly open to question, and there is certain no shortage of arguments that can be made in support of such policies.

Not really. Losing 10 million workers has to hurt an economy. Especially when the jobs opened up are so hard physically, low paying, and regional/temporary that very few unemployed are going to want to fill them.

[C0ckney]

There is already a way for the President to bypass habeas corpus and it's called martial law. That will not be popular even with Trump's base.

Also your plan would result in the deportation of many American citizens, since there is no recourse to a false accusation.

that's clearly not what i'm suggesting, and you know that.

Not really. Losing 10 million workers has to hurt an economy. Especially when the jobs opened up are so hard physically, low paying, and regional/temporary that very few unemployed are going to want to fill them.

depends what you mean. if you mean reduce GDP, then yes, of course. if you mean most people's standard of living, then that's much more open to debate. it's well known, for example, that around half of immigrant households are on some form of welfare (compared to about 30% of US households), rising to around 70% for hispanic immigrant households. it is very unlikely, therefore, that these people are having a positive impact on other's standard of living; indeed, since illegal immigrants push down wages for working class natives and legal immigrants, they are almost certainly making things worse for them.

plus of course a good argument can be made that if a business can only survive by employing illegal labour, evading taxes and breaking minimum wage laws, then it's not a business at all. one can also say that such practices hold back automation, etc.

[Proteus_MST]

x

Wrong forum, please delete

[Aeson]

that's clearly not what i'm suggesting, and you know that.

It's the only constitutional way to get around habeas corpus other than an amendment. There is no chance of passing such an amendment.

Removing the courts from the deportation system guarantees many citizens will also be deported.

depends what you mean. if you mean reduce GDP, then yes, of course. if you mean most people's standard of living, then that's much more open to debate.

Declines in GDP are known as recessions or depressions. Standards of living do not fare well.

it's well known, for example, that around half of immigrant households are on some form of welfare (compared to about 30% of US households), rising to around 70% for hispanic immigrant households. it is very unlikely, therefore, that these people are having a positive impact on other's standard of living; indeed, since illegal immigrants push down wages for working class natives and legal immigrants, they are almost certainly making things worse for them.

Illegals do pay taxes, they don't generally get any form of welfare and can't avail of many government services. They generally don't get subsidized, quite the opposite.

Because of the jobs most illegals perform they don't drive down wages for others directly. These are or would be be minimum wage jobs if above-board. Where it does hurt the economy is how low wages hurt their purchasing power, reducing the affluence of consumers in general, which undermines sales, profits, and thus wages in other industries.

Reducing them to 0 won't help.

plus of course a good argument can be made that if a business can only survive by employing illegal labour, evading taxes and breaking minimum wage laws, then it's not a business at all. one can also say that such practices hold back automation, etc.

The jobs involved do not lend themselves to automation. Illegals can be cheap labor, but automation tends to be even cheaper. Where it's possible it's already used.

We'd be better off as a nation paying them more and giving them a path to citizenship... but it's generally the Trump supporters and various other parts of the R coalition who don't want that.

[Giancarlo]

The 70% number for Hispanic households is totally made up. Sorry, cockney... But you better provide proof before making some ridiculous claim. Most don't get welfare as most don't qualify for it (if these are undocumented households). Saying it is well known isn't backing up your argument. Absolutely silly.

And Trump will not remove the court system from it. 48 democrats will block that and its guaranteed many republicans in swing districts will too.

[Aeson]

On the issue of minimum wage, at least one of Trump's list for SCOTUS thinks it (and child labor laws) are unconstitutional.

[Giancarlo]

You see if democrats lost seats, for example, and went down to 43 I would be more worried. But he isn't going to be able to pass this or that.

[Ellestar]

Can we expect Euromaidan?

http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/lab/5851650732.html

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/npo/5865025090.html

Exactly like in Ukraine

[onodera]

Removing the courts from the deportation system guarantees many citizens will also be deported.

How? Don't you people have proof of your citizenship? Like a government-issued ID card?

[onodera]

Speaking seriously, I expect regress in environmentalism, education and healthcare. Lots of lobbying and pandering to the businesses. Suboptimal fiscal policy.

I don't expect noticeable regress in LGBT or reproductive rights, unless Trump really hands the reins over to Pence when he's bored.

Value neutral changes I expect are in migration policy and law enforcement. I wouldn't riot in the streets come February if I were a BLM supporter.

Foreign policy? No measurable changes beyond pissing off Mexico.

[giblets]

How? Don't you people have proof of your citizenship? Like a government-issued ID card?

Closest thing would be a social security card, but it's possible for non-citizens to get one if they've been authorized to live and work in the US permanently.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

a snip from Glenn Greenwald

Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable, scandal-plagued candidate, who — for very good reason — was widely perceived to be a protector and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. It’s astonishing that those of us who tried frantically to warn Democrats that nominating Hillary Clinton was a huge and scary gamble, that all empirical evidence showed that she could lose to anyone and that Bernie Sanders would be a much stronger candidate especially in this climate — are now the ones being blamed: by the very same people who insisted on ignoring all that data and nominating her anyway.

But that’s just basic blame-shifting and self-preservation. Far more significant is what this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated: someone who — when she wasn’t dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants who gave million-dollar checks — spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic Party as corrupt, status-quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed industries.

It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate. But, just as Obama did so powerfully in 2008, he could credibly run as an enemy of the D.C. and Wall Street system that has steamrolled over so many people, while Hillary Clinton is its loyal guardian, its consummate beneficiary.

Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate (for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to more efficiently manage it. That, as Matt Stoller’s indispensable article in the Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically proficient, mildly benevolent mangers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted.

.

Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, [elites] are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to delegitimize those grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed. That, in turn, only ensures there will be many more Brexits, and Trumps, in our collective future.

.

People often talk about “racism/sexism/xenophobia” v. “economic suffering” as if they are totally distinct dichotomies. Of course there are substantial elements of both in Trump’s voting base, but the two categories are inextricably linked: the more economic suffering people endure, the angrier and more bitter they get, the easier it is to direct their anger to scapegoats. Economic suffering often fuels ugly bigotry. It is true that many Trump voters are relatively well-off and that many of the nation’s poorest voted for Clinton, but, as Michael Moore quite presciently warned, those portions of the country that have been most ravaged by free trade orgies and globalism — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa — were filled with rage and “see [Trump] as a chance to be the human Molotov cocktail that they’d like to throw into the system to blow it up.” Those are the places that were decisive in Trump’s victory.

.


For many years, the U.S. — like the U.K. and other western nations — has embarked on a course that virtually guaranteed a collapse of elite authority and internal implosion. From the invasion of Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis to the all-consuming framework of prisons and endless wars, societal benefits have been directed almost exclusively to the very elite institutions most responsible for failure at the expense of everyone else.

It was only a matter of time before instability, backlash and disruption resulted. Both Brexit and Trump unmistakably signal its arrival. The only question is whether those two cataclysmic events will be the peak of this process, or just the beginning. And that, in turn, will be determined by whether their crucial lessons are learned — truly internalized — or ignored in favor of self-exonerating campaigns to blame everyone else.
.

Sad to say, it's just the beginning.