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Alright folks, election is over, now it's predictions time! I want your predictions for what actually gets done in terms of the Republican party platform for 2024, from this site:https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform
I'm just going to go with the top 10. Now of course these are not precisely defined predictions, but in general I'm going to be predicting something like "is this problem solved, to where the majority of Republican voters would feel it's either no longer an issue, or at least will be happy with what got changed?"
Let me know if you have thoughts on a better way to do this. Now, onto the predictions!
1 SEAL THE BORDER AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION
I give this a 70% chance, high conf. that major action is taking to secure the border, make illegal immigrants' lives worse in the U.S.
2 CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY
I'd give this a 15% chance, med. confidence. This one is a doozy.
3 END INFLATION, AND MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AGAIN
30% chance, low confidence. Too many factors in the economy and I don't trust Trump's plan.
4 MAKE AMERICA THE DOMINANT ENERGY PRODUCER IN THE WORLD, BY FAR!
60% chance, med. confidence. There is a lot of low hanging fruit. If Trump and co. can wrangle the bureaucracy, this could happen!
5 STOP OUTSOURCING, AND TURN THE UNITED STATES INTO A MANUFACTURING SUPERPOWER
30% chance, low confidence. It's definitely possible, but rising prices of goods makes this real unpopular.
6 LARGE TAX CUTS FOR WORKERS, AND NO TAX ON TIPS!
40% chance, medium confidence. Gosh I hope so!
7 DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION, OUR BILL OF RIGHTS, AND OUR FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS, INCLUDING FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF RELIGION, AND THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
95% chance, high confidence. I don't see freedoms/rights getting worse under Trump, personally.
8 PREVENT WORLD WAR THREE, RESTORE PEACE IN EUROPE AND IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AND BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY -- ALL MADE IN AMERICA
95% chance, low conf. we avoid WW3 under a Trump term. 80% chance we end the war in Europe, med. confidence. Idk about the dome
9 END THE WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
40% chance, medium confidence anything significant gets done. The Deep State goes Deep.
10 STOP THE MIGRANT CRIME EPIDEMIC, DEMOLISH THE FOREIGN DRUG CARTELS, CRUSH GANG VIOLENCE, AND LOCK UP VIOLENT OFFENDERS
55% chance, medium competence. I think cracking down on crime is doable but, again, quite unpopular for optics. we'll see.
Reason: "Neither Harris nor Trump Is a Friend of Free Speech"
Can't speak to the flag burning, but the airwaves are publicly owned and granted by the government. If they are being flagrantly misused to spread proven lies and undermine the public which owns them, why shouldn't the license get pulled?
Likewise, libel and slander laws exist. Why shouldn't Trump avail himself of them same as people have against him?
He doesn't just want to use existing laws, he said he wants to 'open up' libel laws. It's also just pretty pathetic - did Obama ever threaten to sue Birtherists for libel, much less threaten to 'open up' the laws to get at them?
Obama had a media environment an order of magnitude more friendly to him and his goals, there is simply no comparison between the simpering star struck media under Obama and the vast open collusion between the great majority of the media & academic landscape to take every opportunity to blatantly attack, lie and mislead about Trump.
This is a pretty revealing answer, since it indicates that the real grievance isn't actual libel, it's the overall hostile media landscape, and it's pretty chilling for a President to suggest that laws be changed in order that he can lash out against media outlets that don't like him. If he's that sensitive to partisan or negative coverage, he shouldn't be in politics.
Not quite as revealing as you might think; laws are made for man, not men for the law.
If a law or set of laws are not working as intended or being enforced unevenly, you change the law. The point of a law is what it does. The point of Libel / slander / defamation laws is to prevent large public actors from egregiously publicly lying on purpose in order to damage or destroy someone.
There’s nothing inconsistent in thinking that those laws exist for a reason, and seeing the Trump case as a good example of why those laws exist, noting that they clearly aren’t having the desired deterrent effect, and then saying we need to do something about that.
We’ve completely sacralized massive media companies, to their benefit. But they can be shamelessly bad actors too in the same way that companies that make chemicals, arms, cars, etc are.
I’m not necessarily agreeing that “opening up” libel laws in the right move, but there’s nothing inherently incoherent or pernicious about it.
This problem still existed under Obama it was just camouflaged by a sycophantic relationship between big media and power.
Fine, that's a legitimate point (which I completely disagree with but let's leave that for one second), but it's still probably a bad idea to have a sitting President be the one to make that case. If there is one person with reference to whom we probably ought to err on the side of freedom of speech as regards libel, it is the President. If libel laws really should be broader, it should be very easy to make that case without having to centre it around a politician who dislikes what his media opponents say.
What accusations/lies against Trump from mainstream media figures do you think Trump is currently prevented from taking libel actions against that he ought to be able to if and when an 'opened' libel regime took effect (and that represents some higher/more sinister plane of lying that any previous President did not have to deal with)?
So here’s the departure for me; while I don’t find the idea around reforming libel laws necessarily objectionable, I don’t actually agree that this is the best strategy.
Trump tends to take the most extreme opening love as a bargaining chip, which is a common business tactic and something he outlined as part of his preferred strategy in “The Art of the Deal”.
I think legacy media alternatives like long form podcasts, Twitter/X and Substack are completely eating the legacy media’s lunch, and the worst actors are suffering the necessary consequences of tanking their reputation after so many years of blatant lies and manipulation.
I’m personally quite optimistic that the necessary change is already well on its way through pure consumer choice and the breaking of the hard wall of censorship & collusion. The preference cascade is already here, political capital is better spent elsewhere.
I don’t know enough specifics about current libel law to spell out which particular things are actionable, but I do hope that the trump organization litigates to the maximum extent possible through current law without trying to force a square peg through a round hole.
As for the uniquely dishonest treatment of Trump by the media, that’s eight plus years in the making with too many example to name.
The Russia Hoax is the obvious big one, but I distinctly remember the first small example I saw myself that made my radar go off just a tad; it was his during his first trip to Japan, the whole fish food row with Shinzo Abe. This footage starts exactly a few seconds after Abe overturns his box of fish food over, but is cut where it was to make Trump maximally look like an oaf when he was just following Abe’s lead.
That stupid footage was like a whole news cycle, super early in his presidency. And it just got progressively worse after that. After the tenth incident like that I simply started to assume I was being lied to when someone said something negative about him, and I tended to be right much more often than not.
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