Titandan

Lower taxes, economic boom, kept interest rates low, no new wars, met with world leaders to broker new deals that would have benefitted America, Abraham Accords to bring stability to the middle east, drilled oil on American soil to make America energy independent, stopped the Iran nuclear deal (which stupidly gave Iran billions of US dollars which partially funded hamas), less inflation, negotiated deal to get out US out of Afghanistan, made opportunity zones in less developed urban areas so that small businesses in these areas could get tax breaks and jobs could be created, funded for HBCU's, lowered black unemployment rate, prison reform. I think these are all things that affected the average American in a good way.

This doesn't really interest me... sorry. I'm pretty sure Putin or Russia in general did meddle in our elections or at least attempted to. But whether or not a president accuses a world leader or meddling or not in public doesn't matter. Countries, leaders, and dictators will do whatever's in their best interest or their country's best interest. Trump could say half truths to make Putin come to the table. If that prevents hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian solders and Russian soldiers from dying on the battle field, I'm all for it.

Improvement of American lives and America as a country. That's how I judge the success of a president's term.

Man... so many accusations lol Federal debt is caused by overspending. Blame his overspending for that. When you have a wife who is spending more money every month than you're making, you don't blame your boss for not giving you more money. You have a sit down with your wife and say, "Honey, this is how much we make. We can't afford a Channel Bag this month." Interesting how your mind works... PPP loans were definitely stupid but on hindsight we probably shouldn't have forced shutdowns and lockdowns to begin with. We should have quarantined and kept the elderly people safe and went about our business. The policy of putting children in cages and separating "families" started under Obama (while continuing under Trump) and I don't completely disagree with that. Many of these migrant minors were not accompanied by their parents. Without documentation these children (many of which were raped by the coyotes that smuggled them in) did not have parents who brought them over. We can have superficial empathy towards any situation that we have no idea about but when you look deeper into these issues, the system we created is causing a lot of mayhem and misery amongst those who are victims of these types of exploitations. I've seen the atrocities that MS13 and 18th St gangs have caused in LA. My church was deep in MS13 territory and they do the most heinous things to their own people. Weak borders brings more opportunities to these types of criminals to do business. If you're really interested, I can fill you in on what goes on down here via DM. What did he attempt to do to overturn the election? Do you believe the "insurrection" on Jan 6th was an attempt to overturn the gov? I'm trying to use reason with substantive proof of wrong doing and mainly would like to stay on policies that bettered or worsened the average citizen's life in America. I really don't care about Trump or Harris. The average person's life improving or degrading is a much more consequential issue for me.

Trump's staffers were fired and/or jailed during covid? No. I'm talking about the forced shut down of the United States and allowing states to enforce months long lock downs. His Operation Warp Speed that encouraged people to get undertested vaccines and pretty much become guinea pigs in real time. His failure to look into the virology lab in Wuhan and do proper investigation on the origins of the pandemic. Keeping the proper people accountable for this world wide catastrophe. Just a lot of what happened during this time really made me question what the heck was going on and why wasn't Trump interested in getting on this issue. At least for the purpose of not allowing another one like this to happen again...

Are you talking about when Trump met Putin and Putin said Russia didn't meddle in America's election? What do you want him to say? When you're in negotiation with an opponent, do you disrespect him needlessly? I heard Trump say he has a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un and Putin and President Xi. He also called Kim little rocket man to mock him when he kept testing ICBM missiles over Japan. Not everyone understands Trump's strategy when he speaks. And oftentimes he actually seems extremely undisciplined when he goes off on seemingly crazy rants. But like it or not, his unpredictability worked to his benefit in my opinion. These world leaders have never seen anyone quite like Trump and knew that he wasn't controlled by the institutions or the deep state or whatever you want to call it. That unpredictability and negotiating tactics behind closed doors is what probably caused for these world leaders to come to a peaceful resolution with Trump. Trump was the first US President to cross over to the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone. He had two meetings with Kim Jong Un (in Singapore and Vietnam I believe). Two things that no president has ever accomplished with any North Korean leader. Trump was about to implement a very tough China Trade deal before Covid hit and there were no talks of China taking over Taiwan back then. For all your criticism about what Trump said about Putin, Russia didn't attempt anything while Trump was in office. Maybe you can learn a thing or two from Trump instead of calling him a coward under Putin. Would Putin have invaded Ukraine under Trump? I don't think so and that's because Trump understood that Ukraine had no business being invited to join NATO. I know some of you are extremely angry at the media for lying about 9/11 and the Iraq War, but they have been doing the same thing with the Ukraine War and Trump Russia Collusion Hoax. I'm actually listing accomplishments of Trump. Please list his foreign policy blunders and we can debate from there. BTW, just so you know... when you're in a negotiating process with your opponent, you don't needlessly accuse them of meddling if they say they didn't. Nothing gets accomplished by doing that. Maybe later on, he might express his true thoughts. Or maybe he truly believed what he said after hearing from the horse's mouth. Who really knows? I still don't think that takes anything away from his superior foreign policy decisions compared to Bush, Obama, and Biden.

By what metric? Trump's worst policies were his initial draconian measures on covid but no one really knew anything about this pandemic when it first came out so I kind of give him a pass. And his second worst policy was that he didn't cut spending. What are the metrics your using to judge his presidency?

I believe if the US interferes with other countries' elections, why the heck wouldn't other super powers try to meddle in ours? When Trump was "whining" about election interference and voter fraud before the 2016 election, this is what Obama said.

If you want a good point of reference, you can look at his track record. That's the benefit of looking back at his first term. Immigration: Did Trump deport millions of illegal immigrants? Nope. Most likely scenario is that those who commit crimes will be imprisoned and deported or extradited to their mother country. No catch and release, and we will definitely see less crime if the local DA's comply. I repeat, I'm from LA and our DA, George Gascon, is a psycho who has a horrible record of increasing crime wherever he goes and continues to get re-assigned. I'm not going to put that on you because you probably don't know the issues we are dealing with on the west coast. As a kid of legal immigrants, we need to get a good grasp of who's coming in and out of the country and we need to enforce laws or at least change them so that we can lower illegal drug and human trafficking activity. I don't think that's crazy at all.. Health Care: Repeal Obamacare which gives half of the money to insurance corporations. And revise health care. Also make it optional. None of this individual mandate BS. We should not be forcing people to sign up for such a wasteful, inefficient, low quality, crap program. Taxes: Lower taxes help the middle class the most. Rich people will find every loophole in the books because they can afford the top lawyers and CPA's. I work in real estate and I know a lot of high net worth people. They could give a rat's ass about tax cuts and even inflation for that matter. They will get their breaks. What they really don't want is simplified flat tax because in that case, they can't utilize the loopholes that are afforded by their accounting experts. Once again, Trump said during the debates. He uses the same loopholes that Hillary and her donors use. If you want to really make the rich pay their fair share, 25% sales tax across the board. Talking about psycho, Kamala wants unrealized capital gains tax. Why would anyone invest in anything if this passes? The rich will move all of their assets to overseas accounts and tax havens while middle class will have to just pay the unrealized gains every year. Just being real with you bro.. Education: Public education sucks in the inner cities. This isn't a secret. If we really believe education is important for minorities, why don't we encourage privatized education and give people vouchers so that even the poor people in bad neighborhoods can afford to choose better schools for their kids? Why are we so against monopolies in business but are okay with it with education? And the banning of books you're referring to are woke nonsense books that have no place in education. Transexual education or sexually explicit books in our schools are not proper in the education of our children. While China and Taiwan are stressing the studies of science and mathematics, we are teaching our kids to be social media influencers and gender studies fairies. I'm all for liberal arts and humanities but it would serve our next generation better to encourage practical education so that we will not lose out on the bettering the world around us in the near future. Russia: When did Trump cower to Russia? Did Putin take Crimea under Trump's tenure? Did Putin invade Ukraine? I'm a bit confused about this cowering you speak of. Economic Policy: I'm not sure about the 10% tariff he was going to put on China but China's economy was built on building cheap manufactured goods an selling to America and the west. Henry Kissinger, under Nixon, really did a number on America's manufacturing prowess. He helped build China into the economic superpower that it is today. I don't trust the United States government as much as the next libertarian (you?) but I have a severe distrust of China and making China into a superpower is going to be a huge mistake. Maybe I'm wrong here and we will all sing kumbaya with Xi Xing Ping and Putin... but I think we will rue the day that we decided to prop up China. Centralized authority of that scale should scare the hell out of you, my friend... Anyway, I can't agree with most of your points. As a conservative, I want lower taxes, smaller government, less spending (which Trump sucked at btw), school choice, healthcare choice, strong borders, and less regulations. None of these things seem crazy to me.

You mean you ARE a Democrat because Republicans have lost their minds? I'm assuming you mean MAGA Republicans. Which policies has MAGA lost their minds on?

What reality am I denying?

Thanks for your substantive contribution to our civil discourse.

Yeah, the Twin Towers being demolished by our own planes with our own people within the buildings and planes as passengers really tugged at the heartstrings of our general populace. The fact that the "leaders" of our nation used this catastrophe to enrich themselves and their buddies while sending our young men to an unjustified war really caused many to form a severe distrust of our governing authorities. And deservedly so... But today, the shoe is on the other foot. As one wise fool once said, "Fool me once shame one you. FOol me twice... Fooled me... can't be fooled again."

According to the NY Times, the average contribution for Trump in 2020 was $71 as opposed to Biden's $76. Trump made no secrets that he wanted to drill in the United States instead of enriching our competition. Do you know any president that didn't get funds from whoever wanted to contribute? Do you think Biden refused money from corporations backing him? LOL What did Trump personally gain by becoming president? Follow the money, friends... https://finance.alot.com/personal-finance/presidential-net-worth-before-and-after-election--20669

The NY DA was going after Trump for misrepresenting the value of his properties when getting loans for properties. #1. Trump paid the loans back to the banks with interest. There was no victim and the crime he's accused of is a reach. #2. Banks do their own due diligence when appraising the value of the collateral properties in question. Banks aren't stupid. Valuation of property is based on comps which can be extremely subjective. At the end of the day, value = what price someone is willing to sell and pay for an item. Real estate comps are conducted with information on like kind properties within the same area within a 6 month window. But in cities like New York, comps may vary greatly from block to block. There's a reason why appraisals and assessments vary greatly. In LA, for example, there's a limit to the amount assessors can increase assessed value of a property from year to year. But property value goes up at a greater rate than that limit. So when someone buys a property from a long time home owner, get shocked by the sudden spike in property taxes. The assessed value spikes up because it's finally updated with the proper valuation of the home. The courts were working with flawed valuation tactics. Once again, incompetence or malevolence? If the NY politicians and courts were really interested in equal justice under the law, they would change the laws and encourage financial education, get rid of unnecessary building regulations to encourage cheaper housing, and encourage responsible behavior among the less privileged population and urban areas. But having lived in the urban area for a better part of this decade, these politicians don't care. They just want to maintain their power by keeping people dependent on their programs.

I'm pretty sure O-Man was against the war. He and I had some political debates in the past. Football-wise, I agreed with most of his opinions.

Mass Mail in Ballots. I'm in Los Angeles and we've had ballot harvesters for decades. My now deceased grandparents' senior home was frequented by local democrat activist volunteers and I personally had to shoo them away because I didn't like the manner in which they were trying to "help fill out ballots." Tale as old as time... LOL But during covid, many states completely switched to mail in ballots. If we want legitimate elections, citizens should in person with Voter ID verification. Only exceptions should be when voters specifically opt for Absentee ballots due to travel. I'm all for making it a national holiday so that everyone could vote and those who don't care enough to vote can take a day off to do what they want. But with mass mail in ballots, there has been evidence that people who moved states have voted twice (purposely or not), I received two extra ballots with people who have no business having lived in my address. They were not the two previous owners of the property. My sister (who lives in Oregon) and her kid got duplicate ballots. Deceased people were recorded as legitimate votes. There's no way to prove the people who filled out the ballots and cast the vote were the actual people on the ballot. People were recorded turning in hundreds of ballots all at once in the drop boxes. All of these things makes me question the stupid system that our government bodies came up with due to covid. Mail in ballots and electronically counting ballots was a completely idiotic move. Votes can easily be manipulated for the highest bidder. There's a reason why many fraudsters opt to scam people online instead of in person. We need a paper trail, a reliable ledger, a video recording for auditing purposes, an uncompromised representation of both parties at the actual count, a quick way to audit or recount the votes, and a real serious legal repercussion for those who knowingly commit voter fraud. If even one of these things are missing, we are giving room for voter fraud. The 2020 election was the first election where I did not know the results within 24 hours of election day. My friends and I actually held an online election night party on discord and the votes froze at 1am or so pacific time. My liberal friend was pissed that he "lost" and most of us Trumpers were happy but suspicious of the sudden pause in election counts. The updates in new votes started to slow down around 11pm and after midnight, completely froze. So we just decided to go to sleep. When we woke up the next morning, lo and behold. Most of the states that Trump was winning, Biden caught up or were building momentum to overtake. I believe it was Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, I'm just going by memory so I may be a bit off. It took another couple days or weeks but Biden wins the majority of states that they needed and Trump starts to contest it. It was a weird feeling because I was so accustomed to getting the results the night of or at least the day after. It was a suspicion that slowly came to fruition. There's actually no way for me to prove that there was enough voter fraud to overturn the election if I'm being totally honest. But I think many people felt the way I did. Totally changing the way ballots were turned in and the speed with which they were counted were extremely suspicious to me and it still does not sit well with me to this day. Kind of weird how whenever the counts are frozen, one side always benefits. Once again, simply incompetence or malevolence? Anyway, sorry for the long-winded answer but to be fair, your question was not a simple question to answer. But just in case you wanted the simple version, here it is. Trump did not get enough electoral votes to get re-elected.

Do you now how mortgage loans work? There's good debt and bad debt. You know that right? I watched the Trump Netflix hit piece so I think I know what you're talking about. Complete rubbish.

Time will tell my friend But for now, he's been the best president in my lifetime.

And do you still trust the media? I don't anymore...

Completely agree. I probably debated you in the old board and I will admit I was completely wrong. Wish I could read the old posts lol

Btw, Trump wasn't in office when they withdrew. I'll tell you one thing. I'd be super surprised if Trump pulled out the armed forces before he evacuated the US citizens first I'm not as surprised that Biden's handlers did that though. I sincerely wish both sides did a great job though. I'll happily love to be proven wrong if the dem policies were efficient, effective, and honestly improved most American lives.

Why do you think Trump needed to negotiate with the Taliban? They were the threat and they were the ones with the real power, not the Afghan government. After decades of trying to prop up a real government (or at least a puppet one) in Afghanistan, I think we realized we were wasting resources and not helping the people there. Why continue to make the same mistakes? I think the collapsing of the government was proof that they never had the real power to begin with. Not every country wants to bow down to western puppet rule. Watch this if you're interested. https://youtu.be/zLWJclgxYpw?si=XSOLLU_2vnOJnEw2

You're saying the most obvious conspiracy is that Trump staged the whole thing to make himself look like a bad ass? I don't know about you but if I were a billionaire, I wouldn't stage an event where real bullets fly inches from my face and even graze my ear to get a boost in my ratings. He literally moved his face a split second before the shot grazed his ear. If he didn't move, his cheeks would have been blown up into a thousand cheeto puffs. I highly doubt any of you would in your right mind agree to be an open target while you're giving a speech on stage just for optics. And if he did agree to do that (which seems stupid and insane), that's still a bad ass move. Seriously, what does Trump have to gain by running? He's the first president in decades who lost his net worth after taking office. Dare you to look at Clinton, Bush, and Obama net worth before and after office. It definitely pays to be a part of the machine. And you risk everything to go against it. Wake up, people...

I'm not above being corrected. I think it's a natural part of learning and growing as a human being. I was in college during 9/11 and as a red blooded young American who trusted the media and the intelligence agencies as well as bipartisan support of the war, I leaned more on my emotions than my limited reasoning ability. I would lie about not supporting the war, if I wanted to simply win the arguments at all costs. But I think it's more important to debate honestly and try to figure out together the best path forward for our country. I'll happily admit I was a dumb ass as long as I see that I'm trying to grow and stop making the same mistakes that made me that ass to begin with.