Looking from outside the country: how? How can you like him? I know I will probably not start a good discussion by my question. But I hope to do so.

What could someone like in this man? I struggle to find any redeeming qualities.

Not from the US, but looking from the outside, it seems your country is collapsing on itself and people are cheering on this word little individual that shows little abilities. Just puzzling to me.

> How can you like him?

war1025 is a religious white guy in Iowa who has argued that Proposition 8 in California wasn't a ban on same sex marriage. I'd actually be surprised if someone like this wasn't a Trump supporter.

Accurate. At least someone pays attention.

Believing that scientists, teachers, economists, ethicists have been deceiving you all these years, while a POS reality TV star with decades of lying, bigotry, cheating people, dozens of credible accusations of sexual assault, cheating on his wives is somehow your beacon of truth and honesty. You are a bad person.

Believing that you know me based on a few sentences you read online is pretty naive, to be honest.

Edit:

My email is in my profile. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to have an actual conversation instead of just name calling.

As another outsider looking in I've been shocked lately by the state governors. I thought Trump was aberration, but seeing how many mini trumps are running states shows that he is more of the norm than I ever realized. If I was in one of the saner parts of the country I'd be joining secessionist movements, they country just seems ungovernable as is.

Since Iowa is pretty high up on that list of "states that are run by mini-Trumps", I'll just throw in my two cents that for a state that is supposedly doing "everything wrong", life is basically normal here. We wear masks when going into stores now. That's literally the only major change to an otherwise normal life.

> How can you like him?

Consider that all major US media outlets are driven by ad-spend, which is in term driven by views. Views are driven by outrage. Trump is a great target for outrage. The media love to hate him. He loves to let them hate him.

If you turn off the news, the country is in general humming along just fine. Stock market is doing great. No new wars. Finally doing something to address major trade imbalances with China.

If you listen to the news, everyone and their mother is dying in the streets of coronavirus. In reality, roughly 1-3% of the population has even caught the virus. Deaths are way down from March/April.

For a country and a president that are supposedly incompetent to the point of collapse, things are going pretty damn great.

> For a country and a president that are supposedly incompetent to the point of collapse, things are going pretty damn great.

Even _assuming_ everything is great, would it _really_ be his merit? I mean, everything that man did has been counter-productive for your country. He is a bumbling idiot. He really is. What merit does he have? I just can not see it. The fact that "well, we're not all dead yet" is hardly a criteria for success.

And no, my bad opinion of him is not because "the media" - my bad opinion stems from reading his book "The art of the deal" about a decade ago (that was highly recommended by friends - they said it's great!) - and in there he came off, to me, as a corrupt scumbag. All his behavior since only reinforced this.

It looks to me like the slow motion fall of an empire. And empires fall all the time, think about Great Britain, a bit over a hundred years ago they were the "the empire on which the sun never sets" - wonder if in another century people will look the same at the US.

Because the bar has been set so low at this point, "we're not all dead yet" (except for the over 160k people who have died so far from COVID) is actually a talking point I think

You didn't ask why you would like him. You asked why I would like him. Obviously we disagree. What's it really matter?

Still, you did not say why you did like him. You just said "it's not that bad". Hardly the same thing. Will admit, you said that you feel that the trade balances with China are being addressed, and, well, that's _something_.

And the stock market is doing great.

And we haven't gotten into any new wars.

And we have significantly scaled back our existing wars in the Middle East.

And, whether its to his credit or not, health insurance prices have stopped spiking 10-20% per year.

And he's nominated two conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

And he moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

And he just brokered a peace deal between Israel and the UAE

And tensions with North Korea have been de-escalated, even if that effort didn't go very far.

And he addressed funding imbalances in the UN

And my taxes went way down

And he's not a Democrat, so the media is actually critical of him, instead of fawning over how dreamy he is at every turn.

Immigration isn't a big issue for me, but I prefer his stance over open borders.

So I guess there's a random list that you may also tell me isn't actually a list.

> If you turn off the news, the country is in general humming along just fine. Stock market is doing great. No new wars. Finally doing something to address major trade imbalances with China.

The country is doing 'just fine' if you are a person who has expendable income to invest and job security (and health insurance) because you have the ability to work remotely. The unemployment rate is very high, and most of those laid off are not knowledge workers - which is correlated with lower pay. Those who can least afford it are losing the most jobs. The wealth gap, already at an all time high, is undoubtedly going to increase significantly.

Obviously the country is not at the point of collapse, but do you not think the problems I just listed are cause for serious concern?

COVID deaths are trending up, with 1,499 deaths reported for August 12. We're at 166,023 deaths total. Schools forced to open. Terrible quarterly GDP. COVID relief going to Trump's friends. A looming housing market collapse with evictions on the way. Massive unemployment. Probably a second quarantine in the fall due to the awful way that the response has been handled by the federal government. USPS fiasco by trump and his buddy having a conflict of interest with being a post master for the USPS and his investments + ties to XPO. trump's tweet that suggests postponing the election. trump and co's promotion of goya. trump's "It is what it is" response to 160,000 American deaths from COVID. trump's attacks on protesters and response with federal agents in Portland.

I can literally go on and on. This is just what I had the effort to type out. How are these things pretty damn great? Just one or two of these should have a massive negative impact on any politician.

You can fix their budget issues by removing the burden placed on them in 2006 that they fund their pension obligations for 75 years. No other entity, government or private, labors under this burden, providing for the retirement of employees who are not yet born. They were profitable for the six years before this law was passed, by Bush and the Republicans, and they would have been profitable for the last 6 years had it not been for this law.