Vocal Voices

And he thinks like a businessman.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, when asked if he actually intended to build the wall with Mexico, he said

yes, adding that parts of the border might include fencing. “But for certain areas, a wall is appropriate. I’m very good at this. It’s called construction,”

Well what did they expect? When Trump formulated these policies there is no way he would have used his business architects and site managers to do a feasibility study and cost them...

Suff wrote:Elect a Businessman

.... and he'll soon turn into a politician.

Or as one political commentator pointed out he cannot get rid of the whole White House machine, he is going to need to keep more than a few of those who know how government works. They will eventually rein in some of his wilder promises and substantially modify some others.

Trump's Presidency will be nothing like his campaign, but still very interesting.

Well, he has today stated he'll look to deport 2-3m illegals, citing drug dealers, gang members and rapists, so it'll now be interesting to see if Obama offers a general amnesty before he leaves office.

No doubt we'll have shock-horror from the BBC and certain elements of the UK Government over deportations ... but then Theresa May wanted to do much the same when she was Home Secretary, only to be thwarted by the courts and the EU.

How is he going to do that I wonder? Logistically it would be hard to move 2-3 miilion people around even if they wanted to be moved. If you are a criminal illegal, you aren't going to be wanting to be found and extradited, and I can't see Mexico being enthusiastic at the prospect of having 2 million criminals dumped on them!
I understand the desire to get rid of criminals who shouldn't be there, but realistically it has to be difficult.

Interestingly he was talking deported or incarcerated. In the US there is nothing stopping the prison system getting them to work.

One way or another he's intending to take them out of circulation. Which, also interestingly, means a million or so less votes for the legal but undesirables.

The point here is logistics. He didn't say tomorrow or next week (immediately is not tomorrow or next week, it means he will start immediately). But in 2 - 4 years? Quite feasible. As for Mexico taking them? If they are Mexican citizens and he just opens the wall (made for that), dumps them over and closes the gate, what choice do they have?

They could even do static line platform drops from the back of C130's without even crossing the border, weather permitting. 100 planes, 2 pallets, 25 people to a pallet, 4 runs a day = 20,000 per day. 100 days and that's two million.

Of course Mexico would probably capitulate and just take them long, long before it got that far.

Everyone wants to give up when the numbers get to that size. Remember 1M people walked over the border into the EU in a year with no organisation at all.

Whilst no-one would disagree that immigration plays a valuable part in the economy of many counties, when millions of people illegally enter another country, it is no longer acceptable for politicians to wring their hands and say they can't do anything about it.

Personally. I'm looking forward to seeing how Trump gets on. Government by the people for the people is a noble idea in theory, but I sometimes feel that politicians
nowadays are too inclined to look upon election to Parliament as a job opportunity
to put them on the road to personal gain, and where the opinions and needs of the general public are just an irritation. The fact that we are now, more or less, an affluent society, which has without doubt fostered greed, is perhaps one of the reasons for these changed attitudes.

Bad enough here in the UK or the EU where there are social systems to protect the unemployed and those who need medical care. They see their jobs vanishing, especially the working class and many of them lose everything.

Those Americans who voted to get rid of the immigrants and "take the jobs back" have no clue just why the Mexicans work so hard. I had a Mexican colleague when I worked in Edinburgh. He told me that if he was not at his desk and working, 12 hours a day, he would be considered a slacker back in Mexico. We're talking a degree skilled technical computing job here, not a cleaner.

For the immigrants they could work 70% of what they would do in Mexico for 200% of the remuneration and be appreciated 300% more than they would at home. It's no wonder they want to migrate. But dumping millions of Americans out of work in a society that has no safety net is never going to be popular. Also the second generation Mexicans are going to be 1st generation Americans. They're never going to work so hard or so long as their parents. Exacerbating the whole situation even more.

In short there are too many people in search of too little "good life". There simply is not enough to go around when the populations are so high. Our politicians talk about the divide between rich and poor, but in South America it's 1,000 times worse than it is in the 1st world and the barriers blocking social mobility are virtually impenetrable there.

Whilst I cannot blame them, I also recognise that this situation cannot continue forever. South America can't keep on producing way more people than their societies or economies can support on the expectation that they'll just "export" the excess somewhere else.

Only when the poor migrants return home and fight for their children's future will things change. The problem is that just like those 75% of "economic" migrants coming to the EU, they're only interested in instant gratification. Not the long drawn out fight which will see their future generations and their countries enter the same "good life".

It has to start somewhere and it's only going to be someone like Trump. He can't be belittled, he can't be bullied (because he is one) and he can't be influenced with the emotional blackmail vote.

I saw that Trump will not take his $400,000 salary, he'll take $1 instead. Over the next 4 years that's more than the Billion $ in taxes they were complaining about him not paying.

The games have already begun and Obama is a nobody that the press have virtually "forgotten". He was about to go down in history as one of the best presidents the US have ever had. Now he's going to be compared to a larger than life caricature and he's fading fast. Not that I have any sympathy with him. His attitude to the UK, whilst using the power and influence of the UK in the UN and the world, put me off him totally.

I'm not just watching the headlines, I'm also watching what he's doing in the EPA and other areas like NATO. This Trump administration may be much more divisive than Bush (W) and that is going some.

Oh and he's also said that he'll only elect "pro life" supreme court judges too so he's also going after the abortion laws. That'll have the Democrats after him with a flamethrower and the press tied up in knots trying to do him down.

Trump is playing hard-ball now because he can - he is not President, yet.

Once real-politik creeps in he will have to modify some of his more outlandish policies, which ones they are is anybody's guess.

There are no doubts that he will change things, both internally and internationally, but he is also going to have to work with the rest of the world.

Marxist Russia no longer exists, nor does Maoist China; Trumpist America is likely to be the shortest lived of the lot.

Well one of the foundation stones of Realpolitik is "you owe me". But who does Trump owe? Not that many if any.

Yes he'll have to work with the Senate but the mid terms are coming up in 2 years and he can afford to lose a few seats which means he can afford to refuse to back representatives and senators who won't go with him.

In short he's in a pretty strong position. We'll see how it goes.