[Manco]

Personally, I believe the reverse; Trump is just as competent as he is confident. To me, his ego and passion are assets. Of course, some find his charisma… deplorable.

Ego does not belong in government, nor any kind of leadership role.

I think the reason Trump changed his mind is worth consideration. During his campaign, as far as Trump could tell, the entire election system was being rigged against him. Even if he managed to win the election itself, the establishment could just get enough electors to go against the results for their states, and that would be that.
Obviously, that’s not what happened, so now Trump’s all like, “Huh, maybe the Electoral College isn’t so bad.” Not to mention I’m pretty sure no reports of vote rigging have been properly investigated yet.
(By the way, Trump changing his mind isn’t exactly hypocrisy, since he’d have to be rigging something himself. Hypocrisy is Trump saying that fit people don’t drink Diet Coke… as a drinker of Diet Coke himself. That got a good chuckle out of everybody (not saying he wasn’t joking))

“I am going to criticize this system, until it benefits me and then I will change my mind” is pretty basic hypocrisy. You’ve written a lot of words to try and handwave that.

If the Electoral College’s current structure poses a problem, then the solution is a Constitutional Convention when the time comes…Which, if Trump turns out to be a massive failure (as you infer will happen), isn’t too far into the future.

Looking forward to it.

I’m sorry, I need to clarify: The article does not mention any goods that Mexico holds an import monopoly over the United States. It gives an example of a Mexican product, formerly costing $100, that is now $120. That means the principles of consumer choice remain; consumers may choose between the taxed Mexican goods, or non-Mexican goods which are not subject to this tax.
Consumers, logically, choose the products remaining at $100 (or even lower), and lose no money; meanwhile, retail stores fail to make a profit, so they stop accepting the proverbial white elephants. Again, America is not adversely affected, rather, Mexico is no longer profiting on exports, damaging Mexico’s economy and industries.
Furthermore, Mexico makes well in excess of $25 billion in two-way export revenue. Rather, we mutually make, more or less, ten times the proposed cost of the wall. President Nieto would do well to negotiate with Trump.

So, to be clear: the proposed tariff will increase the cost on imports from Mexico, thereby meaning that Americans in practice will be paying for the wall.

Because the tariffs will make Mexican imports more expensive, American buyers will buy less, meaning less money will be made from the tariff.

So not only are Americans paying the cost of the wall and not Mexico, but they would be buying fewer imports, thus reducing the amount the tariff earns at all.

That is completely illogical. You cannot expect to earn income on a tariff by actively sabotaging the trade relationship with the country you expect to tariff; and ultimately it is less likely that US buyers would invest in local goods to replace their 3rd largest import supplier, and far more likely that they would simply move to import from other cheap markets that are still more cost-effective than local investment. That’s just how business works.

Source does not prove that Mark Fields is against the tariff

Yes it does:

“A tariff like that would be imposed on the entire auto sector, and that could have a huge impact on the U.S. economy," Fields said.

The same message is corroborated in other outlets:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...riff/93906064/
http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/15/fo...tariff-pledge/
http://www.salemstatelog.com/ford-ce...ps-car-tariff/

Of course as a business they will move to capitalize on the current situation as best they can; they need to continue to make a profit, and refusing to work with the president and setting themselves up for a tariff would only serve to hurt their bottom line.

We’re not turning our backs; check out what Trump’s got in store to help those guys out. A much more long-term solution than just taking in people fleeing an ever-worsening part of the world; if they’re leaving because it’s dangerous, how about we make it safe? If a pipe burst, why desperately look for bucket after bucket to hold the water, when you can temporarily stop the flow of water and mend the pipe?
Trump says we shouldn’t pay for it (of course, he’s a conservative, so he thinks people (and countries) should fix their own problems, hence him wanting to get people off of welfare), but since the refugee crisis itself is a problem to us Americans as well (caused, of course, by the refugees’ disrupted state of living, which they can’t really fix by sticking around), then I see no reason not to pitch in. The only problem is how one would go about doing this.

This is a completely ridiculous assertion, and the very article you linked as evidence makes this clear. The article clearly states that the supposed ‘safe zones’ are not included in his executive order, don’t appear in the original statements from the White House or the Saudi Arabian King’s office about the call where they were supposedly mentioned, and also here he is again decreeing that other countries are going to pay for his ideas. The ‘only problem’ that you have identified is the biggest possible problem Trump could have – how does he expect that to ever work?

Here’s a very thorough explanation of Sweden’s situation. Personally, I disagree with the sources you present, since they handwave the issue. One concedes that immigrants are behind the increase, but then saying that it’s really the fault of xenophobic Swedes (despite Sweden being very multicultural and xenophilic) and poor management of refugee shelters (How refugees could be any worse off than where they came from is beyond me; what about halting the flow of refugees until better conditions can be provided?). The other skirts around the truth by saying it’s due to “socioeconomic factors,” blames it on the Swedes (despite cases of hate crimes, apparently, being speculation, based on cited articles), and shifts the issue to sexual assault in general (as if not looking into who the perpetrators are will help women and case studies in any way).

If you’re going to disagree with my sources, then I’ll happily dispute yours – the Gatestone Institute is a notably conservative, right-wing think-tank that often take an anti-Islamic stance on issues. You misrepresent the articles I cited: one states that the result of Sweden’s higher than average rape statistics is because Swedish people are much more likely to report sexual assault and sexual assault reports are calculated in an unusual manner, and explains that the more likely reason for the slightly above-average crime rate is because of economic factors – immigrants tend to be poorer, and poorer populations tend to commit more crime. The other article points out that hasty assumptions in identifying and reporting on perpetrators has created a distorted and inaccurate view of the crime statistics. So the causes appear to be: economic disparity resulting in higher crime rates, higher than average rates of reporting sexual violence, and distorted media reporting on crime. But accepting that would mean that people would have to confront the issue of poverty, rather than the convenient immigrant boogeyman.

All Trump’s saying is that outsourcing isn’t good for the country that’s losing the jobs (like us). Sounds reasonable. Since he himself put (not any more, he’s the president now) outsourcing to use, that implies he’s got a good grasp on how it works. At least, a better grasp than the establishment politicians.

This does not get around the facts that Trump is a hypocrite on this issue and that he has yet to take more action than empty rhetoric. Call me when his businesses stop outsourcing and he actually implements policies.

Also, chalk it up to me being tired of “Trump this, Trump that” all over the Internet. And during the election. My ears kind of got numb to criticism of Trump after a while. Too much soulless vitriol. At least the pro-Trump crowd gets to joke about the senile old lady who yells at cartoon frogs. Maybe I’d be on your side of the fence if your crowd had enough soul and passion to make up entire sagas about Hillary in the DNC primaries. Instead, they went and called the pro-Trump crowd “deplorables,” whom took up that name with honour.

If you back a hateful, xenophobic, egotistical fascist-enabler, I imagine having to defend that viewpoint must get pretty tiring. I will try to contain my sympathy.

I deliberately put in greentext so that I wouldn’t be taken so seriously. When an online discussion becomes too serious, we run the risk of devolving into a flame war. Trying to keep things calm and casual wouldn’t be so hard if the tone of words on a screen wasn’t up to the reader to interpret.
Greentext, on the other hand, is inherently humorous. While this does sacrifice formality, it also drops tension in a way that normal text cannot, therefore averting flame wars. In addition, due to it being humorous by nature, it can be used in both self-deprecation and to show the silliness of what others are saying, without appearing overly demeaning. If the other user feels insulted, they can fire back with greentext of their own, and the would-be flame war instead becomes an arms race of who can construct the most elegant shitpost.
Another thing to consider: this is the Oddworld Forum. The Oddworld franchise is founded on sending a serious message about the world’s problems through entertainment laden with humor. Why can’t its community do the same? Greentext seems to be a reliable means of doing so.
It’s better than a flame war over a politician who hasn’t even been in office for a month. And better for the mods, that’s for sure.

Thoughts?

Yes: don’t greentext, this is a forum, not 4chan. It’s a political discussion thread, not comedy hour – spend less time being funny and more time fact-checking your own arguments.

Yeesh, I need to check these things. Good catch.
Then again, it’s a good thing Mexico didn’t build a wall, since they need the money to pay for ours.

It’s incredibly careless of you to post someone else’s arguments without verifying the evidence for yourself first. The Snopes URL should have been a giant red flag.