That said, on the point about Trump and his relationship with China. I simply don't see it as xenophobic. And, BTW, I have never supported Trump or vote for him. I am a strongly independent classical liberal, with the caveat that I actively seek the truth and will never align myself with any political party by default because that implies they are 100% correct 100% of the time, which is impossible.
And, BTW #2, I don't hate China at all. While I disagree with their social and political stances, on the business front, the job they have done during the last 50 years is nothing less than outstanding. I have experience manufacturing in China and can tell you from that first hand experience that the US almost has no hope of regaining most of the industrial base it lost. While we focus on growing a society with a victim-mentality and growing division they have been growing what might already be the most entrepreneurial society in history. It's hard to describe the difference other than: If you want to get shit done, you go to China, not the US, not Europe. Sorry.
Trump has been talking about China for decades. He has been watching the erosion of our industrial base for a long time. And he rightly points at Chinese practices and the idiocy of our own politicians as some (not all) of the root causes. The popular "corporate greed" cause is nonsense. Go try and manufacture almost anything at scale in the US or Europe and see how far you get. There's no greed involved, we can't even make N95 masks at scale.
The problem with the Trump/China relationship, in my opinion, has many facets.
One of them is that he turned out to be perhaps the worst communicator who has ever inhabited the White House. I mean, his lack of ability to deliver well constructed messages in front of a camera was just unbelievable. In politics and leadership you have to be able to communicate. Every single one of his press briefings and speeches was an absolute train wreck.
The second issue had to do with the all-out warfare the entire Left and the media engaged in for four years. You can't run a country when at least half of your government is engaged in a war against the other half. It's impossible. I don't care who you are.
A simple example of this is Trump's attempt to rescind the postal treaty, dating back to 1874 (yes!) that made it so the US taxpayers subsidize nearly every Chinese package travelling within the US. In other words, once certain class of packages lands on US soil delivery of Chinese goods within the US is FREE. The intention behind this treaty was good. It was meant to help developing nations have access to our markets. Well, it isn't 1874 and China is the second largest economy in the world.
What that treaty means is that, as a US-based business, it costs me more to ship a package to New York than it costs a Chinese competitor. Even if my product cost exactly the same to manufacture, I lose.
That treaty should have been rescinded decades ago. Trump was the only US President (or politician) to speak about this and point out just how badly we were getting screwed and how much damage we are causing our own businesses. And for that his attempt to rescind this ridiculous treaty was labelled as xenophobic and racially motivated. Again, the entire Democratic party and the media were at war with him and could not care less about the absolute fact that this treaty has been damaging our nation for decades. In their ideologically twisted world they could not bring themselves into alignment with him at all, even if that meant damaging every single business in the US.
How do we fix this? Don't know. Other than, perhaps, strong term limits. On the media side, we do not benefit at all from having 95% of the media in political alignment with an ideological side. Imagine if 95% of our media were aligned with the right. That would be horrible. Well, it isn't any different when the tables are turned. This isn't good for anyone.
That said, on the point about Trump and his relationship with China. I simply don't see it as xenophobic. And, BTW, I have never supported Trump or vote for him. I am a strongly independent classical liberal, with the caveat that I actively seek the truth and will never align myself with any political party by default because that implies they are 100% correct 100% of the time, which is impossible.
And, BTW #2, I don't hate China at all. While I disagree with their social and political stances, on the business front, the job they have done during the last 50 years is nothing less than outstanding. I have experience manufacturing in China and can tell you from that first hand experience that the US almost has no hope of regaining most of the industrial base it lost. While we focus on growing a society with a victim-mentality and growing division they have been growing what might already be the most entrepreneurial society in history. It's hard to describe the difference other than: If you want to get shit done, you go to China, not the US, not Europe. Sorry.
Trump has been talking about China for decades. He has been watching the erosion of our industrial base for a long time. And he rightly points at Chinese practices and the idiocy of our own politicians as some (not all) of the root causes. The popular "corporate greed" cause is nonsense. Go try and manufacture almost anything at scale in the US or Europe and see how far you get. There's no greed involved, we can't even make N95 masks at scale.
The problem with the Trump/China relationship, in my opinion, has many facets.
One of them is that he turned out to be perhaps the worst communicator who has ever inhabited the White House. I mean, his lack of ability to deliver well constructed messages in front of a camera was just unbelievable. In politics and leadership you have to be able to communicate. Every single one of his press briefings and speeches was an absolute train wreck.
The second issue had to do with the all-out warfare the entire Left and the media engaged in for four years. You can't run a country when at least half of your government is engaged in a war against the other half. It's impossible. I don't care who you are.
A simple example of this is Trump's attempt to rescind the postal treaty, dating back to 1874 (yes!) that made it so the US taxpayers subsidize nearly every Chinese package travelling within the US. In other words, once certain class of packages lands on US soil delivery of Chinese goods within the US is FREE. The intention behind this treaty was good. It was meant to help developing nations have access to our markets. Well, it isn't 1874 and China is the second largest economy in the world.
What that treaty means is that, as a US-based business, it costs me more to ship a package to New York than it costs a Chinese competitor. Even if my product cost exactly the same to manufacture, I lose.
That treaty should have been rescinded decades ago. Trump was the only US President (or politician) to speak about this and point out just how badly we were getting screwed and how much damage we are causing our own businesses. And for that his attempt to rescind this ridiculous treaty was labelled as xenophobic and racially motivated. Again, the entire Democratic party and the media were at war with him and could not care less about the absolute fact that this treaty has been damaging our nation for decades. In their ideologically twisted world they could not bring themselves into alignment with him at all, even if that meant damaging every single business in the US.
How do we fix this? Don't know. Other than, perhaps, strong term limits. On the media side, we do not benefit at all from having 95% of the media in political alignment with an ideological side. Imagine if 95% of our media were aligned with the right. That would be horrible. Well, it isn't any different when the tables are turned. This isn't good for anyone.