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Comment by l8283 | Hacker News Reader

I think Trump is a madman

What does he do that convinces you he is “a madman”? What would the ideal leader—from your perspective—be doing instead?

Not threatening the extinction of a civilization?

Here's a few of the low-hanging fruit:

- Avoid blatant idolatry and make peace with the Pope

- Stop threatening civilization-scale collapse and assent to ICJ investigations

- Prosecute Ghislaine Maxwell and end the DOJ's shell game with the Epstein files

Senile rather than mad.

Possibly both, but the madness is more relevant than the senile. Senility would be purposeless, but the madness has a passionate and malignant intensity.

Senility would be progressive. He has been acting the same way since coming into the public eye. We see it somewhat more now than in his first term, where he had to hire experienced hands to execute things, and they put a damper on some of his worst ideas. In his second term, he feels beholden to nobody, and his friends are happy to do exactly as he wants.

I think Trump like most politicians is the shiny object to distract us, while most decisions are made in boardrooms and conferences. Most of the US presidents this century have been clown figures apart from Obama and he was a war monger, so did what the military industrial complex wanted.

Obama inherited a couple of wars and was famously dovish on Russia. He made a deal with Iran. His rhetoric was always diplomatic. In the context of American presidents or historical empires he was absolutely no war monger.

Obama's government dropped at least 20,000 bombs on other countries, and mounted several special operations in Africa that were not wisely publicised. His government killed many people, but because they were foreigners, they don't count in the US press. That is war mongering.

Domestically, his handling of the Standing Rock Native American protests was also questionable, and he allowed the police and military to harass them. He put a pause on it just before the election, and naturally it renewed after the election when a new president came in.

He isn't the saint some people think he is.

Didn't say he was a saint but limited operations, continuing occupations he did not initiate, and domestic protest responses aren't war mongering - both by an ordinary read of the term and considered against his peers.

The record says otherwise. People like to give Obama a free pass. He is probably the best public speaker of all 21st century POTUSes, but he too was a war monger.

Trump is an odd one. In his first term, he was pretty good in terms of his war record. In recent times he has completely undone that.

Which wars did Obama start? I am not asking for drone strikes, I am asking for wars. How many ground troops? How long?

Obama bankrolled wars in much of the Middle East including Syria and Libya. Europe had to deal with the consequences such as large waves of refugees and the growth of Islamic extremism in the region. He was the first president to order a drone strike against US citizens (albeit outside the USA).

You seem to be explaining why you are mad at Obama rather than answering my questions.

For example, drone striking a citizen of your own country is pretty much the opposite of warmongering.

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