More winning:

Panama caved.

Now Canada's caved, promising to increase their surveillance at the border and cut back the level of fentanyl making it across to the US. Trump's put them on a 1 month probation. New Canadian elections will be held in March when its likely a new right-of-centre government will be installed who are completely on-board with Trump's aims vis a vis the border. So expect to see Trump leaving the tariffs hanging until then.

Now Mexico's caved. They've agree to send 10,000 troops to the border to try to stop the flow of illegals and the flow of fentanyl. Again Trump has put them on a one month probation. Talks between the Mexican leadership and Rubio are scheduled to try to cement the new arrangements within that month.

This must be all very confusing to those who just don't and refuse to, understand MAGA

After giving up our manufacturing base, and aside from digging up rocks and shipping them overseas, we don’t have much of an economy.

It is delusional to believe that Australia can have any significant manufacturing industry while we allow nearly all manufactured goods to be imported from China and other similar countries duty-free.

We can never have a meaningful manufacturing industry in Australia the way things stand.

In the US, Trump's secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that his countries “almost religious commitment to free and unfettered trade at the expense of our national economy, shrunk the middle class, left the working class in crisis, collapsed industrial capacity, and pushed critical supply chains into the hands of adversaries and rivals”.

We have the same situation here; we just don't have a Trump or Rubio to put things right, and probably never will. We are still stuck in the open borders Hawke-Keating-Howard era”

Conservatism appears to to regain common & practical sense in many societies that have been sabotaged by Wokeness. The parasitic deliberately wrongly refer to this as "authoritarian ". As indoctrination education is the cradle of Wokeness it must become the Nr 1 target for reform !
Start with banning Uni student protesters from re-entering University ! Those burning the national flag also forfeit their privilege to attend University & receive sponsorship !
If anyone can think of a better way to wake up the Woke let us know !

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Dear mhaze,

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You wrote :

1. « I wasn't suggesting that the artcile distorted the meaning of these terms to suit an anti-Trump agenda, but that people like you and Foxy do. »
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No, we did not distort them, mhaze. The fact that Trump is an authoritarian populist and imperialist has nothing to do with us. He is what he is and there’s nothing we can do about it.
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2. « Again, neither of you have disdained to actually offer a definition of populist or authoritarian or imperialist that might apply to Trump but not apply to other leaders who you obviously favour. »
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Neither of us has “disdained” to offer such definitions, mhaze. But, as you seem to have forgotten, I posted to you personally, specific definitions of Trump’s populism, authoritarianism and imperialism, on this thread 5 days ago on Thursday, 30 January 2025 9:17:59 AM – and you replied to me that same day at 12:22:40 PM.

I preceded these definitions with the following remark :

« Of course, there are many populisms and populists around the world, cultural, socio-economic, political, etc. There are leftist and rightist populisms. We seem to be living in an age of populism. »

The definitions apply, not only to Trump, mhaze. They apply to many political leaders – but they do not apply to all political leaders.

They do not apply, as you claim, to other leaders whom I “obviously favour” – because I do not favour anybody. I disfavour all and vote for the least unfavourable.
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3. « … the artcile says "Populism, meanwhile, occurs when leaders rhetorically divide the population into two groups: the majority versus the elites." Well why doesn't that apply to Hilary with her deplorable designations. The country was divided in us (the elect) and them (the deplorables). »
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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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The citation you indicated is incomplete, mhaze. To understand why populism applies to Trump but not to Hillary you must complete the citation :

« Populism, meanwhile, occurs when leaders rhetorically divide the population into two groups: the majority versus the elites. These leaders position themselves the true representatives of the majority group [the ordinary people]. This anti-establishment “us-versus-them” struggle is at the center of populist rhetoric, the researchers concluded.»

Trump considers that he, alone, represents the majority (the ordinary people) against a corrupt government elite (represented by Hilary – lock her up !).

Unlike Trump, Hilary does not position herself in that manner as a populist leader.
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4. « Trump is not an authoritarian. Not a populist. Not imperialistic. At least not using the ordinary meaning of those terms. »
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You only have to look at the ruthless, brutal manner Trump has acted during the first three weeks of his presidency, both domestically and internationally, mhaze. The evidence is there for all to see.

Trump has :

• Temporarily frozen all federal grants, loans and financial assistance, signaling a desire to challenge Congress' power of the purse.

• Offered "deferred resignations" to roughly 2 million federal workers, promising to pay them through September even though the government hasn't been funded past March 14.

• Fired at least 17 independent agency watchdogs, openly defying a statute requiring an explanation to Congress 30 days in advance.

• Fired federal prosecutors involved in Trump-related investigations and hinted at an additional purge for thousands of FBI agents.

• Signed an executive order directing the attorney general not to enforce the law Congress passed requiring TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent company or face a U.S. ban.

• Imposed tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China – with more to come on other countries

• Made threats of military intervention regarding Greenland and Panama.

• Declared he wants to take over Canada as the 51st State of the United States.

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Banjo wrote: " specific definitions of Trump’s populism, authoritarianism and imperialism, "

No you offered generic descriptions and then refused to show how they specifically applied to Trump and none of the other plethora of world leaders you you admire.

To continue a metaphor I used in another thread, its as though you described water and then declared that Trump, and Trump alone, wants to drown everyone.

Still its obvious that you just want to use what you consider to be derogatory words to describe Trump and have no intention to analysis why they apply to him and not others. So be it.

To finish, it was noted t'other day that Trump is the first authoritarian in history who wants to REDUCE the size of government. I suspect that won't compute.

"• Signed an executive order directing the attorney general not to enforce the law Congress passed requiring TikTok to be sold by its Chinese parent company or face a U.S. ban.

• Imposed tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China – with more to come on other countries

• Made threats of military intervention regarding Greenland and Panama.

• Declared he wants to take over Canada as the 51st State of the United States."

None, literally none of that is true.

For example, he didn't make threats of intervention in Greenland or Panama, just, in answering a question, didn't rule it out. You won't understand the difference but it was all part of the negotiations by tweet that is the new world. Note that both Panama and Denmark are now towing the line.