So Trump has survived long enough to be inaugurated as the forty-fifth president of these United States.  What do the next four years hold in store for us assuming the CIA doesn’t assassinate him, get him impeached, or force him to resign?

Foreign Policy:

Best Case Scenario: The United States more or less minds its own business regarding the internal affairs of other nations.

Russia and the United States reach a detente and a new Cold War is avoided.  Tensions in Europe subside.  Rather than expanding, some countries actually quit NATO because Trump tries to force them to pay their share of the military budget.

The US slowly but surely pulls its remaining troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Trump resists the calls to re-invade when the situations on the ground inevitably deteriorate. Russia and the Syrian government smash what is left of ISIS so that issue dies down, and the Donald doesn’t feel obligated to start a fresh bombing campaign.  Trump stops backing Saudi Arabia in its terror war against Yemen.  Despite warmongering rhetoric during and after the campaign on the Republican side, the US leaves the Iran agreement in place.  Israel doesn’t do anything too crazy.

The situation between China and its neighbors de facto stabilizes as Asian countries don’t trust the US to back them up militarily.  Trump lets this happen.

Some overseas bases actually close.  Korea, Eastern Europe, Turkey, maybe?  Some troops come home.

Worst Case Scenario:  Trump can’t resist the War Party propaganda and plunges the military into some foreign quagmire or escalates an existing one.

Tensions with Russia rise because Trump can’t handle being called Putin’s puppet and sabotages the relationship between the two leaders.  More troops and missiles are sent to Eastern Europe and the NATO budget, mainly on the backs of US taxpayers, grows out of control.  I still don’t see a straight up US-Russia war breaking out, but things could get very ugly in this scenario.

The US continues to back destabilizing Israeli and Saudi Arabian policies as the Middle East devolves into all out Sunni-Shia warfare in multiple countries.  Turkey intervenes with US backing.  Trump can’t help but bomb somebody that John McCain doesn’t like.  Ground troops are sent in, but we don’t see anything close to what we had during the Iraq War. 10,000 or so troops remain in Afghanistan killing people and wasting money.

Trump threatens China, visits Taiwan, and says Vietnam or some other country owns the rocks in the South China Sea that China loves so much.  Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Naval hardware is sent to the region and more bases open.  The US debt skyrockets as a result.

Prediction: Probably wind up somewhere in between, but I’m fairly optimistic in this arena.  I think we’ll end up much closer to the best case scenario than the worst case.  I do think no matter what, the standard military budget will grow unfortunately.  But overall spending on the overseas Empire may actually decline as the US bombs and intervenes less.

Domestic Policy

Best Case Scenario: Massive deregulation and tax cuts.  The Fed raises rates.  The bubble we’re currently in pops early and the recession comes sooner rather than later.  By 2020, the economy is booming.  Trump is re-elected and the economy continues to improve.  The popular entitlement programs are “shored up” at least for the near term, but some of the more wasteful programs are ended.  Obamacare is repealed and replaced with something that’s a little more efficient and a little less costly (but still bad).  The budgets of various useless cabinet departments stay more or less flat.

Worst Case Scenario: Only superficial deregulation that has no major effect on industry. Tax cuts are blocked.  Fed procrastinates on raising rates.  The bubble pops late in Trump’s term, and Elizabeth Warren or some clueless Obama clone gets elected in 2020 and further decimates the economy leading to Great Depression 2.0.  Several cabinet departments pointlessly grow their budgets.  Obamacare stays in place, bankrupts insurance companies, costs grow out of control, and the next administration introduces the dreaded single payer system.

Prediction:  I’m pretty worried on this one.  I don’t think it will be as dire as the Worst Case Scenario.  But unfortunately I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump ends up a one term president and the Democrat replacement makes Obama look like Friedrich Hayek.

Trade: 

Best Case Scenario: Trump cancels all pending trade deals.  Renegotiates NAFTA so it’s actually a little more liberal (despite rhetoric to the contrary) and is more favorable to small businesses.  There are going to be some protectionist measures taken, but hopefully they are minor, encourage a couple specific companies to open up a few new factories so Trump has a photo op, and nothing too drastic occurs in terms of tariffs.

Worst Case Scenario: Huge tariffs.  A trade war with China.  NAFTA gets renegotiated in a way that helps a few giant American corporations and helps a few thousand people get jobs, but hurts everyone else.  Real consumer prices go through the roof and we’re all worse off.

Prediction: Somewhere in between, but my guess is we’ll see plenty of protectionist measures taken which will cause hardships for average Americans.  Jettisoning these trade deals that have been all the rage for the past twenty-five years may be good in the long term however.  I could also see the dollar continue to strengthen if the Feds raise rates which may offset rising prices due to tariffs.

Immigration:

Best Case Scenario: Welfare programs that rely on federal money are cut off to immigrants who come here illegally.  Localities are no longer required to offer services to illegal immigrants.  The number of legal immigrants is reduced.  Jobs programs that incentivize companies to hire immigrants rather than native born Americans are eliminated.  Less people come here permanently. Those that do are more likely to be productive members of society.  Those that are here to leech off Americans either self deport or head to localities like San Fransisco that seem to get some sort of smug self righteous satisfaction from supporting them.  Everyone is more or less happy and Americans are less suspicious of those foreigners in their midst.

Worst Case Scenario: One of two things can happen.  Congress doesn’t go along with any of Trump’s proposals and he just gives up on enforcement because he’s tired of wasting political capital on it while dealing with a hostile press and protesters.  In this case massive subsidized immigration continues unabated.

The other bad scenario is he goes totally overboard fining and raiding businesses.  He makes border crossing and tourism in the US almost impossible for average people.  The whole endeavor helps grow the police state and life becomes worse for everyone.

Prediction: I think we’ll have some sort of weak version of the best case scenario.  It will be a slight improvement and immigration will slow somewhat.  It’s hard to predict because Trump is the first winning candidate for President in living memory that actually advocated having lower immigration.  But the press will call Trump a horrible Nazi and exaggerate any enforcement measures no matter what happens.  We’ll be subjected to countless news stories about how poor Maria came here form Guatemala so her disabled son Hector could get the medicine he needs, but Trump had them all deported back to their impoverished dirt farm, etc.

Overall Prediction:  Really hard to say.  Trump is obviously a very unorthodox anti-establishment figure.  Unprecedented in modern American politics.  But my best guess is more or less positive.  A lot less war.  Immigration will at least slow somewhat. The culture will stabilize after the leftists get over their current hysteria.  The economy will do okay, and we’ll avoid any major depression.

These are pretty damn funny.  The guy, for all his faults, has completely mocked the legitimacy of our D.C. overlords.  For that, I am thankful on this Thanksgiving Night.  He didn’t just criticize their policies.  He pointed out that they’re basically full of shit.  I recommend the 8:00 mark and the 9:45 mark as my personal favorites.

I pretty much disagree with Hillary Clinton on just about every single thing.  I also think she’s literally evil and is perfectly content with killing people if it furthers her political agenda or consolidates her power.  I obviously can’t know for sure whether any of the mysterious and convenient deaths surrounding the Clintons were due to foul play on their part.  But there’s no denying the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children she and her husband starved to death.  Not to mention the Serbians they bombed in the nineties or the Lybians and Syrians that have been killed as a result of the wars she escalated as Secretary of State.

So yeah, she’s a very bad person with blood on her hands.  Trump’s never had the power to start a war.  And as far as I know, he’s never been accused of killing anyone.  So I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s not as bloodthirsty as a Clinton, Bush, or even Obama.  But is there any hope that his presidency would be anything less than disastrous?  Or would it just end up being just as bad as any other?  I’ll attempt to answer that question.

The (relatively) good:

1. He wants to deescalate tensions with Russia.  He’s been pretty consistent on that front. That’s an absolute positive in my book.

Hillary has compared Putin to Hitler.  That’s really insulting considering all the Russians that Hitler killed.  It’s also ridiculous as Putin has never made any serious attempt at conquering other countries to unite ethnic Russians as Hillary suggested.  He merely annexed an island that was majority Russian after they voted to be annexed.  It was completely peaceful.  There was no invasion.  The Russian military was already on Crimea as they’ve had a base there for hundreds of years.  The idea that Russia wants to or even has the means to reestablish the Soviet Empire is delusional.  They’re still a relatively impoverished country with a GDP about the size of Italy’s.

Hillary’s also been running around blaming Russia for hacking her emails without any proof and the Obama administration’s been threatening them over Syria.  Four, or god forbid, eight years of a Killery administration can only get us closer to all out war with a nuclear armed state.  It’s madness.

I don’t believe that Trump’s going to actually withdraw from NATO like he’s threatened to if other countries don’t “pay up.”  But it’s nice that he’s at least saying it.  Although I’d prefer the US withdraw from NATO regardless.  It also makes me think he’d have no interest in expanding NATO into Ukraine or Georgia which would be a distinct possibility under Hillary. This would risk US involvement anytime some Russian separatist region in either of these countries causes trouble.  How is that in the interest of average Americans?

2. He doesn’t seem to want to overthrow Assad in Syria.  Hillary of course wants to simultaneously fight ISIS and the enemies of ISIS which are Syria, Russia, and Iran. Trump just wants to fight ISIS.  I say the US should stay out completely.  But if Trump simply stops supporting the rebels who are on the side of ISIS, Assad will almost certainly end the war relatively quickly with the backing of Russia.  So hopefully that happens before Trump manages to escalate the Syria/Iraq wars going on now.  With Hillary this war will likely drag on, and the likelihood and level of American involvement will continue to escalate.

3. He wants less immigration.  The current level of immigration serves to allow those who favor big government to further consolidate their power.  It dilutes the culture and political influence of the native born population.  It also allows large businesses to lower wages and pass the costs of providing healthcare, education, transportation, etc. for the new arrivals onto the rest of us via taxation.  I’m skeptical about the Wall, and I don’t favor rounding up millions of illegals and deporting them by force.  But I certainly advocate for less immigration.  Hillary wants a borderless world.  That’s madness under the present circumstances.

4. He’s criticized the Fed for maintaining low interest rates (inflating the money supply) and seems to recognize the economy is in a bubble.  He’s definitely no Ron Paul, but acknowledging these things is a step in the right direction.

5. Lowering taxes.

6. Getting out of the Trans Pacific Partnership.  These trade deals are always about enriching certain companies or industries.  They always empower governments whether it’s the US government or the governments of the other countries involved.  They’re never truly about “free” trade.

The Bad.  I’ll go through these quickly.  In my mind most are pretty obvious

1. Favors the use of torture.

2. Wants to wage war against ISIS.

3. Pledged allegiance to Israel.

4. Wants to build the Keystone Pipeline.  My understanding is this is not favored by many of the localities that it would run through.  The GOP wants to force it on them through eminent domain or the use of nearby Federally owned land.

5. Wants to cancel Obama’s Iran deal.  The deal itself is not really necessary as Iran is no threat to the United States.  But canceling it and imposing more sanctions is an act of war against a country that is only our enemy because the Israeli government says so.

6. He’s anti-free trade.  I’m glad he’s criticizing NAFTA, TPP, and all the various acronyms that have been negotiated by US oligarchs in recent years.  They’re bad deals that strengthen the power of the States involved and are unnecessary for free trade.  But he fails to recognize the true reasons for the loss of manufacturing jobs in recent decades and thinks tariffs will solve the problem.  Well tariffs might create some new jobs for certain people, but they’ll result in higher prices for consumer goods for everyone.

I may update these lists at a later date.  I’m sure there are plenty more bad things, and maybe even some good ones I’ll think of before election day.