Donald Trump

kingstongraham

TheBigBean wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

Does he believe that immigrants are an issue? Yes - absolutely

I'm not convinced by this at all.

Presumably you are convinced it will get him some votes though? The great wall of Trump was mentioned a lot in his campaign.

Absolutely this. There is no border crisis that he is solving, but he knows there is a constituency fuelled by fear of "the others". While Stephen Miller still works in the White House, there will be more flashpoints deliberately created to feed this.

bianchimoon

The issue is the man the greed and the bullying, "it's mine and no one else can have any and I want yours too" Trump is like that personally and he wants a country in the image of himself. It's a big game to him ie "trade wars are good and easy to win" not giving a sh!t as to the consequences for other people, the same with the children taken from their parents, absolute lack of empathy because empathy is weakness. He doesn't care how many migrants/refugees die. His stay at home and close borders, win at all costs, populist policy is a route to 'soft or indirect suffering for millions'.

kingstongraham

Trump wrote:

You ever notice they always call the other side ‘the elite.’ The elite! Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

Does he believe that immigrants are an issue? Yes - absolutely

I'm not convinced by this at all.

Presumably you are convinced it will get him some votes though? The great wall of Trump was mentioned a lot in his campaign.

Immigration is useful for him because a) it set him apart from other republicans in the primaries and b) it turbocharges patisanship in that the democrats are closely associated with immigrants, so it fires up the base (as important as appealing to the dwindling number of swing voters) and helps split parts of the democrat party.

However, I don't think the policy of forcibly separating children from their parents and interning them in camps whilst forcibly injecting them is really something a huge amount of the US, Republican or not, can really agree with.

They are not the same.

surrey_commuter

bianchimoon wrote:

The issue is the man the greed and the bullying, "it's mine and no one else can have any and I want yours too" Trump is like that personally and he wants a country in the image of himself. It's a big game to him ie "trade wars are good and easy to win" not giving a sh!t as to the consequences for other people, the same with the children taken from their parents, absolute lack of empathy because empathy is weakness. He doesn't care how many migrants/refugees die. His stay at home and close borders, win at all costs, populist policy is a route to 'soft or indirect suffering for millions'.

Can you really not see his point of view on tariff and trade? if the UK economy was that size and faced with those trade deficits do you not feel there would be a similar populist clamour?

Immigration is an interesting one. If you have an open door policy then more come. If the worst that happens is you get sent back then more come. If you decide to lock people up but not if they have kids with them then guess what happens.

There is a theory that the EU's open borders has led to more drownings as more people try to get here. In that light then the Italian response could be seen to be more humanitarian than Spain's. Though in an ideal world they would be doing more to solve the source of the problem

kingstongraham

When it was happening:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ion-policy

Now:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... ren_crisis

bianchimoon

Surrey Commuter wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

The issue is the man the greed and the bullying, "it's mine and no one else can have any and I want yours too" Trump is like that personally and he wants a country in the image of himself. It's a big game to him ie "trade wars are good and easy to win" not giving a sh!t as to the consequences for other people, the same with the children taken from their parents, absolute lack of empathy because empathy is weakness. He doesn't care how many migrants/refugees die. His stay at home and close borders, win at all costs, populist policy is a route to 'soft or indirect suffering for millions'.

Can you really not see his point of view on tariff and trade? if the UK economy was that size and faced with those trade deficits do you not feel there would be a similar populist clamour?

I'm obviously not an economist so I have to pick and chose what i read

Paul Krugman, the US economist and Nobel laureate, said Mr Trump appeared to be mistaking the EU’s application of value-added-tax (charged on imported and domestically produced goods equally) for a tariff, showing that he was “making trade policy with zero understanding of the most basic facts and concepts”.

another US economist said

each time the US had reached a so-called “bad deal” in trade negotiations, the other countries involved had lowered their tariffs and barriers more than the US

As for trade deficits again he just tells blatant lies, makes figures up. If you have a deficit it's usually because your consumers want goods from other countries, ie America makes cars that are dated, less tech advanced, less economical, ugly so rightly the US consumers want Euro/Japanes/Korean cars. You can't have your cake and eat it, but Trumps father never told him that.

surrey_commuter

bianchimoon wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

The issue is the man the greed and the bullying, "it's mine and no one else can have any and I want yours too" Trump is like that personally and he wants a country in the image of himself. It's a big game to him ie "trade wars are good and easy to win" not giving a sh!t as to the consequences for other people, the same with the children taken from their parents, absolute lack of empathy because empathy is weakness. He doesn't care how many migrants/refugees die. His stay at home and close borders, win at all costs, populist policy is a route to 'soft or indirect suffering for millions'.

Can you really not see his point of view on tariff and trade? if the UK economy was that size and faced with those trade deficits do you not feel there would be a similar populist clamour?

I'm obviously not an economist so I have to pick and chose what i read

Paul Krugman, the US economist and Nobel laureate, said Mr Trump appeared to be mistaking the EU’s application of value-added-tax (charged on imported and domestically produced goods equally) for a tariff, showing that he was “making trade policy with zero understanding of the most basic facts and concepts”.

another US economist said

each time the US had reached a so-called “bad deal” in trade negotiations, the other countries involved had lowered their tariffs and barriers more than the US

As for trade deficits again he just tells blatant lies, makes figures up. If you have a deficit it's usually because your consumers want goods from other countries, ie America makes cars that are dated, less tech advanced, less economical, ugly so rightly the US consumers want Euro/Japanes/Korean cars. You can't have your cake and eat it, but Trumps father never told him that.

now I am all for free trade but I get that trade deficits are a very emotive subject.

The USA has a a list of every country in the world and the trade issues that they deem to be unfair. Most are about far more than tariffs.

Upon Brexit if the EU has a 10% duty on UK car imports do you really think there will not be a groundswell of anger insisting that we do the same back? even though those are the people who will pay the tariff. Madness isn't it? but if we don't impose retaliatory tariffs we won't have anything to trade off in future negotiations.

rick_chasey

bianchimoon wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

The issue is the man the greed and the bullying, "it's mine and no one else can have any and I want yours too" Trump is like that personally and he wants a country in the image of himself. It's a big game to him ie "trade wars are good and easy to win" not giving a sh!t as to the consequences for other people, the same with the children taken from their parents, absolute lack of empathy because empathy is weakness. He doesn't care how many migrants/refugees die. His stay at home and close borders, win at all costs, populist policy is a route to 'soft or indirect suffering for millions'.

Can you really not see his point of view on tariff and trade? if the UK economy was that size and faced with those trade deficits do you not feel there would be a similar populist clamour?

I'm obviously not an economist so I have to pick and chose what i read

Paul Krugman, the US economist and Nobel laureate, said Mr Trump appeared to be mistaking the EU’s application of value-added-tax (charged on imported and domestically produced goods equally) for a tariff, showing that he was “making trade policy with zero understanding of the most basic facts and concepts”.

another US economist said

each time the US had reached a so-called “bad deal” in trade negotiations, the other countries involved had lowered their tariffs and barriers more than the US

As for trade deficits again he just tells blatant lies, makes figures up. If you have a deficit it's usually because your consumers want goods from other countries, ie America makes cars that are dated, less tech advanced, less economical, ugly so rightly the US consumers want Euro/Japanes/Korean cars. You can't have your cake and eat it, but Trumps father never told him that.

FACTS ARE IRRELEVANT WHEN DISCUSSING TRUMP & HIS POPULARITY OR OTHERWISE

tailwindhome

Tangled Metal wrote:

Independent judiciary is good. Especially when Trump gets his nominee for the supreme Court in place. That'll balance the court out to a republican bias with the new nominee supposedly having Trump like right wing views. Yes, the highest court in the land will maintain democracy and prevent Trump descending further into early Hitler period dictatorship and prejudice..

Ok

So the second amendment won't stop it, the independent judiciary or free press won't stop it, the organisation and treaties the USA has signed up to won't stop it, the relationship between the US and long standing allies in Europe won't stop it.

That leaves the Republican party?

bianchimoon

TailWindHome wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

Independent judiciary is good. Especially when Trump gets his nominee for the supreme Court in place. That'll balance the court out to a republican bias with the new nominee supposedly having Trump like right wing views. Yes, the highest court in the land will maintain democracy and prevent Trump descending further into early Hitler period dictatorship and prejudice..

Ok

So the second amendment won't stop it, the independent judiciary or free press won't stop it, the organisation and treaties the USA has signed up to won't stop it, the relationship between the US and long standing allies in Europe won't stop it.

That leaves the Republican party?

There is in effect no Republican party, it is the party of Trump. Very few Repubs speak out against him

29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.

Steve Schmidt, republican senior advisor

TheBigBean

TailWindHome wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

Independent judiciary is good. Especially when Trump gets his nominee for the supreme Court in place. That'll balance the court out to a republican bias with the new nominee supposedly having Trump like right wing views. Yes, the highest court in the land will maintain democracy and prevent Trump descending further into early Hitler period dictatorship and prejudice..

Ok

So the second amendment won't stop it, the independent judiciary or free press won't stop it, the organisation and treaties the USA has signed up to won't stop it, the relationship between the US and long standing allies in Europe won't stop it.

That leaves the Republican party?

You may as well just call him the orange Führer.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

Independent judiciary is good. Especially when Trump gets his nominee for the supreme Court in place. That'll balance the court out to a republican bias with the new nominee supposedly having Trump like right wing views. Yes, the highest court in the land will maintain democracy and prevent Trump descending further into early Hitler period dictatorship and prejudice..

Ok

So the second amendment won't stop it, the independent judiciary or free press won't stop it, the organisation and treaties the USA has signed up to won't stop it, the relationship between the US and long standing allies in Europe won't stop it.

That leaves the Republican party?

You may as well just call him the orange Führer.

I think it's fairly well documented that Trump envies and admires Dictators, and that he does not enjoy or relish or even really believe in democracy. So in that sense, I would guess that Trump would probably like that.

The dictators he admires most are often the toughest on their own people.

tailwindhome

TheBigBean wrote:

TailWindHome wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

Independent judiciary is good. Especially when Trump gets his nominee for the supreme Court in place. That'll balance the court out to a republican bias with the new nominee supposedly having Trump like right wing views. Yes, the highest court in the land will maintain democracy and prevent Trump descending further into early Hitler period dictatorship and prejudice..

Ok

So the second amendment won't stop it, the independent judiciary or free press won't stop it, the organisation and treaties the USA has signed up to won't stop it, the relationship between the US and long standing allies in Europe won't stop it.

That leaves the Republican party?

You may as well just call him the orange Führer.

Don't be ridiculous.

It's not as if Nazis are marching in the streets and being praised from the White House as very fine people.

robert88

Group behind far-right Charlottesville rally gets approval for 'white civil rights' march in Washington
The rally is due to take place on the anniversary of the Charlottesville event [12 August] during which a woman was killed.

James Alex Fields Jr, who was a self-identified Nazi, drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring dozens.

Fields' trial is scheduled to start 26 November 2018.

kingstongraham

Already given up on passing immigration legislation because the Republicans can't agree on a bill among themselves. Blaming Democrats.

kingstongraham

Just tweeted intention to put a 20% tariff on all cars from the EU going to the USA.

briantrumpet

This article is well timed: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-migrants

In short, if we start with the premise "Well, they're not as bad as Hitler, so they'd never do what the Nazis did", we'll end up with another Hitler, sooner or later. Nazism might have been at the extreme end of the spectrum, but pretending that what led to Nazism is a binary scenario, and not a continuum, is not wise, I'd suggest. Trump is too far along the continuum to dismiss the early warnings as hyperbole.

briantrumpet

If you want a parallel....

I was looking through Times citations of Hitler pre-1934, and after an article on French/German discussions about disarmament in December 1933, there's an article on Germany's restriction on academic places: "According to Nazi ideas, an exaggerated respect for purely intellectual gifts is wrong and a relic of 'Liberalism'." No mention at that stage of the later proclivities of Nazis. It's looking pretty grey in 1933, even if Liberals are already the bogeymen.

Stevo_666

briantrumpet wrote:

This article is well timed: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-migrants

I guess the hand wringing and exaggeration is official now that it's in the Guardian.

These articles put the counter argument very effectively while I go sun myself and relax:
https://m.jpost.com/US-Elections/Donald-Trump/Jewish-author-Dont-compare-Trump-to-Hitler-it-belittles-Hitler-467701
https://theconversation.com/trump-hitler-comparisons-too-easy-and-ignore-the-murderous-history-92394

briantrumpet

Stevo 666 wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

This article is well timed: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-migrants

I guess the hand wringing and exaggeration is official now that it's in the Guardian.

These articles put the counter argument very effectively while I go sun myself and relax:
https://m.jpost.com/US-Elections/Donald-Trump/Jewish-author-Dont-compare-Trump-to-Hitler-it-belittles-Hitler-467701
https://theconversation.com/trump-hitler-comparisons-too-easy-and-ignore-the-murderous-history-92394

I think the crucial word is "yet".

To call it hand-wringing is like accusing the documented Grenfell Tower warnings as "hand-wringing". Had someone paid heed to those, then the tragedy might not have ensued.

Tyrants are emboldened and empowered when their challenges to norms and laws go unchallenged. Pushing back against wannabe tyrants isn't hand-wringing.

rjsterry

It's so much more comforting to sit in the sun and pretend stuff isn't happening.

rjsterry

briantrumpet wrote:

If you want a parallel....

I was looking through Times citations of Hitler pre-1934, and after an article on French/German discussions about disarmament in December 1933, there's an article on Germany's restriction on academic places: "According to Nazi ideas, an exaggerated respect for purely intellectual gifts is wrong and a relic of 'Liberalism'." No mention at that stage of the later proclivities of Nazis. It's looking pretty grey in 1933, even if Liberals are already the bogeymen.

The Weimar Constitution guarantees an independent judiciary, political and religious freedom, universal suffrage, etc. Unfortunately there were some poorly drafted clauses which were exploited and it didn't protect a thing.

The point is not that Trump has some plan for world domination but that he is pushing against the limits of and checks on his powers. Never mind whether the US slides towards the far right, he's already encouraging the European far right and now we have European government ministers who are happy to make openly racist statements about 'cleansing' their country.

briantrumpet

rjsterry wrote:

It's so much more comforting to sit in the sun and pretend stuff isn't happening.

Yes it is. I might go and do that in France for six weeks. I've got a very nice view there, and I won't need to turn the heating on.

Mind you, stuff will keep on happening, I fear.

bianchimoon

rjsterry wrote:

It's so much more comforting to sit in the sun and pretend stuff isn't happening.

On the plus side there’s Plenty of sand for stevo to bury his head in

Matthewfalle

The scary thing is there is so much support for Dotard and this policy in America - so many people saying that the pictures of the children are fakes or discredited etc etc.

As you lot know. Me and the MFs love America so finding all this horrible and really sad.

rjsterry

A less hand-wringing-y approach.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ild-crisis

tailwindhome

Stevo 666 wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

This article is well timed: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-migrants

I guess the hand wringing and exaggeration is official now that it's in the Guardian.

These articles put the counter argument very effectively while I go sun myself and relax:
https://m.jpost.com/US-Elections/Donald-Trump/Jewish-author-Dont-compare-Trump-to-Hitler-it-belittles-Hitler-467701
https://theconversation.com/trump-hitler-comparisons-too-easy-and-ignore-the-murderous-history-92394

Neither of those articles seems to move past the simplistic Trump isn't Hitler cos he hasn't gassed 6 million Jews argument.


Use sunscreen.

bianchimoon

TailWindHome wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

This article is well timed: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-migrants

I guess the hand wringing and exaggeration is official now that it's in the Guardian.

These articles put the counter argument very effectively while I go sun myself and relax:
https://m.jpost.com/US-Elections/Donald-Trump/Jewish-author-Dont-compare-Trump-to-Hitler-it-belittles-Hitler-467701
https://theconversation.com/trump-hitler-comparisons-too-easy-and-ignore-the-murderous-history-92394

Neither of those articles seems to move past the simplistic Trump isn't Hitler cos he hasn't gassed 6 million Jews argument.


Use sunscreen.

The second article references quiet a few similarities between trump and the rise of fascism in Europe in the 30’s, good of stevo to help the argument against his own point or lack of

Stevo_666

rjsterry wrote:

It's so much more comforting to sit in the sun and pretend stuff isn't happening.

I'll pretend that people aren't wringing their hands and wetting their pants for a week, no problem

Get real folks.