I’d say the often hysterical reaction to the election of Trump and his executive orders is baffling to me, but based on my view of politics, it isn’t baffling at all – it’s something I expected. However, I don’t see much in the way of rational, principled justification for the kind of over-the-top anti-Trump behavior we find not only at the street level, but also in the implied (if not outright) consent and support such intimidating and violent tactics are often provided in public forums by many politicians and media figures. We’ve had people call for the removal of Trump by “any means necessary” and calling for impeachment, military coups and even assassination.
From my perspective, the hysteria is fueled by two things; an identity-politics, virtue-signalling culture that is largely bereft of critical thinking skills and any foundation of reasoned, civil discourse; and an information/media complex that signals, via various figures of authority or popularity, preferred behaviors. (I’ll leave out my third view: that third-party manipulators are paying for agitation towards political and financial ends).
I voted for Trump purely because I agreed with virtually all of his platform. Usually when I encounter someone who didn’t vote for Trump, I immediately notice an obvious emotional quality to their perspective – they hate or are disgusted by the guy personally, but can’t even tell me what his policy positions are. They immediately assume I am racist, misogynistic, islamophobic, etc.
I wonder if it’s possible to have a rational discussion about Trump and his policies and actions since being elected with anyone who voted against him? Do any of you think the way he is being characterized by the mainstream media is unfair? Do any of you think that there has been a double-standard from the way people and the press reacted to Obama’s actions, and the way they are reacting to Trump’s? Do any of you think the election was “illegitimate”?
phoodoo,
Well said, phoodoo! PM me, please!
I didn’t imply that it was about a show of “toughness”. It was relatively easy wrt diplomatic relationships to issue the ban on those 7 countries immediately (as we’ve seen by the court injunction, perhaps not so “easy” in other respects). Trump merely did something relatively easy to increase preventative security. That doesn’t mean that is all he is going to do or is doing.
I don’t see how that is so difficult to understand.
Erik:
You want a wall on the Mexican border? How about Canadian border too, even better!
As a Canadian, I agree — we need to keep these dangerous pro-Trump extremists out of our country.
Build a wall and make the GOP pay for it.
Trump:
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
Of course we should only pay attention to his policies and ignore his using his office to enrich his family.
Erik, you didn’t answer this:
Are you saying we should allow anyone who wants to enter the USA to enter, even if they are bent on destroying our liberal democracy and feel that it is “good” to kill gays and subjugate women?
Trump fails on:
Foreign policy: Russia. He has no goddamn clue how to handle any of it. Zero experience, but he’s got a big mouth, and that seems to have impressed you.
Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson, with what qualifications in foreign policy? None whatsoever. Rex Tillerson, Big Oil, has a standing desire to cash in on a billion dollar deal with Russia. Trumps gift to Putin. So Trump, who was gonna drain the swamp of corrupting private sector interests and foreign money influencing government and policy, puts the Grand Ayatollah of private sector interests in charge of foreign policy. LOL.
ISIS: What’s his plan? It seems to be to say that he’s got a plan, but he’s “not gonna tell us” (who couldn’t just say that, btw?), and he’ll be “so good at the military it’ll make your head spin”. Your head seem to have got spun alright, so yeah he’s living up to expectations. I expected him to bullshit, and sycophants to buy it. Prediction: confirmed!
He says he’s.. well he’s pro-torture. Weren’t the US supposed to be the good guys who don’t do stuff like war-crimes and inhuman treatment of prisoners and enemies? Nope. Not according to Trump. “Kill their families” is another one of his gold-nugget terrorism-fighting insights. If we just start killing the families of terrorists, they’ll… stop believing they go to heaven while fighting for Allah? Does he really believe that? Do you?
More on foreign policy: Syria, Iran and Iraq, what’s his policy positions? They seem to be all over the place. During the campaign he’s been on the record as both advocating and opposing bombing, or intervention with boots on the ground at various times. I guess if you just put enough shit out there someone’s going to find something they like. It worked, you bought it.
Diplomacy? What diplomacy? He’s apparently on a roll making US allies question the nature of their relationship with the US. Great work Trump. Foreign-policy-through-twitter. Is this some kind of joke?
Environment:
Climate Change? Well I get that you don’t believe it happens, but that’s another outright braindead level of ignorance right there.
Ok, besides the whole climate change business, what else is there? Well there are many other ways to pollute the environment, like outright dumping toxic chemicals into it. Who does Trump want to head the EPA? Someone who has sued the EPA 14 times. So deregulation it is. Just start dumping those chemicals guys, your babies get tumors from polluted drinking water? Who cares, Trump has private financial interests to look out for. Who cares about the american worker and the future of his children anyway?
Public Health:
His pick for secretary of HHS is a private industry man setting up laws for his own benefit.
Vaccines? Yep, he’s against them, says they cause autism. Just what the world needs, more vaccine denialism.
Abortions? Let’s throw women in jail having had one. Yes, I expect you to be against them, that’s why you are impressed with Trump.
Economy: He campaigned on his anti-establishment nature, look at crooked corrupt Hillary’s emails and her relationship with the big banks and paid Goldman Sachs speeches (all of which is true btw, I’m not pro-Hillary. I just can’t believe that anyone didn’t immediately understand that Trump is the King of private sector intersts). Trump gets into office, who does he hire? Former Goldman Sachs CEOs, lobbyists and managers He was “gonna drain the swamp”. HAHAH.
Deregulation of the financial industry caused the big economic crash back in 2008. Banks “had to” be bailed out because they were “too big to fail”. Bla bla we all know the history. What’s the Donald doing? He’s actively working to remove regulations on financial transactions (regulations previously removed under the Bush and Clinton administrations, which in turn caused the bubble issue). He wants to let them start trading on toxic loans again. As in the Donald wants to remove regulations set in place to try to prevent another crash. Who’s going to bail out the too-big-to-fail banks next time? You William, the american tax payer. The little guy will get robbed so big bank CEOs can collect their gigantic retirement bonuses, paid for by the american taxpayer of course.
This is of course all couched in the usual language about “removing restrictions on small businesses”. I hope you bought lube.
One could go on and on with this and his reign of incompetence and private interest-corruption has barely started.
///Historically, appeasement as a strategy has never worked. Let me ask you, do you think you are risking angering the wrong kind of people if you put a lock on your door and install a security system? What kind of logic is that?///
Yes, if I installed a security system on my house that locked out a certain group of people from a certain neighborhood who were previously allowed to come and go as they pleased, but everyone else was still allowed to bypass the system, I suspect I would earn the ire of that group.
Well fuck me, I’ve found a reason to take phoodoo off my ignore list.
Bravo!
Looks like I’m going to have to start ignoring phoodoo. 😉
Good job, phoodoo !
The way things are going, that list could be twice as long by the end of next week.
Sorry that does not make sense, these countries were already under a very tough vetting procedures which had resulted in no attacks, if safety was the issue stopping the immigration from countries whose citizens had a history of attacks and a lower level of vetting would seem to me the best place to start.
Not sure why Trump would need to be so PC worrying about diplomatic niceties when the citizens were in grave danger
So called judges are always mucking up immigration plans, I believe Obama also had a plan held up.
Seems to me the greatest prevention would result from the least vetted countries not the most. If easy was the criteria , then it follows appearances were a consideration.
I understand that your argument is unpersuasive
Man, I so wish Canada would actually propose something like this:
In the interest of national security and economic and social stability, the Canadian Government and its citizens propose to build a wall along our board with the United States of American (“USA”). We propose to pay for the wall through import taxes on USA goods and services and through a special “tourist” credentialing on USA citizens visiting and working in Canada. It is our hope that this fence will serve as a deterrent against all the individuals the Trump Administration has pissed off who are now hell-bent on causing havoc in the USA and who will be arriving in droves despite the USA’s best efforts to dream up a dubious solution for an empty problem. Oh Canada!”
I think his big mouth has probably impressed everyone, pro or con. He seems to have moved us into a less war-prone position wrt Putin and Russia, so in my book that’s a good thing.
Well, we’ll see. It all depends on what actions Tillerson takes.
I agree with what Trump has said repeatedly – you don’t tell the opposition what your plan is. We’ll see.
I’m pro-torture, so that’s in line with why I voted for Trump. I also draw a distinction between what Trump says in seriousness, and what he says with irony, in jest, as rhetoric or to make some point.
His policy positions on his campaign website were clear and consistent.
To paraphrase Rocky, diplomacy is not all rainbows and unicorns. It does’t mean you acquiesce to what other countries want because it will hurt their feelings if you challenge or disagree with them.
Even if AGW (or whatever they call it now) is true, I don’t think it’s a wise investment financially, given what even AGW-advocates say is the limit of our potential effect on it.
It’s something to keep an eye on, but I doubt he’ll do anything that catastrophically bad as far as pollution is concerned.
Perhaps you should look around at other kinds of news sources before you go all-in on anti-trump venues.
I wasn’t aware that he said that. I know he appointed someone to investigate any connection between vaccines and autism; I don’t see the harm in that.
I think you’re engaged in hyperbole now. Plus, you don’t seem to remember that I’m 100% in favor of legal abortion. I know Trump is pro-life, but I don’t know that he’s ever said he’s in favor of overturning Roe V Wade or criminalizing abortion.
There’s a difference in being pro-private sector interests, and being bought and paid for by large corporations, banks and multinationals.
There are competing theories on what caused that crash. Nobody advocates blind deregulation, but rather a smart reduction of regulations to free up the private sector.
I appreciate that in some places you at least attempted a civil debate on the issues. You and others seem to assume I’m blindly all about Trump; I’m not. As I said, I voted for him because I agree with his stated policy positions and a couple of other reasons. He definitely has his negative characteristics and of course he and his cabinet should be closely monitored and brought to task when and if they do some of the things you listed – such as harming the environment or doing insider deals that inordinately benefit Trump or his cabinet staff.
However, you didn’t answer some of my questions in the O.P. about whether or not the violence and aggressive, intimidating action and rhetoric against Trump and supporters is something that should be endorsed and/or tolerated?
I don’t even see phoodoo’s comment. Did he remove it? As far as I know I haven’t placed anyone on ignore.
Good, I’m glad we got that cleared up. Stick to it and we can respectfully disagree.
Of course it shouldn’t. A few days ago I read a story about some woman who advocates puching white supremacist Trump supporters. That’s lunacy, I’m for the rule and equality of everyone under the law and freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law (not public opinion).
No matter how horrible, anything should be legal to be said/painted/drawn/sculpted. The only exception would be attempts to deliberately instigate others to commit violence. I don’t support any form of vigilante justice or violence against ideological or political opponents. I would hope that goes without saying for all of us. In fact I would go so far as to say that we should presume this is true for everyone until proven otherwise, lest we fall into a silly kind of rhetorical trap where we take people’s lack of response as constituting endorsement of views we abhor.
It’s on first page.
It’s showed up late. You probably read past where it would show up, and did not go back to find it.
phodoo is being censored. His comments sometimes appear out of order because he has to wait for a moderator to pass judgment on whether his comments are acceptable.
Nonsense. His comments (subject to the caveats of not being porn, spam, outing and defamation) will always appear. Unfortunately, they currently are held in moderation prior to admin approval. If phodoo would PM me, I’m sure we can sort that out. William understands about censorship. 🙂
WJM: You said you are pro-torture. Can you confirm that ?
Very well said! Complete agreement — esp with the last question!
Fixed that for ya!
Right on, phoodoo.
You too, Rumraket, Newton Tristan and KN–but I think phoodoo deserves the biggest kudos because he takes his anti-Trump position in defiance of those who’d have him shut up because Trump is good for anti-evolutionism, etc. It’s a tougher position for him.
Bravo, man.
Yeah. I’m in favor of using some torture techniques to get information where adn when it is warranted.
Who decides? What criteria?
Rumraket,
Thanks, I appreciate the civil discourse, and also your stand against such tactics on any side of the debate.
They’ll always appear! Unedited!!!
I didn’t completely understand why they picked those 7 countries, because like you said, the idea that refugees from those places are dangerous is drastically contradicted by the facts. But then I read that those 7 countries gave us 82% of the muslim refugees we took in last year. smack Duh, it’s just anti-muslim BS for the rubes.
Well, that would be on a case by case basis, but suffice it to say I’m not against using torture as a means of gaining information in any and all cases. It depends on what is at risk, an assessment of the person being interrogated wrt to the potential validity/value of information they have, and the urgency of the information we are attempting to obtain. If we have a “24” scenario where there’s a nuke or a bio weapon about to go off and kill millions, there’s not much in the way of torture I’d put off the table.
The answer to Authoritarian demagoguery from the left, right, or populist middle is old school federalism.
Power should be taken out of the hands of the central government and given to the States and/or the people.
The problem with that solution is it might allow some “anti-evolutionism” to be taught in a backwater or two and our skeptic friends would never go for that. So we are left with Trump.
peace
Seconded.
I mean, it works for Jack Bauer all the time!
You are the perfect Trump Voter.
I say kick it up to some politician somewhere. Better if she’s had a few drinks.
While one might agree with phoodoo’s list based on it’s rhetorical correspondence to one’s own emotional view of Trump, there isn’t really much on that list that can be factually backed up, IMO, and several things that are just flat-out incorrect.
It’s so odd that the same people who will eviscerate phoodoo for making assertions that are undocumented by fact or evidence cheer in agreement when he presents a list full of unsupported assertions that happen to coincide with their personal feelings towards Trump.
I mean, the very first thing on his list is flat out false on multiple levels. Trump didn’t do anything; congress voted to upend the EPA rule in question (including a handful of Democrats), which didn’t prevent dumping excess spoil into streams in the first place; it only increased the restrictions by which new permits would be granted from the 1983 laws which already covered the issue.
William J. Murray,
But…he said the right things!
The Right Things!
Glen Davidson
Trump: Grab them by the p….
Voter: Sounds about right. He is talking about things as they are. Must vote for him.
Yet there have been zero incidents of refugees or immigrants from these predominantly Muslim countries causing any violent acts in North America. Immigrants from Saudi Arabia, on the other hand…
In Quebec, we just experienced a terrorist attack on a mosque by radicalized youth. Radicalized by people like Trump who demonize an identifiable group.
And how do you reconcile an exemption to his executive order for christians from these countries who have been persecuted? Are Christian lives more valuable than Muslim lives?
Now, let’s talk about NAFTA. are you aware that the biggest trading partner (for exports) for 35 states is Canada? Are you even aware that Canada is part of NAFTA?
Neither would I, if it kept racist idiots out of my country.
It’s amazing how quickly Trump Hysteria spread overseas.
You really are an asshole. Given your statement, I don’t even think that this comment is Guano. Any person who advocates for torture is either a psychopath, a sociopath, or an asshole. If you want to move up the ladder to sociopath or psychopath, keep talking.
Canadian banks are privately owned and heavily regulated. None receive government bailouts. They make obscene profits. None of them went under during the recession. None of them lost money during the recession. No Canadian bank has gone bankrupt since before the depression. Almost 100 years.
Asshole.
Voted for him, did I?
Well, you never could think.
Glen Davidson
Whatever happened to Science for the People?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_for_the_People
Acartia,
That’s because canadians aren’t dumbass suckers who’ve been talked into believing that all these terrible oppressive gummint regulations are holding back wealth and freedom.
Low-info voters in the US eat that nonsense up with a spoon.
(IDK how much you know about Murkin politics, but it all goes back to the 1950’s and 60’s when the gummint told white racists that they had to associate with Negroes. The white rural racist types have hated the federal gummint ever since. Telling them regulations were terrible was an easy sell once they hated the feds)
Well, for some reason I can’t edit this, which I would do because I realize Erik merely implied, didn’t state, that I voted for him. But who cares?
My point was really just that phoodoo pleased some people who seem not to realize that a non-USAian isn’t necessarily brave in any way to dislike Trump. If in Mexico, the decline of the peso alone might be sufficient. Anyone else concerned about possible protectionism (and has local stocks, say) might dislike Trump very much, because it might hit their wealth. Someone who might vote for a “fellow Trump” might very much dislike an American Trump.
It doesn’t take that much to figure out that phoodoo’s not necessarily courageous in opposing Trump against the many American creationists who like him. In fact, it might be a very popular position in his country. Why anyone would ever think phoodoo has ever thought things out well (whatever “well” might be) I can’t imagine, although it’s possible.
It’s just a bit too much ‘agree with my position and you’re fine.’ Which is neither open-minded nor very tolerant. Patrick’s position, too, can be argued against (rather successfully in my view, although I’d rather skip it), but I can’t see how it should be treated as anything but something to be discussed and/or argued. More to the point, though, just because phoodoo is the enemy of one’s enemy doesn’t mean he’s anyone’s friend. Could be, but that would remain to be seen, if analysis means anything here.
Glen Davidson
WJM’s Mother, Home, Apple Pie And…
The FAA heavily regulates flight. Look at this, there are 5 volumes of FAA regulations:
http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title14/14tab_02.tpl
Right now airlines aren’t allowed to transport chemical waste, skip their maintenance, hire unlicensed pilots, let them smoke weed in the cockpit, land without clearance, or overcharge your credit card.
Wouldn’t things be so much better without those stifling gumment regulations strangling our poor noble heroic entrepreneurs?
I don’t know if WJM’s a psychopath, but like most trump voters he has a marked inability to empathize with other human beings. In severe cases this is psychopathy, but in medium doses it’s just called being a conservative.
What’s just as bad, though, is the idiocy of believing that torture produces anything other than counterproductive fabrications to make the pain stop. The ticking time bomb scenario is a favorite justification of people who don’t understand that it never happens in real life. In real life, what you enable law enforcement to do for extreme situations, winds up becoming what they do on a regular basis to regular people. Smart conservatives understand that, and abhor torture.
Being in a less war-prone position because our President becomes more like Putin in my book is not a good thing.