DB Roy wrote:But that's not really the issue. He will not get the nomination. We knew thatfrom the very git-go. But he is showing some future demagogue how to appeal this party's ugly, fearful, hateful base. Trump is building the soapbox that this demagogue will stand on. This person only needs to have the right charisma, looks, manners and handlers. He will package the same hatred in a pretty box with a bow on it and present it to the American people and I'm afraid that they might just accept it. They won't accept it from Trump not so much because they disagree with him but because he's such a stupid, clownish buffoon that anyone with a reasonably clear head would feel embarrassed to vote for him.

I'd like to believe that the old hatreds are dead but they are clearly not. I was arguing just a couple of days ago with a shitload of people on Facebook who are convinced that illegal immigrants will drive "real Americans" (and I'm going to assume that meant "white Americans") extinct. Yes, extinct. Then one guy says that's just what happened to the Indians and a bunch of people agree with him. Another said, that I was no different than the "many Jews" who voted Hitler into power. When I asked him to provide numbers he instead called me stupid.

So, I don't believe these old hatreds are dead. They lie either dormant or quite alive but hidden in way too many Americans (and you may read that as "white Americans" if you wish) and it wouldn't take much to get those hatreds unleashed if the right politician comes along who knows just how to use them to get himself into the White House.

An interesting wrinkle in the Trump saga I just read about concerns the Florida primary next spring, the first big winner-take-all primary. If either of the current front-runners are still way ahead in that state (Rubio, Cruz, and Bush are well behind now), the 99 delegates for the winner may put the more legitimate candidates in a perhaps fatal deficit. So I could have been wrong about Trump (or Carson) gassing out. Even if he still does, his main effect has been to shove the rest of the Republican hopefuls to the right.

Exactly, he has made the ugliness more public, more fashionable. In the future, to get anywhere, GOP candidates will have to sing that song and dance that dance. Some will do it while not really believing in it but some will believe in it. I don't know which is worse.

After the attacks in Paris, Anne "I am no longer the GOP fringe" Coulter stated that "we just elected Donald Trump president tonight." Now while I don't believe this to be anywhere close to true (no one can seriously believe that Trump has any idea of what he'll be dealing with), we can't dismiss her statement outright. These attacks, if they spread (and they just might), will push American politics to the further and further right. People will want strong leaders who won't take any shit--fuck human rights, that's for liberal pussy fags. And that sets the stage for a fascist dictatorship. That's exactly how Hitler built his appeal--he looked strong and stalwart and made his enemies quake in fear, he'll take back what is rightfully Germany's, he'll make our enemies respect and fear us.

In the wake of 9-11, we watched Americans willingly give up freedoms for imaginary security. In the face of another 9-11, those freedoms will be pretty much gone. We're cowards at heart. No one said anything about the illegality of the Patriot Act and had no problem that Bush had used the telecommunications corporations to help him spy on illegally Americans (he bypassed the FISA court)--all of which was revealed in 2006 but when Snowden goes and reveals the identical information some years later, suddenly we're demanding that the spying stop (despite the fact that these programs are now FISA-approved). We all the know the reason: Bush was president then and Obama is president now. Anyone who tells me that that is not the reason is either an idiot or a liar. Snowden didn't reveal anything that every American should not have already known for years. But polls taken back then showed that Americans overwhelmingly supported it and that is why the current administration carried on with it as will the next no matter who it is. Once you allow it, you're stuck with it. We clearly haven't learned this lesson. We are clearly not going to learn it.

Once you get a guy in the White House who looks strong and ruthless, Americans will immediately bow down and do his bidding. They've spit at Obama only because his responses are measured, restrained and civil (i.e. he's a weakling). Remember how these idiots couldn't shut up about how there were no terrorist attacks with Bush in charge (despite his allowing the largest terrorist attack on American soil)? That rhetoric all but vanished the day Obama took office despite 2 terms with no notable terrorist attacks in the US, despite the fact that he took Osama out which his predecessor failed to do even though he PROMISED he would. They're real tough guys with Obama but couldn't stop licking Bush's ass. And it will happen again if they can get their guy in the White House. A guy who will be strong and ruthless and shut down his detractors. And sooner or later, I'm afraid, they will.

Interestingly, here in Michigan, the republican-controlled legislature is trying to pass a bill eliminating single-punch voting cards. This is the card where you can just punch one hole to vote a straight ticket. I used it in the last election for the first time. I always previously voted for individual candidates but was so fed up with Republican bullshit that I punched a straight democratic ticket in 2012 although it didn't do any good for the state, the republicans won hugely.

So now the Michigan GOP is introducing a bill to eliminate one-punch voting. Now there could be legitimate reasons for it, right? Except there aren't. The very reason they gave is that one-punch voting tends to favor democrats. So they are going to re-do the ballots to make it harder to vote for their opposition. It has nothing to do with making voting easier or less cumbersome--in fact, the opposite. If you want to vote a straight ticket, you have to do it page-by-page if this becomes law. Hopefully, then, you might pick some republicans by mistake.

My Post got duplicated by me in in correcting bad links. See the next post.

DB Roy wrote:Trump continues fanning the flames of racist and xenophobic hatred by saying he would implement a program to deport all 11.3 million illegal immigrants which he compared to the Eisenhower Administration's disastrous 1954 program that deported 1 million illegals called "Operation Wetback," the brain-child of the attorney-general Herbert Brownell, Jr. What amounted to a secret police force operating above and outside the law abducted these immigrants indiscriminately so that families were ripped apart and people who were actually legal citizens were rounded up, herded like slaughterhouse cattle, and released deep in the deserts of Mexico where many, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, died of dehydration or exposure.

You rail against this and I agree with you. Here's another quote from you D.B. "Indonesian Muslims are every bit as bat- shit crazy as the ones in the Middle East and possibly worse".

That's the kind of rhetoric that goes down well at far right rallies against Syrian immigrant refugees in Dresden and other parts of Europe.
Do you disagree with Marine Le Pen,Gert Wilders and other like minded people on their views of how Syrian refugees should be treated?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 59357.html
None of what's happening in France is simple but is rooted in political realities as well as the Sunni Shia divide within Islam and real history.
Here's one view of these issues. http://www.independent.co.uk/author/robert-fisk

And here's a documentary on the rise of Isil with the utterly confusing clash and sometimes temporary agreement of the various political interests of many nations.
It's a pity about the thousands of dead civilians and those still alive who are caught in the middle of all this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsHrULpYeFk The Rise of ISIL.

Flann 5 wrote:

DB Roy wrote:Here's another quote from you D.B. "Indonesian Muslims are every bit as bat- shit crazy as the ones in the Middle East and possibly worse".

That's the kind of rhetoric that goes down well at far right rallies against Syrian immigrant refugees in Dresden and other parts of Europe.

I'll take your word for it since you must obviously attend these rallies because otherwise I'd have to assume you're talking out your ass--which we know is impossible.

Do you disagree with Marine Le Pen,Gert Wilders and other like minded people on their views of how Syrian refugees should be treated?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 59357.html

That's funny how you can link my observation of Indonesian Muslim behavior to how Muslims should be treated of which I wrote not a single word. To answer your question, I frankly do not care how they treat them. I don't live there. I don't care and there is nothing i could do about it if I did care. On my side of the fence, I tend my own garden. How you tend yours is your business and none of mine and I don't want it to be. And I'm sure you appreciate that unless, of course, you want to me to tell you how to tend your garden. No? Okay, then.

None of what's happening in France is simple but is rooted in political realities as well as the Sunni Shia divide within Islam and real history.
Here's one view of these issues. http://www.independent.co.uk/author/robert-fisk

"None of what's happening in France is simple but is rooted in political realities..." To state the obvious.

And here's a documentary on the rise of Isil with the utterly confusing clash and sometimes temporary agreement of the various political interests of many nations.
It's a pity about the thousands of dead civilians and those still alive who are caught in the middle of all this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsHrULpYeFk The Rise of ISIL.

Blame George W. Bush and his illegal war on Iraq. Thanks to him, we have ISIL.

It seems as if the latest Isil atrocities in Paris have had the effect of knocking heads together at the leaders summit in Turkey to find ways to get their various crossed purposes aligned to put a stop to Isil. No doubt they need to be stopped.
We'll see what happens.
Curiously in looking into this I came across an article by the experienced middle east journalist Patrick Cockburn which many will find surprising,because it makes the case that Trump was the most realistic in his analysis of the middle east crises.This was in mid October when the article was written.

Trump is a pragmatist and amoral in many ways and his vision of the wall between Mexico and the U.S. is surreal and lacking in humanity,in my opinion.
In any case here's Cockburn's article.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 98171.html
Of course it seems politicians of all stripes are inconsistent when it comes to putting their countries economic interests before moral consistency.
Robert Fisk points to this in relation to Hollande's contradictory position between arms sales to Saudi Arabia and his war on Isil.
www.independent.co.uk/author/robert-fisk

True to form Trump is now ratcheting up sentiment against the U.S. taking in Syrian refugees, to go along with his Rio Grande wall.
He says it could be the greatest trojan horse of all time.It's a conspiracy according to him which starts with familes,women and children and finally lots of tough young male potential jihadis.
Well it's possible of course that Isil could try get a jihadist slipped through as a refugee but that should be something the U.S. security and intelligence people should be able to assess.
It's highly unlikely that people fleeing from both Assad's armies and the jihadist armies are themselves jihadists. Wouldn't they be fighting with Isil in Syria if these young men were jihadists?
And wouldn't Isil with their oil money be able to get them to Europe in some other way than crammed into leaky boats?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/vide ... time-video
Putin's intervention supporting Assad's regime in Syria means regime change is highly unlikely there even if Assad himself is eventually pensioned off.
Obama found himself in a contradictory position with the opposition militias morphing into Jihadists while the moderates all but disappeared.
So he had no army to support except small Kurdish militias, and in real terms found himself fighting those who actually are fighting Assad's army.
So now with the latest international Isil atrocities most likely he will ally with Putin against Isil.
It could bring the Syrian war to a conclusion of some sort sooner than expected. And who knows what comes next?

If anyone is interested in wading through the details of the process of screening of refugees in the U.S. here's the recent government info on the subject. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs//ps/2015/11/249613.htm

A few statistics from the briefing are relevant to Trump's comments. Of Syrian refugees accepted so far, two percent are males of combat age,half are children and a quarter adults over 60.

geo wrote:I predict he will quickly fade to the background of this race.

DWill wrote:Yes, Trump is going to flame out.

DBRoy wrote:He will not get the nomination. We knew thatfrom the very git-go.

Heh, well this has been the conventional wisdom all along based on patterns in the last election, and for that reason it's still not true. At the moment it appears Carson is fading and Trump is getting stronger. It is still early - not a single vote has been cast, but for now the Trump fadeout scenario is what's loosing steam.

LanDroid wrote:geo wrote:
I predict he will quickly fade to the background of this race.





DWill wrote:
Yes, Trump is going to flame out.





DBRoy wrote:
He will not get the nomination. We knew thatfrom the very git-go.



Heh, well this has been the conventional wisdom all along based on patterns in the last election, and for that reason it's still not true. At the moment it appears Carson is fading and Trump is getting stronger. It is still early - not a single vote has been cast, but for now the Trump fadeout scenario is what's loosing steam.

U.S.presidential campaigns are unique in how early they begin and the amounts of money expended in various ways. You have these negative advertisements on radio and t.v and other media used to take down opponents.

I'm not sure what that's like from here in Ireland but it seems to rely on slick soundbites and images.

What's really needed is real debate on the issues. Given the realities of what is happening in the middle east,and the impact in Paris,Beirut,and elsewhere the need for meaningful and relevant foreign policy is no small matter.

As for predictions on Trumps progress or regress I wonder if Dwill, Geo and D.B. are now tempted to turn to crystal balls or astrology as a medium of prognostication?

Trump's distortion of the facts in relation to Syrian refugees is worrying and exploiting peoples genuine concerns about these things is pretty shoddy,I think.