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Contra Trump – by Harry Binswanger

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Or you could be even more sadistic Nicky and watch the reactions of millions of American voters as they realise they have been missold.

If I had to vote for one of them, literally if I was forced to vote - I would choose Trump over Hilary; if only out of morbid curiosity.

What interests me about Trump is that for the election he sees it for what it is. A grotesque popularity vote he has to win to get his shot as president. He is not trading with men of virtue but with largely ignorant masses, and the fact his campaign has been so successful shows he knows precisely what they are like.

What will he actually be like as president? Well we will see.

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On 6/18/2016 at 11:01 AM, Claire1964 said:

So, you see Trump, who supports our right to bear arms and who denounces Muslim invaders, as a tyrant.

Tyranny is but one aspect, but yes, I believe he tends towards tyranny -- to a significant degree more than our run-of-the-mill politicians (including Clinton), who all fall somewhere on the statist spectrum. His casual dismissal of such American liberties as "freedom of religion" is breathtaking; he appears to neither understand nor care about "liberty." I don't think he genuinely cares about anything other than his own aggrandizement. But what else can we say about a man who proposes something like a wall along the Mexican border, as ridiculous as such a notion is, the expense it would entail, the impossibility of preventing bypass, etc.? What more could we call him, apart from would-be despot? A lot, I'd guess, but nothing complimentary.

On 6/18/2016 at 11:01 AM, Claire1964 said:

But Hillary, who wants to take your guns and refused to give aid to Americans being killed, who is inviting more killers into our country, is a better choice?

I'd ask you for evidence of any of your various accusations against Clinton, but I've seen how you respond to such requests. So I guess I'll just dismiss this rhetoric out-of-hand.

But to answer your question, yes, I think that Clinton is the better choice than Trump, by a wide margin. She's a typical center-left liberal politician, which sucks, and is bad for the nation, but does not threaten the kind of danger that a reckless man like Trump would.

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5 hours ago, DonAthos said:

...  ... he appears to neither understand nor care about "liberty." I don't think he genuinely cares about anything other than his own aggrandizement.

Besides self-aggrandizement, Trump apparently has no problem applying force to get his way. He is willing to call up businessmen exercising (what ought to be) their freedom to locate their business in any place, and threaten them if he does not like what they're doing. To be clear, this already happens to a large extent, but much more indirectly, and often through the color of law. Such things are obviously niceties to Trump, because he's ready to brag about applying force. This is the aspect that takes things to a new level: blatant application of force, without the attempt to hide but rather with a Don's pride in being an enforcer.

Besides, his explicit policies are horrendous. He speaks of tariffs that have not been seen for decades, while Hillary is apologizing unconvincingly for supporting "free-trade" agreements like TPP. Of course, he's such a pragmatic that one never know what's a lie -- and chances are nothing really is quite a lie, because there is no there there when it comes to political principles. Trump really has no truth he is upholding: he just puts his finger in the wind and tries to guess what will get him votes. So, he foolishly supports criminal prosecution of women who have abortions, then back-tracks when he's told that the religious right have not yet accepted this as a logical consequence of his actions. He proposes spending that will raise the deficit way more than any other president. He says he'll go against the rich, extending Obama's class-war rhetoric; but, he also throws in anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Politicians love blaming "the other" to distract voters from the real issues. In this election, Trump is doing so in spades: getting voters to prioritize a few things where the focus can be on "the other", so that they ignore the most important areas of policy: which he dare not speak to.

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  • 4 months later...
On 6/21/2016 at 7:59 AM, Jon Southall said:

Or you could be even more sadistic Nicky and watch the reactions of millions of American voters as they realise they have been missold.

If I had to vote for one of them, literally if I was forced to vote - I would choose Trump over Hilary; if only out of morbid curiosity.

What interests me about Trump is that for the election he sees it for what it is. A grotesque popularity vote he has to win to get his shot as president. He is not trading with men of virtue but with largely ignorant masses, and the fact his campaign has been so successful shows he knows precisely what they are like.

What will he actually be like as president? Well we will see.

No, we won't. Turns out he's not dealing with largely ignorant masses after all.

After almost a year spent spreading cheap demagogy and engaging in vulgar personal attacks against anyone who would dare call him out on it, less than a third of Americans have a favorable view of him, and two thirds hate his guts.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/189299/presidential-election-2016-key-indicators.aspx#pcf-image

Edited by Nicky
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