I’m not disagreeing here. Just adding on.
Insofar as his point was that either Obama is stupid or something else is going on, yes he is correct. “A or not A” is a very reliable way to be correct.
Insofar as the way he said it, I would say that either that should raise our bullshit antenna or something else is true.
That aside, I note that on one hand Donald Trump seems to think it’s important that the white house hasn’t condemned radical Islam specifically while condemning terrorism in general, but can’t understand how it is worth specifically saying that black lives matter, favouring “All Lives Matter”. By his own reasoning, what does this say about him?
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it says that he is a complete and total asshole as well as prejudice-baiting demagogue.
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Me too 
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It plainly has in some form but it doesn’t accept that terminology, arguing that it presents terrorists as religious representatives. From back in February:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-were-not-at-war-with-islam-1424296897
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Okay… just wanted to clarify that! 
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Some but not others; as for the latter I can provide one pseudo-measurement. When the Borders chain was shutting down, I went to the closest store (Bowie, MD) at a point when most of the books were gone and they were selling the fixtures (shelving etc.). The travel section, for example, still consisted of a few books, but mostly empty space. But there was a rack by the register that was still filled with marked-down copies of Going Rogue.
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Because the entire point of this is to cast Islam, specifically, as the bogeyman of the hour.
I’m afraid that not calling out radical Islam as a huge problem is really just building Trump an amazing platform that he can shout from. Radical Islam is a big problem around the world. There’s no harm in acknowledging that.
There’s a lot that the Democrats could learn from Trump and the GOP. The right is 10x better at communicating their message.
I get it. I’m a handful.
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She’s probably unpopular and popular in the same places that Trump is… which will mean that if he picks her, he’s only doubling down instead of reaching out to another demographic of the GOP which is alienated by Trump.
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ISIS is in a war to define Islam, to say that their Islam is real Islam. I think refusing to acknowledge them as Islamic at all works against their divide and conquer strategy. Organizations needs money and they need recruits, and so an organization trading on war in the name of Islam needs Muslims to be abused and insulted by their supposedly open western governments. Refusing to play that game is the right strategy against ISIS.
If your point is that it is the wrong strategy in the election, then I guess we could disagree about whether it is more important make good policy decisions or good political ones.
Not really. All there is to learn from Trump is that if you successfully harness the authoritarian follower vote then you can say or do anything. If the Democrats switched strategies to try to appeal to the same audience - that is, people who are afraid of making decisions for themselves and want a strongman figure to tell them what to do - they’d be fighting over the 30-35% of the population that Trump has locked up. Probably better to focus on the 65-70% left over who may not go Trump.
But will Trump pick someone strategically or pick a sycophant to pad his ego? I guess time will tell.
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I think we can make an educated guess, based on what he’s done so far and I’d lean towards the latter rather than the former. But yeah, we’ll see. I’m sure he’ll announce it soon, prior to the convention, I’d guess.
There is when it’s immediately used to justify things like trying to prevent any Muslims from immigrating, or applying additional police scrutiny to Muslims, etc.
“Radical Islam” is a dogwhistle. Trump would love the Democrats to use it, because it would help him push his agenda even harder.
In recent weeks I’ve had multiple acquaintances who are republicans lecture me about how Muslims are such a threat, and how “if Clinton gets her way and allows [bignumber] of them to come into the country” then we’re going to see huge numbers of terrorist attacks. That’s exactly the sentiment that Trump’s trying to pander to.
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All I know is that I’m glad I don’t have to be careful of Real Americans. They never kill anyone.
You can tell them from the rest of the country because they don’t have a passport. “Why should I leave, they got something better elsewhere?”
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Unfortunately, the world-view which is pro-Trump is also anti-Western-Civilization. For them, it is a feature, not a bug.
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Seriously, he does?
Well, admittedly not 100% certain. But if he’s not reading it, he’s getting his information from someone who does.
the thing that makes me scream is that, even if the president WAS a muslim (and he’s not, he’s pointed out all the ways he would be the WORST muslim in the world if he was because he breaks the rules of the religion all over the place) but even if he WAS… SO WHAT? we don’t have any laws against the president being one religion or another.
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Violent fanatics are a problem around the world. Most are not Muslim. In fact, in the U.S. more people are killed by Christians than Muslims. Do you really want the President pointing that out?
Hate is so much easier to portray.
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While having a microdream the answer has come to me: Give Trump and Jones swords and tell them they arr highlanders.
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