Former George W. Bush White House speechwriter Noam Neusner usefully explains why neoconservative pro-Israel Jewish Republicans are alienated from the Drumpf campaign and GOP.
There is no sugarcoating it — these are the darkest days for Republican Jews like myself. Donald Trump, the most likely Republican candidate for president, has built within our party the nearest thing America has ever seen to a European nativist working class political movement. Such movements, to put it mildly, have never been good for the Jews or allies of free thought and the free market.
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Nick Bisley, professor of international relations and executive director of La Trobe Asia, says the rise of such a divisive politician provided perfect ammunition for the rulers of one-party China to argue that democracy was bad not just for it but for the world.
“It produces buffoons. It’s carnivalesque. It is decadent,” Bisley says. Trump “fulfils in a lot of respects the stereotypes of this capitalist boss figure: a decadent westerner who shoots off with his mouth and fires off all sorts of racist, crazy comments.
“If it wasn’t true you would think it was made up. It fits perfectly the messaging they have put out [about democracy].”
Of course you wouldn’t have a thread you’ve never been to muted. Getting quoted in a thread other than the one you posted on is something that happens on these boards, and you get notified. Your comparison between that and being doxed was hyperbolic. The suggestion that you can’t say what you think (because other people might disagree?) and the idea that someone quoting you is creepy seems really weird to me. Things you say on these boards being quoted on these boards is what happens on these boards, and more often than not things are quoted to be disagreed with rather than agreed with. I think that’s how virtually every message board on the internet works.
As a non-American looking in from the outside, I completely agree with your assessment that both the Republicans and the Democrats have failed to deliver on the things they said they’d deliver on. I expect that of every politician to some extent, but I don’t even think that many American politicians were even trying. I think they are consciously playing their own voters for suckers, thinking the sheep will bleat on command in response to various buzz words.
I see a lot of what makes Donald Trump appealing as a candidate. But there are lots of reasons to think he’s terrible. He appears to be a terrific salesman who has made a lot of money for himself. From what I can see, the people working with Trump have been less successful than Trump himself. That’s what I think he is doing right now, selling himself as a president to people who are going to do a lot worse than he is if they buy it.
Of course that sounds like what I’m saying is that the worst case scenario is that Trump is just like all the others, since selling something they aren’t going to deliver is the problem that people are dealing with.
What I can’t take is the racist stuff, and he really did say those things, it’s not an invention of the media. He really talked about banning people from entering the country based on their religion, and he really did talk around a question about whether he would track people based on their religion (this, I think, is where you’ll find the Hitler comparisons since it actually reminds one of what Hitler did in a non-metaphorical way). He really did take 48 hours to disavow white supremecy (his defense of not knowing what it was is not credible).
His recent anti-protest and anti-democratic comments have been very troubling too. He really did say that things were better back when the standard response to protesters was to beat them up. He pines for the days of the Kent State shootings, basically.
What probably bothers me most about him is that he says how stupid Iraq was while saying he would bomb ISIS into the ground. It’s pretty easy to see yesterday’s foreign war as stupid, but he appears very ready to get into another one. So more of the same on the worst of American policy.
If someone votes from Trump in the primary because he isn’t Ted Cruz, I’d get behind that. But it’s hard for me to see being enthusiastic about the guy.
PBS runs a story on a family volunteering for Trump’s “Get out the vote” call bank, but fails to note the woman’s prominent white supremacist tattoos: Gothic-lettered 88 (“Heil Hitler”) on left hand, and a Stormfront-style Sun Cross on right hand.
And then, after defending their neglect of basic principles of journalistic responsibility, they continue to dig by uncritically broadcasting the subject’s prima facie non-credible claim that the tattoos are of purely religious meaning.
Given Trump’s previously moderate views on just about everything, and his previously friendly relations with the Clinton family, the “long con” conspiracy theory becomes more and more convincing: Trump has got people thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton who would never ever ever vote for her if she weren’t literally the only alternative to literal fascism.
The incomparable Todd Gitlin reports for WaPo on precedent for risks of increased violence associated with Drumpf rallies.
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Wallace roused his crowds against left-wingers in the same way Trump turns his followers’ rage against Muslims and immigrants. Like Wallace, the game Trump plays is, “Make my day.” Disruptors in his audiences are props for his performances, rallying his supporters more fervently and defensively around him. The result, as in 1968, is a growing climate of violence. It feels as if, somewhere, fuses are lit. …
Is Tuscon tired of the Trump Charm offensive already? How could they not be?
Footage posted on the internet by a CBS reporter appears to show Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, yank a protester by his collar at an event in Tucson, Arizona. A second man, behind the protester, also appears to grab the demonstrator, a young man who spins around to confront them after realizing he is being physically restrained.
Chris Christie and others keep saying similar things about Donald Trump right before they pledge support for him. And those are the ones not saying the same things about Ted Cruz, right before they pledge support for Cruz.
