I find it very unsettling that I keep seeing people who say they'd rather have trump as president than Hillary Clinton. I have many issues with her myself, but she seems to at least have some degree of regard for the consequences for her actions.
It's not like the president is more than a puppet. Trump can say all the BS he wants on the campaign trail. In reality he might just swing a couple of things a little worse than a "good" president.
If he ever gets elected he'll be more or less the same as every other president -- there are far more greater forces in control for a huge country (from established bureaucracies and state organizations, to parties, lobbies and big conglomrates) than some guy in the white house.
The president, through the executive branch, has a great amount of power. Quoting the Wikipedia article on executive orders:
> executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging 72-hour length strikes on enemies, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes.
It goes on to say:
> Two extreme examples of an executive order are Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 6102 "forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States" and Executive Order 9066, where Roosevelt delegated military authority to remove any or all people in a military zone (used to target Japanese Americans and German Americans in certain regions). The authority delegated to General John L. DeWitt subsequently paved the way for all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II.
That power is limited by the fact that the president is not really free to do anything he pleases from what's allowed, but is even before he hits the office tied by tons of deals, negotiations, behind the table alliances, special interests, donors, party loyalty, and, one would imagine, down to pure old blackmail and/or payola in some cases.
Nor are members of Congress 'free to do anything [they] please[]', but are also 'tied by tons of deals ...', making them, by your definition, also 'puppets'.
Nor are the Koch brothers, favorite targets of the anti-corporatists, free to do anything they please, but are also limited by many of the constraints you mentioned.
If everyone is a puppet, then the term 'puppet' is meaningless.
Sure, but that goes for Hillary Clinton as well. Is electing an open racist really the message america wants to send to people on how their citizens feel? And the president does matter quite a bit, even if s/he doesn't flat come up with the laws.
The question was "is electing an open racist really the message america wants to send to people".
My reply was to the effect of:
The "message" is not that important. Actual acts matter more.
Case in point: even when America elected a black president the actual "message" that eventually prevailed is what we hear in the news about systemic racism being as big as ever, what with all the racially motivated police abuse and shootings etc.
I don't know, I think it's unrealistic to expect a president or a message to make massive changes in a short amont of time, given that other political institutions are far more important in regards to making laws, but that does not mean it's not important. Politics move slowly.
He wouldn't have to do anything. All he would have to be is a puppet, a mascot for hate and intolerance towards Muslims. Just having that guy take a seat in the Oval Office would make life significantly worse for everybody of the Muslim faith. Good luck being a brown kid in the playground when a white kid's parent puts a Trump sign on the lawn.
At this point I really hope his goal is further success in the entertainment industry. Anything resembling outsider public service has long since disappeared.
> If he ever gets elected he'll be more or less the same as every other president
On quite a number of issues with high political salience, presidents are very different. So "just like every other President" covers a fairly enormous range.
And preferable of nearby decades (e.g. not comparing Roosevelt with Bush senior), as what's to be practiced changes a lot with the era and culture at large, aside from whose President.
I do not support either candidate (and honestly think the 2 party system is a bit shit), but I would like to point out the fact that she failed to disclose/provide, and basically deleted data that was requested by a court of law (some of which they later retrieved since it seems she didn't actually zero the memory).
She's clearly not accountable to the same set of rules that others (maybe just people who aren't rich enough to deftly use/manipulate the system) live by in the US. Maybe it's just afforded to former first ladies, that might be the case too.
Unless I'm sorely mistaken:
1. A court requested a private mail server from her
2. She deleted/modified stuff on it, then gave it to them
3. She's not in jail
Given 1 and 2, I would normally expect 3 to not be the case (in short, I would expect her to be in jail).
I agree completely 100%. Like I said, I have many issues with her myself, and would not want her to be president. But still better than trump, who is unpredictable and incredibly racist
Yeah, I definitely agree. It sucks because I consider myself a conservative, and for a while was really hoping that trump was just committing to some super duper long-con troll, by saying the most outrageous/offensive/clearly factually inaccurate things possible.
I thought the most interesting angle to him was that he wasn't tied to the money structure (since he's already rich), and could really shake things up (and by shake things up I mean destroy everything with incompetency), but now it's scary to consider someone with his persona (I'd like to credit him with not actually believing/being the things he says) could actually gain traction in a society of reasonable individuals.
Doesn't look like he wants to put them in internment camps, though. More like halting further or new immigration? Then again, the NYT article is low on actual details being proposed.
Yes at least the other modern politicians responsible for disgraceful inhuman behaviour have the smarts to hide behind sophisticated political theatre.
I see Donald Trump running for president as being nothing more than a glorified PR campaign to build his own brand. I don't think he even cares if he wins or loses, and I think it's possible he might not even accept the presidency if he were to win it as it's not worth the headache - He's a businessman first and foremost whose primary interest is in amassing wealth.
However, I do think there is one "side benefit" to his absurd, self-serving presidential campaign, and that is he is making a mockery of the US's political process and pushing it to its logical extremes, which I think is long overdue. A good democratic process should be able to prevent potential fascists from gaining power, and the fact that Trump even got this far shows the deficiencies of the system and that it needs reform. There is literally nothing stopping popular and influential celebrities like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian from running for president and winning. In fact, they've even announced their intentions to do so[1].
I'd argue that, ironically, Trump is achieving the same ends that Larry Lessig[2] hoped to achieve, albeit through very different means.
I think Trump may have started out with the plan to run for the publicity and to promote his brand but at this point I think he really wants to win the presidency. At this point in his life he has enough money that an extra couple billion won't do much to change his lifestyle or legacy.
But if he were to become president, he would be only the 44th person to be president, would have a definite mark on history, etc. For someone who puts his name up on the buildings he builds, I think the legacy and fame aspect of the presidency would be more attractive that whatever money he would make by forgoing the presidency and continuing in business.
Edit: There have been 44 presidencies, 43 presidents
It's easy to feel outraged, but you'd be just playing Trump's game. Does he believe there is a chance that the US will actually ban Muslims from entering the country? Or even that it would be a good thing if it did? No, he just wants to say outrageous things and get people talking about him. The reasonable person's response is to simply ignore him, much like you would a toddler throwing a tantrum.
So, to sum up all the comments so far on this thread:
"No regard for the consequences of his actions"
"Fascist" + Comparison to Hitler.
"Has answers that are clear, simple and wrong"
"He's somehow still allowed to continue running for
President(sic)"
"Have to endure his ranting and raving"
And to play devil's advocate a bit, no one has so far even mentioned any one of his actual comments/arguments. Instead it's a clear-stream of ad-hominems with really no substance. One would think that if he's so obviously in the wrong, judging from these comments, we would have an easy time criticizing his ideas/arguments?
It's so obvious that it's unnecessary. You shouldn't discriminate people based on religion. Not all muslims are terrorists. There are many muslims who have contributed greatly to the united states and the world in general. You happy now? What are you looking to hear here? This isn't exactly a nuanced argument that needs to be picked apart. It's just "these people are muslims, therefore we should ban all people who (say they) are muslims" - that's wrong because you can just say you're not a muslim, and because correlation does not imply causation. It will affect exclusively innocent people, because terrorists are smart enough to lie on a simple yes/no question. Do I need to keep going?
>"You shouldn't discriminate people based on religion"
Of course, I agree. But a discussion of it really isn't that simple. For one, people are already being discriminated on based on religion in the US on a massive scale, and it's codified in the law via tax-breaks for religious institutions. It's just not so clear when you're on the right side of the fence (i.e. a non-athiest). Not saying you should discriminate on religion, but to use the word "obvious" would be hypocritical as we aren't calling out the current leaders for religious discrimination. How about we use Trump's wrong viewpoints to spawn some discussion about making some changes to existing discriminatory policies?
>"It will affect exclusively innocent people, because terrorists are smart enough to lie on a simple yes/no question. Do I need to keep going?"
But your comments/observations as above are exactly what the thread needed when I came to it, to spawn some discussion. Was just pointing out that the thread at that point was really all about "attack Trump".
I'm actually a believer that religions should get no special tax status whatsoever, so at least my beliefs are consistent I suppose. Still, I think this is playing a bit of the semantics game, as a very indirect discrimination like that is not on the same level as barring people from entry to a country based on fairly loosed belief based criteria (i.e. anyone who identifies as a muslim)
> You shouldn't discriminate people based on religion.
Actually you should because religion is a choice. It is not a necessity or inevitable. Every religious person has deliberately chosen to be such.
While I agree that banning entry is too harsh and religion is not strongly correlated with aggression, the idea that hijabs are protected and your employer must accommodate you, but coming to work cosplaying as an wookie is violation of the dress code and you can be fired is deeply dishonest.
Religion gets too free pass in that society - we should treat it as any other irrational belief.
Edit: the Sovereignty of US means that they are able to refuse entrance to non citizens for no reason whatsoever.
"we should treat it as any other irrational belief"
How do you distinguish between a rational and irrational belief?
I am strongly influenced by Kurt Vonnegut' "granfalloon" - "a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is actually meaningless". Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon :
> The most commonly purported granfalloons are associations and societies based on a shared but ultimately fabricated premise. As examples, Vonnegut cites: "the Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company—and any nation, anytime, anywhere." A more general and oft-cited quote defines a granfalloon as "a proud and meaningless association of human beings." Another granfalloon example illustrated in the book were Hoosiers, of which the narrator (and Vonnegut himself) was a member.
What makes you certain that believing in "the US" is any more rational than believing in various gods?
To be certain, there is a consensus reality which says the US exists, and if you fail to go along with the consensus you may be subject to negative consequences. Just like if you fail to express certain religious beliefs, you may subject to negative consequences, even in secular countries.
For examples of 'undue hardship', see http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html. One is "It will typically pose an undue hardship for an employer to accommodate an applicant or employee’s asserted religious belief against providing or using a social security number.", citing:
> Sutton v. Providence St. Joseph Med. Ctr., 192 F.3d 826 (9th Cir. 1999) (hospital not liable for refusing to hire applicant who declined to provide social security number on religious grounds; because federal tax law required the hospital to obtain all employees’ social security numbers, accommodation of applicant’s religious belief would pose undue hardship); Hover v. Florida Power & Light Co., 1995 WL 91531 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 6, 1995) (employee’s proposed accommodation that employer “make up” a social security number rather than obtain employee’s actual social security number posed an undue hardship), aff’d, 101 F.3d 708 (11th Cir. 1996) (Table) (unpublished).
Another example (example 34) would be if a nurse did not want to participate in abortions, for religious reasons, and the hospital did not have another position which she could transfer to, then the hospital could terminate her employment.
Or, for an example of how religious garb specifically can be prohibited, in Larocca v. Gold a lawyer who was also a priest was prohibited from "wear[ing] his Roman Catholic collar when appearing before a jury as a defense lawyer in a criminal trial" http://www.leagle.com/decision/1981806662F2d144_1792/LaROCCA... .
Religion is a highly personal thing, and for me, saying that you shouldn't discriminate people based on it is far different than saying anything relating to religion gets a free pass. There's a valid discussion to be had in the question of "when does a person end and a behaviour start?" - but alas that discussion is misplaced here because trump did not even attempt to hide his message in softer words.
If you want an expansion of the "clear, simple and wrong" argument it's pretty easy.
Which is to say using the term Muslim in that context lumps in a huge number of diverse cultural and religious groups. It's like saying 'Christian' which lumps in everyone from members of the Coptic Christian Church, Catholics, Japanese Catholicism (leftovers from the Portuguese circa 1700) Unitarians, Quakers, Baptists, and some weird sect hiding out in Montana waiting for Alien Jesus.
Mostly it ignores that the vast majority of the faithful practice their religion in the breach. And the majority of sects strongly oppose the idea of people going out in a blaze of violence.
I think that politicians generally don't bring a framework of sufficient substance for us to criticize, and it's probably not because of fear of the critique of American voters, but rather fear of the attack ammunition they're going to give to rival political attack dog organizations.
Also, a lot of people aren't going to digest the nuances of your framework, which means very little global positive and a lot of room for misinterpretation -- more attack ammunition.
I tend to agree with that. I'd much rather the politician actually define a clear set of rules or a framework as you put it, that he is to hold himself accountable-to during the elected period.
But, could we not say that Trump is sort of doing exactly that? Being brutally honest, and coming up with perhaps blatantly wrong, but "easily-definable" items he will be doing during his term?
Great quote from the article: "“What if we had barred Russians from America because of the Cold War? Who would have invented Google?” Mr. Patel asked, referring to Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin."
That's also fallacious logic. It assumes that if Brin hadn't 'invented Google', then no one else would have come up with something similar, at about the same time. For all we know, we might have had something better.
Recall too that we live in a world where 'Asiatics' (first Chinese, then Japanese, then much of Asia and the Pacific Islands) were barred for decades from immigrating to the US. Using the same logic, think of all the things we are missing, and how much better things might have been, had we not done that.
Don't misunderstand me. I want freedom of movement to extend to moving across international borders. I want us to treat it more as a human right [0]. But the argument concerning Google is a retrospective economic one that sounds more like post-hoc justification, rather than one based on ethical or moral principles. [1]
[0] I don't consider it a human right. I agree with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution". I place that human right of asylum above the right to move for family, economic, or personal reasons.
[1] As an example of the post-hoc, almost Panglossian basis for the argument, what if we hadn't had the Japanese internment camps. Then how would we have had George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the USS Enterprise, and his later influence in LGBT rights?
Here are the main reasons I like trump more than Hillary and Bernie in order of importance (mind you I'm a Milton Friedman type libertarian):
#1, he supports competition. And realizes the governments opportunity to utilize it more efficiently. Unlike Hilary who loves to get in bed with corporations. Or Bernie who in comparison wants to government to run everything.
#2, he's not a politician. He is not running as a career move. He has no one to appease. He does not speak like a politician - who never really speak their mind. He's a businessman by nature. This appeals to me.
#3, he contrary to our overbearing crusade for political correctness
Most of the other issues I do not have as strong of feelings.
AFAIK he did't. And that was mostly a manufactured outrage about semantics.
A taboo that I am glad he does break is not being able to discuss the potential negative aspects of different cultures/races. It should not be taboo to say X culture/race has a problem with X crime, etc. But yet it is. That's overbearing political corectness IMO and I'm glad he breaks it.
Trump knows he can't win, so now he is just putting ridiculous statements out there so he can now later say "I told you so" to any bad event. It is just ego.
Well, see, in a free country, "allowed" to run is a pretty slippery concept. You don't actually need anybody's permission.
Where Trump does need permission is to run as a Republican. I have no idea why the Republican National Committee hasn't just said, "not using our name". Maybe because that was part of the "promise you won't run as an independent" deal they made with Trump?
And what Trump does have (unfortunately) is a whole bunch of support from primary voters. I cannot fathom how that is possible, but apparently it is. On a more pragmatic view, that's why he's "allowed".
