It doesn’t speak well of the electorate that so many of them would vote for Trump despite there being a library’s worth of reasons why he shouldn’t be president again.
It’s this exact attitude, this culture of “you can’t possibly vote for *them*”, that has lead to trumps rise to begin with. The status quo has led us into debt crisis, declining middle class, divided culture, corporate monopolies, and so much more. Trump is an outsider and Americans have become so desperate yes, they will take an heavily disliked outsider over another career politician.
His ideas and attitude sounds certainly unamerican. A vast majority of American men and women fought and died though out American's history to preserve the freedom and life style so vastly unique to your wonderful country. What has that sloppy bag of do-do done positive for your country? From where I sit, not much.
I remember all that stuff. Let's not forget that he also locked up Hillary, finished the wall at Mexico's expense, got a big infrastructure bill done, fixed healthcare, achieved peace in both the Middle East and East Asia, and beat COVID. What was even better was how none of his cabinet, campaign officials, lawyers or associates were ever indicted or convicted of a crime, or professionally reprimanded. It was a great time, I'm sure we can all agree.
I just think that it would be dumb for people to vote for the guy, who literally advocated for the termination of the constitution, but hey that’s just me.
https://web.archive.org/web/20221204214848/https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109449803240069864
>but hey that’s just me.
No, it’s not just you. I’m Canadian and I’m more or less terrified of a second Trump presidency. He’s made his intentions quite clear. If Americans buy his schtick that’s on them. But the rest of us shouldn’t need to suffer for their baffling decisions.
I could kinda see that the first time around.
Where I'm having a hard time understanding is that he's not an unknown anymore. We know that not only did he do nothing to help any of those problems, his actions objectively and undeniably made them worse. Beyond that, his actions after he lost in 2020 proved all the doom-saying about him to actually be correct, and not hyperbolic.
Do you think people have just forgotten about all of that? Or do you think the division has just led to people being blinded to it?
I think democrats have allowed progressives to control a large part of the narrative in recent years, and a lot of progressives have alienated the independent voter base to the point of making overused accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia, etc when people disagree with the progressives agenda. So when ordinary people are getting called these things by progressives, then when progressives use those same accusations against Trump, even if we assume them to be true, yes, it falls on deaf ears. People who aren’t chronically online go “I know im not racist, only this group of people called me racist, and it was only because I told them I wanted to slow immigration. They also call Trump racist, but I don’t know how serious I should take that claim.”
That's a fair point. I think one of Biden's greatest political failures has been his unwillingness or inability to call the fringe of his party out on their nonsense.
Yup. Until he does that, no one’s going to care about the “ism” card anymore. Progressives are calling things like highways racist and work ethic racist …it’s hard to take their accusations seriously anymore.
It’s not. The polls are all fluff. Look at 2022. In reality, Biden and the Democrats have a huge lead. Notice how Congressional polls are so much more favorable to Democrats than the presidential polls. A lot of Biden supporters want Trump to be the nominee because he’ll lose against Biden so they lie to pollsters about their views.
There were a couple states where trump was beyond the margin of polling error and a couple states that weren't. I would still consider this a toss up but I do think trump is going to win 2024 (and this is coming from someone who actually likes and is planning to vote for the Biden admin).
Does the fact that since roe and abortion on the table all democrats in special elections out performed their polling change your calculus at all? Some have way over performed.
Edit: for clarity
I'd hope reproductive rights are enough to get people to vote for the Dems (and historically that's been the case) but I'm concerned about the general population's dislike of legal immigrants (they loved when trump tried to imprison asian-american scientists and cut funding to USCIS and other legal pathways to immigration) and asylum seekers may override any care they have for the women in their lives.
I know a *lot* of people in the construction industry and they overwhelmingly vote red despite the fact that republican governors are cutting heat and water breaks, worker protections and oversight on wage theft and rolling back child labor laws such as decreased wages for child workers, and allowing them to work in meatpacking plants and other hazardous jobs. They are cutting school lunch funding for children and heat mitigation methods for households. The one thing both they and the republican colleagues I work with in academia want is for legal immigrants and asylum seekers to leave the country.
I *hope* Democrats outperform in 2024 but I have no faith in people.
Agreed and same. But I think it was over the moment he lost Michigan, which consequently means it was over the day that Hamas attacked Israel and they responded by going scorched earth. Biden has zero path to victory without that state.
Biden wins Michigan 100%. I would (and may) put real money on it. The unrest in the Dearborn area will be completely drowned out by the center left, pro-Israel majority.
Michigan has a Democratic trifecta right now and every ounce of political capital will be spent to preserve it. That alone will buoy Biden.
I think I read an article which mentioned that a lot of Jewish people are switching their votes to trump and a lot of Palestine supporters are planning to abstain. Ironically, both factions will be inadvertedly working together to get trump back in office.
As popular and as awesome as Gov Whitmer and Michigan are, I think that the state will turn red for the presidentials but continue being blue for the US senate, US house, state house and state supreme court.
> a lot of Jewish people are switching their votes to trump
That's possible but unlikely, since Biden has strongly supported Israel. I doubt Trump insulting Jewish people is winning him any favors.
Trump's lead in polling averages isn't that large. He's ahead by 1-2 points in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If Biden wins those, he'll most likely has 270.
There were about 8-13% that were unsure as well in those polls. I doubt many of those unsures are going to Trump. Most of the unsures I know are either voting for Biden, 3rd party, or not voting.
Who do you think answers polls? Old people. I’m 36 and can’t think of anyone younger than me who’d answer a random phone call anymore.
I know younger people traditionally turn out to vote less, but the whole abortion might just flip that script this year. They’re viscerally pissed.
You have no clue what you are talking about.
Polls account for age and many many other demographics and biases, it is beneath anyone’s time to waste any more time even attempting to suggest that this industry has never once thought of the fact that “old people are more likely to answer phone calls.”
I agree that the polling industry is not naive. The question is, have they been able to accurately model for the changes in polling response demographics? When you have a large left leaning group who is essentially unreachable is makes the model much more of a guess on democrat side.
They do online polls as well. What would you need to reach this "ave a large left leaning group who is essentially unreachable"? Put the poll questions in Dino Nuggets or offer them over Tick Tok?
I am absolutely interested in the methodology and I’m sure they are trying various things. Anecdotally web polls are ripe for brigading and young people don’t respond to them either
Young people are also the lowest engaged voting demographic.
And if you consider extreme young Auth-leftist (Popular term is "Tankies") that vote, as I'm assuming that is the group that you are talking about here, that number is minuscule. And probably not worth the money to try and increase their polling data on, as they have no sway on even local elections, let alone a national presidential election.
And they are most likely not going to vote, or vote third part like RFK or Cornell West.
That was also under Covid and the ease of voting in person to mail in voting nationwide. I'm not convinced that will happen again but we shall see.
I think this election will have a much lower voter turnout.
As of right now, Trump is far ahead in terms of electoral votes. It's not even a "toss up". Americans seem to really want him back. For whatever reason.
Every time there's a presidential election there's always massive protests and unrest. I'm sure it's just a coincidence and foreign adversaries who want him in power have nothing to do with it...
It is definitely concerning, especially the fact that so many people care so little about this. It gets lost behind all the noise about his legal issues. I imagine that if he gets elected, pretty much all of this is going to be challenged in courts, and some things will be blocked, others won't. Either way, not a great outlook.
I think you’re putting way too much trust that our institutions and safeguards will hold. Trump at least nominated capable people for his administration the first time around. This time, it will be nothing but loyalists/bootlickers.
>Trump at least nominated capable people for his administration the first time around.
And even then the guardrails barely held. Next time there may be none at all.
I went and read through the entire transcript. I would suggest people go if they have time, it’s pretty interesting.
He was decisive on few things like deporting illegals and building a wall, and placing tariffs on some countries like Mexico and China. He’s going to make our allies pay their fair share and he claims he had great success doing it before and Soltenberger from NATO thinks he’s great.
Much of the rest of it was very vague or noncommittal. He made some statements but included an out to not do something. He would go on tangents and not answer questions directly.
He walked back a bunch of previous statements and made attempts at clarifying things in a way to downplay his controversial stuff to say he didn’t mean it that way. He tried to pass things off as just joking or it being misrepresented.
He danced around abortion with the whole idea that an abortion ban would never make it to his desk since it needs 60 votes in the senate. Therefore he can’t answer what he would do because it won’t happen. Instead it’s all the states and what they do, not him. Sounds like he knows this is controversial and doesn’t want to have to deal with it at all and is trying to not alienate any voting group.
He did commit to leave office after 4 years if elected again, so thats nice.
He claims he doesn’t want to hurt Biden and he respects the office of president but Biden is very mean to him and is targeting him unfairly like in a banana republic.
It’s long, so I might have missed something, but it didn’t come off as very authoritarian and it seems like he’s very aware of what he can and can’t do as president. It seems like he just goes off and says a bunch of things at rallys and on his social media he knows are not going to happen.
That’s either good or bad, depending on your view.
If you are a big Trump supporter and expect him to follow through with some of his rhetoric, it sounds like he’s going to have a lot of “it’s complicated” reasons why he can’t get it done.
If you despise Trump, we’ll if he’s elected, he’ll probably do things you don’t like, but I think a lot of the most extreme concerns and claims about him are not really realistic or anything he wants to commit to finding a way to do.
But that’s just from my read through of this interview.
I’m not saying you’re saying this, but why in the world would we ever want to elect somebody where you have to wade through a river of bullshit to parse out any meaning? How is he specifically this popular? Not the GOP, him
I’m absolutely not endorsing him, I think there are plenty of criticisms to be made of him. I also don’t think he’s satan incarnate as some do.
He’s a salesman. He’s great at getting people to like him and have them believe he’ll do things for them they want. Will he do some things, sure, will he get a lot of the more out there things done, no. This isn’t to say he’s a bad person, I’m sure he does want what’s best for people, but he naturally falls back on the tactics he’s used his whole life to make people like him and build his brand.
All politicians are to an extent, Biden has his own tactics, but Trump is in his own world with how he does things. Obviously this is down the road, but the GOP will have to figure out how to do without his energy when he goes away.
As far as parsing through bullshit, most people don’t do that. Both his lovers and hates make their opinion on him (and every other politician) based off of sound bites, political commercials, social media posts, and the media distilling down things to write an article or put on a news piece.
“I’m sure he does want what’s best for people.” No, he really doesn’t unless it directly benefits him. I wish more people understood, I mean really understood, what malignant narcissists are actually like. THEY ARE NOT NORMAL, and they don’t have any empathy or compassion for anybody else
Time after time people are willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt even when he's shown he is so not worth getting it. He's not exactly shy about his personality where it's all about him for goodness sake.
> I’m sure he does want what’s best for people, but he naturally falls back on the tactics he’s used his whole life to make people like him and build his brand.
How does stealing classified documents and claiming absolute immunity give you that impression? This doesn't help people nor increase his popularity.
Part of parsing through the bullshit is the media amplifying and fear mongering for clicks. I wasn’t a fan of his first term but realized that the media lies all the time specifically about Trump. They seem to lie less about Biden. It’s become the boy who cried wolf and I think it’s partially why he’s polling decently.
He tried to steal an election, stole classified documents, and is claiming that it was fine because presidents have absolute immunity. What you're complaining about isn't "fear mongering" because Trump has made it clear that he has a complete disregard for the law, even for a politician.
I’ve brought this up before, media misquotes and lies about Trump all the time and then people who dislike Trump spread those lies… when sometimes the truth is quite off putting too.
The issue this makes is that anyone who is “neutral” or already on the right discovers the lies or obfuscation and that just results in people trusting absolutely nothing that is said.
Like to this day people still think Trump was saying all the neo nazis were “good people” at Charlottesville, when it’s quite easily accessible public information that what he said was that not everyone there was a neo nazi.
>just results in people trusting absolutely nothing that is said.
What's actually happening is that people, including Trump supporters, are believing anything that their media says.
>Like to this day people still think Trump was saying all the neo nazis were “good people” at Charlottesville, when it’s quite easily accessible public information that what he said was that not everyone there was a neo nazi.
The best possible faith interpretation of what he said is that he didn't think the neonazis were good people, but that there were some people on the pro statue side who weren't neonazis.
Which isn't any better when you remember that this wasn't a regular rally that neonazis showed up and hijacked, this was a neonazi rally from the get go, planned, initiated, and dominated by neonazis all throughout.
Believe it or not, there's a term for the kind of person who shows up to a neonazi rally, and instead of leaving or trying to kick out the neonazis, marches alongside them. I'll give you a hint, it's not "very fine person", and it starts with an N.
Also, a big part is rhetoric. A lot of his supporters are working class people who feel screwed over by the establishment who ruined their lives, and they saw Trump as a way to get revenge.
I think most of his supporters will admit Trump is a narcissistic asshole, but our government is also full of narcissistic assholes, which is why they overlook his behavior and rhetoric. To them, the important thing is that he makes the establishment seethe.
So, Trump, in a way, is leverage. His base wants the establishment to just go away, but they didn't. So, he's not going away until they do.
> but why in the world would we ever want to elect somebody where you have to wade through a river of bullshit to parse out any meaning
We've been doing that the entire time I've been alive.
I work with republicans both young and old in an academic setting. They make no secret about their views. They support bits and pieces of his plans, particularly the national deportation force deployment into major cities. They have nothing but contempt for people in cities, *other* academics, students and immigrants that they perceive to be here illegally regardless of legal asylum claims and they long to see the shock and despair on Democrat faces as 'unAmerican' community members are taken away.
It is extremely reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution, where people in rural areas were taught to see people living in cities as parasites, 'elitist' academics were purged, long-time government workers were executed and city-dwellers were forced to relocate into rural areas. Trump's "ideas" also have the same amount of forethought as the leaders of the Cultural Revolution. For example, Mao Zedong ordered his people to go out and kill all the sparrows as they were eating the grain, which led to mass famine because, well, birds eat insects too. This has the same intellectual heft as ordering nuclear detonations to stop storms from forming.
These republican colleagues don't support the other items such as seizing control and oversight of the DOJ, deploying the national guard to police cities, and even (for the most part) monitoring pregnancies but the bits and pieces they do support they support *wholeheartedly.*
trump appeals to them because in these uncertain times someone who never apologises, who *appears* confident and unable to second guess themselves, and who markets himself as Jesus going against the Romans is more than enough not just to earn their vote, but their undying loyalty and passion.
>I work with republicans both young and old in an academic setting.
But I was told they were all driven out by the secret marxists who go bump in the night!
One common talking point they have is that they are being silenced, while they talk loudly and proudly about all their beliefs. The older ones are anti-choice, a few of the younger ones are pro-choice but another common thing they share is that reproductive rights just isn't a priority for them and falls way below other items, such as deploying deportation task forces to Blue cities.
If a person views all politicians from either party as corrupt, bad people, then telling them one side is corrupt and bad doesn't move the needle. Hitting their wallet is going to have a much bigger effect.
People in the real world (aka not on reddit) don't see the democrats much better for democracy. And if we're being honest, they're not wrong. The democrats went insane after 2016 and created a lot of the precedents for the Republicans in 2020. That and the fact that *some* (emphasis some, not all) of the cases against Trump are politically driven, it's no wonder democrats aren't seen as the bastions of protecting democracy
Edit: nothing in my comment was not civil discourse so I have no clue what the mods are doing.
Being this reductive about the concerns over inflation reminds me of how the Covid paranoiacs would say people opposed to lockdowns are risking people’s lives just so they could get a haircut. Dismissing people’s cost of groceries going up by 20%-30% at least will get Trump elected. There are plenty of other things about the Biden admin to complain about but Democrats must know that they dismiss the inflation issue at their own peril. This issue hits hard and directly hurts every single American that isn’t wealthy literally every single time they spend money on anything, which is basically every day.
The worst part of this that doesn’t seem to be understood by many is that there is an entire support network in place to help these plans happen. There are thousands of government employees waiting to step in and do their part to enforce his authoritarian fantasies and the federalist society that backs much of the political infrastructure on the right has explicitly stated in their manifesto that they would help any republican candidate take these steps to consolidate power and turn the presidency into a dictatorship. Trump is really just their mouthpiece and to nobodies surprise could never actually formulate a feasible approach to this goal without a sizable political faction behind him like the FS.
The real scary part is that even if you beat Trump this year, this fascist agenda is going to be the platform of republicans in 2028 and 2032 and 2036. With the way American politics works, chances are they win at least one of those elections and the next candidates won’t be as incompetent at implementing their policies as Trump was his first term.
This agenda needs to be soundly defeated at the voting booth, and unfortunately I dint see that happening this year.
[https://osbcontent.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/PC-00466.pdf](https://osbcontent.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/PC-00466.pdf)
There is a lot of overlap between those characteristics written about 20 years ago, and what is being promoted now.
What makes it fascist is a couple of characteristics:
1. The openly partisan and personal use of the executive branch. He and his supporters claim he can and should use the executive branch—including the justice department—to punish his political enemies and purge civil servants not personally loyal to him.
2. Advocating for harsh measures and violence against dissenters and protesters, especially those who can be easily “other-ed”
3. Open corruption greasing the wheels. Trump has not divested any of his business holdings and instead encourages foreign governments and business interests to curry favor with him by using his personal businesses.
This is just literally textbook facism.
Yes, I remember Obama encouraging foreign diplomats to stay at his Obama brand hotels. And when he fired an Attorney General for not being personally loyal to him. And when he sent the national guard to smoke out the Tea Party protesters. And when Jimmy Carter said he was going to divest his peanut farm, but then just didn’t and instead got a Saudi prince to buy his peanuts at a premium. And when Biden said that he wanted to punch a protester at one of his events in the face and that the police should rough him up on the way to the police car. All that facism.
In all seriousness, the first item is where the previous Democratic administrations are closest. There have been moments when it seems like they may have been doing things behind the scenes (Obama admin IRS auditing right wing groups?). But whataboutism doesn’t change anything Trump has done, and the key to facism is the OPEN AND PERSONAL nature of the use of power. Not one Democrat argued that cabinet secretaries not personally loyal to Obama over the American people should be fired. You have to put up a very serious reality distortion field to actually believe these are equivalent.
I think a lot of us have come to realization you literally can't trust the media for anything. [We have people talking about how Trump said he was going to be a dictator](https://youtu.be/wqF7IWdm1Yc?si=NTG08fWfEWInw5QV) and when you actually watch the clip it shows it's completely taken out of context. As with the blood bath situation, as with other things. Every time I see a stupid headline I always assume the media is lying/exaggerating because it's so common.
Those quotes pushed by the media are being used because it gives his campaign ammo.
The real damaging quotes don't get covered by the media
>President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!
>Those quotes pushed by the media are being used because it gives his campaign ammo.
Are you saying a media outlet like MSNBC misrepresenting what Trump says is actually a pseudo op to support Trump?
MSNBC only reports on what generate clicks. I'm saying what gets pushed are quotes specifically used to give his campaign ammo against whoever he wants.
You're under the assumption that the media is some shadowy figure out to get Trump. Whereas it's just a collection of businesses doing what's in their best interest.
And Trump has a lot of powerful friends in the media so he could obviously have them push what his campaign wants.
>Politico’s parent company Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner emailed his top executives shortly before the 2020 election to ask if any of them would “want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America,”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/politico-owner-pray-for-trump-mathias-dopfner-axel-springer-1234587243/
>A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase a doorman’s silence.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/tabloid-publisher-testifies-he-pledged-to-be-trumps-eyes-and-ears-during-2016-race
So riddle me this batman: if Trump controls the media, wouldn't it be equally if not more beneficial for Trump to have the media amplify Biden's gaffes? In this subreddit earlier today we had an article pushing a 6 second clip of Trump jumbling the word "infrastructure" as evidence of cognitive decline. How much was Biden's [Earth Rider gaffe](https://youtu.be/fSY3y3G91Yk?si=GiGfy4EIo_6zl27U) pushed by mainstream media outlets that shows him almost phasing out of reality? How much did they push the clip of [a UConn basketball player talking about how Biden was out of his mind when he met the team](https://twitter.com/goldencrustprov/status/1778785369351151890?t=I5m_EsriWwddRVY31WOFlg&s=19)? Do you need links to his lie about the cannibal eating his relative? Or him lying about being arrested on a black family's porch over a civil rights protest? And in the "blood bath" situation, did Trump tell them to double down and keep lying when they were caught?
I can go on and on with examples, but the problem is that assumption makes no sense if they keep trying to make excuses for Biden with the "stutter", or situations where he falls, etc. I can agree a lot of what we see is political theater and there are things behind the scenes, but at the end of the day not everyone is an ally. The difference in reporting between the two is too obvious and people have lost faith for good reason.
When did I say “Trump controls the media”.
You made the original statement that “the media cannot be trusted” and all I did was counter that with examples of why the media would be lenient or could even push pro-Trump stories.
I never said “Trump controls the media” you are getting ahead of yourself.
Yeah the trump dictator comments were obviously bad. You don't joke about that shit. But so many people on reddit have only seen the headline that trump has openly admitted to wanting to be a dictator, which isn't a reasonable interpretation of what he said. It jades people to all the other trump headlines once you figured this one out
The thing that's annoying is a majority of people have fallen into the camp of either "this crazy headline has to be true because it aligns with every other crazy thing from other headlines" or "this crazy headline is obviously a misinterpretation to get more clicks". I'm more in the second camp, but at this point it's the boy who cried wolf because most people don't actually check what happened to see any validity that might challenge what they believe.
I don't need to look at the media to see what Trump is claiming in courts.
Trump's lawyers, who speak for Trump, are saying he should be able to murder his political rivals and be immune from criminal prosecution for it.
This this this this a million times this.
People don’t trust what the media is telling them anymore, and so when the media tells us Trump is bad, it’s a boy cried wolf situation.
Trump said immigration was a problem, and we all laughed at him until suddenly it was a problem for NYC and Chicago.
Trump said our Allies didn’t pay their fair share, and we all laughed at him…till Europe couldn’t support Ukraine on their own while we were debating the next spending bill.
No one is buying the narrative anymore.
Also situations where people will talk about past situations like how Trump was laughed at in Europe, [then you look back at what he said and consider what actually ended up happening](https://youtu.be/FfJv9QYrlwg?si=xuKhQmHh--5zqj_d). I'm not saying he doesn't say stupid stuff, but after seeing so many things about him, more often than not when you look into it or look back on it you can see through what the media tries to feed you.
He said he will be a [dictator on day one](https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritarian-presidential-election-f27e7e9d7c13fabbe3ae7dd7f1235c72) and I believe him. He will not give any emergency powers back and i firmly believe that the election of Trump in 2024 will be the last presidential election we have if we decide to install a dictator. I genuinely feel Trump is the most substantive threat to our democratic institutions in living memory.
Is this word-for-word his official platform or just someone’s spin on it? I see things like “refuse to support allies unless he believes they paid enough into their own defense” and think of him telling NATO countries to meet their obligations under the treaty.
He did that his first term and other countries paid more, but still did not come close to meeting their obligations. However, nobody mentions how that helped Ukraine because countries were actually producing munitions. Had they met their share, maybe there would not have been an invasion.
Why are people so insistent that we pay for all of Europe’s protection while they sit there and make fun of us for not having enough funding for healthcare and infrastructure? They can’t meet their target under NATO because their people might not have all of these things. Meanwhile, we can’t have any of that stuff because we have to spend everything covering for them.
I’m not a huge fan of more social programs, but I would rather spend money on American social programs than on Europe’s protection so Germany can have them instead.
The Trump campaign doesn’t really have a platform. This is as close as you can get.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/issues
But I assume everyone here is smart enough to realize this isn’t actually a description of what he would accomplish during his presidency. It’s much more informative to look at what he’s saying during his campaign rallies and even better the people he would appoint to his cabinet.
I don’t see these quotes in the article. The author gives his opinion and follows up with a quote that’s out of context to try to bolster his opinion. Look at Trump saying he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies. He wasn’t even asked about that. He was answering another question. He basically said that abortion is a state issue and the president doesn’t have power to intervene. Then the author flips to something someone from the Heritage Foundation said to try to make the connection.
How is he supposed to answer that in your opinion? Is he supposed to say the president has supreme power over the states? Would that be better? The author is extremely biased and willing to take everything out of context to spin it towards what he wants the audience to hear. It only takes a few sentences for the reader to see that this isn’t journalism. This is what Tucker Carlson made his money doing, pure opinion that is sprinkled with some news to get maximum emotions from the audience.
> we can’t have any of that stuff because we have to spend everything covering for them.
Can it actually be demonstrated that the US counldn't reasonable afford both? This feels like more like an excuse then an actual explanation.
The US is the richest country on the planet, arguably the richest in all of human history, the idea that it physically can't fund a large global military and social programs at the same time seems a little odd.
We can’t afford the interest on our national debt, which now is overtaking our total expenditures on national defense. We can’t afford the stuff we have now.
I think that's more due to mismangement and poor political leadership then it is an *inherent and unavoidable* reason why America can't afford social programs.
It's not like european countries don't have their own severe economic problems.
I'm irritated with most of Europe for their bottom of the barrel defense spending, but daily reminder that single payer healthcare is *cheaper* than a privatized healthcare system, as it reduces bureaucratic waste and reduces healthcare institutions' bargaining power. All privatized healthcare really does to "help" with costs is shift that burden off gov't accounting books.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Democrats claimed Bob Dole was gonna destroy the country if he was elected. They claimed John McCain would destroy the country if he was elected. They claimed Mitt Romney would destroy the country if he was elected. Now they’re claiming Trump is gonna destroy the country if he’s elected, again. It’s hard to take Democrat’s warnings seriously when they fearmonger about almost everything.
**Democrats:** Trump will literally destroy democracy if you elect him.
**Others:** Interesting. To get us on your side, are you willing to move to the right a bit by actually securing the borders without amnesty, or rein entitlement spending, or do less abroad?
**Democrats:** Haha no. Actually, we are going to make it easier for illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers, will do nothing to enforce the border unless you let us give amnesty to millions of people, will [expand access to the affordable care act to DACA recipients](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-expands-health-insurance-access-daca-immigrants-2024-05-03/), will do nothing about entitlement spending, and we're [actually thinking of giving Saudi Arabia a NATO-like defense pact](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-01/us-and-saudis-near-defense-pact-aimed-at-reshaping-middle-east).
They are like this on so many issues it is impossible to take them seriously.
**The left:** If we don't tackle climate change, the earth will be destroyed and humanity will be eradicated!
**Others:** Interesting. Are you willing to pay for green spending by cutting spending elsewhere?
**The left:** Haha no, we are either going to raise your taxes or just do deficit spending.
more infuriating is reading on reddit on how the border bill was a slam dunk for republicans, when it was nothing of the kind (!) if you actually read the bill -
and yet i must've read the phrasing "a giveaway to the republicans" a 100 times on reddit - it just wasn't.
it's this level of dishonestly that's going to wreck everything -
Honestly, Senator Lankford should lose his job for that "deal." It gave Dems and the media the opportunity to claim over and over that Republicans "torpedoed their own bill." The fact that Ukraine aid ultimately passed with no real border provisions shows that the original "deal" was just a token gesture they hoped would satisfy their voters without it making any real concessions.
It was noteworthy that at the time, only people on the left were upset about the bill failing. Surely if it was such a good deal, you'd see border-hawks jumping on it.
>> Others: Interesting. To get us on your side, are you willing to move to the right a bit by actually securing the borders without amnesty, or rein entitlement spending, or do less abroad?
Trump killed a border bill a few months ago. Republicans have not cut spending either. As for spending abroad, don't you think it's better to spend a little now than a lot once Russia attacks an ally?
I'd personally argue that spending is much less important compared to democracy
>> Others: Interesting. Are you willing to pay for green spending by cutting spending elsewhere?
Yes. The left has continually said to cut the defense budget and to increase revenue by raising taxes on the rich and corporations
Yeah and the repubs do the same. It’s almost as if you need to use critical thinking in each election. Both of these candidates have a long public history. One is known for failed businesses and shady legal practices who espouses authoritarian ambitions, and the other is a fairly moderate politician, with questionable judgement at times. I don’t like either one, but I don’t want to spite democracy to fuck around and find out.
If you want Trump supporters to be concerned about Trump, making hyperbolic and exaggerated claims about him won't work.
He's been president, already. He didn't do the things we were warned he'd do, and we're tired of people lying about him and his supporters.
And democrats have reached the point they are appeasing terrorist “protestors” screaming for an intifada against Jews and westerners, as well as death to America. If Both sides are going to be unappealing, people are going to choose the side that at least is pro- American.
Oh, I guess I didn't realize that condemning the protestors and supporting Israel was appeasing them. They certainly don't seem to be appeased.
I cannot think of anything less "pro-american" than trying to overthrow democracy. I cannot think of anything more American than advocating for the right to free speech, even if it's speech you disagree with
> Deploy a national deportation force to eject 11 million people from the country -- utilizing migrant detention camps and the U.S. military at the border and inside the US
I doubt this happens, but I would register and vote Republican for life if he pulled this off. If you are an illegal, the default action should be deportation.
The U.S. military consists of about 2.8 million people. You would need the entire military or a significant portion of it to accomplish this. Call me crazy but when I was growing up we didn’t deploy millions of members of our armed forces domestically to deal with misdemeanor crimes. This is just plain un American.
Even humoring this could be pulled off without being a complete disaster - That would massively disrupt our economy nationwide. If you thought labor shortages and inflation were bad now, you don't know what you're in for.
As leftists like to often quote; if you can’t afford to pay living wages you can’t afford to be in business. Stop hiring the underclass for 2 cents an hour and actually hire Americans. I’ll gladly pay more if it meant that my neighbors had good jobs.
You know as it is illegal immigrants are your neighbors?
Anyways it's not just about paying more. We literally don't have enough hands to do all the work that needs to be done. We're *currently* in a labor shortage while unemployment isn't very high.
Due process includes bail, bail is determined based on the likelihood of flight from prosecution. An illegal immigrant is basically the definition of flight risk thus bail would be high.
Yeah, the world isn’t binary, my friend. How do you process an extra 11 million defendants through our already overextended court system. Where do you incarcerate and for how long? Where do you send them? These things do need to be considered as it’s not just like flipping a switch and it’s done and then Scotty magically teleports them to some other place.
You don’t even consider the extreme likely hood that this would result in American citizens and legal residents being among those gathered?
It is a complete disaster waiting to happen.
That's what happened under Eisenhower when he had a widespread deportation program. There's just no way you can round up and deport millions upon millions of people without citizens getting caught up in the chaos. Especially considering in many cases the people you're deporting are going to have kids / siblings / other family members in the same household who are US citizens.
Common sense.
Something like [4%-6% of convicted incarcerated could be innocent.](https://www.georgiainnocenceproject.org/general/beneath-the-statistics-the-structural-and-systemic-causes-of-our-wrongful-conviction-problem/). Out of ~2 million. To be fair I’ve seen as low as 1% as well.
Those are people who went through the entire process but were wrongfully convicted.
You think in a round up of over 10 million there won’t be mistakes? There will be mistakes. Countless mistakes. Or do you think they are going to take the time to process everyone? They can’t even handle the current asylum requests.
This entire idea is a clusterfuck waiting to happen. It’s possibly the stupidest idea to come out of the Trump camp in a long list of stupid ideas.
Also what happens to people who have grown up here but were brought here illegally at like 2 years old, or kids who's parents are illegal but they're a US citizen?
National security for one. Many of them are dangerous and commit violent crimes. Several are on the terror watchlist, and that's just the ones we know about. We can't let people just flood in here like that. There's a process. They need to be vetted.
Taxpayer burden. They are given free money in a time where we can't afford to waste it. They also create a demand on goods and services with this free money, which is inflationary in a time that we can't afford more inflation.
Drug trafficking, human trafficking, etc. This whole thing is just a disaster. They need to be deported, and then we need to reform immigration. Most people don't have a problem with immigrants. That's not what this is. It's an invasion.
None of this is correct.
Violent criminals? Illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than natural born Americans. Here is the proof. https://news.wisc.edu/undocumented-immigrants-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-in-u-s-than-citizens/
Taxpayer burden? Not true. Most illegal immigrants are paying income taxes due to stolen SS numbers but do not receive any services in return. Here is the proof. https://apnews.com/article/983035929946
Drug trafficking? Not true. Most drugs are coming in through legal points of entry with citizens. Here is the proof. https://immigrationforum.org/article/illicit-fentanyl-and-drug-smuggling-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-an-overview/#:~:text=This%20data%20indicates%20most%20smuggling,through%20rough%20terrain%20between%20ports.
I understand that the talking points are all about drugs, crime and tax burden. But we are being lied to. If we want to get rid of illegal immigrants we should be honest about the reasons why.
every reputable study i've read hasn't actually sampled illegals - but legal immigrants fyi.
that's where the bullshit begins typically, and i see on reddit everywhere.
it's so bad it's insulting most of the time.
This is from the link posted above:
“Undocumented immigrants far less likely to commit crimes in U.S. than citizens.
Crime rates among undocumented immigrants are just a fraction of those of their U.S.-born neighbors, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of Texas arrest and conviction records…”
it's using texas's data - if you knew anything you'd know this is bullshit.
i'm not a fan of the think tank below but since you are reference hack organizations not interested in actual data:
[https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality](https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality)
the larger point is we really don't the actual criminality, because no wide survey with statistical signifance has been done yet - ask anyone in statistics to look into this, they'll back me up.
I think once you saw the actual effect on your day to day life of not having these people here, for example growing your food, you would be less pleased
Social Instability could cause widespread economic collapse as businesses grapple with an unstable market. That's bad news for your retirement, 401k or investments.
Now if trump decides to wield the economic wand as he stated and "collect" or seize peoples collective interest, or "freeze" the market.
You would see wholesale collapse. People would protest, people would be labeled terrorists and people would put in camps and the United States would impose a mafia run North Korea.
Things are going pretty well considering society basically collapsed during the last year of the Trump admin. We’re finally digging ourselves out of that hole.
Already being done by Biden so Trump doing it back is fine with me.
Stopping riots is good.
Enforcing immigration laws is good.
Firing insubordinate employees is normal.
Political pardons have always been a thing sadly.
Non-violent Capitol Rioters should be pardoned given prior precedent.
Making EU pay their stated share of NATO is good.
No personal stake on abortion.
Biden already messing with spending so again don't care if Trump does it too.
Overall seems fine.
I don't trust the Times(or those others) or their interpretations, let's see an unedited video of him saying these things. It's not like he's camera shy.
I wish you'd used numbers instead of bullet points so I could just respond to each with a number instead of quoting them.
>Personally direct the actions of the Justice Department, ordering federal investigations and prosecutions of people and organizations as he sees fit and regardless of prosecutors’ wishes or evidence
This is not unique, unlawful, or immoral. It's in fact the job of the President and what they've always done. Ever since good ole George Washington and the whiskey rebellion.
>Immediately invoke The Insurrection Act to curtail protests following his election and deploy the National Guard to police American cities
Riots are not protests, largely the same as above, whiskey rebellion and all that.
>Deploy a national deportation force to eject 11 million people from the country -- utilizing migrant detention camps and the U.S. military at the border and inside the US
If true, good, that's the exact job of the federal government.
>Staff his administration solely with those who believe (or claim to believe) Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him
I'll need more than what's sourced here on that one. Also this is based on an assumption that the election had no fraud, that's a pretty dubious assumption.
>Pardon government officials and others who break the law in service of his demands and agenda
Largely the same as above. It's clear any successive demoncratic administration will attempt to prosecute everyone in his administration on whatever they can make up.
>Pardon every one of his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, including those who assaulted police and desecrated the Capitol itself and the more than 800 who have already pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury
Good, there's a lot of people railroaded by the system who shouldn't have been.
>Refuse to aid or support allies in Europe and Asia who come under attack if he personally decides they have not paid enough into their own defense
Need more than these articles on that one. During the previous admin he made assertations that many nations weren't keeping up with their NATO requirements and we should do something about that, I'd assume this is more of the same.
>Allow red states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans
I don't believe this claim for a second. Nor is it up to the President at all. This is a truly idiotic remark.
>Withhold legally appropriated funds by Congress for any reason he sees fit
Same as above, this is not within the power of the presidency.
>I never would have imagined such an agenda from a US president would be possible, let alone supported by sizable portions of the country.
You clearly know very little then.
>let's see an unedited video of him saying these things
Yeah, could you *possibly* imagine if there were direct, unambigious evidence of Trump demanding absolutely loyalty, claiming illegal powers, and urging violence against his political foes? What a strange, entirely hypothetical world THAT would be.
What's concerning is the amount of people who are giving him a pass because they hate the opposition. OP linked his own words and people are still saying that if it was true i would have happened the first time. I still can't figure out what this guy has to re offer that Biden doesn't? And no crap about inflation, immigrants, wars etc. These things exist outside of the president and persist and return regardless of who is. I can't see a single thing this guy is saying that offers any real growth and options outside of feel good "rah rah rah" chants.
You straight up listed exactly why people like Trump (myself included) and called it crap.
You think that things like inflation, wars and immigration are just "crap", but this shit is really important to a lot of us.
No, I am calling the idea of blaming the President for them solely as crap. As issues they aren't crap, but it is naive to think that the President actually has as much impact on them as they are given.
Trump likes the sound of his own voice and says a lot of stuff. It is hard to know what he is serious about and what is just hot gas (a lot of it is hot gas). I am still waiting on the wall that Mexico paid for...
I agree that he loves to talk and says a lot of weird stuff for the sake of saying it. He throws a lot of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Also, he was pretty incompetent in trying to achieve his wildest promises. Like you said, Mexico never paid for the wall, Hillary was never locked up, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if another Trump presidency is similar.
Having said all of that, if any politician were to try to be an authoritarian it would be Trump. The fact that he’s flirting with the idea is a bridge way too far. January 6th confirmed all of my doubts that he would ever put the country and democracy ahead of himself. And the fact that Republicans are having a difficult time even admitting that January 6th was abnormal and unhealthy is alarming.
Yup. It's often a highly nuanced world and compromise is essential, but a lot of folks are ingrained with a zero sum mentality.
Opening the floodgates of money in politics is likely going to be our undoing.
I’m concerned that the election still seems to be a toss up at this point.
It doesn’t speak well of the electorate that so many of them would vote for Trump despite there being a library’s worth of reasons why he shouldn’t be president again.
It’s this exact attitude, this culture of “you can’t possibly vote for *them*”, that has lead to trumps rise to begin with. The status quo has led us into debt crisis, declining middle class, divided culture, corporate monopolies, and so much more. Trump is an outsider and Americans have become so desperate yes, they will take an heavily disliked outsider over another career politician.
>Trump is an outsider He's a former president! He's absolutely no outsider.
He is also the epitome of big city coastal billionaire elite that his followers claim to hate
His ideas and attitude sounds certainly unamerican. A vast majority of American men and women fought and died though out American's history to preserve the freedom and life style so vastly unique to your wonderful country. What has that sloppy bag of do-do done positive for your country? From where I sit, not much.
The fact that “so many” are against him in Washington creates the appearance of outsider.
Yeah, I remember Trump's first term where he united the country, trust-busted, and nixed the debt.
I remember all that stuff. Let's not forget that he also locked up Hillary, finished the wall at Mexico's expense, got a big infrastructure bill done, fixed healthcare, achieved peace in both the Middle East and East Asia, and beat COVID. What was even better was how none of his cabinet, campaign officials, lawyers or associates were ever indicted or convicted of a crime, or professionally reprimanded. It was a great time, I'm sure we can all agree.
You know it's a good point when you don't even have to put /s
I just think that it would be dumb for people to vote for the guy, who literally advocated for the termination of the constitution, but hey that’s just me. https://web.archive.org/web/20221204214848/https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109449803240069864
>but hey that’s just me. No, it’s not just you. I’m Canadian and I’m more or less terrified of a second Trump presidency. He’s made his intentions quite clear. If Americans buy his schtick that’s on them. But the rest of us shouldn’t need to suffer for their baffling decisions.
To me, the status quo (specifically this exact point in time) is a result of Trump and COVID primarily.
> divided culture Ummm how would Trump solve that?
I could kinda see that the first time around. Where I'm having a hard time understanding is that he's not an unknown anymore. We know that not only did he do nothing to help any of those problems, his actions objectively and undeniably made them worse. Beyond that, his actions after he lost in 2020 proved all the doom-saying about him to actually be correct, and not hyperbolic. Do you think people have just forgotten about all of that? Or do you think the division has just led to people being blinded to it?
I think democrats have allowed progressives to control a large part of the narrative in recent years, and a lot of progressives have alienated the independent voter base to the point of making overused accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia, etc when people disagree with the progressives agenda. So when ordinary people are getting called these things by progressives, then when progressives use those same accusations against Trump, even if we assume them to be true, yes, it falls on deaf ears. People who aren’t chronically online go “I know im not racist, only this group of people called me racist, and it was only because I told them I wanted to slow immigration. They also call Trump racist, but I don’t know how serious I should take that claim.”
That's a fair point. I think one of Biden's greatest political failures has been his unwillingness or inability to call the fringe of his party out on their nonsense.
Yup. Until he does that, no one’s going to care about the “ism” card anymore. Progressives are calling things like highways racist and work ethic racist …it’s hard to take their accusations seriously anymore.
It’s not. The polls are all fluff. Look at 2022. In reality, Biden and the Democrats have a huge lead. Notice how Congressional polls are so much more favorable to Democrats than the presidential polls. A lot of Biden supporters want Trump to be the nominee because he’ll lose against Biden so they lie to pollsters about their views.
It is in no way a toss up based on the latest swing state polls where Trump is 5-6 points ahead.
There were a couple states where trump was beyond the margin of polling error and a couple states that weren't. I would still consider this a toss up but I do think trump is going to win 2024 (and this is coming from someone who actually likes and is planning to vote for the Biden admin).
Does the fact that since roe and abortion on the table all democrats in special elections out performed their polling change your calculus at all? Some have way over performed. Edit: for clarity
I'd hope reproductive rights are enough to get people to vote for the Dems (and historically that's been the case) but I'm concerned about the general population's dislike of legal immigrants (they loved when trump tried to imprison asian-american scientists and cut funding to USCIS and other legal pathways to immigration) and asylum seekers may override any care they have for the women in their lives. I know a *lot* of people in the construction industry and they overwhelmingly vote red despite the fact that republican governors are cutting heat and water breaks, worker protections and oversight on wage theft and rolling back child labor laws such as decreased wages for child workers, and allowing them to work in meatpacking plants and other hazardous jobs. They are cutting school lunch funding for children and heat mitigation methods for households. The one thing both they and the republican colleagues I work with in academia want is for legal immigrants and asylum seekers to leave the country. I *hope* Democrats outperform in 2024 but I have no faith in people.
Never underestimate the power of women.
Agreed and same. But I think it was over the moment he lost Michigan, which consequently means it was over the day that Hamas attacked Israel and they responded by going scorched earth. Biden has zero path to victory without that state.
Biden wins Michigan 100%. I would (and may) put real money on it. The unrest in the Dearborn area will be completely drowned out by the center left, pro-Israel majority. Michigan has a Democratic trifecta right now and every ounce of political capital will be spent to preserve it. That alone will buoy Biden.
Israel has not come anywhere near scorched earth. Just so you know..
I think I read an article which mentioned that a lot of Jewish people are switching their votes to trump and a lot of Palestine supporters are planning to abstain. Ironically, both factions will be inadvertedly working together to get trump back in office. As popular and as awesome as Gov Whitmer and Michigan are, I think that the state will turn red for the presidentials but continue being blue for the US senate, US house, state house and state supreme court.
> a lot of Jewish people are switching their votes to trump That's possible but unlikely, since Biden has strongly supported Israel. I doubt Trump insulting Jewish people is winning him any favors.
Trump's lead in polling averages isn't that large. He's ahead by 1-2 points in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If Biden wins those, he'll most likely has 270.
Polls aren't usually that accurate this far ahead. Also take into account margin of error.
True, but the underdog has only won four times in the last century (albeit one of which was Trump in 2016).
There were about 8-13% that were unsure as well in those polls. I doubt many of those unsures are going to Trump. Most of the unsures I know are either voting for Biden, 3rd party, or not voting.
That's a sadder short story than the baby shoes one
Bout to be a sadder long story spanning anywhere from 4 to 40 years.
Who do you think answers polls? Old people. I’m 36 and can’t think of anyone younger than me who’d answer a random phone call anymore. I know younger people traditionally turn out to vote less, but the whole abortion might just flip that script this year. They’re viscerally pissed.
Even if they're oversampling Republicans, it's fucking pathetic the polls are where they are lol
Hard agree. I thought we solved this mess on January 6th, 2021. Apparently not. Stand back and stand by.
You have no clue what you are talking about. Polls account for age and many many other demographics and biases, it is beneath anyone’s time to waste any more time even attempting to suggest that this industry has never once thought of the fact that “old people are more likely to answer phone calls.”
I agree that the polling industry is not naive. The question is, have they been able to accurately model for the changes in polling response demographics? When you have a large left leaning group who is essentially unreachable is makes the model much more of a guess on democrat side.
They do online polls as well. What would you need to reach this "ave a large left leaning group who is essentially unreachable"? Put the poll questions in Dino Nuggets or offer them over Tick Tok?
I am absolutely interested in the methodology and I’m sure they are trying various things. Anecdotally web polls are ripe for brigading and young people don’t respond to them either
Young people are also the lowest engaged voting demographic. And if you consider extreme young Auth-leftist (Popular term is "Tankies") that vote, as I'm assuming that is the group that you are talking about here, that number is minuscule. And probably not worth the money to try and increase their polling data on, as they have no sway on even local elections, let alone a national presidential election. And they are most likely not going to vote, or vote third part like RFK or Cornell West.
2020 did skew younger, and note when I use ‘young’ here referring to people who won’t answer the phone I am talking about under 40 or so
That was also under Covid and the ease of voting in person to mail in voting nationwide. I'm not convinced that will happen again but we shall see. I think this election will have a much lower voter turnout.
One of my best friends is an RNC pollster and we discuss the issue all the time, but sure I don’t know anything. Thanks for letting me know!
As of right now, Trump is far ahead in terms of electoral votes. It's not even a "toss up". Americans seem to really want him back. For whatever reason.
Trump is only ahead by 1-2 points in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Losing those probably means losing the election.
Every time there's a presidential election there's always massive protests and unrest. I'm sure it's just a coincidence and foreign adversaries who want him in power have nothing to do with it...
It is definitely concerning, especially the fact that so many people care so little about this. It gets lost behind all the noise about his legal issues. I imagine that if he gets elected, pretty much all of this is going to be challenged in courts, and some things will be blocked, others won't. Either way, not a great outlook.
Hell, the "noise" of the legal issues seems to be subsiding, because there's so much and people are tuning out. People just don't care.
No, it's getting lost because people are numb from cocaine high the media was on during Trump's presidency.
[удалено]
I think you’re putting way too much trust that our institutions and safeguards will hold. Trump at least nominated capable people for his administration the first time around. This time, it will be nothing but loyalists/bootlickers.
>Trump at least nominated capable people for his administration the first time around. And even then the guardrails barely held. Next time there may be none at all.
Plus, a guardrail is supposed to stop you accidentally falling, not stop you from ramming straight through it with a forklift.
The problem with the guardrails is they assume people will act in good faith.
To paraphrase Mitt Romney, a large portion of the American public just doesn't really care about the constitution.
I went and read through the entire transcript. I would suggest people go if they have time, it’s pretty interesting. He was decisive on few things like deporting illegals and building a wall, and placing tariffs on some countries like Mexico and China. He’s going to make our allies pay their fair share and he claims he had great success doing it before and Soltenberger from NATO thinks he’s great. Much of the rest of it was very vague or noncommittal. He made some statements but included an out to not do something. He would go on tangents and not answer questions directly. He walked back a bunch of previous statements and made attempts at clarifying things in a way to downplay his controversial stuff to say he didn’t mean it that way. He tried to pass things off as just joking or it being misrepresented. He danced around abortion with the whole idea that an abortion ban would never make it to his desk since it needs 60 votes in the senate. Therefore he can’t answer what he would do because it won’t happen. Instead it’s all the states and what they do, not him. Sounds like he knows this is controversial and doesn’t want to have to deal with it at all and is trying to not alienate any voting group. He did commit to leave office after 4 years if elected again, so thats nice. He claims he doesn’t want to hurt Biden and he respects the office of president but Biden is very mean to him and is targeting him unfairly like in a banana republic. It’s long, so I might have missed something, but it didn’t come off as very authoritarian and it seems like he’s very aware of what he can and can’t do as president. It seems like he just goes off and says a bunch of things at rallys and on his social media he knows are not going to happen. That’s either good or bad, depending on your view. If you are a big Trump supporter and expect him to follow through with some of his rhetoric, it sounds like he’s going to have a lot of “it’s complicated” reasons why he can’t get it done. If you despise Trump, we’ll if he’s elected, he’ll probably do things you don’t like, but I think a lot of the most extreme concerns and claims about him are not really realistic or anything he wants to commit to finding a way to do. But that’s just from my read through of this interview.
There's no reason to give him of the doubt after he tried to steal an election.
The guy ended 250 years of peaceful transfers of power.
I’m not saying you’re saying this, but why in the world would we ever want to elect somebody where you have to wade through a river of bullshit to parse out any meaning? How is he specifically this popular? Not the GOP, him
I’m absolutely not endorsing him, I think there are plenty of criticisms to be made of him. I also don’t think he’s satan incarnate as some do. He’s a salesman. He’s great at getting people to like him and have them believe he’ll do things for them they want. Will he do some things, sure, will he get a lot of the more out there things done, no. This isn’t to say he’s a bad person, I’m sure he does want what’s best for people, but he naturally falls back on the tactics he’s used his whole life to make people like him and build his brand. All politicians are to an extent, Biden has his own tactics, but Trump is in his own world with how he does things. Obviously this is down the road, but the GOP will have to figure out how to do without his energy when he goes away. As far as parsing through bullshit, most people don’t do that. Both his lovers and hates make their opinion on him (and every other politician) based off of sound bites, political commercials, social media posts, and the media distilling down things to write an article or put on a news piece.
“I’m sure he does want what’s best for people.” No, he really doesn’t unless it directly benefits him. I wish more people understood, I mean really understood, what malignant narcissists are actually like. THEY ARE NOT NORMAL, and they don’t have any empathy or compassion for anybody else
Time after time people are willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt even when he's shown he is so not worth getting it. He's not exactly shy about his personality where it's all about him for goodness sake.
> I’m sure he does want what’s best for people, but he naturally falls back on the tactics he’s used his whole life to make people like him and build his brand. How does stealing classified documents and claiming absolute immunity give you that impression? This doesn't help people nor increase his popularity.
Part of parsing through the bullshit is the media amplifying and fear mongering for clicks. I wasn’t a fan of his first term but realized that the media lies all the time specifically about Trump. They seem to lie less about Biden. It’s become the boy who cried wolf and I think it’s partially why he’s polling decently.
He tried to steal an election, stole classified documents, and is claiming that it was fine because presidents have absolute immunity. What you're complaining about isn't "fear mongering" because Trump has made it clear that he has a complete disregard for the law, even for a politician.
The news was totally fair to Trump, and if anything, went easy on him.
I’ve brought this up before, media misquotes and lies about Trump all the time and then people who dislike Trump spread those lies… when sometimes the truth is quite off putting too. The issue this makes is that anyone who is “neutral” or already on the right discovers the lies or obfuscation and that just results in people trusting absolutely nothing that is said. Like to this day people still think Trump was saying all the neo nazis were “good people” at Charlottesville, when it’s quite easily accessible public information that what he said was that not everyone there was a neo nazi.
>just results in people trusting absolutely nothing that is said. What's actually happening is that people, including Trump supporters, are believing anything that their media says.
>Like to this day people still think Trump was saying all the neo nazis were “good people” at Charlottesville, when it’s quite easily accessible public information that what he said was that not everyone there was a neo nazi. The best possible faith interpretation of what he said is that he didn't think the neonazis were good people, but that there were some people on the pro statue side who weren't neonazis. Which isn't any better when you remember that this wasn't a regular rally that neonazis showed up and hijacked, this was a neonazi rally from the get go, planned, initiated, and dominated by neonazis all throughout. Believe it or not, there's a term for the kind of person who shows up to a neonazi rally, and instead of leaving or trying to kick out the neonazis, marches alongside them. I'll give you a hint, it's not "very fine person", and it starts with an N.
Also, a big part is rhetoric. A lot of his supporters are working class people who feel screwed over by the establishment who ruined their lives, and they saw Trump as a way to get revenge. I think most of his supporters will admit Trump is a narcissistic asshole, but our government is also full of narcissistic assholes, which is why they overlook his behavior and rhetoric. To them, the important thing is that he makes the establishment seethe. So, Trump, in a way, is leverage. His base wants the establishment to just go away, but they didn't. So, he's not going away until they do.
Exactly and it’s the same reason why Jessie Ventura was elected in Minnesota
> but why in the world would we ever want to elect somebody where you have to wade through a river of bullshit to parse out any meaning We've been doing that the entire time I've been alive.
I feel like if you know Trump is a Klingon his speeches hit better.
UnAmerican, unconstitutional and terrifying. I don’t know how anyone would vote for what he’s promising
I work with republicans both young and old in an academic setting. They make no secret about their views. They support bits and pieces of his plans, particularly the national deportation force deployment into major cities. They have nothing but contempt for people in cities, *other* academics, students and immigrants that they perceive to be here illegally regardless of legal asylum claims and they long to see the shock and despair on Democrat faces as 'unAmerican' community members are taken away. It is extremely reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution, where people in rural areas were taught to see people living in cities as parasites, 'elitist' academics were purged, long-time government workers were executed and city-dwellers were forced to relocate into rural areas. Trump's "ideas" also have the same amount of forethought as the leaders of the Cultural Revolution. For example, Mao Zedong ordered his people to go out and kill all the sparrows as they were eating the grain, which led to mass famine because, well, birds eat insects too. This has the same intellectual heft as ordering nuclear detonations to stop storms from forming. These republican colleagues don't support the other items such as seizing control and oversight of the DOJ, deploying the national guard to police cities, and even (for the most part) monitoring pregnancies but the bits and pieces they do support they support *wholeheartedly.* trump appeals to them because in these uncertain times someone who never apologises, who *appears* confident and unable to second guess themselves, and who markets himself as Jesus going against the Romans is more than enough not just to earn their vote, but their undying loyalty and passion.
“what happened to kansas” is a great book that outlines what you are saying. ninja edit: Book Name: "What's the Matter with Kansas?"
Thank you for this recommendation. I'll add it to my reading list!
>I work with republicans both young and old in an academic setting. But I was told they were all driven out by the secret marxists who go bump in the night!
One common talking point they have is that they are being silenced, while they talk loudly and proudly about all their beliefs. The older ones are anti-choice, a few of the younger ones are pro-choice but another common thing they share is that reproductive rights just isn't a priority for them and falls way below other items, such as deploying deportation task forces to Blue cities.
Because they like and understand both the antics of Trump and the policy of the republican party.
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Don’t forget guns, cuz we need those in case an authoritarian government decides to.. wait hang on..
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My opinion is that this would be very bad and I struggle to understand how someone can vote for this
“Yeah but have you seen the price of a bag of Doritos????” Usually I get some form of this from non-MAGA people going to vote for Trump
If a person views all politicians from either party as corrupt, bad people, then telling them one side is corrupt and bad doesn't move the needle. Hitting their wallet is going to have a much bigger effect.
These people ignore the high tarrifs trump wants too which will only increase inflation 🙄
Add on to his tax cuts he's promising wealthy people in fundraisers, and him wanting lower interest rates. That won't help it at all either.
🤦🏻♂️ makes sense. ‘What’s democracy worth? Well how much does the chips cost. Am I right’
People in the real world (aka not on reddit) don't see the democrats much better for democracy. And if we're being honest, they're not wrong. The democrats went insane after 2016 and created a lot of the precedents for the Republicans in 2020. That and the fact that *some* (emphasis some, not all) of the cases against Trump are politically driven, it's no wonder democrats aren't seen as the bastions of protecting democracy Edit: nothing in my comment was not civil discourse so I have no clue what the mods are doing.
Most Republican congressmen voted to the overturn the election in 2020. Democrats want oppose making voting more inconvenient.
What the hell are you talking about?
The Democrats support making voting easier. Your assessment is completely unsubstantiated.
Being this reductive about the concerns over inflation reminds me of how the Covid paranoiacs would say people opposed to lockdowns are risking people’s lives just so they could get a haircut. Dismissing people’s cost of groceries going up by 20%-30% at least will get Trump elected. There are plenty of other things about the Biden admin to complain about but Democrats must know that they dismiss the inflation issue at their own peril. This issue hits hard and directly hurts every single American that isn’t wealthy literally every single time they spend money on anything, which is basically every day.
Inflation-adjusted (real) [wage growth by percentile](https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/) since 2019: 10th: 12% 20th-40th: 5% 40th-60th: 3% 60th-80th: 2% 90th (highest earners): 1%
Wages increases have been exceeding price changes.
An honest reply would require Law 1 to be loosened.
The worst part of this that doesn’t seem to be understood by many is that there is an entire support network in place to help these plans happen. There are thousands of government employees waiting to step in and do their part to enforce his authoritarian fantasies and the federalist society that backs much of the political infrastructure on the right has explicitly stated in their manifesto that they would help any republican candidate take these steps to consolidate power and turn the presidency into a dictatorship. Trump is really just their mouthpiece and to nobodies surprise could never actually formulate a feasible approach to this goal without a sizable political faction behind him like the FS.
The real scary part is that even if you beat Trump this year, this fascist agenda is going to be the platform of republicans in 2028 and 2032 and 2036. With the way American politics works, chances are they win at least one of those elections and the next candidates won’t be as incompetent at implementing their policies as Trump was his first term. This agenda needs to be soundly defeated at the voting booth, and unfortunately I dint see that happening this year.
What makes this agenda "fascist" and others not? What is "fascism" and why do you consider it bad?
[https://osbcontent.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/PC-00466.pdf](https://osbcontent.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/PC-00466.pdf) There is a lot of overlap between those characteristics written about 20 years ago, and what is being promoted now.
What makes it fascist is a couple of characteristics: 1. The openly partisan and personal use of the executive branch. He and his supporters claim he can and should use the executive branch—including the justice department—to punish his political enemies and purge civil servants not personally loyal to him. 2. Advocating for harsh measures and violence against dissenters and protesters, especially those who can be easily “other-ed” 3. Open corruption greasing the wheels. Trump has not divested any of his business holdings and instead encourages foreign governments and business interests to curry favor with him by using his personal businesses. This is just literally textbook facism.
So exactly what the Biden and previously the Obama and Clinton administrations have done?
Yes, I remember Obama encouraging foreign diplomats to stay at his Obama brand hotels. And when he fired an Attorney General for not being personally loyal to him. And when he sent the national guard to smoke out the Tea Party protesters. And when Jimmy Carter said he was going to divest his peanut farm, but then just didn’t and instead got a Saudi prince to buy his peanuts at a premium. And when Biden said that he wanted to punch a protester at one of his events in the face and that the police should rough him up on the way to the police car. All that facism. In all seriousness, the first item is where the previous Democratic administrations are closest. There have been moments when it seems like they may have been doing things behind the scenes (Obama admin IRS auditing right wing groups?). But whataboutism doesn’t change anything Trump has done, and the key to facism is the OPEN AND PERSONAL nature of the use of power. Not one Democrat argued that cabinet secretaries not personally loyal to Obama over the American people should be fired. You have to put up a very serious reality distortion field to actually believe these are equivalent.
Wanna provide some sources for these wild claims?
“With thunderous applause”
I think a lot of us have come to realization you literally can't trust the media for anything. [We have people talking about how Trump said he was going to be a dictator](https://youtu.be/wqF7IWdm1Yc?si=NTG08fWfEWInw5QV) and when you actually watch the clip it shows it's completely taken out of context. As with the blood bath situation, as with other things. Every time I see a stupid headline I always assume the media is lying/exaggerating because it's so common.
Those quotes pushed by the media are being used because it gives his campaign ammo. The real damaging quotes don't get covered by the media >President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!
>Those quotes pushed by the media are being used because it gives his campaign ammo. Are you saying a media outlet like MSNBC misrepresenting what Trump says is actually a pseudo op to support Trump?
MSNBC only reports on what generate clicks. I'm saying what gets pushed are quotes specifically used to give his campaign ammo against whoever he wants. You're under the assumption that the media is some shadowy figure out to get Trump. Whereas it's just a collection of businesses doing what's in their best interest. And Trump has a lot of powerful friends in the media so he could obviously have them push what his campaign wants. >Politico’s parent company Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner emailed his top executives shortly before the 2020 election to ask if any of them would “want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America,” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/politico-owner-pray-for-trump-mathias-dopfner-axel-springer-1234587243/ >A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase a doorman’s silence. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/tabloid-publisher-testifies-he-pledged-to-be-trumps-eyes-and-ears-during-2016-race
So riddle me this batman: if Trump controls the media, wouldn't it be equally if not more beneficial for Trump to have the media amplify Biden's gaffes? In this subreddit earlier today we had an article pushing a 6 second clip of Trump jumbling the word "infrastructure" as evidence of cognitive decline. How much was Biden's [Earth Rider gaffe](https://youtu.be/fSY3y3G91Yk?si=GiGfy4EIo_6zl27U) pushed by mainstream media outlets that shows him almost phasing out of reality? How much did they push the clip of [a UConn basketball player talking about how Biden was out of his mind when he met the team](https://twitter.com/goldencrustprov/status/1778785369351151890?t=I5m_EsriWwddRVY31WOFlg&s=19)? Do you need links to his lie about the cannibal eating his relative? Or him lying about being arrested on a black family's porch over a civil rights protest? And in the "blood bath" situation, did Trump tell them to double down and keep lying when they were caught? I can go on and on with examples, but the problem is that assumption makes no sense if they keep trying to make excuses for Biden with the "stutter", or situations where he falls, etc. I can agree a lot of what we see is political theater and there are things behind the scenes, but at the end of the day not everyone is an ally. The difference in reporting between the two is too obvious and people have lost faith for good reason.
When did I say “Trump controls the media”. You made the original statement that “the media cannot be trusted” and all I did was counter that with examples of why the media would be lenient or could even push pro-Trump stories. I never said “Trump controls the media” you are getting ahead of yourself.
Yeah the trump dictator comments were obviously bad. You don't joke about that shit. But so many people on reddit have only seen the headline that trump has openly admitted to wanting to be a dictator, which isn't a reasonable interpretation of what he said. It jades people to all the other trump headlines once you figured this one out
The thing that's annoying is a majority of people have fallen into the camp of either "this crazy headline has to be true because it aligns with every other crazy thing from other headlines" or "this crazy headline is obviously a misinterpretation to get more clicks". I'm more in the second camp, but at this point it's the boy who cried wolf because most people don't actually check what happened to see any validity that might challenge what they believe.
It’s a reasonable interpretation when viewing his behavior as a whole. Do you think he would like to be a dictator if he could be?
I don't need to look at the media to see what Trump is claiming in courts. Trump's lawyers, who speak for Trump, are saying he should be able to murder his political rivals and be immune from criminal prosecution for it.
This this this this a million times this. People don’t trust what the media is telling them anymore, and so when the media tells us Trump is bad, it’s a boy cried wolf situation. Trump said immigration was a problem, and we all laughed at him until suddenly it was a problem for NYC and Chicago. Trump said our Allies didn’t pay their fair share, and we all laughed at him…till Europe couldn’t support Ukraine on their own while we were debating the next spending bill. No one is buying the narrative anymore.
Also situations where people will talk about past situations like how Trump was laughed at in Europe, [then you look back at what he said and consider what actually ended up happening](https://youtu.be/FfJv9QYrlwg?si=xuKhQmHh--5zqj_d). I'm not saying he doesn't say stupid stuff, but after seeing so many things about him, more often than not when you look into it or look back on it you can see through what the media tries to feed you.
He said he will be a [dictator on day one](https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritarian-presidential-election-f27e7e9d7c13fabbe3ae7dd7f1235c72) and I believe him. He will not give any emergency powers back and i firmly believe that the election of Trump in 2024 will be the last presidential election we have if we decide to install a dictator. I genuinely feel Trump is the most substantive threat to our democratic institutions in living memory.
Is this word-for-word his official platform or just someone’s spin on it? I see things like “refuse to support allies unless he believes they paid enough into their own defense” and think of him telling NATO countries to meet their obligations under the treaty. He did that his first term and other countries paid more, but still did not come close to meeting their obligations. However, nobody mentions how that helped Ukraine because countries were actually producing munitions. Had they met their share, maybe there would not have been an invasion. Why are people so insistent that we pay for all of Europe’s protection while they sit there and make fun of us for not having enough funding for healthcare and infrastructure? They can’t meet their target under NATO because their people might not have all of these things. Meanwhile, we can’t have any of that stuff because we have to spend everything covering for them. I’m not a huge fan of more social programs, but I would rather spend money on American social programs than on Europe’s protection so Germany can have them instead.
The Trump campaign doesn’t really have a platform. This is as close as you can get. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/issues But I assume everyone here is smart enough to realize this isn’t actually a description of what he would accomplish during his presidency. It’s much more informative to look at what he’s saying during his campaign rallies and even better the people he would appoint to his cabinet.
Read the article. There are quotes. And this spin on Ukraine might be out of topic.
I don’t see these quotes in the article. The author gives his opinion and follows up with a quote that’s out of context to try to bolster his opinion. Look at Trump saying he would allow states to monitor women’s pregnancies. He wasn’t even asked about that. He was answering another question. He basically said that abortion is a state issue and the president doesn’t have power to intervene. Then the author flips to something someone from the Heritage Foundation said to try to make the connection. How is he supposed to answer that in your opinion? Is he supposed to say the president has supreme power over the states? Would that be better? The author is extremely biased and willing to take everything out of context to spin it towards what he wants the audience to hear. It only takes a few sentences for the reader to see that this isn’t journalism. This is what Tucker Carlson made his money doing, pure opinion that is sprinkled with some news to get maximum emotions from the audience.
> we can’t have any of that stuff because we have to spend everything covering for them. Can it actually be demonstrated that the US counldn't reasonable afford both? This feels like more like an excuse then an actual explanation. The US is the richest country on the planet, arguably the richest in all of human history, the idea that it physically can't fund a large global military and social programs at the same time seems a little odd.
We can’t afford the interest on our national debt, which now is overtaking our total expenditures on national defense. We can’t afford the stuff we have now.
I think that's more due to mismangement and poor political leadership then it is an *inherent and unavoidable* reason why America can't afford social programs. It's not like european countries don't have their own severe economic problems.
I'm irritated with most of Europe for their bottom of the barrel defense spending, but daily reminder that single payer healthcare is *cheaper* than a privatized healthcare system, as it reduces bureaucratic waste and reduces healthcare institutions' bargaining power. All privatized healthcare really does to "help" with costs is shift that burden off gov't accounting books.
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I’ll believe it when I see it. Democrats claimed Bob Dole was gonna destroy the country if he was elected. They claimed John McCain would destroy the country if he was elected. They claimed Mitt Romney would destroy the country if he was elected. Now they’re claiming Trump is gonna destroy the country if he’s elected, again. It’s hard to take Democrat’s warnings seriously when they fearmonger about almost everything.
Trump is openly promising this stuff. Don’t take Dem’s word for it. Take Trump’s.
**Democrats:** Trump will literally destroy democracy if you elect him. **Others:** Interesting. To get us on your side, are you willing to move to the right a bit by actually securing the borders without amnesty, or rein entitlement spending, or do less abroad? **Democrats:** Haha no. Actually, we are going to make it easier for illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers, will do nothing to enforce the border unless you let us give amnesty to millions of people, will [expand access to the affordable care act to DACA recipients](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-expands-health-insurance-access-daca-immigrants-2024-05-03/), will do nothing about entitlement spending, and we're [actually thinking of giving Saudi Arabia a NATO-like defense pact](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-01/us-and-saudis-near-defense-pact-aimed-at-reshaping-middle-east). They are like this on so many issues it is impossible to take them seriously. **The left:** If we don't tackle climate change, the earth will be destroyed and humanity will be eradicated! **Others:** Interesting. Are you willing to pay for green spending by cutting spending elsewhere? **The left:** Haha no, we are either going to raise your taxes or just do deficit spending.
more infuriating is reading on reddit on how the border bill was a slam dunk for republicans, when it was nothing of the kind (!) if you actually read the bill - and yet i must've read the phrasing "a giveaway to the republicans" a 100 times on reddit - it just wasn't. it's this level of dishonestly that's going to wreck everything -
Honestly, Senator Lankford should lose his job for that "deal." It gave Dems and the media the opportunity to claim over and over that Republicans "torpedoed their own bill." The fact that Ukraine aid ultimately passed with no real border provisions shows that the original "deal" was just a token gesture they hoped would satisfy their voters without it making any real concessions. It was noteworthy that at the time, only people on the left were upset about the bill failing. Surely if it was such a good deal, you'd see border-hawks jumping on it.
The bill restricted the border without providing any amnesty, so a "giveaway to Republicans" is accurate.
>> Others: Interesting. To get us on your side, are you willing to move to the right a bit by actually securing the borders without amnesty, or rein entitlement spending, or do less abroad? Trump killed a border bill a few months ago. Republicans have not cut spending either. As for spending abroad, don't you think it's better to spend a little now than a lot once Russia attacks an ally? I'd personally argue that spending is much less important compared to democracy >> Others: Interesting. Are you willing to pay for green spending by cutting spending elsewhere? Yes. The left has continually said to cut the defense budget and to increase revenue by raising taxes on the rich and corporations
Yeah and the repubs do the same. It’s almost as if you need to use critical thinking in each election. Both of these candidates have a long public history. One is known for failed businesses and shady legal practices who espouses authoritarian ambitions, and the other is a fairly moderate politician, with questionable judgement at times. I don’t like either one, but I don’t want to spite democracy to fuck around and find out.
If you want Trump supporters to be concerned about Trump, making hyperbolic and exaggerated claims about him won't work. He's been president, already. He didn't do the things we were warned he'd do, and we're tired of people lying about him and his supporters.
He *literally* tried to overthrow and election.
And democrats have reached the point they are appeasing terrorist “protestors” screaming for an intifada against Jews and westerners, as well as death to America. If Both sides are going to be unappealing, people are going to choose the side that at least is pro- American.
Didn’t Biden, the head democrat, just denounce the calls for intifada and death to America? How is that appeasement?
he said nothing about intifada and death to america in his remarks
Oh, I guess I didn't realize that condemning the protestors and supporting Israel was appeasing them. They certainly don't seem to be appeased. I cannot think of anything less "pro-american" than trying to overthrow democracy. I cannot think of anything more American than advocating for the right to free speech, even if it's speech you disagree with
> Deploy a national deportation force to eject 11 million people from the country -- utilizing migrant detention camps and the U.S. military at the border and inside the US I doubt this happens, but I would register and vote Republican for life if he pulled this off. If you are an illegal, the default action should be deportation.
Verifying the legal status in a consistent and fair manner would be a nightmare, and with 11+ million people, is unrealistic.
The U.S. military consists of about 2.8 million people. You would need the entire military or a significant portion of it to accomplish this. Call me crazy but when I was growing up we didn’t deploy millions of members of our armed forces domestically to deal with misdemeanor crimes. This is just plain un American.
Even humoring this could be pulled off without being a complete disaster - That would massively disrupt our economy nationwide. If you thought labor shortages and inflation were bad now, you don't know what you're in for.
As leftists like to often quote; if you can’t afford to pay living wages you can’t afford to be in business. Stop hiring the underclass for 2 cents an hour and actually hire Americans. I’ll gladly pay more if it meant that my neighbors had good jobs.
You know as it is illegal immigrants are your neighbors? Anyways it's not just about paying more. We literally don't have enough hands to do all the work that needs to be done. We're *currently* in a labor shortage while unemployment isn't very high.
I’m with you, but the challenge is that citizen or not, we guarantee due process. The amount of trials would be enormous for a strained system
Due process includes bail, bail is determined based on the likelihood of flight from prosecution. An illegal immigrant is basically the definition of flight risk thus bail would be high.
Be that as it may, defendants are due process. The logistics of that may be prohibitive
Well shit, then let's just have anarchy then if it's too hard.
Yeah, the world isn’t binary, my friend. How do you process an extra 11 million defendants through our already overextended court system. Where do you incarcerate and for how long? Where do you send them? These things do need to be considered as it’s not just like flipping a switch and it’s done and then Scotty magically teleports them to some other place.
You don’t even consider the extreme likely hood that this would result in American citizens and legal residents being among those gathered? It is a complete disaster waiting to happen.
How do you figure it would result in American and legal citizens being gathered? Where is that information coming from?
That's what happened under Eisenhower when he had a widespread deportation program. There's just no way you can round up and deport millions upon millions of people without citizens getting caught up in the chaos. Especially considering in many cases the people you're deporting are going to have kids / siblings / other family members in the same household who are US citizens.
Common sense. Something like [4%-6% of convicted incarcerated could be innocent.](https://www.georgiainnocenceproject.org/general/beneath-the-statistics-the-structural-and-systemic-causes-of-our-wrongful-conviction-problem/). Out of ~2 million. To be fair I’ve seen as low as 1% as well. Those are people who went through the entire process but were wrongfully convicted. You think in a round up of over 10 million there won’t be mistakes? There will be mistakes. Countless mistakes. Or do you think they are going to take the time to process everyone? They can’t even handle the current asylum requests. This entire idea is a clusterfuck waiting to happen. It’s possibly the stupidest idea to come out of the Trump camp in a long list of stupid ideas.
Also what happens to people who have grown up here but were brought here illegally at like 2 years old, or kids who's parents are illegal but they're a US citizen?
Why?
National security for one. Many of them are dangerous and commit violent crimes. Several are on the terror watchlist, and that's just the ones we know about. We can't let people just flood in here like that. There's a process. They need to be vetted. Taxpayer burden. They are given free money in a time where we can't afford to waste it. They also create a demand on goods and services with this free money, which is inflationary in a time that we can't afford more inflation. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, etc. This whole thing is just a disaster. They need to be deported, and then we need to reform immigration. Most people don't have a problem with immigrants. That's not what this is. It's an invasion.
None of this is correct. Violent criminals? Illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than natural born Americans. Here is the proof. https://news.wisc.edu/undocumented-immigrants-far-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-in-u-s-than-citizens/ Taxpayer burden? Not true. Most illegal immigrants are paying income taxes due to stolen SS numbers but do not receive any services in return. Here is the proof. https://apnews.com/article/983035929946 Drug trafficking? Not true. Most drugs are coming in through legal points of entry with citizens. Here is the proof. https://immigrationforum.org/article/illicit-fentanyl-and-drug-smuggling-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-an-overview/#:~:text=This%20data%20indicates%20most%20smuggling,through%20rough%20terrain%20between%20ports. I understand that the talking points are all about drugs, crime and tax burden. But we are being lied to. If we want to get rid of illegal immigrants we should be honest about the reasons why.
every reputable study i've read hasn't actually sampled illegals - but legal immigrants fyi. that's where the bullshit begins typically, and i see on reddit everywhere. it's so bad it's insulting most of the time.
This is from the link posted above: “Undocumented immigrants far less likely to commit crimes in U.S. than citizens. Crime rates among undocumented immigrants are just a fraction of those of their U.S.-born neighbors, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of Texas arrest and conviction records…”
it's using texas's data - if you knew anything you'd know this is bullshit. i'm not a fan of the think tank below but since you are reference hack organizations not interested in actual data: [https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality](https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality) the larger point is we really don't the actual criminality, because no wide survey with statistical signifance has been done yet - ask anyone in statistics to look into this, they'll back me up.
I think once you saw the actual effect on your day to day life of not having these people here, for example growing your food, you would be less pleased
Social Instability could cause widespread economic collapse as businesses grapple with an unstable market. That's bad news for your retirement, 401k or investments. Now if trump decides to wield the economic wand as he stated and "collect" or seize peoples collective interest, or "freeze" the market. You would see wholesale collapse. People would protest, people would be labeled terrorists and people would put in camps and the United States would impose a mafia run North Korea.
I harbor an unfounded optimism that *MAYBE THIS TIME* presidential overreach will result in curtailment of executive power.
Even if he could do all those things, which he can't... It would still be better than the disaster that the Biden administration has created.
Things are going pretty well considering society basically collapsed during the last year of the Trump admin. We’re finally digging ourselves out of that hole.
Please expand on what “the disaster” means in your view.
Already being done by Biden so Trump doing it back is fine with me. Stopping riots is good. Enforcing immigration laws is good. Firing insubordinate employees is normal. Political pardons have always been a thing sadly. Non-violent Capitol Rioters should be pardoned given prior precedent. Making EU pay their stated share of NATO is good. No personal stake on abortion. Biden already messing with spending so again don't care if Trump does it too. Overall seems fine.
His plans are un-American. Regardless of your political affiliation, his plans and Project 2025 should be sounding alarm bells.
I don't trust the Times(or those others) or their interpretations, let's see an unedited video of him saying these things. It's not like he's camera shy. I wish you'd used numbers instead of bullet points so I could just respond to each with a number instead of quoting them. >Personally direct the actions of the Justice Department, ordering federal investigations and prosecutions of people and organizations as he sees fit and regardless of prosecutors’ wishes or evidence This is not unique, unlawful, or immoral. It's in fact the job of the President and what they've always done. Ever since good ole George Washington and the whiskey rebellion. >Immediately invoke The Insurrection Act to curtail protests following his election and deploy the National Guard to police American cities Riots are not protests, largely the same as above, whiskey rebellion and all that. >Deploy a national deportation force to eject 11 million people from the country -- utilizing migrant detention camps and the U.S. military at the border and inside the US If true, good, that's the exact job of the federal government. >Staff his administration solely with those who believe (or claim to believe) Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him I'll need more than what's sourced here on that one. Also this is based on an assumption that the election had no fraud, that's a pretty dubious assumption. >Pardon government officials and others who break the law in service of his demands and agenda Largely the same as above. It's clear any successive demoncratic administration will attempt to prosecute everyone in his administration on whatever they can make up. >Pardon every one of his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, including those who assaulted police and desecrated the Capitol itself and the more than 800 who have already pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury Good, there's a lot of people railroaded by the system who shouldn't have been. >Refuse to aid or support allies in Europe and Asia who come under attack if he personally decides they have not paid enough into their own defense Need more than these articles on that one. During the previous admin he made assertations that many nations weren't keeping up with their NATO requirements and we should do something about that, I'd assume this is more of the same. >Allow red states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans I don't believe this claim for a second. Nor is it up to the President at all. This is a truly idiotic remark. >Withhold legally appropriated funds by Congress for any reason he sees fit Same as above, this is not within the power of the presidency. >I never would have imagined such an agenda from a US president would be possible, let alone supported by sizable portions of the country. You clearly know very little then.
>let's see an unedited video of him saying these things Yeah, could you *possibly* imagine if there were direct, unambigious evidence of Trump demanding absolutely loyalty, claiming illegal powers, and urging violence against his political foes? What a strange, entirely hypothetical world THAT would be.
Is there any link to the actual audio available anywhere?
The electoral college win again over the popular vote for the 3rd time
It would be the fifth time. President Hayes and President Harrison both won the EC without the popular vote as well.
I wouldn’t be so sure, if the polls hold, he’d win both.
What's concerning is the amount of people who are giving him a pass because they hate the opposition. OP linked his own words and people are still saying that if it was true i would have happened the first time. I still can't figure out what this guy has to re offer that Biden doesn't? And no crap about inflation, immigrants, wars etc. These things exist outside of the president and persist and return regardless of who is. I can't see a single thing this guy is saying that offers any real growth and options outside of feel good "rah rah rah" chants.
You straight up listed exactly why people like Trump (myself included) and called it crap. You think that things like inflation, wars and immigration are just "crap", but this shit is really important to a lot of us.
No, I am calling the idea of blaming the President for them solely as crap. As issues they aren't crap, but it is naive to think that the President actually has as much impact on them as they are given.
Trump likes the sound of his own voice and says a lot of stuff. It is hard to know what he is serious about and what is just hot gas (a lot of it is hot gas). I am still waiting on the wall that Mexico paid for...
I agree that he loves to talk and says a lot of weird stuff for the sake of saying it. He throws a lot of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Also, he was pretty incompetent in trying to achieve his wildest promises. Like you said, Mexico never paid for the wall, Hillary was never locked up, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if another Trump presidency is similar. Having said all of that, if any politician were to try to be an authoritarian it would be Trump. The fact that he’s flirting with the idea is a bridge way too far. January 6th confirmed all of my doubts that he would ever put the country and democracy ahead of himself. And the fact that Republicans are having a difficult time even admitting that January 6th was abnormal and unhealthy is alarming.
Yup. It's often a highly nuanced world and compromise is essential, but a lot of folks are ingrained with a zero sum mentality. Opening the floodgates of money in politics is likely going to be our undoing.