I've got more thoughts on Trump, and I guess here is as good a place to put them down as any.
Brace yourself. This is long.
Comparing anyone to Hitler is almost always a stretch. But with Trump, it's...not as much of one...
I've always wondered how could someone with such clearly terrible inhuman ideas as Hitler have risen to such power? How could an entire country let that happen? Or even Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin or Saddam Hussein? The idea used to be just absolutely insane to me. Then I see what's happening right now with Trump and I totally get it. People are mad. People are reactionary. People want someone to shake the whole damn thing up. I get that.
I think there are several distinct groups that can be attributed to the rise of Trump and his success in the polls.
I think the first group that started his momentum were the trolls. Ironic millenial hipsters that thought it would be funny to see how far the dumb asshole reality star could make it in an actual election. "Maybe he could have Omarosa as a VP, LOL." A few years ago, Howard Stern convinced his listening audience that it would be funny to wreck American Idol and vote for the clearly terrible Sanjaya for the Lulz. He kept advancing. The more and more he advanced, the more and more steam he gathered. After a while, it started becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. Ladies in my office, not originally part of the ironic Stern stunt, started saying "I know he's not your typical Idol contestant, but he's so darn cute!" Which leads me to the second group.
Idiots. First of all, many of them are bandwagoners easily influenced by what everyone else thinks. Some of them just see that he's doing well in the polls and say "Hey, that must be the guy." And some of them listen to his insane blunt macho drivel and think "Hey, he talks like me!"
I don't understand how anyone with a half a brain in their head can see this guy mock a disabled journalist:
Listen to him discuss lobbyists:
Talk about Carson's knife story:
Let alone anything of any substance he actually says, and think this man has the intelligence required to lead the free world. Let alone just the obvious fact that America will 100% be an absolute punchline. And no, before anyone even says it, Obama has not come anywhere within a country mile of the shame and embarrassment that Trump will bring on our international reputation. I'm not by any means saying he's perfect, but you are simply delusional if you think there is a comparison.
And speaking of "anything of any substance", almost nothing he says
is of any substance. He crudely shouts "I'm really rich and really classy. I'm gonna do the goodest job and do it really great. Better than anyone, in fact. I'm just good at being good. That's my plan to defeat ISIS. PS Carly Fiorina's ugly."
And that's how he gets into half of the trouble he does. He's just a plain and simple idiot. Take this interaction for example. I get the game the press is playing here. They feed him the incendiary quote. I don't like that. BUT, Trump is a fucking idiot in the way he responds and allows them to run with this stuff. Because he basically doesn't have any idea of his own, but basically says "Yeah, a Muslim database. That's a good idea, I'd do that. We should do a lot of things."
Which leads me to my third and final group: The reactionaries. This is the group I sympathise with the most. I get the thought process. I get that the media spins stuff to the left. I get that people are way too sensitive about PC bullshit. Basically, everything I said here applies to this group:
Look, there is middle ground here. You can simultaneously hold the believe that Islamic jihad is a very real problem that we need to take extremely seriously and not endorse Muslim internment camps. Let alone consider any of Trump's babbling to be coherent policy. I take issue with Obama and liberals being hesitant to label the San Bernadino attack what it was, jihadi terrorism. I think we should beef up the vetting process for allowing immigrants and visas. The female shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS and other extremist groups on facebook, lied about her address, among other red flags that absolutely should have been caught and dealt with, denying her access to this country. I think saying Muslims aren't MORE LIKELY to carry out radical terrorism in the name or their religion, and drawing straight-line comparisons to the Planned Parenthood shooter, who clearly was deranged and acted as a lone wolf, is asinine. AT THE SAME TIME, I don't think the proper reaction to that is putting Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Aziz Ansari, and Cat Stevens in death camps.
I said this with Trump from the beginning. There's a difference between opposing "PC" and being a complete belligerent idiotic asshole.
A subset of this group also just want to watch the whole thing burn. They're sick of our political system. They want an "outsider". I get that as well. Then vote for Fiorina who has all of the credentials Trump has, but without being a blithering buffoon and suggesting unconstitutional, horrendous policies.
And speaking of unconstitutional...Look, I am drastically opposed to Hillary Clinton. What part of anything Trump says consists of small government solutions? I want an alternative to Hillary, not a clone.
How is that different from Hillary's policy? It's not.
Trump's statement:
Hillary's statement a few hours earlier:
The "Muslim database" he endorsed in the video I posted earlier? That is essentially the exact same thing as Hillary Clinton wanting to use No Fly lists and terrorist watch lists to restrict the second amendment without due process.
Here he is endorsing extensive campaign finance regulations:
Here he is praising how "wonderful" eminent domain is.
He wants to deport those
suspected of being illegal immigrants without due process:
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/08/17/what-can-trump-actually-do-legally-immigration-deportations-judge-napolitano-explainsIt was said in this thread that Trump endorsing internment camps for US Muslim citizens was from some moonbat conspiracy theory websites. No. This is him saying it himself on Good Morning America.
4:30
"You're increasingly being compared to Hitler, does that give you any pause at all?"
"No because what I am doing is no different than what FDR -- FDR's solution for Germans, Italians, Japanese, you know, many years ago."
"So you're for internment camps?"
"This is a president who is highly respected by all. He did the same thing -- if you look at what he was doing, it was far worse. We are now at war. We have a president that doesn't want to say that, but we are now at war."
And finally, I know it's conspiratorial, but I honestly believe Trump is a Clinton plant to destroy Republicans in this election, and some of you are falling for it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/09/jeb-bush-jokes-of-trump-clinton-conspiracy-theory-heres-a-look-at-the-evidence/Nothing about his policies are conservative. They're just dumb and incendiary. He makes all Republicans look stupid and racist and at the same time, when he ultimately runs third party, will at this point certainly be able to take enough votes away from the inevitable GOP candidate to seal the victory for Hillary. Good job, guys.