09-04-2020, 08:02 PM
(09-04-2020, 11:24 AM)Isoko Wrote: Pbrower,
Trump? A racist? Are you serious? I've met racist people in my life time (try going to South Africa) and I can assure you, Trump is no racist. A right wing populist who has issues with mass illegal immigration? Sure. But an actual racist? Considering the amount of non white friends he has, I strongly doubt he is one.
Trump doesn't burn crosses or shout Sieg Heil! -- but that does not keep him from being a racist. There are racists and there are racists. There are people who rely upon gut feelings and stale superstitions for their beliefs, and there are those who offer elaborate theories on the inequality of large groups of people. Trump lacks the limited (and flawed) learning necessary for establishing the administrative apparatus for Apartheid or for writing such a tome as Lothrop Stoddard's The Passing of the Great Race.
Quote:A religious bigot? Please. I doubt even Trump knows one Bible passage, despite the evangelicals supporting him (which they always do with Republican Presidents because of the pro-life thing).
One can be an atheist and still be a bigot. Atheists can rarely undo the reality of their heritage, and they can favor one religious tradition over another. Liberals can be at fault for calling fundamentalists "holy rollers" and "snake handlers" It isn't that simple. What Trump has said about Islam is a disgrace.
Quote:Inflaming racial tensions? They already existed and started to grow quite heavily under Obama. I knew plenty of white people in America at the time who were fed up of what I would describe as blaming the white people for everything slogans of today's establishment. It was already there long before Trump and I'd Biden gets in, will continue long after Trump.
Things seemed rather placid under Obama, didn't they? Obama may have prevented many problems by advocating that people defer to the legal process without passing judgment. Someone else will. Trump passes judgment before letting the legal process do its work. Such makes much of the difference. The latter is nothing new: long ago Donald Trump deemed the original suspects in the Central Park jogger case, who would later be cleared, as obviously guilty and deserving of the worst punishment available.
Quote:You go crazy as a society, blaming one group after another over time and eventually you are going to reach a boiling point.
Which is exactly what Trump did, and with the consequences that you suggest!
Quote:Trump failed to shut down the consumer economy? Newsflash - extremely liberal Sweden never even had a lock down. Everything stayed open. As liberal as you can get. At least Trump had a lock down, on par pretty much with the British government.
Liberal or conservative did not matter. Locking down the economy was essential to stopping COVID-19. The Swedes got it wrong.
Quote:I'm sorry but the criticisms I am seeing of Trump is nothing but pure hatred from the left because he dared to do something about immigration and political correctness which they cannot tolerate.
That has all gone to the back burner. COVID-19 can make issues of immigration and political correctness fade at least temporarily into the political and cultural background. If all that is between you and four angry Rottweilers is a screen door that does not yet open but seems to have a flimsy latch that can break with a little more pressure on the door, you obviously don't have your dinner plans at the top of your list of activities at the moment. You are more concerned about being dinner!
Quote:However I will give credit where credit is due and admit he did screw up recently with the postal ballot thing. So yeah that he did.
Fair concession. Donald Trump is ruthless and soulless enough to cheat to win.
Quote:But overall Trump has actually been a pretty decent president. He has tried to talk to more world leaders to solve issues (like with North Korea), surprisingly has not been involved in any major wars (compared to Obama), helped shape a peace deal with Israel and the UAE, actually tackled immigration and even got the economy going again.
Pretty decent? At what? Filling open slots in the US Supreme Court with ideologues? Pushing tax cuts? Other than that he has an incredibly-weak slate of legislative achievements. I concede that a peace deal between Israel and the United Emirates is a good thing. They may disagree on Palestine, but neither seems to have done anything to each other. It may have been a matter of time.
Quote:Overall he has been pretty damn successful. When he goes, it'll just be business as usual, more wars, more debt, the usual. At least Trump tried.
Successful? He could do things that I dislike, but success at such is the measure of effectiveness as a President. Contrast him to Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower, and he looks awful by contrast.
OK, I have a map. An overlay of Eisenhower and Obama elections says much. Yeah, sure, Obama wasn't going to win many states that FDR didn't win in 1936 (Maine and Vermont), Nixon in 1972 (Massachusetts), or Reagan in 1984 (Minnesota) lost...
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once
Obama is obviously unique, but he has to be more like one prior President than like any other. Some constituencies crossed over Party lines between the 1950's and the first couple decades of the 21st century. It is telling that in 2012 that Obama won only one state that did not vote for Eisenhower twice -- and that state, Hawaii, wasn't voting for President in the 1950's. What strikes me most is that
(1) Eisenhower was the first Republican to win Virginia since 1928 (24 years) and he did it twice -- and Obama was the first Democrat to win Virginia in 44 years -- and he did it twice.
(2) Ike won three states that no Republican had won together since 1924 (Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island) that no Republican has won together at any time since Ike did it -- twice.
Eisenhower and Obama strike me as chilly rationalists with similar temperaments and attitudes toward law. Both faced decisions on big issues of civil rights. Eisenhower did not tip his hand on Supreme Court rulings and accepted those as definitive. Obama was sympathetic to same-sex rights, but he let the Supreme Court make its decision without any lobbying. Once settled, the President made clear what his position was with a rainbow-colored light display upon the White House.
It is also possible that Eisenhower and Obama had many of the same constituencies for or against them in the election. States once known for "Rockefeller Republicans" liked Ike in the 1950's and Obama in 2008 and 2012. These people may be incompatible with the often-racist agrarian interests of the Mountain and Deep South. Both Eisenhower and Obama did quite well with highly-educated people by the standard of the time. Neither Ike nor Obama strikes me as a populist.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.