# Conservatives and/or Trump supporters, please explain to us liberals why we shouldn't be afraid **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 20, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263 "2016-12-20T21:33:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/21 "2016-12-21T01:45:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Best argument for smaller government I’ve heard in a long time! Especially relating to security and foreign policy. > > That doesn’t quite work for our concerns about various domestic policies that aren’t related to security, though. Let me introduce you to my good friend, Federalism. Some folks like to mock him by calling hime “States’ Rights”, but that’s happening less frequently these days as folks on the Left contemplate President Trump. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/22 "2016-12-21T01:51:01Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Best argument for smaller government I’ve heard in a long time! Especially relating to security and foreign policy. > > That doesn’t quite work for our concerns about various domestic policies that aren’t related to security, though. That’s always been the argument for checks and balances. That’s the whole point of our form of government is to divide government to keep it from gaining too much power. Yet, the short sighted left wants to erode constraints. Why? Government, like the church of old, is where high potential power resides. I lean left on most social issues. Where I differ and it’s a serious difference are the tactics. Eroding constraints and balances for short term victories sets dangerous precedent. Not that the left cares since they assume they are destined for eternal power. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/23 "2016-12-21T02:11:17Z")
If you want to know why we should fear Trump, look no further than Kansas and North Carolina. Kansas republicans didn’t like the fact that judges were ruling their idiotic bills unconstitutional so they simply started impeaching the judges. North Carolina couldn’t accept that their republican governor got defeated in free and fair elections so the outgoing governor and his republican majority stripped him of power. Where does it all end? What would keep a republican president from simply colluding with loyalists in the military and refusing to leave power after losing an election? He could merely claim the election was rigged and he’d probably have tens of supporters ready to take to the streets in support of him. Democracy isn’t protected or guaranteed by text on paper. It is secured by people - voting citizens and their elected representatives alike - who value democratic principles. Simply put, republicans do NOT value these principles. They value winning and power, by whatever means they achieve it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/24 "2016-12-21T02:48:19Z")
Perhaps when the right-wingers are done explaining to us why we shouldn’t be afraid they can explain why we shouldn’t be disgusted. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/25 "2016-12-21T04:25:18Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Libertarian here, voted for Gary Johnson. > > You should be afraid of Donald Trump. Absolutely you should. He’s soon to be the head of the executive branch, the most powerful person in the USA if not the world. > > Our founding fathers believed that government is always dangerous, because there is always the possibility of government overreaching and grabbing more power than it deserves to have. So have numerous other intelligent people over the centuries. In other words you should _always_ be afraid of whoever has the most governmental power in a particular country. > > The problem with Democrats is that they generally aren’t sufficiently afraid of the government and the people who run it. Indeed, they even think that a larger, more powerful federal government is a good thing. > > If Democrats are starting to be afraid of Trump, then they’re moving in the right direction. They’re starting to have at least some of the wisdom about government that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and all those other breeches-and-wig-wearing guys had. > > Let me ask you this. Suppose we had a much smaller, less intrusive federal government, wouldn’t President Trump be less scary? Suppose the military was smaller and had fewer overseas bases. Wouldn’t that reduce the opportunity for Trump to do something stupid with the military? Suppose the CIA didn’t exist. Wouldn’t that protect against the possibility of President Trump using the CIA for torture, as Dubya did? Suppose the Department of Homeland Security was smaller and had fewer branches. Wouldn’t it be easier to ensure that President Trump wouldn’t use one of those branches to harass Mexicans or Muslims? Suppose there were fewer government offices that interacted with the business world. Wouldn’t it be easier to determine whether President Trump had a conflict of interest involving his businesses? > > Think about it. Government in the wrong hands is dangerous, but so are sporks. I’m not anti-spork just because an insane person can use one to poke my eye out. Government done properly can be a good thing. The services the federal government provides, if it didn’t provide them, would be provided by some other group. Either another aspect of the public sector or a private industry. I don’t find them to be safer than the federal government. If anything, I’d prefer the public sector because there is some feedback via voting where I have far less influence on a private company, Checks and balances are what help limit destructiveness of government, not so much the size of government itself. Having said that, a lot of liberals who looked the other way when Obama expanded executive branch powers are now having buyer’s remorse over that, because it means now Trump has those expanded powers. Various civil liberty groups are now saying ‘I told you so’ about all the warnings they were giving about Obama’s expanded powers. In my view it isn’t smaller government we need to stop people like Trump, it is the following: [ul] [li]An informed electorate[/li][li]Principled politicians who serve the public interest[/li][li]Checks and balances[/li][li]Transparency[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/26 "2016-12-21T05:11:30Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > \*\*\* People losing health care due to repeal of ACA and/or voucherization of medicare\*\* > Medicare’s going nowhere. Too many old people vote. As for ACA, I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict that ACA won’t be touched, either. Mainly because all congresspeople must realize that affordable healthcare is a HUGE issue to ALL Americans, and stripping them of healthcare will lose their votes. Oh sure, they will continue to make noise and threaten and bluff and bluster, but that’s always been giving lip service to the super-rich commercial interests who fund their campaigns. But all the money in the world won’t help if the voters rebel against you. Except that repealing the ACA has been a central plank of the Republican party for nearly a decade now, and is being held up now as a primary reason Trump won the election. Repealing it is what their base wants. They won’t get punished by them for doing it: they’re going to be more afraid of what their base does if they _don’t_ repeal it. > [@](#): > > \*\*\* Trump’s naivety and overemotional responses causing international incidents or possibly military action\*\* > Troubling, but most countries will probably roll their eyes and think, “Those dumb Americans…” Remember, it’s only been 8 years since George W. Bush, so this situation is nothing new. You’re comparing him to a guy who started two wars, one largely because their president didn’t like his dad, and this is supposed to be _reassuring_? > [@](#): > > \*\*\* Restrictions on the civil/human rights of minorities and historically oppressed groups (voter suppression, muslim registries, breaking up immigrant families, etc)\*\* > Nothing to worry about. Trump only said all that shit as a means to get elected. (Notice how he never mentions them anymore?) Said with all the boundless optimism of an uninvolved third party, I’m sure. But even if you’re right, and Trump only said those things to get elected, _it still worked_. Trump demonstrated that appeals to naked racism are a viable path to the highest office in this country. His example will be noted by others, and duplicated. Also, if you’re queer, you’re basically fucked regardless. Trump, to his credit, appears to have no personal animus towards gays that I’ve seen, but he also demonstrably has no interest in putting any sort of check on the most rabidly homophobic parts of his party, and indeed, is quite happy to put them into cabinet positions, on the judicial bench, and in the Vice Presidency. > [@](#): > > \*\*\* Loss of international respect for America\*\* > How can you lose something that never existed? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > \*\*\* Higher risk of a terror attack (due to Trump not going to intel briefings, and ISIL possibly knowing Trump will overreact and play into their hands by engaging in a land war)\*\* > The Intelligence Community mostly operates independently of all other agencies, so they’re probably happy that he’s ignoring them. It’s a problem, but much less of a problem than an administration that strongarms them into fabricating evidence against a harmless nation (such as, oh say Iraq) while ignoring those delightful cuddly bin Ladens. [Do you remember what happened the last time we had a president who didn’t think he needed to listen to his security briefings?](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03321/trade-01_3321412k.jpg) > [@](#): > > \*\*\* Environmental degradation/climate change\*\* > Big, big issue – probably the largest threat Trump poses. On the bright side, states are still free to enact their own environmental laws. Which is good if you live in California… Texas, not so much… And thank God Texas air and water stop right at the Texas border, right? The thing about Global Warming is that it happens all over. Kinda implied right there in the name. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/27 "2016-12-21T05:14:54Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let me introduce you to my good friend, Federalism. Some folks like to mock him by calling hime “States’ Rights”, but that’s happening less frequently these days as folks on the Left contemplate President Trump. I don’t know about the left in general, but personally, I’ve always felt that “States Rights” was a thin veneer over what was, at its heart, simply a desire to see people you don’t like suffer. I haven’t changed my mind on the basic nature of the concept of State’s Rights, but I’m warming up to the concept regardless. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/28 "2016-12-21T05:39:30Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Just curious, did you have a 2016 prediction? If so, was that prediction correct or not? Nope, I predicted easy Hillary win 😛 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/29 "2016-12-21T05:41:02Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > You mean just ignore. Or refuse to see. Refuse to ignore isn’t likely what you meant. 🙂 No, there is a perfectly reasonable, albeit complicated, semantic rationale. I could explain it all for you, but I have to go get the dog some more beer. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/30 "2016-12-21T05:57:41Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Government in the wrong hands is dangerous, but so are sporks. I’m not anti-spork just because an insane person can use one to poke my eye out. Government done properly can be a good thing. > > The services the federal government provides, if it didn’t provide them, would be provided by some other group. Either another aspect of the public sector or a private industry. I don’t find them to be safer than the federal government. If anything, I’d prefer the public sector because there is some feedback via voting where I have far less influence on a private company, > > Checks and balances are what help limit destructiveness of government, not so much the size of government itself. > > Having said that, a lot of liberals who looked the other way when Obama expanded executive branch powers are now having buyer’s remorse over that, because it means now Trump has those expanded powers. Various civil liberty groups are now saying ‘I told you so’ about all the warnings they were giving about Obama’s expanded powers. > > In my view it isn’t smaller government we need to stop people like Trump, it is the following: > > [ul] > [li]An informed electorate[/li][li]Principled politicians who serve the public interest[/li][li]Checks and balances[/li][li]Transparency[/li][/ul] Government in the wrong hands has been responsible for the deaths of 10s of millions of people in China with Mao, the USSR with Lenin and Stalin, Germany with Hitler, Cambodia with Pol Pot. Exactly how many have died from a spork? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/31 "2016-12-21T06:36:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Best argument for smaller government I’ve heard in a long time! Especially relating to security and foreign policy. > > That doesn’t quite work for our concerns about various domestic policies that aren’t related to security, though. I would agree that for those worried about basic human rights at home and abroad, the military, the CIA, the FBI, and so forth are clearly the parts of government that pose the biggest danger. But they are not the only ones. Conservative and libertarian sources in recent years have reported quite a bit on how many parts of the federal government are being “weaponized”. National Review, for example,[covered how many ordinary-sounding federal agencies now have their own heavily armed law enforcement wings](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund). This includes the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board (!), the Bureau of Land Management, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is all related to the growth of the federal government. As the number of laws grows exponentially, the amount of law enforcement that’s needed to catch and punish all the law-breakers also grows. The more different federal offices there are running around with machine guns and tanks, the more difficult it is for civil liberties groups to keep track of them all, and the more likely that some abuses will slip by without much notice. I don’t know whether President Trump intends to commit any major civil liberties violations or not, but if he does, he has far more tools at his disposal domestically as well as in the military, compared to previous generations. Or consider the Office of Civil Rights in the Dept. of Education, [which has been very active during the Obama Administration](http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/02/does-office-of-civil-rights-is-a-rogue-a), and [growing rapidly](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/18/civil-rights-complaints-to-u-s-department-of-education-reach-a-record-high/?utm_term=.6234bea50ecd). Founded to protect civil rights, this office has been rapidly expanding its own reach into areas that it didn’t formerly, cover, and much of what it does [may be illegal](http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2016/03/04/yet-another-good-reason-to-abolish-the-department-of-education/#31fb6ad13668). Officially its job is to investigate complaints of discrimination, harassment, bias and so forth in school districts and universities. In reality, it is infringing [on free speech](https://www.aaup.org/report/history-uses-and-abuses-title-ix) and [forcing schools to adopt unfair policies](http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/12/college_rape_campus_sexual_assault_is_a_serious_problem_but_the_efforts.html). Is it far-fetched to imagine that in the hands of President Trump, an office with such huge and unchecked powers might do some things that liberals dislike? Or what about the Obama Administration’s [new rule](http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/02/new-eeoc-payroll-reporting-rule-proposed-i-am-officially-exhausted-with-this-administration.html) requiring many employers to give the government a massive amount of data about all their employees broken down by gender and race. The Democrats were hoping that with all that data to work with, lawyers could identify employers to sue for discrimination. But it will also be in the hands of the Trump Administration. If, for example, Trump wants a list of employers with lots of high-earning Hispanic employees to be targeted for immigration enforcement raids, he will have that data, thanks to a rule created by the Obama Administration. Or consider … almost any area where the federal government has lots of power, which is to say nearly anything. Once you create a powerful federal office with the ability to boss people around, that office will still exist and have the ability to boss people around when a President that you don’t like is in office, and that President may find new ways to use that office. [There are over 300 federal agencies](https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/a), most of them focus on domestic issues rather than military. How confident do you feel with Trump appointees in charge of all of them? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/32 "2016-12-21T07:05:34Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > The services the federal government provides, if it didn’t provide them, would be provided by some other group. Either another aspect of the public sector or a private industry. I don’t find them to be safer than the federal government. If anything, I’d prefer the public sector because there is some feedback via voting where I have far less influence on a private company, This is an area that concerns me, particularly the idea of private industry taking things over. There are services that _shouldn’t_ be handled by a private firm, because the nature of them is such that no private company would be willing to provide them equally, to everyone. In particular, I’m thinking of the Postal Service. It’s been clear for over a decade that the GOP is trying to dismantle or neuter the USPS, and enable private companies to step in. But, while FedEx or UPS provides great service to most of the country, it’s not really profitable for them to provide service to remote areas, which the USPS _must_ do. Get rid of the USPS, and you further damage the survivability of rural areas. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/33 "2016-12-21T08:06:26Z")
This thread is giving me some deja vu to back when people warned the right that the Dems would get to play with all the fancy new powers they were giving GWB. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/34 "2016-12-21T08:20:43Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Conservative and libertarian sources in recent years have reported quite a bit on how many parts of the federal government are being “weaponized”. Not just conservative and libertarian sources, by the way, and not just in the most recent eight years. This is ultimately a longterm federal legacy, with a sharp spike post-9/11. [QUOTE=ITR champion] National Review, for example,[covered how many ordinary-sounding federal agencies now have their own heavily armed law enforcement wings](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund). This includes the Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board (!), the Bureau of Land Management, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is all related to the growth of the federal government. [/quote] As your own cite notes: > [@](#): > > “The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop — armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.” […] > > Since 9/11, the feds have issued a plethora of homeland-security grants that encourage local police departments to buy surplus military hardware and form their own SWAT units. And [the Obama administration has continued this and other Bush administration trends toward militarization and federalization of security activities:](http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/obama-a-civil-libertarians-nightmare) > [@](#): > > It started with the 9/11 attacks. Within a week, Congress, including many liberals, gave the White House blanket authority to wage a war on the terrorists. A month after that, Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, authorizing many anti-terrorism measure including expanded surveillance. By mid-November, the White House ordered creation of military tribunals to try terrorists who were not U.S. citizens. > > Bush quickly expanded covert operations, creating a shadow arrest, interrogation and detention system based at Guantanamo that violated international law and evaded domestic oversight. […] the precedent that the Constitution does not restrict how a president conducts an endless war against a stateless enemy was firmly planted. […] > > President Obama now has power that Bush never had. Foremost is he can (and has) order the killing of U.S. citizens abroad who are deemed terrorists. Like Bush, he has asked the Justice Department to draft secret memos authorizing his actions without going before a federal court or disclosing them. Obama has continued indefinite detentions at Gitmo, but also brought the policy ashore by signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which authorizes the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone suspected of assisting terrorists, even citizens. […] > > Meanwhile, more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks, Washington’s wartime posture has trickled down into many areas of domestic activity […] Domestic law enforcement has been militarized […] > > One of Bush’s biggest civil liberties breaches, spying on virtually all Americans via their telecommunications starting in 2003, also has been expanded. Congress authorized the effort in 2006. Two years later, it granted legal immunity to the telecom firms helping Bush—a bill Obama voted for. The National Security Agency is now building its largest data processing center ever, which [Wired.com](http://Wired.com)’s James Bamforth reportswill go beyond the public Internet to grab data but also reach password-protected networks. The federal government continues to require that computer makers and big Web sites provide access for domestic surveillance purposes. More crucially, the NSA is increasingly relying on private firms to mine data, because, unlike the government, it does not need a search warrant. The Constitution only limits the government searches and seizures. > > The government’s endless wartime footing is also seen in its war on whistleblowers. Obama has continued cases brought by Bush, such as going after the “leaker” in the warrantless wiretapping story broken by the New York Times in 2005, as well as the WikiLeaks case, prosecution of Bradley Manning, and others for allegedly mishandling classified materials related to the war on terrorism. Its suppression of war-related information given to journalists extends overseas […] Meanwhile, the administration has stonewalled Freedom of Information Act requests, particularly the Justice Department, which has issued the secret wartime memos. > [@ITR champion](#): > > Or consider … almost any area where the federal government has lots of power, which is to say nearly anything. Once you create a powerful federal office with the ability to boss people around, that office will still exist and have the ability to boss people around when a President that you don’t like is in office, and that President may find new ways to use that office. [There are over 300 federal agencies](https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/a), most of them focus on domestic issues rather than military. How confident do you feel with Trump appointees in charge of all of them? Yup, well, we told you so, back before 2008. As our own **jayjay** [presciently mused nearly ten years ago](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8813468&postcount=4): > [@jayjay on 07-25-2007](#): > > I’ve wondered throughout this administration, as more and more power was transferred and concentrated in the Executive, why the Republicans (both in Congress and in the general public) haven’t been more alarmed. It should be obvious that the POTUS is NOT going to be Republican forever. I can’t see how any of them (other than a very small proportion who are comfortable with an authoritarian leader in the White House, no matter the party) can possibly be sanguine about a Democratic President with the kind of powers and secrecy that the Bush Administration has made “normal” for the Executive branch. > [@marshmallow](#): > > This thread is giving me some deja vu to back when people warned the right that the Dems would get to play with all the fancy new powers they were giving GWB. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. You said it. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/35 "2016-12-21T10:23:05Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Trump’s naivety and overemotional responses causing international incidents or possibly military action The very first thing Trump did was disarm Clinton’s plan to commit acts of war against Russia and her ally. Sure, the second thing he did was ignore China’s demand that everyone ostracise Taiwan, but Trump is not the one whose arrogance and warmongering has _already_ left a trail of corpses across the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/36 "2016-12-21T11:20:15Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > The very first thing Trump did was disarm Clinton’s plan to commit acts of war against Russia and her ally. Sure, the second thing he did was ignore China’s demand that everyone ostracise Taiwan, but Trump is not the one whose arrogance and warmongering has _already_ left a trail of corpses across the Middle East. That’s one way to look at it, and I don’t entirely disagree with you. There has been a bipartisan political and bureaucratic embrace of the neo-imperialist status quo, and it has failed miserably in terms of dealing with ever-increasing instability in the Middle East and also in terms of dealing with Russia. The United States is using a political, economic, and military playbook that no longer works. Our foreign policy with Russia has been incompetently managed since the end of the Cold War and there is, on the surface, an opportunity for Trump to do some good there. Unfortunately, I think the reality is that Trump is setting himself up to be Putin’s useful idiot. Trump is so eager to claim a foreign policy win with Russia and the risk is that in doing so he allows Putin to create an empire of his own. Putin is also entirely capable of fragmenting the United States with his misinformation campaigns – sounds far fetched but he’s already doing it and republicans who are gleefully cheering the fall of the democratic party are playing right into his hands. California’s already talking of secession. Right now it’s just talk but it might not always be the case and Putin would relish the opportunity to facilitate a divorce among the American federation of states. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/37 "2016-12-21T11:26:38Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > The very first thing Trump did was disarm Clinton’s plan to commit acts of war against Russia and her ally. Sounds like [now he’s considering rebranding it for his own administration](https://sputniknews.com/politics/201612171048695173-safe-zone-trump-clinton/): > [@](#): > > “We are going to build safe zones in Syria and we are going to get the Gulf states to pay for the safe zones,” Trump told a thank you rally in Orlando, Florida. […] > > Still the safe zones issue evokes strong memories of Hillary Clinton’s plan to impose no-fly zones in Syria free from the Syrian government control. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/38 "2016-12-21T11:49:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Yogurt** : > > From a conservative perspective: > > ACA – My premiums have skyrocketed, from $116 a month to nearly $450, with my deductible doubling. I support the repeal of the ACA, and I believe that I will benefit from it. Certain people may suffer from it, but the ACA as it stands is failing the average person, and causing all of us to subsidize the sick and poor through higher premiums. Not an easy issue to solve, but I’m for any relief I can get. If your premiums jumped that much, then it’s a pretty safe bet that you never had health insurance in the first place. A lot of folks who “liked their insurance” before didn’t. See, health insurance, you pay into every month, and then if you have some catastrophe, they pay you. But the plans a lot of folks had, they paid into them every month, and then if they had some catastrophe, the insurance companies found some excuse to not pay them. But if you haven’t had that catastrophe yet, you wouldn’t know. And your increase in premiums wasn’t due to the ACA itself, it was due to a decision made by the insurance companies. Do you really think that if the ACA were repealed, they’d decide to lower them again? No, they’ll just keep them the same, or increase them again citing increased uncertainty, and go right back to not paying if you end up needing it. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/39 "2016-12-21T12:24:33Z")
I would also like to know why we should not be worried about Michael Flynn and his team: [Scariest Thing About Trump: Michael Flynn’s Team of Nutters](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/scariest-thing-about-trump-michael-flynns-team-of-nutters.html) ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263/40 "2016-12-21T13:05:24Z")
> [@Yogurt](#): > > From a conservative perspective: > > ACA – My premiums have skyrocketed, from $116 a month to nearly $450, with my deductible doubling. I support the repeal of the ACA, and I believe that I will benefit from it. Certain people may suffer from it, but the ACA as it stands is failing the average person, and causing all of us to subsidize the sick and poor through higher premiums. Not an easy issue to solve, but I’m for any relief I can get. I’d like more information before I give this any credence. What type of insurance did you have before? A lot of people had junk policies that didn’t cover squat, then to be ACA-compliant, quite naturally they had to provide more coverage and of course that would cost more. It’s quite possible that you’re paying more and getting a better deal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-and-or-trump-supporters-please-explain-to-us-liberals-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid/775263.md?page=3)