Kind of makes me wonder if we would even have Trump as the GOP nominee now if Obama had never been elected. It seems to me that the Tea Party originated under the guise of fiscal responsibility (this from the party that cut taxes, started two wars, and spent money like there was no tomorrow) when it was really all about “oh no we have a black man in the White House”. And of course it’s just snowballed in the last eight years to where we are now.
Eh, it’s complicated. Trump isn’t unique to the US. There are Trumps all over Western Europe. One of them just became the Foreign Secretary of Britain, Boris Johnson. So the rise of a Trump-like figure was probably inevitable.
This also doesn’t have much to do with the Tea Party, since Trump wasn’t nominated on Tea Partier votes. The Tea Partiers were mainly for Cruz. Trump’s rise is a win for the Tea Party only in the sense that he’s anti-establishment and the Tea Party is anti-establishment. But the Tea Party is also conservative and Trump is no conservative. Ted Cruz was the Tea Party favorite and he did well, but not well enough.
It’s not like he hasn’t tried. Repeatedly. There are certainly promises Obama made and abandoned, but this isn’t one of them.
Yep, he’s worked hard to return terrorists to the battlefield. On the bright side, he doesn’t seem so interested in capturing them anymore. We just kill now, which is probably a smarter policy.
The racism in nearly every GOP action, party as much as individuals, has failed to keep itself concealed. Their defense is that they were really, you know, fighting for state’s rights. :rolleyes:
What makes you think closing Gitmo would return them to the battlefield? How about a stateside prison where it’s less likely we indulge in [del]revenge[/del] torture?
What we do more often is return them to their home countries, where our “allies” let them make their way back to Afghanistan.
At least the biggest fish won’t be going anywhere, but Obama, and to a lesser extent the Bush administration seem content to let mere footsoldiers go back to the fight.
I am beyond baffled at this whole thing. Look, GWB was a numbnut… but shit, he was a Govenor, could fly a freakin jet and came from a long line of public service families. He made horrible decsions but he wasn’t a horrible person.
Trump is just a horrible person. I dont care how much his kids love him, that doesn’t make him a good person. Damn, didn’t Jeffery Dahmers’ mom love him? didn’t make him qualified to be a president or a good person!
I dont understand how so many millions of my fellow Americans can just see the same thing so vastly different. of course, they probably feel the same about me…
More high-ranking SS officers were co-opted into postwar powers of position and influence than minor prisoners released from Gitmo after decades.
So what… we should have just burned Gitmo down with them all inside?
No, I think Trump supporters actually understand Clinton supporters a lot better than vice versa. Clinton is the better candidate qualifications-wise. She’s smart, possibly the smartest candidate to run in our lifetimes. Trump supporters believe she’s corrupt, but also know that Democrats don’t really give a damn.
Clinton supporters figure Trump supporters are just stupid and/or racist. Sure, a lot of Trump supporters are. But Trump can’t win with just idiots and racists. If he wins, it will be because Americans are disgusted with politics as usual, disgusted with the status quo, disgusted with elites thinking they know what’s best for them.
If you take prisoners of war, you hold them until the war is over. Letting them go when you know many of them will just rejoin the fight is unserious.
Of course, Obama just kills them now when they do go back, and we don’t really take prisoners anymore.
Then we’ll have a stupid, narcissistic elite who knows what’s best for him.
The Democrats have rallied around the only candidate in America that would have a problem squashing Trump like a bug. How in God’s name did it come to this?
In both parties, voters have become enamored with sizzle over steak. Big names over big resumes. Great speeches over great records.
Clinton vs. Trump is the kind of guess you’d make if it was 1996 and someone asked you, “Who will be the candidates in the 2016 Presidential election?” Just some wild ass guess pulling a couple of big names you’ve heard of.
So what’s the 2036 race going to be? Sasha Obama vs. George P. Bush?
So, they should have nominated a slightly foggy old man who’s been spewing radical ideas for decades without ever even attempting to implement most of them, with a zero percent track record in doing so - or, frankly, in actually doing much of anything? Yeah, he’d pull the collective of votes from a populace that would make their X in Trump’s fecal matter before voting in an OMG *Socialist!
*Time to quit bitching about the choice and make one. One, of two. That’s the bet in front of you. Until it’s settled, no other bet is even worth discussing.
I wasn’t suggesting Sanders; I’m not a Bernista. Shit, O’Malley would probably be polling 40 points ahead of Trump now. Any of 20 Senators or Governors…anybody who isn’t breathing a sigh of relief that she managed to avoid a federal indictment.
Great OP, I’m in complete agreement.
Devil’s advocate hat on; I don’t believe this way, but I understand it, having a bunch of right-wing, angry family and acquaintances.
I think the Trump-love among that set is a backlash in part to that sort of hyper image conscious behavior, and the associated mealy-mouthed equivocating that came with it.
Trump basically says that he’s going to say and do whatever he fucking well pleases, and people love him for that.
It’s the ***contrast ***between that attitude and behavior, and the attitudes and behaviors of politicians of former eras, like Bill Clinton that they admire, not exactly so much the actual substance of what he says.
I personally have a feeling that the contrast is the key issue here; he’s an outsider to the party and the process, he’s not dependent on the political process for his personal wealth or power, he’s not acting like a politician, he’s not saying politically correct things, etc…
In other words, those saying that it’s disgust with the current political process are dead right- Trump’s just the wrong person at the wrong time to personify it; a less wealthy or prominent person in that role would have to learn how to maneuver within the system and get a lot of those rough edges worn off before making it to the Presidential stage, but Trump’s got enough personal visibility from his TV shows and relentless self promotion, and enough wealth to jump straight to that level without having to learn the craft, so to speak, at lower levels of government.
It’s been 15 years. If they’re terrorists, there’s something we can charge them with, right? Anything? I mean, we’re talking military tribunals, not civilian courts with protections from things like “coercive interrogation”, access to incriminating evidence, your choice of lawyer, and requirement of all jurors to convict.
Oh yeah, they’re not prisoners of war. A specific class of accused has been created, just for terrorists so they can be denied Geneva and Constitutional protections.
But hey, we can sleep at night, safe from all those terrorists, right?