Why am I not even vaguely surprised that you’re a fan of the English Defence League.
Do me one favour. When referring to the UK (and it is just abbreviated to the UK, not U.K.) don’t use “us”, because your thinking (not the phrase I’d use, but we’re not in the pit) is very different to mine.
And I’m dying to know what court cases substantiate the EDL’s “ISLAM R EVIL” stance.
What’s literally terrifying about Trump is that he’s showing how easy it is to go down the path to genocide. Granted he’s just at the start of the path and he doesn’t have any intention of that, but it’s chilling to see the exuberant rise of hate speech. What the Nazis, Serbs, Hutus, or many others did doesn’t seem so strange when you see how Trump has risen. Just a few, easy steps:
Find a group of discontented group people
Convince them their problems are because of a different group of people
Dehumanize/demonize the other group of people
We’re at the place now where Muslims are being somewhat openly harassed in public. There was an incident this week where racists in a restaurant were taunting two Muslim women, calling them terrorists and saying they should pull out their guns already. Rather than throwing the racists out, the manager sat them at a table and said there was nothing he could do. I’m flabbergasted that the manager and other patrons did nothing. And this was in a hippy restaurant in the very liberal city of Austin, Texas!
I can understand how kooks can run for office with their crazy ideas. What is worrisome is that he is getting significant support and the general public is buying into all the anti-Muslim propaganda. I would have thought something like Muslim registration, interment, or deportation would have been an abhorrent idea to most people, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The ember of racist hate lies smoldering just waiting for the something to fan it into a full flame.
I’d like to believe this is true, but Trump declared that he didn’t believe that Obama was born in the US back in 2011, and he hasn’t returned to reality since that I can tell. That’s a long time for performance art, so I’m assuming either that he really believes this stuff or that he doesn’t care who gets hurt by claiming to.
On behalf of the Welsh and the Cornish, I’d like to remind you of another non-Christian group that just kept coming in large numbers, bringing terror and violence with them, murdering and oppressing the Christian people of Britain: the English.
I’ve run a restaurant and that is absolutely insane. “The customer is always right” doesn’t apply to one group of patrons deciding to harass the other. Had I been in charge at that place on that day I would have told those idiots they could either leave on their own or I could get the police to make them leave.
The women would at the very least have gotten their meals comped, even if it meant I had to pay for it out of my own pocket.
He’s trolling all right, but I don’t share your faith in it ending with a big gotcha. I think he’ll troll his way into the Oval Office if allowed to do so, just to prove he can.
I am morbidly curious, however, exactly what it would take— military uniform, Bavarian accent, toothbrush moustache? for Trump’s fanatics to stop cheering, glance around at other and say “hey, wait a minute…”
Pulling all media attention to himself is the strategy. Making the rest of the GOP, including other candidates, speak against him is the strategy.
He operates on the “no such thing as bad press/say what you want but just spell my name right” school of marketing. It’s what he’s done his whole career, and it’s a well-worn path. It’s what every “shock jock” in history does: build a following by making everyone else look tepid, boring and weak. When a vanilla milkshake like Jeb Bush denounces him, that’s a win in Trump’s book.
It’s an approach that’s never been used much in politics, and I am skeptical whether it will lead to success in the end. But I’m surprised that people don’t see what he’s doing.
Yes, I see what he’s doing and acknowledged as much. How that plays out as a strategy for a presidential candidate is what I’m not understanding. Is this his long term strategy? Does he think if this strategy somehow gets him the GOP nomination that it will continue to work in the general election? This strategy works if you want a short burst of attention. But the presidential race is a long haul.
I still encourage everyone to re-register as Republican and vote for Trump in the Primaries. It is absolutely impossible that he will win the general election. (And even if he did the impossible, I think he might make a better President than Cruz, Carson or Rubio.)
Don’t worry. It can’t happen. He-Whose-Name-Mustnt-Be-Spoken had huge support from the elite establishment (Trump doesn’t), got the support of young workers and students only after massive propaganda, relied on thuggish violence to win elections, and still never got 51% of the vote in a free election. America has nowhere near the problems of Weimar Germany. Trump gaining the White House is impossible.
I’m not sure how much of Trump’s brazen fancies are real, and how much just a put-on, but even he is well aware he can’t be President. Those of us who want the best for America should encourage his publicity stunt. Whatever GOP candidate emerges from this farce will be severely weakened.
Not because there’s anything wrong with ukuleles. On the contrary, ukuleles are CUTE! Like little baby guitars! They’re just so adorable, I want to eat them all up!