# What the hell is Trump? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 30, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581 "2015-07-30T15:21:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/421 "2015-09-06T05:55:38Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As a sad irony I noticed a web headline noting that at the same time Trump is disparaging “anchor” babies, dead babies wash up on the beaches of Europe and Turkey. I think it’s sad that in the face of families being surrounded on mountaintops and having themselves, their children and even their babies’ heads sawn off, Barak and other first world leaders take the position _“Tough shit, not our problem. They need to fix it themselves.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/422 "2015-09-06T07:01:57Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Condition number three is was in effect in France several years ago when someone I knew wanted to live the expatriot life there for a few years. If you wanted to stay longer than you could with a visa you had to substantiate that you had some sort of specialized job lined up that likely couldn’t be filled by a French citizen, and/or that you had the means to support yourself while there and pay your way home should France at some point want you to leave. Did you miss the part about how this policy is meant to be for refugees? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/423 "2015-09-06T10:10:45Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Now Barry, Bill & Hill? Those are some world-class liars right there! And yet people of your apparent ilk treat them like rock stars. (Well, the first two anyway, the third has still been your early odds-on favorite to win the White House a couple of times now.) > > Until you people start suitably condemning that crowd for their countless lies and deceptions you’ll continue to look completely silly and hypocritical for whinging about Trump’s various gildings of the lily. Until you start suitably condemning Trump’s lies and deceptions, your whinging will continue to look obssessed and delusional about anything Hillary says or does. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/424 "2015-09-06T11:01:34Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > [Our] whinging will continue to look [obsessed] and delusional about anything Hillary says or does. With a small modification, your statement about **SA** works as the Primary Theme of the entire Republican campaign. To (once again) answer the question in the title, **Trump is** not the kind of girl you marry, but the kind of girl you fool around with before it’s time to get serious. (You know that comic with naked toddlers in romantic situations? \*Love Is… \*? Now imagine _Trump Is…_. You’re welcome.) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/425 "2015-09-06T12:30:16Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Well, maybe in the sense that restaurants are lying sacks of shit because their actual food doesn’t look anything like it does on their menus. > > Trump, foremost, is a promoter. And promoters are always inclined to shade the truth in their favor to make their products look more appealing. Pretty much every person and every company with something to sell does it. > > Now Barry, Bill & Hill? Those are some world-class liars right there! And yet people of your apparent ilk treat them like rock stars. (Well, the first two anyway, the third has still been your early odds-on favorite to win the White House a couple of times now.) > > Until you people start suitably condemning that crowd for their countless lies and deceptions you’ll continue to look completely silly and hypocritical for whinging about Trump’s various gildings of the lily. They’re liars and I condemn them for it. Does that satisfy you? If course, their opponents are worse liars with policies that are terrible for America, so I prefer the Democratic liars to the Republicans, but they do indeed lie sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/426 "2015-09-06T12:31:25Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think it’s sad that in the face of families being surrounded on mountaintops and having themselves, their children and even their babies’ heads sawn off, Barak and other first world leaders take the position _“Tough shit, not our problem. They need to fix it themselves.”_ I’m glad that they recognize that an invasion would just make things worse for these people, as well as weaken America. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/427 "2015-09-06T12:38:00Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Not the same question. That doesn’t mean it can’t be answered. Give it a try. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/428 "2015-09-06T12:54:06Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > That doesn’t mean it can’t be answered. Give it a try. I’ll try, if you like. His immigration policy is ludicrous and inhumane. He opposes abortion rights. His middle-east policy is unworkable and dangerous. He opposes the ACA, despite the increasing signs of success. He opposes raising the minimum wage. These are the major policy disagreements off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/429 "2015-09-06T13:03:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m glad that they recognize that an invasion would just make things worse for these people… How would that work exactly…would they have sawn off little kids’ heads more slowly? Still, there’s always reason for good men to stand by while evil prevails, isn’t there? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > as well as weaken America. Oh, please. An America afraid to act in the face of sadistic and horrific genocide is stronger than one who does? How does that work exactly? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/430 "2015-09-06T13:25:39Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > How would that work exactly…would they have sawn off little kids’ heads more slowly? The same way it worked when the US invaded Iraq 12 years ago – even more strife, more bombs, more fighting, more chaos, as well as uniting groups that would otherwise oppose each other against their common enemy of the US. > [@](#): > > Oh, please. An America afraid to act in the face of sadistic and horrific genocide is stronger than one who does? How does that work exactly? An America that hadn’t invaded Iraq 12 years ago would have thousands of wonderful young people that wouldn’t be dead, hundreds of billions of dollars that wouldn’t have been wasted, and international good will that wouldn’t have been squandered. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/431 "2015-09-06T14:30:07Z")
Why waste all this kerfuffle on someone who is, quite simply, not ever going to be President of the United States? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/432 "2015-09-06T14:41:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > They’re liars and I condemn them for it. And then you vote for them. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/433 "2015-09-06T14:45:17Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > And then you vote for them. Because their opponents are worse liars with worse policies who would be far worse for America. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/434 "2015-09-06T15:23:38Z")
Worse according to whom? The exact same thing could be said by my side about people on your side. And we’d be just as right about that as you are. Still, when widely accepted politicians on one side are famous for being liars, even to the point their own fundraisers and supporters become troubled by it, it’s obviously and ludicrously hypocritical to point to some of Trump’s hyperbole and attemt to claim he’s not suitable for the presidency because he tells what amount to fibs about his wealth and whatever. It is to laugh. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/435 "2015-09-06T15:28:19Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Still, when widely accepted politicians on one side are famous for being liars, even to the point their own fundraisers and supporters become troubled by it, it’s obviously and ludicrously hypocritical to point to some of Trump’s hyperbole and attemt to claim he’s not suitable for the presidency because he tells what amount to fibs about his wealth and whatever. It is to laugh. Not sure what you mean by “widely accepted”, but politicians on both sides are famous for being liars. Trump is also famous for lying (among other things), such as stories of finding “amazing things” about Obama’s birth certificate and other obvious fabrications. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/436 "2015-09-06T15:29:23Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Worse according to whom? > > The exact same thing could be said by my side about people on your side. > > And we’d be just as right about that as you are. Of course – this is a perfectly reasonable reason to vote for a liar, whatever side the liar is on. I accept that you support the liar Trump because you think that your liar is better than the opposing liars. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/437 "2015-09-06T15:31:08Z")
What is to laugh is to depend on very poor experience that missed a lot of the improvements that minorities and poor people saw in their lives from the 50’s. And then there is the realization that for the ones that think that all lies are equal only demonstrates that their perspective is broken beyond repair. When Clinton lied about sex, no one died, but when Bush lied about the WMD in Iraq, 2000+ American soldiers and countless Iraqis did, and many more now as consequence of that act. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/438 "2015-09-06T16:45:13Z")
One thing on which I will agree with **SA** : Trump is an outstanding hype man. I can see him walk into a business meeting proclaiming “Have I got a DEAL, man!” and bluff and bluster and badger the others at the table into signing on or else he’ll walk out and badmouth them as Weak Losers. For which he takes full advantage of his celebpreneur status: the mass media WILL report that he called the other dude a Weak Loser, the other side’s explanations that the deal was bad will be in a lower corner of page 24 of a trade publication. However, if faced with someone with the standing and power to say “blow me, hairball, your deal stinks, I don’t need what you’re offering but you do need what I have to give” and make it stick… then he will sit down and compromise, BUT he’d rather be hanged from his combover than admit he backed down or accommodated; he’ll just say that was all that he really wanted all along and he brilliantly made the other guy believe it was a compromise. From another thread, quoting myself: > [@](#): > > But should being a regular on TMZ/People/Perez Hilton be considered a disqualifier from serious consideration? Maybe not any more! > > Now, lest we forget, Trump started as an earlier generation and kind of celebpreneur. He already was one two decades before The Apprentice, in the time before the Web and the Reality TV boom, getting there the old fashioned way, by first being someone already rich and influential whose personal life made the society pages and was interesting [tabloids fodder.](https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/new-york-post.png?w=406&h=497) He was not some rapper whose rise and love life are followed on the media but afterwards turns around to have excellent business acumen and builds a multibillion-dollar empire. > > What he did do was, after a long run of that, turn around and capitalize on it by entering a second phase of celebrity inserting himself in the Reality Media universe and realizing he was smashingly right for it. So […] TODAY, the Trump that is leading all the polls is probably 80% the Host of The Apprentice and only 20% the longtime NY Real Estate Mogul. > > The failure of imagination may have lain in the expectation that the rise of a celebpreneur to the presidency would have gone through an established path of _How to Be Taken Seriously by Serious People_. As mentioned earlier, Reagan had two terms as Californa governor and decades of active union and political work under his belt so he looked like he was trying seriously. Similarly, many people would have expected some popularly famous businessman rising to POTUS to be a Bill Gates/Steve Jobs type, or an early-1980s Iaccoca type, not a 20teens Trump type. The thing is that people in business, professional politics and academia have looked upon entering “reality entertainment” as something _demeaning_ which disqualifies you from being taken seriously. Trump however, had an advantage there. Both New York Establishments, the Respectable Old-Money one _and_ the academic/media/intelligentsia one, had written him off as a sideshow joke \*decades \*earlier. So he had nothing to lose with them, and it was time to say “well, joke’s on you”. I wonder if he chuckles to himself thinking of a bunch of commentators and editors going “OMG we created a monster” and smiles as he sees them sweat. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/439 "2015-09-06T18:34:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > That doesn’t mean it can’t be answered. Give it a try. Answers have been given by others. My ppoint is that even if I thought he actually agreed with me 100% and would push the agenda I want, I would still find him incredibly distasteful due to his possibly traits that I feel would make him a poor President. Now if we could get him and Putin together to sort out all stuff going on with Russia, I say we lock them in a room together to see who walks out. And then lock the door from the outside, wall it up, then cement over that. Then set of a nuke inside. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/440 "2015-09-06T18:47:53Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As a sad irony I noticed a web headline noting that at the same time Trump is disparaging “anchor” babies, dead babies wash up on the beaches of Europe and Turkey. Those are _flotsam_ babies. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I think it’s sad that in the face of families being surrounded on mountaintops and having themselves, their children and even their babies’ heads sawn off, Barak and other first world leaders take the position _“Tough shit, not our problem. They need to fix it themselves.”_ I don’t understand what you’re referring to, nor the relevance to the thread. Can you give me a cite? I think that stopping Daesh is going to come down to the targeted populations in the region defending themselves, hopefully cooperatively. Would I like more support from the USA/Iran/Russia/whomever? Of course. Does Trump even know the Yazidi exist? > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Why waste all this kerfuffle on someone who is, quite simply, not ever going to be President of the United States? Democracy says you could be wrong. Silly people vote. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581.md?page=23)