# 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:** 27
**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 13, 2015, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/521 "2015-09-13T01:46:25Z")
You want to sell Republicans on hyperbole? Don’t you remember what happened after “Read my lips: no new taxes.”‽ These guys take hyperbolic promises and try to make them literally true. No, this is _terrible._ ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/522 "2015-09-13T14:02:25Z")
I saw that appearance. I think half the audience was high. The thing is, some of what he said was reasonable and well presented. But then I remember he throws temper tantrums. ---
**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 13, 2015, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/523 "2015-09-13T14:51:18Z")
It’s amusing to hear complaints about about bullying and temper tantrums (and sexism) coming from people who very likely support or supported the Clintons. Read _All Too Human_ by George Stephanopoulos sometime. It all just depends on whose ox is getting gored. Bill and Hillary Clinton are both hot-headed, ill-tempered bullies and Bill Clinton’s attitudes and behavior toward women are worse than Trump’s by many orders of magnitude. Yet according to the left, Trump - whose transgressions are truly minor-league compared with the Clintons - is ill-suited for the presidency because he throws temper tantrums, is a bully and is waging a ‘war on women’, while Bill’s a rock star and Hillary’s the Democratic front runner for president. I would say “Go figure” but there’s no need, everyone knows why this is. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/524 "2015-09-13T15:34:03Z")
You could have easily read hundreds of posts by liberals, lefties, Dems generally, from people who don’t much like Hillary. Be that as it may, you remain quite certain that everybody to the left of Calvin Coolidge adores the Clintons. No evidence impacts your opinions, facts bounce off of you like a Nerf ball off a rhino. Where’s your evidence? The polls don’t reflect that. The polls reflect a reluctant willingness to vote for Hillary rather than let one of the meth-addled baboons from the Insane Clown Caucus infect the Oval Office. So where do you look to find actual evidence of this worshipful reverence for the Clintons? If you _ask_ us what we think rather than _tell_ us what we think, you would be better informed. Alas. ---
**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 13, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/525 "2015-09-13T16:16:31Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Bill and Hillary Clinton are both hot-headed, ill-tempered bullies and Bill Clinton’s attitudes and behavior toward women are worse than Trump’s by many orders of magnitude. But not in public, which accounts for the lack of outrage. Unless you were a Clinton insider, you wouldn’t know it. And “many orders of magnitude” is rather hyperbolic. ---
**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 13, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/526 "2015-09-13T16:42:14Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You could have easily read hundreds of posts by liberals, lefties, Dems generally, from people who don’t much like Hillary. Be that as it may, you remain quite certain that everybody to the left of Calvin Coolidge adores the Clintons. No evidence impacts your opinions, facts bounce off of you like a Nerf ball off a rhino. > > Where’s your evidence? The polls don’t reflect that. The polls reflect a reluctant willingness to vote for Hillary rather than let one of the meth-addled baboons from the Insane Clown Caucus infect the Oval Office. So where do you look to find actual evidence of this worshipful reverence for the Clintons? > > If you _ask_ us what we think rather than _tell_ us what we think, you would be better informed. Alas. Oh, please. The fact that Hillary’s _finally_ starting to fizzle out doesn’t disprove anything I said. Bill is treated with the respect and adulation according celebrities and rock stars, and until Hillary began to fizzle in the wake of her arrogant mishandling of the email issue she was far and away the Democratic favorite to be the next president. Those facts are where I look to find evidence of support for the Clintons. (Remember that word, support? It’s the word I used to describe Democratic attitudes toward the Clintons, not “worshipful reverence” :roll eyes:) But let’s not let our attention be diverted from the real issue (nice try though). The real issue is that when certain behaviors you condemn in Republican candidates exist in spades in Democratic candidates, they’re largely if not completely ignored. > [@Fear Itself](#): > > But not in public, which accounts for the lack of outrage. Unless you were a Clinton insider, you wouldn’t know it. I’m not a Clinton insider and I’ve known it for around twenty years now. All you have to do is take note of the occasional clues that bubble up to the surface from time to time instead of ignoring them because the people involved are on your side. > [@Fear Itself](#): > > And “many orders of magnitude” is rather hyperbolic. Seems to be that kind of season. 😉 ---
**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 13, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/527 "2015-09-13T16:46:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Yet according to the left, Trump - whose transgressions are truly minor-league compared with the Clintons - is ill-suited for the presidency because he throws temper tantrums, is a bully and is waging a ‘war on women’ [Snip] No, I reported already and with evidence that he is an anti-vaxxer, a bigot, a climate change denier that does want to bankrupt the nation with all that and with harebrained ideas on how to deal with undocumented people. That should be enough but now that Trump denies the need for the Iran nuclear treaty, [after many experts point that not doing the treaty would had made more likely that Iran would get a nuclear weapon](http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/press-release/2015-18-08/70-Plus-Nuclear-Nonproliferation-Experts-Announce-Support-for-Iran-Nuclear-Deal) this old chestnut will have to be taken into account by all voters to realize that another reason to not vote for Trump is that he should not be left in any place near the nuclear button: Famous "Daisy" Attack Ad from 1964 Presidential Election “These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.” - Lyndon B. Johnson Vote for the Democrat Candidate on November 2016. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. ---
**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 13, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/528 "2015-09-13T17:15:31Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s amusing to hear complaints about about bullying and temper tantrums (and sexism) coming from people who very likely support or supported the Clintons. > > Read _All Too Human_ by George Stephanopoulos sometime. > > It all just depends on whose ox is getting gored. Bill and Hillary Clinton are both hot-headed, ill-tempered bullies and Bill Clinton’s attitudes and behavior toward women are worse than Trump’s by many orders of magnitude. > > Yet according to the left, Trump - whose transgressions are truly minor-league compared with the Clintons - is ill-suited for the presidency because he throws temper tantrums, is a bully and is waging a ‘war on women’, while Bill’s a rock star and Hillary’s the Democratic front runner for president. > > I would say “Go figure” but there’s no need, everyone knows why this is. If you’re trying to convince me that the Clintons are not wonderful, angelic people, then I’m convinced. They suck. But you haven’t convinced me that Trump wouldn’t be much, much worse. Clinton’s presidency was pretty good – and the Clintons aren’t crazy people who believe things like birtherism. The Clintons don’t say insane things like it’s possible to deport 11 million people in 18 months to two years. ---
**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 13, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/529 "2015-09-13T17:18:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > [Snip] > > No, I reported already and with evidence that he is an anti-vaxxer, a bigot, a climate change denier that does want to bankrupt the nation with all that… Sheesh! Talk about hyperbole. :roll eyes: First of all he’s not a bigot in any real world sense and has said nothing whatever to support your contention. And I’d like to see where he’s said he wants to bankrupt the nation with “all that”, or anything at all, really. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > and with harebrained ideas on how to deal with undocumented people. I can see how you, as someone probably not all that familiar with Trump, would think that. I have an advantage because I’ve followed him for years and am familiar with what might be called “Trumpspeak”. He says a lot of things for effect that are intended to accomplish things that aren’t obvious on the surface. I can assure you he has no intention of deporting 11 million “undocumented people”. I can also assure you that he’s done a masterful job of bringing the issue of illegal immigration to the forefront of American politics and focusing much needed attention on the need to do something about it. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > That should be enough but now that Trump denies the need for the Iran nuclear treaty… No, actually what he’s said is that a contract is a contract and that he would honor it. He’s also said he would enforce the hell out of it, with the implication being that he’d hold Iran’s feet to the fire and penalize them to the max according to the terms of the treaty should they not keep their end of the bargain. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > “These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.” - Lyndon B. Johnson If Democrats truly wanted to make a world in which all of God’s children can live, they wouldn’t glamorize drug use and make it seem “cool”, they wouldn’t strive to get as many criminals booted from prison as possible and/or as early as possible, they wouldn’t defend and promote social values that result in single-parent families and high school graduates who can’t read or write. And they’d be in favor of kicking ISIS’ ass, rather than blithely stating that it’s the problem of the people being victimized over there to deal with it themselves. You do remember ISIS, don’t you? They saw the heads off children and babies. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Vote for the Democrat Candidate on November 2016. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. I’m sure that to those of your ideological bent this is true. A huge portion of the population however seems to be fed up with what your ideology has wrought and is desperate for someone who appears capable to come in and fix it. They too should come out and vote in November 2016, as the stakes are indeed too high for them to stay home. ---
**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 13, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/530 "2015-09-13T17:25:08Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Sheesh! Talk about hyperbole. :roll eyes: > > First of all he’s not a bigot in any real world sense and has said nothing whatever to support your contention. > > And I’d like to see where he’s said he wants to bankrupt the nation with “all that”, or anything at all, really. What it is clear is that when I posted the evidence of what he said or did regarding those issues in this or another very recent thread you did not touch the evidence, so, you are just appearing as a willful ignorant. The rest of your tirade was just silly. ---
**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 13, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/531 "2015-09-13T17:28:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > If you’re trying to convince me that the Clintons are not wonderful, angelic people, then I’m convinced. They suck. Cool. You acknowledge they suck. Now show me how many Democrats deem them unsuitable for office based on that suckage. I’d wager the total is close to zero. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > But you haven’t convinced me that Trump wouldn’t be much, much worse. Clinton’s presidency was pretty good – and the Clintons aren’t crazy people who believe things like birtherism. Two things: 1. Trump’s birther efforts were simply for show. 2. Even if he truly was a ‘birther’ it’s a total non-issue. It isn’t indicative of craziness or stupidity. Or at least it’s no more crazy and stupid than Democrat claims that opposition to taxpayer or employer funded birth control = _REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN!!_ > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The Clintons don’t say insane things like it’s possible to deport 11 million people in 18 months to two years. Just answered that. See my comments to **GIGO** above. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/532 "2015-09-13T17:34:41Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > 1. Trump’s birther efforts were simply for show. . . . How is that supposed to make us think any better of him? > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > 1. Even if he truly was a ‘birther’ it’s a total non-issue. It isn’t indicative of craziness or stupidity. Or at least it’s no more crazy and stupid than Democrat claims that opposition to taxpayer or employer funded birth control = _REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN!!_ Actually, it’s a **lot** more crazy/stupid. ---
**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 13, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/533 "2015-09-13T17:39:12Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Just answered that. See my comments to **GIGO** above. And as pointed before you are only willfully ignoring the evidence so, your comments are just as useless here as the ones made to me. The Birther issue showed more than your hand wave, it showed that Trump was willing to extremely pander the bigots and his latest kowtowing for Arpaio in Arizona only confirmed that Trump does not care about joining and supporting the efforts of people that waste people’s money and their political contributions on birtherism efforts and other bigoted efforts. > **[Joe Arpaio's Investigating Federal Judge G. Murray Snow, DOJ, Sources Say,...](https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/joe-arpaios-investigating-federal-judge-g-murray-snow-doj-sources-say-and-using-a-seattle-scammer-to-do-it-6630628)** > > The most revealing part of Phoenix filmmaker Randy Murray's recent documentary The Joe Show was a strategy meeting during Sheriff Joe Arpaio's 2012 re-election campaign that included Arpaio, his top flack, Lisa Allen, Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan, and... > [@](#): > > At some point, Arpaio’s “birther” investigation came up. You know, the one in which President Barack Obama’s birth certificate gets investigated by both the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s Cold Case Posse, a nonprofit organization, and MCSO Deputy Brian Mackiewicz, whom Arpaio flew to Hawaii as part of this snipe hunt, at a cost of nearly $10,000 to taxpayers. > > Arpaio’s March 2012 press conference – in which the sheriff and the Cold Case Posse’s “lead investigator,” ex-used-car salesman Mike Zullo, declared Obama’s birth certificate to be a forgery – was in the planning stage when the scene was filmed. > > At the mere mention of the birther investigation and the future press event, Allen and Willems practically rolled their eyes. > > Willems called the birther probe “nuts.” > > Allen said the sheriff might as well go the press conference “in big ol’ clown shoes.” Arpaio shrugged, literally. > > “There ain’t gonna be no damage control,” Arpaio promised Willems. “You’ll get more money [in campaign contributions] than you’ll know what to do with.” ---
**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 13, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/534 "2015-09-13T18:07:30Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Cool. You acknowledge they suck. Now show me how many Democrats deem them unsuitable for office based on that suckage. I’d wager the total is close to zero. Because they have opponents. Their opponents (the Republicans, anyway), are uniformly less suitable for office. They’re all much, much worse. > [@](#): > > Two things: > > 1. Trump’s birther efforts were simply for show. I don’t believe you. > [@](#): > > 1. Even if he truly was a ‘birther’ it’s a total non-issue. It isn’t indicative of craziness or stupidity. Or at least it’s no more crazy and stupid than Democrat claims that opposition to taxpayer or employer funded birth control = _REPUBLICAN WAR ON WOMEN!!_ No, birtherism is much, much more crazy and stupid. > [@](#): > > Just answered that. See my comments to **GIGO** above. I don’t believe you on this one either. I don’t believe you have a special understanding of Trump’s brain but are partially motivated by wishful thinking and rationalization. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/535 "2015-09-14T12:44:27Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I gotta say, this Trump phenomenon is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in politics. Saw him on _[The Tonight Show](http://m.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donald-trump-parodies-tonight-show-article-1.2357809)_ tonight and he not only killed it but seemed to have the audience eating out of his hands. > > His appearance began with the “talking to himself in the mirror” thing, which was a parody of pretty much everything he’s become known for on the campaign trail. Here’s an excerpt from the linked article: > > After the bit was over The Donald drew a standing ovation from what looked like 1/3 to 1/2 of the audience…an audience I would previously have pegged as primarily liberal. > > After the skit Trump came out for the sit down interview and drew laughter and approval and applause with pretty much every word out of his mouth. People seem charmed by his hyperbole despite knowing that’s all it is, and he seems to be aware of that fact too. It’s almost like a huge inside joke between Trump and his audience. He spouts hyperbole, they recognize and react to it with cheers and applause even though they and Trump both know his claims aren’t necessarily factually accurate, and he sits there smiling and nodding a sort of thanks in acknowledgement. > > Trump is not only riding the wave of approval that’s come from being known as a very successful businessman and tough negotiator, but also on pure charisma. He’s said in the past that most of the people who don’t like him are people who’ve never met him, and sure enough it seems the more people get to know the guy the more they seem to like him. He’s smart, he’s funny, he knows how to play to an audience, and he seems to enjoy an unprecedented relationship from his supporters, where he can make the most ridiculous sounding claims and insults and have them be acknowledged as such by an audience who doesn’t take them seriously while simultaneously buying into the underlying message the hype is intended to promote. > > Again, I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’m tellin’ ya this guy may very well wind up in the White House. As he said tonight he’s a very efficient guy, and I’d love to see how he’d perform in the presidency. No one seems to be questioning his ability to function in office despite being a Washington outsider, and to me this speaks volumes as to reputation as a guy who gets things done. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he didn’t turn out to be the most effective wheeler-dealer to sit in the Oval Office in decades, and this despite being even more of a political outsider than Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were when they took office. > > Very, very, very interesting times. Oh, it’s remarkable. The adulation some of you demonstrate is like a real-life version of the “Obama-messiah” trope that existed only as a juvenile fantasy of the Right. Frankly, I’m amazed that geriatric knees can withstand so much punishment. If you can pull off the goose-step, we’ll be _really_ impressed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/536 "2015-09-14T21:14:03Z")
[Andrew O’Hehir writes:](http://www.salon.com/2015/09/12/trump_sanders_and_tribalism_why_the_donalds_dark_allure_goes_deeper_than_racism_and_xenophobia/) “Trump, Sanders and tribalism: Why the Donald’s dark allure goes deeper than racism and xenophobia”: > [@](#): > > Stepping back from the thoroughly insane dynamics of the 2016 presidential campaign to this point, the larger philosophical problem posed by Trump is that it’s no good pretending that none of that has any validity or resonance. Nothing he ever says about specific issues makes any sense, but as Paul Solotaroff’s fascinating profile in Rolling Stone makes clear, Trump’s campaign is not about issues or specifics or making sense. He doesn’t even pretend to be a normal presidential candidate armed with a vaguely coherent set of policy proposals and a supposedly consistent ideology, largely because we’ve all realized that those candidates are full of crap anyway. > > Trump represents something else. Call it the call of the wild, the allure of that long era of cruelty and brutality that preceded recorded history and human civilization, when the weak were ruled by the strong and little or no justification was required to inflict terror and violence on our perceived enemies. Anthropologists may dispute the proposition that this was universally true everywhere in the world, but however you slice it an awful lot of trauma and bloodshed was implicated in the nasty, brutish and short lives of our distant ancestors. More to the point, we all have moments when we wonder how much that has really changed after a few millennia of despotism and a few hundred years of high-minded Enlightenment thinking about human rights and democracy, applied with a notable lack of consistency. > > What Trump understands, and may genuinely identify with, is the sense of embattled tribal identity found among too many white Americans of the 21st century, the belief that they are “living in a state of war in a small community, the existence of which is continually threatened, and the morality of which is the strictest possible.” What is the highest form of enjoyment to be found in such a community, “for souls which are vigorous, vindictive, malicious, full of suspicion, ready to face the direst events, hardened by privation and morality?” It is “the enjoyment of cruelty,” as Friedrich Nietzsche put it in 1881. “Such a community would find its delight in performing cruel deeds, casting aside, for once, the gloom of constant anxiety and precaution.” ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/537 "2015-09-15T05:03:17Z")
Well,\*\* BG\*\*, political comedian Jimmy Dore says Trump is a fascist. [Here](http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/9/0/5/905a39b2d0e96fd0/The_Jimmy_Dore_Show_9-11-15.mp3?c_id=9803158&expiration=1442295789&hwt=fd04f5b238936d7588cff6c3d58b0a0d)’s the podcast. He goes through a brief history of the deportation of Mexicans from the US starting at around 9:00 (2 million deported during the depression, 1.2 million of them citizens, and then “Operation Wetback” in 1964, deporting 1.3 million in 2 years) to make the point that a Trump administration really would move towards mass deportation, and as a lead-in to his comments about Trump being a fascist at around 15:30. He cites the “demonizing, the strong military, misogyny, nationalism, scapegoating people for economic problems” in Trump’s rhetoric as his cite. He claims Trump is “spouting classic fascism”, and says of his own comments, “this isn’t hyperbole.” Quite a claim. This is at least the second time I’ve heard it. [Here](http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm) is a list of the characteristics of fascism, followed by an exceprt from Milton Meyer about how people felt during the rise of German fascism. The bit that reflects your Nietzsche quote: > [@](#): > > “Once the war began,” my colleague continued, "resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried with them a multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment. Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure to show it in public, was “defeatism.” You assumed that there were lists of those who would be “dealt with” later, after the victory. Goebbels was very clever here, too. He continually promised a “victory orgy” to “take care of” those who thought that their “treasonable attitude” had escaped notice. And he meant it; that was not just propaganda. And that was enough to put an end to all uncertainty. Is Jimmy Dore right? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/538 "2015-09-15T06:24:16Z")
Trump is a populist, more Huey Long than Adolph Hitler. While Trump appeals to racial resentment, his crackpot theorizing is limited to birtherism, anti-vaxxing and climate change not toxic appeals to racial superiority. The latter doesn’t fly now. His shtick has apparently gone right to the center of the modern conservative brainstem. The fact that his policy proposals make no sense and can’t possibly work doesn’t seem to matter in his crowd. I’m not exactly wringing my hands though, as TPTB have yet to launch a Rovian attack.[sup]1[/sup] Trump is vulnerable to that. [sup]1[/sup] “Identify the target’s greatest strength and attack that.” It doesn’t have to be a fair or even accurate attack. Just fling mud. 1. Trump sponsored a wealth seminar scam and called it Trump University. 2. Trump is a shitty businessman. Both cases can be made, though I’d argue the first is stronger than the second. Not that it matters for an attack ad. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/539 "2015-09-15T17:06:46Z")
One of the CNN reporters asked Trump whether a question asking about the differences between specific leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas would be a “gotcha” question, and he said it would. Then Trump said that, while he doesn’t know this stuff now, if he gets elected he would know “more about the matter than the reporter” by day 2. Well, that’s somewhat true, given that he would have classified material condensed and presented to him, but at the same time it’s Trump once again aggrandizing himself and sounding like an ass. And apparently he’s already lining up his post-debate twitter tirade. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581/540 "2015-09-15T17:10:18Z")
I loved Stephen Colbert’s turn on Trump last night. He pointed out the comment about Trump claiming it was like he was in the military because he went to a military prep school, which gave him more military experience than some people in the military. Then Colbert commented that maybe it seems unfair to look at how Trump was 40 years ago, except it’s Trump that’s making the comparison, and he cited Trump’s quote about looking at himself when he was a five year old and how he’s basically the same person with the same temperament. That’s right, Trump admitted he’s a petulant child throwing temper tantrums. Let’s get the meme going. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-trump/726581.md?page=28)