Some stuff Donald Trump has said about Black people through the years (not all of it necessarily bad or good or true or untrue):
September 1989: on NBC when asked about affirmative action (via the Orlando Sentinel):
“I’ve said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.”
Before May 1991: from John R. O’Donnell’s “Trumped!” (1991) (via the Huffington Post):
“laziness is a trait in blacks”
Trump called O’Donnell a disgruntled employee in a 1999 Playboy
interview, but also said, “The stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is
probably true.”
April 2011: on Albany Talk Radio 1300 when asked about the Black vote (via Observer.com):
“I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
June 5th 2013: on Twitter:
“Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed.”
July 1st 2013: on Twitter about President Obama’s promise to spend $7 billion to bring electricity to parts of Africa:
“Every penny of the $7 billion going to Africa as per Obama will be stolen – corruption is rampant!”
September 20th 2013: on Twitter:
“‘@RealJohnAnthon: @realDonaldTrump Why do you hate Africa so much?’ I don’t-tremendous potential!”
December 13th 2013: on Twitter after the death of Nelson Mandela:
“I really like Nelson Mandela but South Africa is a crime ridden mess that is just waiting to explode-not a good situation for the people!”
April 28th 2015: on Twitter after the Baltimore riots:
“Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!”
June 23rd 2015: to reporters at a Maryland Republican dinner a week after the Charleston Massacre (via The Independent):
“[African American youths are at] a point where they’ve just about never done more poorly, there’s no spirit, there’s killings on an hourly basis virtually in places like Baltimore and Chicago and many other places … There’s no spirit. I thought that President Obama would be a great cheerleader for the country. And he’s really become very divisive.”
September 2015: on Fox News (via Business Insider):
“The fact is all lives matter. That includes black and it includes white and it includes everybody else.”
November 22nd 2015: on Fox News after Mercutio Southall, a Black Lives Matter protester, was beat up at his rally in Birmingham, Alabama (via Washington Post):
“Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
The disgusting thing done was to shout “Black Lives Matter!”
Later Trump retweeted a graphic that said, among other things (via Twitter and Factcheck.org):
“WHITES KILLED BY BLACKS ~~ 81%”
That was for 2015, even though 2015 was not yet over. The FBI says the number for 2014 was 14.8%.
February 2016 on CNN (via News One):
“The other thing is African-American voters, I think I’m going to get a tremendous amount. And you’ve seen the stories where African-American leaders are saying, ‘You know, my people really like Trump!'”
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Donald Trump
- Birtherism
- Trump and housing discrimination – possible future post. In the 1970s he was sued for discrimination against Blacks and Latinos. Settled out of court without admitting to any wrongdoing.
- Black endorsements in the 2016 election for US president – see who has endorsed Trump.
- tropes:
- Know them by their tweets? – Trump tweeted nothing about Ferguson or Michael Brown in the two weeks after the shooting (or if he did, it has since been deleted).
- About that “actual advantage” that well-educated Black people have
- Fox News
634
Am I the first to comment? I feel embarrassed, but here goes. I think the issue of with Trump is not at all fear of racism, but fear of the changes he might bring to American society if he is elected president and pursues the nationalist direction he is advocating.
Liberationism, and there are many manifestation of that impetus across America, involving in various admixtures, blacks, Hispanics, whites, women, the LBGT population, environmentalism and the “green” movement, emergent religion, the counterculture (yes, it’s still there), the so-called “hard” left and others. Surrounding these are various enablers who are more mainstream, including machine politicians who need the votes of these anti-traditional elements to keep their power solidified and therefore provide these elements certain benefits and considerations and with a share of power for those with higher levels of education.
Largely absent from this equation is any sustained interest in economic development. And from their point of view, why bother? It’s all about keeping the machinery going.
Trump threatens this entire assemblage because by implication he make an issue of bringing economic development to the worst off in America. If that is successfully done, and the endless stream of immigrants is slowed, the American underclass might then at least be moved from the bottom rungs of lower middle class culture to the upper. The idea of a lower middle class is a maligned concept in America, but having people at least stand on the upper rung of the lower middle class can be a source of great social stability. On the upper rung of the lower middle class, and income is not the whole measure because cultural horizons figure in also, the people who have lesser educational levels and limited ability nevertheless own modest homes, are able to maintain the institutions of stable community such as churches and clubs and, above all, maintain a stable family life.
But the lower middle class also is tendentiously socially conservative. Building the stable high end of the lower middle class would mean the end of the party for the whole leftist, counterculturist, liberationist, and emergent movement. That, not fascism, but a return to a basic conservative social order is the threat Trump represents to the present established order, the new order if you will.
Trump has lived his whole life in New York. It is absurd to think he is uncomfortable with the idea of a multiethinic and multiracial society. He is doing what has to do to build a political base which can get him elected. Politics is political, people. It is greatly about representations. But what happens later is about the politics of the situation, not those representations. If you want the people who live here to have a jobs and careers, even if those jobs and career are not very glamorous, which can give them homes and communities and the opportunity maintain a stable family life, Trump is the only one who giving you even a place to start. At worst, he will be no more a non-entity than his several immediate predecessors. In the best case, he might start up the redevelopment of America’s productive economy. And protect the ability of the people who have been here the longest to maintain their own development. People who’ve been here the longest? That means you. Before the Mayflower. Yeah, I have heard.
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@Anonymike
I see things very differently. Building a stable
high end of the lower middle classworking class is actually a major goal of people you lump into the “Liberationist” Left. A working class with equality under the law, due process, social mobility, access to high quality public education and the political power to preserve their local environment (nutritious food, clean water and clean air) would not deplete the ranks of the Left. A strong, stable working class would enlarge the ranks of the Left.Trump is an first and foremost a con artist who sells gullible people visions of power. He is no more interested in American working people than Hillary Clinton or Ted “the Canadian” Cruz. He will shield banksters and corporations just like Bush and Obama. He will continue the outflow of jobs overseas started by Bill Clinton. He will continue squeezing American families with oppressive debt.
Trump is a populist mirage. There is no oasis ahead with Trump, only more sand dunes and scorpions.
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DT is such a scumbag that even my very conservative Reagan Republican mother has said from the moment he announced his campaign that she will vote for ANY democrat rather than him if he becomes the Republican nominee. She has been saying for decades that he is a racist, bigoted, misogynist, narcissistic pig bully who has absolutely no integrity. I agree with her on all charges and to it I add “warmonger” and “someone who will make enemies of all the current allies of the United States.” He is a despicable excuse for a human being.
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@ Afrofem
Ah! And this is exactly what I have been saying on this site (and elsewhere) for ages. NOBODY cares about the working people in America… NOBODY! Not the Republicans and not the Democrats either. Both USE the issue differently to their own advantage. That’s all.
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@King
So true!
Once a critical mass of people understands your words in their guts (not just intellectually), then and only then will real change be possible.
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@Melanie
Your mother is pretty sharp!
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@ Kiwi
So true!
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“Kiwi” I think you are just looking for whatever gives you a little mileage. Trump has lived his adult life and pursued his career in post-1970 New York.
What? Do you believe that vast city of New York can not be segregated to a great extent. Look at what happened when one affinity-based group, the Lubavitchers chose to say in Crown Heights after it changed racially. There were decades of heat and tension until the neighborhood changed again and the majority there came to be composed of people not even born in the United States and therefore not so afflicted with our many contentions.
You should look at the interchange between myself and “Afrofem”, if Abagond sees fit to let the, second part of it be posted. That is how real people conduct discussions. Hate to break the news, but politics is political, and you do what you can to get your own way. You don’t like Trump because he threatens a sea change in the social system. One which will give you less opportunity to possess whatever petty power it is you aspire to.
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“Afrofem” The idea of the lower middle class as I use it is a cultural concept. In the American context most of the people who you want to call working class are in my estimation the cultural lower middle class.
Some noted male fictional examples of the lower middle class type: In commercial mass commercial: Ralph Cramden. Ed Norton. Archie Bunker. Fred Sanford. Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli. Female: Roseanne Connor. Laverne DiFazio. Shirley Feeney.
In the contemporary show, King of Queens, Doug and Carrie Herrernan are lower middle class but the top of the heap.
The contemporary show, The Middle depicts the bottom of the actual middle class. Again, not income, but cultural level is the arbiter of class.
The lower middle class at the top rung of it is an acceptable and adequate life. It give people a modest home, maintains community and family structure and allows people to raise children who are fit to serve in the military, go into an apprenticeship program or trainee position or go to college if they are able and interested.
I think you promote the idea of the working class because you support the idea of the working class as vanguard. But my argument is, the American people do not want to embrace that idea. What they want is what the lower middle class concept, as I use it, encompasses, but at the high and functional end of it.
I know the examples I cited from television, except for Fred Sanford, are of white characters, but that is what I know. I don’t watch a lot of television. The concept of the lower middle class is not racially bound at all. Life in the bowels of the American lower middle class can be almost a hell on earth and a breeder of tragic outcomes.
The “Lonigan” trilogy (Farrell, James T.) is a classic story of the hazards and limitations of failed lower middle class life. That is why it is essential that people be moved into the top rung of that modality. Asking for everyone to join the middle class, if you use middle class as a cultural concept, is to much for many of them. But being able to live normally is something people ought to have the opportunity to do. That so many don’t is the cause of most of our social pathologies.
The character of Lonigan is a classic case. He is a type ,with his self-aggrandizing but ultimately ineffectual father and the dissipated family life he experienced, who often comes to a bad and early end. Not unheard of in our world either.
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@Anonymike
To me the term, “lower middle class” is a semantic construct (a fig leaf) designed to hide the reality that everyone who works for wages or a salary are actually working class. That includes the working poor, highly educated professionals and everyone in between. Outside of that broad class are the homeless and the institutionalized (such as persons captured in the vast American Prison Industrial Complex) at one end. At the other end are the top one percent of persons who draw incomes solely from their investments and various tax
schemesdodges.Many persons at the high end of the working class believe themselves to be immune to the predations of the those at the very top. They pooh-pooh those less affluent than themselves as “losers” who deserve their diminished life opportunities. Yet even they have to face reality from time to time.
One example of this reality was the spectacular 2011 collapse of MF Global. MF Global was a high flying brokerage firm headed by former New Jersey govenor, Jon Corzine. Corzine looted over one billion dollars of his customers money to cover Wall Street gambling bets.
This is how blogger, Jesse, of Jesse’s Cafe Americain described people most affected by Corzine’s plunder:
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/06/charles-ferguson-predator-nation.html
I base my views of Trump on his past actions in the business world where he has a long and sordid track record of:
☛racial discrimination against African Americans (in housing and employment)
☛wage theft from undocumented workers in his employ
☛abuse of the Eminent Domain laws in various locations to steal land and resources from working class Americans
☛manipulation of bankrupcy laws to protect his assets (at a time when Congress has effectively stripped bankrupcy protections from ordinary Americans, most notably persons mired in student loan debt)
☛known connections to organized crime figures.
This is hardly the background of a person who “might start up the redevelopment of America’s productive economy.” From my perspective he like all other top one percenters have a vested interest in running a once proud and prosperous nation into the ground and stripping it clean like a pack of hyenas.
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@Anonymike
In the comment above I wrote: “Outside of that broad class are the homeless and the institutionalized (such as persons captured in the vast American Prison Industrial Complex) at one end.”
I was wrong to exclude the homeless. Many homeless persons work for wages but still don’t earn enough to accumulate first month’s rent+last month’s rent+deposit that many property owners require for tenants. In overheated markets like San Francisco, CA where a one bedroom apartment can easily cost more than $3,000 per month, first/last/deposit can easily approach or exceed $10,000.
Persons held in the prison system should not have been excluded either. Many prisoners work for miniscule wages. They work on maintaining the prison’s physical plant, through cooking, cleaning, repairs and yard work.
Some prisoners also provide cheap labor for American corporations such as Whole Foods.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-whole-foods-prison-labor-20151001-story.html
So it seems the working class is a lot broader than I originally described.
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The welfare and progress of African Americans is inescapably linked to the condition of the majority Whites in America. Historically it’s the whites that brought them to American auction blocks, it’s the whites that freed them from slavery, it’s the whites that enforced Jim Crow, it’s the whites that granted the 13th Amendment, 15th Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Bill and it’s the whites that voted for Obama (He would not have been elected by Black vote alone…in fact the majority of his votes were White.)
It is not foolish for blacks to support Donald Trump. He is a business man first and a White American with ordinary biases second. Public and colorful antagonism will shift the importance of his campaign to being a White American. If he wins then he will owe his victory to those White people who expect him to do something about the people they don’t like. Relieving our anger and frustration through these public acts may be counterproductive. In fact nothing will change as result of these. What we need is some form of investment into his campaign that can become a useful leverage if he should win.
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“What we need is some form of investment into his campaign that can become a useful leverage if he should win.”
@ MuUngwe
Would it not be wiser to invest our collective Black financial capital into LAND, businesses (farms, ranches, factories, services) EDUCATION (preschools – universities) skills, medicine, engineering and other needed training and schooling??
Remember the Zero Sum Game. white people aren’t likely to give us anything that will benefit ourselves that’s not going to benefit themselves first, tenfold.
I believe that we’re much better off doing our own thing than waiting on them to come morally, legally or politically correct. Providing we can get by the self-hate that’s seemingly inbred into Amerikan BLACK genes.
This billionaire isn’t courting us or our votes. If anything, he’ll use white people’s fear of us to garner even more votes!
I can’t understand why a good many of us still can’t see that the white collective (and politicians) do not have our best interests at heart.
It’s well past the time for Black folks to stop waiting on the crumbs to fall from a white table, and build our own tables instead!
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@ Anonymike i would say bus drivers are solidly ‘middle class’ in that they probably earn about $40-50k a year. lower middle class hearkens to mind terms like ‘working poor’ and ‘people who can’t afford obamacare’, i think you’re way off base. and what the hell is a liberationist? anarcho-syndicalist? nationalist/separatist? libertarian?
people with little concept of the actually grim reality of this economy can talk about poofy things like ‘lower middle class’ but doing what? cleaning and maintaining bank-owned empty properties? once they’re winterized…
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@Afrofem
“Trump is a populist mirage. There is no oasis ahead with Trump, only more sand dunes and scorpions.”
Well there’s no way of knowing what he will do once in office. He could be lying his way to the White House like Obama did, but if Trump does not deliver on his promises, then the people who elected him will have the opportunity to recall him in 2020. That’s how the game works.
It’s only when we keep electing the SAME politicians (like Obama and most of Congress) who have lied and underperformed that we keep getting the same bad results.
So why shouldn’t Americans give Trump a chance at steering the government in a new direction? I think they will.
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@Afrofem
“He will shield banksters and corporations just like Bush and Obama.”
And if that were true, why are the special interest groups and political elites so vehemently opposed to him? No one seems to be as threatened by Hillary Clinton’s potential to win…
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Trump is probably a maverick, in that he was an unplanned surprise. It’s one of those weird things that occasionally happens. He had enough money to make the run without any backing if necessary. He could threaten to run as an Independent, splintering the Conservative vote. And NOBODY thought that he had a snowball’s chance of being the Republican nominee. But somehow, magically, he has managed it, despite all the carefully-laid plans to make Jeb Bush the presumptive Republican nominee.
Trump is a wildcard… Which means that neither the Democrats NOR the Republicans really want him. But in the end, he will be forced to protect the bankers and special interest groups. ANYONE who is elected will have to do this. Trump may be rich, but he’s not nearly powerful enough to resist the people who run the economies of the world.
Resistance is futile!
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@MuUngwe
“The Whites this…and the Whites that…”
According to that view of history, Black folk are totally without agency. In that view, Black folk did not agitate for the abolition of slavery, they sat back and waited for the White people to do it for them. Then, White people “granted” Black folk freedom and constitutional protections out of the sheer goodness of their hearts. (HAH!)
Same with the Civil Rights Movement. In the “Whites did this version”, Black folk were magically “granted” (there’s that word again) rights because someone outside of the community was feeling generous one day. In that version of history, the Black led anti-lynching movement never occurred.
In that version of history, the 1940’s Double V Campaign (where Black people waged a two sided struggle against Fascism abroad and Jim Crow at home), never occurred.
Naturally, activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer did not brave beatings with billy clubs and death threats to secure the Black vote. White people “granted” those rights, too.
Closer to the truth is that anything Black people have in this country is what we earned with super tankers of blood, sweat and tears. Donald Trump and his ilk show me that there is more backbreaking struggle ahead.
History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.
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@resw
The people who support Trump don’t want a new direction. They are clamoring for an old direction. They want a direction that leads to:
☛Rigid segregation in education, housing and employment
☛Total Black voting disenfranchisement
☛White mob violence
☛Round ups and deportations (or worse) of Black and Latino citizens.
That direction may be acceptable to you, but it is not to me.
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@King
“But in the end, he will be forced to protect the bankers and special interest groups. ANYONE who is elected will have to do this. ”
I don’t necessarily disagree, but why should people who want change not give him a shot since he is clearly the only candidate who’s a) not a politician and b) not accepting any money from special interests? A reasonable person can at least say, well he’s less likely to bend to special interest groups than any other candidate.
Also, food for thought: it could be very well be that there is a second contingent that exists in this world that is just as powerful as the first contingent. Or there could be a faction amongst the first contingent.
@Afrofem
“The people who support Trump don’t want a new direction. They are clamoring for an old direction. ”
No, they are clamoring for numerous changes that are unprecedented, like a wall to stop illegal immigration/drug trafficking, a reversal of unfair trade agreements and a president who takes no campaign donations.
“They want a direction that leads to…”
See, none of those things are in Trump’s platform so it’s unfair to try to associate those things with his campaign and the views of the majority of his supporters.
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@ resw
ROTFL!!!
Trump’s supporters are loud and proud White Supremacists. They are drawn to him precisely because he does not use coded racist “dog whistles”. They get all tingly when he scapegoats everyone but them.
If you as a White person choose to believe in a noble Trump who wants the best for America, be my guest. If you believe Trump will be a strong leader who will undo the ugliness that the bipartisan right wing has constructed for the past generation, more power to you.
Just don’t think that I or any Black person with two brain cells will fall for Trump’s scams. We have seen this movie before and we know how it ends.
If you are Black, you need to lay off that heavy duty, extra fruity koolaid…it could literally be the death of you.
LOL!!!
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@Afrofem
“Trump’s supporters are loud and proud White Supremacists”
That has nothing to do with policy or Trump’s platform. Nor does it represent all his supporters.
But it’s funny that whenever there’s a discussion about the issues, anti-Trump people can’t stick to facts. It’s always something about racism because that’s what the media feeds you. And it works. Perhaps that’s the same reason some of those proud white supremacists have flocked to him.
“Just don’t think that I or any Black person with two brain cells will fall for Trump’s scams”
Let’s see, you just accused him of racism and said white Supremacists support him. If he’s scamming everyone, then he must not be a racist populist.
The biggest scam is how Hillary Clinton is carrying the black vote. Because she started calling herself a progressive last year and then started pretending to care about murdered unarmed black people.
It makes African American voters a laughing stock because Hillary Clinton was the one who supported those racist policing policies that are partly responsible for all the killings of unarmed black people. And worse, the Clintons have somehow convinced a lot of African Americans that they’re black too! It’s unbelievable. Two pasty white conservative Southern Democrats…trust that will go down as the biggest scam in political history.
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@resw
All of Trump’s supporters are indeed loud and proud White Supremacists. I haven’t seen or read anything about Trump supporters that leads me to a different conclusion. If you have, cite a few examples.
From my perspective, the Trump has no true set of policies or concrete platform. He got into the race as a lark and he handles the nomination process as if it were a reality television program (which this whole process probably is to him). He is an egomaniac who relishes the attention his “taboo” words provoke in White Supremacists.
The media breathlessly repeats his every utterance because it generates big bucks for them. It’s all just a Circus Maximus to Trump and the media. Neither Trump nor the media that promotes him care about the consequences of his words or actions. They don’t care who gets hurt as long as they have a major payday.
We are in agreement about Hillary Clinton. I’ve made several comments on this blog about her. This comment is typical:
Abagond wrote a deliciously scathing post about HRC in 2008:
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My head hurts just reading this thread.
In the main I agree with what Kiwi and Afrofem have been saying on this thread so far.
Trump is a stone-cold racist. See the post above. Living in New York since 1970 is NOT a cure for racism. Certainly not for Trump, who himself has practised housing discrimination against Blacks and Latinos, who thought the NYPD and the courts were TOO soft on the same.
But far more troubling than even his racism is the rising violence that he encourages.
The US has been fortunate, so far, in being a country where power can change hands and do so peacefully without anyone getting killed. It does not HAVE to be that way. It is not something to take for granted.
As Whites slip into the minority, the country could easily slip into fascism. If Jim Crow, voter suppression laws and US foreign policy are anything to go by, White Americans do not have a deep faith in democracy. They only favour it where they think they can win.
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Well, at least proponents of hardcore proportional representation can now “Trump” the claim that their system leads to the election of right wing extremists.
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@abagond
I think America would balkanize before it slips into fascism. And if America were to become fascist, I don’t think Trump would be the guy to lead that transition. But, who knows, I suppose only time will tell.
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@Kiwi
What minority White countries are you thinking of that did slip into fascism or suffered violent coups? I’m guessing some countries in South America?
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@ Abagond
My head hurts every evening when I’m at the stove preparing dinner and my husband is surfing the news and that blowhard Trump appears on the screen.
I’m particulary disturbed by the ubiquity of Trump on every channel. Even the local stations work hard to include that demagogue on the nightly newscasts. The sportscaster styled excitement they inject into their voices is sickening.
They seem to be oblivious to the very real consequences of their actions, both now and in the future.
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@Kiwi
I agree. I wonder why that simple fact escapes so many people.
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I think the reason some people are seeing Trump differently is because he doesn’t appear to be part of the established political power machine. The more people like Mitt Romney, John McCain, and others warn against Trump, the more is seems as if there is something amiss in his popularity.
It seems like he’s not supposed to be there.
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Trump isn’t really anti establishment. He is not part of the politicale eastblishment but he is part of the monied hierarchy that benefits from crony capilatisim.
The United States is already a facist country.
South Africa has more Black people imprisoned today then at the height of aparthied.
I don’t see it as an either or vote for white supremacy with a Clinton/Trump run off. Both will maintain and expand it. The difference is Hillary is white supremacy with a happy face verses Trump with his anger face.
Both are Authoritarian candidates. Both will expand state power and violence. Hillary seems more hawkish. Hillary would just as easily enact interment camps if she thought it was politically expediant to “keep us safe”. Both will attack civil liberties to keep “America safe”.
One is full blown racist , the other keeps it hidden like a snake. One doesn’t care, the other pretends to care.
Resw attempts to view the world without blinders on.
Trump has benefited from all the free air coverage. Imagine all the money he saves in advertising. The media loves him for ratings he has played them well.
As a white male with a small business the last eight years under Obama has been good for me. If I were to vote purely for economic interests then I would choose Hillary hoping for a continuation of the same kind of economy.
Trump’s economic populism sounds wonderful until it’s put into practice. The reality is we live in a world wide economy and you can’t dial that back. We can’t compete against the Chinese in manufacturing and those jobs are never coming back. If Trump enacts tariffs then other countries will respond with tariffs as well and everything will cost more. Wide screen TV’s have dropped 85% in cost over the last ten years. That’s because of “free trade”. If we tried to make wide screen TV’s here they would cost so much no one could afford to by them.
The stock market isn’t going to like Trump. 45% of Americans have their saving invested their. A Trump presidency will crash the market in his attempt to make “America great again”. That’s why the establishment is afraid of him.
Blacks don’t have candidates that represent their issues. The congressional Black caucus offers window dressing and “Black leaders” are so far up the political hierarchy that they are their to placate POC.
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@Afrofem
“All of Trump’s supporters are indeed loud and proud White Supremacists”
I find it hard to believe that you or anyone else could possibly know that. Probably because you don’t
Never mind that Hillary Clinton was actually friends with a KKK member.
“I haven’t seen or read anything about Trump supporters that leads me to a different conclusion”
Right, I have no doubt that many people only believe whatever they see or read.
@kiwi
“Just because he appears to be anti-establishment doesn’t mean that he is automatically better.”
The fact is he accepts no campaign donations from anyone. That is something that distinguishes him from all the other candidates and nothing you can say will change that fact.
And polls show the top reason people support Trump is he’s not a career politician. That’s another fact that you cannot change, and people who are fed up with politicians have every right to support someone who’s not a career politician.
American voters would be hypocrites to give Congress a 14% approval rating and support Hillary, Bernie or Ted, who are or were members of Congress.
@abagond
“Trump is a stone-cold racist. See the post above”
Much of those quotes are hearsay, as they would call it in court, and Tweets resulting from nothing more than “Chinese Whispers”. And, things like “@RealJohnAnthon: @realDonaldTrump Why do you hate Africa so much?’ I don’t-tremendous potential!”” aren’t even racist.
But the notion that Trump is somehow more racist than Hillary, Bernie, and Ted is what’s laughable.
“As Whites slip into the minority, the country could easily slip into fascism”
I hate to break it to you. The US is already slipping into fascism. The Fed and federal government already heavily manipulate the markets, the government has codified corporate welfare, and the Obama administration has come after more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined. And the media is in a unified effort to destroy Trump, who’s the only candidate not part of the political elite.
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@michaeljonbarker
“Resw attempts to view the world without blinders on.”
I’m just trying to be fair. I find it hypocritical for anyone who supports the other candidates to disparage Trump supporters and lump them together as racists.
“As a white male with a small business the last eight years under Obama has been good for me. ”
Is this sarcasm? If not, then you’re one of the lucky ones. Obama’s DOL has been one of the worst in our lifetimes.
” If Trump enacts tariffs then other countries will respond with tariffs as well and everything will cost more. ”
Countries like China already do have tariffs on MANY US goods.
“Wide screen TV’s have dropped 85% in cost over the last ten years. That’s because of “free trade”. ”
So what? It’s not the government’s job to make luxury products made overseas cheaper for consumers. If products become too costly for the average consumer, capitalism always finds a way to manufacture them cheaper.
“A Trump presidency will crash the market ”
What are you a soothsayer now? And the “markets” already started crashing last year, and it had nothing to do with Trump.
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The fact that Trump is against free trade is one of the few things I like about him.
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Is that his real hair or a toupee he is wearing? I don’t trust men who wear toupees!
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“Is this sarcasm? If not, then you’re one of the lucky ones. Obama’s DOL has been one of the worst in our lifetimes.”
No I’m not being sarcastic. It’s also possibly true that if their was a Republican administration in place instead over the last eight years I would have benefited in the same kind of way. Obama didn’t make the economy worse after he came into office and it has been able to make some recovery by itself.
“So what? It’s not the government’s job to make luxury products made overseas cheaper for consumers.”
That’s what all the free trade agreements were about. Governments signed treaties opening up trade because of the presumed benefits it would have for their citizens.
Politicians of both parties played a roll in this and got wealthy because of it.
“Free trade” agreements opened up world wide trade which allowed less expensive products to be imported here. Consumers benefited with products being less expensive freeing up more of their income to buy other things. The long term negative effect was the loss of manufacturing here which resulted in the loss of jobs that had salaries people could move economically upward on.
The great benefiter of free trade were multi national corporations and business here that moved their operations over seas. This allowed them greater profit margins which then effected their stock value which directly contributed to the rise of the stock market to historic highs.
Today we have a country where corporations have replaced ma and pa stores and small business.
Trump wants to renegotiate free trade agreements and in doing so he is likely to topple the apple cart. He seems to think he can make America great again by bringing the jobs back.
In order to do that it would require trillions of dollars in government loans to business to rebuild a manufacturing infrastructure (more economic fascism).
It won’t happen because China holds billions of dollars of U.S. sovereign bonds that would become jeopardized if the Chinese economy collapsed.
All currencies world wide are systemically linked whether we are talking about the Yen, Euro or dollar. This is done through the trading of bonds (debt notes) to bolster their currencies. If one major currency collapses they all collapse. The Greek currency crises, though in appearance far removed, has a stronger influence on the dollar then realized because of its relationship to the Euro.
The Iran deal has far more to do with opening up Iranian banks so the Euro can get Iranian sovereign bonds backed by oil to strengthen the Euro then it does with anything else.
It is true that world wide currency markets are in trouble right now and that has nothing to do with Trump. Its just that Trump could be the catalyst that causes the collapse.
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@michaeljonbarker
“Obama didn’t make the economy worse after he came into office and it has been able to make some recovery by itself.”
Well I thought we were talking about ease of doing business. If it’s about the economy, the so-called recovery is one of the slowest ever seen in US history, and surely Obama’s ACA is responsible for the fact that almost 90% of the new jobs he touts are part-time jobs.
“That’s what all the free trade agreements were about. Governments signed treaties opening up trade because of the presumed benefits it would have for their citizens.”
Where’d you get that idea? Free trade agreements are for their big manufacturers to break into new markets. That’s why huge, welfare-based companies like Boeing are huge lobbyists for things like the TPA.
“He seems to think he can make America great again by bringing the jobs back.”
It’s not just about bringing jobs back, it’s about balancing trade, which has a net effect theoretically of creating more jobs as well as other perhaps more important effects like reversing the gargantuan trade deficit and national debt.
“In order to do that it would require trillions of dollars in government loans to business to rebuild a manufacturing infrastructure”
That’s your opinion. Manufacturers don’t require any loans from the government. We have a huge private industry full of venture capitalists, online crowdfunding, stock markets, banks with plenty of cash to loan.
“If one major currency collapses they all collapse.”
Not true. The Euro “collapsed” 25% since I sold off all my Euros and the dollar and Swiss Franc have increased in value against the Euro, commodities and a basket of other major currencies.
“The Iran deal has far more to do with opening up Iranian banks so the Euro can get Iranian sovereign bonds backed by oil to strengthen the Euro then it does with anything else”
That’s a theory that again has nothing to do with Trump. In actuality the Iran has long wanted to accept payments for oil in Euro terms, which has always been seen as a threat to the petrodollar.
“Its just that Trump could be the catalyst that causes the collapse”
You can repeat that assumption a few more times, but it doesn’t explain what Trump has to do with anything.
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Trump is a long time racist scumbag who scapegoated the Central Park five in 1989, as well as a dear friend of the Clintons. (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york). This ‘debate’ on the relative ‘merits’ of either Clinton or Trump is a joke. The Black vote has always been taken for granted in the USA. That practice reached its apogee eight years ago with the Obama campaign. Blacks voted for the “Black” candidate, who couldn’t be bothered to promise them anything other than the fact that he had a chance to win.
resw, how much are you being paid to write your bs?
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@mjb i’d rather run a robot assembly line to employ 5 americans than uhhh x number oops ogp reasoning huh but anyway… I’ll never give up on the idea of industry coming back
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@ gro jo
I’m with you on this gro jo. I wonder if resw is being paid by the word or by how many times he or she attempts to gaslight Abagond’s commenters with specious and unsupported claims about the “true” nature of Trump, his campaign and his supporters.
“You don’t really see what you see.”
“You don’t really hear what you hear.”
“You don’t really smell the stench of White Supremacist demagoguery”.
“It’s all in your imagination!”
Classic gaslighting aka emotional/psychological manipulation.
I loved Abagond’s 2010 post on gaslighting:
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@ resw
Please cite three sources or links to articles to support your claims that Trump and his supporters are ‘misunderstood’. I would really love to read them.
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@v8driver
I haven’t given up on industry returning to this country, either. Perhaps we will have to have a return of true democracy for that to occur.
It will not be the same as the 1950s and 1960s, but it is ridiculous to have everything from shirts to toothpicks made overseas.
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I have to say, I really enjoyed reading this debate between you all – it stayed clean and informative.
I really loved this statement from Kiwi:
you hit the nail so perfectly on it’s head!
I have been entertained by Trump because this man is a hot mess… he has No Shame!
the things that came out of his mouth has been priceless… he himself has admitted that he is a walking, talking 1-man special interest show…why?
Because he can and he does
He straight up said on the debate stage, that he buys and pays for politicians to get business done:
“Donald Trump bragged Thursday night that he could buy politicians — even the ones sharing the stage with him at a Republican presidential debate.
Trump gave to Democrats and he gave to Republicans. He didn’t care what they believed. He cared what they could do for him.
during the debate:
http://www.vox.com/2015/8/6/9114565/donald-trump-debate-money
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@gro jo
“how much are you being paid to write your bs”
If it is such bs then I’ll wait for you to refute it with facts and not theory or opinion. But nary one of you has or can.
@Afrofem
“Please cite three sources or links to articles to support your claims that Trump and his supporters are ‘misunderstood’. ”
“Misunderstood” is your word, not mine. And that’s a matter of opinion not fact.
I don’t know what’s so hard to stick to the facts.
@Kiwi
“So what?”
That’s one of the top reasons Trump supporters say they support Trump.
“I doubt most serial killers or rapists are accepting campaign donations from anyone.”
That does not deserve a response. It’s yet another straw man argument you love making.
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@resw
I want to see some facts. Enlighten me.
Show me hard factual information about Trump and his supporters.
I want you to support your claims with factual information. All I’ve seen in your comments so far is opinion and opinions are a dime a dozen. Everyone has one….
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shibboleths such as “ease of doing business…balancing trade…reversing the gargantuan trade deficit and national debt.” have been around since the late 1970s. They were bs then and are even more bs today. The fact that you repeat them as if they really mean something is truly pathetic. Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and other right wing heroes were not able to reverse these trends, bankrupt Trump, the racist scumbag will? Get the flock out of here. Stupidities like yours require no refutation since they have been refuted countless times during the last fifty years.
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@gro jo
“They were bs then and are even more bs today. ”
That makes no sense whatsoever, and exactly why there’s no point addressing you. But it does demonstrate your lack of knowledge about the issue.
@Kiwi
“There you go, moving the goalposts as usual. ”
You don’t even know what that means.
“You pointed to Trump not accepting donations as if that were necessarily a good thing, but are now slyly backing away from that position.”
No, you asked “so what” and I told you exactly what. Reread if necessary.
“The reason you won’t respond is because that would require you to admit that you understood the point I made. ”
I responded that it is a straw man argument, for which you are famous.
@Afrofem
“Show me hard factual information about Trump and his supporters”
I have no idea what you want. If you have a SPECIFIC question, I’m happy to address it.
“I want you to support your claims with factual information. ”
Ha! No, I actually stated facts in each of my responses. Reread if necessary. You on the other hand have stated 0 facts. And that’s a fact.
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resw, you lying waste of space, show us how Reagan cut the deficit and how the economy took off. Easy for you to play all knowing seer when you don’t back up your lies with probative data. The only ‘money’ you ever made was playing Monopoly.
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@resw
So you have nothing…nada…zilch..zippo. Lots of opinion and zero facts.
Unless you were paid by the word (and there were plenty of empty words) your employer should dock your pay. Your performance was unconvincing.
You might have better luck with the Youtube crowd or readers at any local newspaper.
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@Afrofem
I’ve already stated plenty of facts, unlike you.
@gro jo
When you can’t win a debate, you have to resort to name calling. Just shows how weak you are and how little you know.
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@Afrofem
I’m really surprised at you. I thought we could have a civil discourse without you stooping to gro jo’s low level. Call me disappointed for thinking you were better than that.
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Reading the above comments is good to see that many, if not much, people in this blog are fully aware that NO POLITICIAN IS A SAINT!
This can be helpful when they’ll go to vote later this year. Yes, to vote, because I hope that they’ll not abstain to vote despite the fact that they know a lot of negatives about the current bunch of candidates to the White House.
To not vote would be a betrayal to the sacrifices your ancestors, one or two generations ago made, when they fought hard to gain the right to vote for themselves and their descendants. Remember that…
Remember also that many people worldwide would be happy to have that same right you enjoy in the USA to contribute in the choosing of your principal political leader. The system can be not perfect but nothing humans do is.
As bleak as the situation appears, the fact of the matter is that, voting remains the main way to exercise the citizen’s right to have any influence in the way the country will be governed in the coming years and beyond.
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munubantu, great joke. So, voting is the point of democracy, not a means? I wonder if Jews who voted for Hitler on the premise that he must have been joking would agree with you?
resw, I’ve mentioned Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, their policies and their rhetoric. They all made the same claims you made in your post about “ease of doing business…balancing trade…reversing the gargantuan trade deficit and national debt.” The result was massive cuts in social spending, homelessness and financial crises. Just show us the data disproving my claims. See, I didn’t call you any name. I can’t wait to read your reply.
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@munubantu
I agree and I do remember the extraordinary sacrifices of ordinary people.
While I will vote, I am painfully aware of the limitations of voting as a democratic mechanism. Voting in a rigged system seems fruitless.
I think more important than voting is organizing, growing movements and creating institutions that directly serve the needs of ordinary people. I believe those other democratic mechanisms will yield more than voting does right now.
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@gro jo
“They all made the same claims you made in your post about “ease of doing business…balancing trade…reversing the gargantuan trade deficit and national debt.” ”
The only claim I made about ease of doing business was that Obama’s DOL has been bad for small businesses. Obviously Reagan could not have made such a claim since he was not alive during Obama’s presidency, and I have not heard either Bush make that claim.
I base my claim about Obama’s DOL on its actions that have been unfavourable to small businesses, e.g., raising the threshold for overtime exemption, among other things.
As to balancing trade and reversing the trade deficit and national debt, you either have a warped view of history or don’t know the subject matter.
Neither Reagan nor the Bushes made any promises about balancing trade or protectionism like Trump. Reagan was very much pro free trade. In fact, he led the Uruguay Round and vetoed tariffs on textiles.
Bush I was also very much pro free trade and actually signed NAFTA. Trump has repeatedly attacked NAFTA, FYI. Bush II entered free trade agreements with at least a dozen countries. It’s clear they did the complete opposite of what Trump says he wants to do.
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It would be interesting to speculate about what would be a Trump’s Presidency.
Some commentators in this blog have already said clearly that they expect, in such an eventuality, a sharp rise in racist attitudes and acts against Blacks and other racial minorities in the USA. But nobody has already tried to figure out what a Trump’s Presidency would bring to its main adherents.
It’s clear that Trump has become a darling of the White extreme right. This is true independently of the degree of similarity in Trump’s own social-political views and the ones exposed by that political corner.
The ironic thing, that people in this blog have not yet gave much attention, is the fact that, Trump’s main believers of today, risk to become later during his term, the more disappointed ones, because, as is usual, he’ll not be able certainly to deliver on some of his main promises. At that moment of disappointment we can expect that the pendulum would be reaching its nadir and begin to return to the center.
Seen from outside it seems that American society is going through a prolonged phase of deep crisis, and the latest top political choice were like a search for a Messiah. It found one in Barack Obama. He promised to:
* End the military involvement of the country in many theaters of war far from home, and bring back home most of the American soldiers;
* Close the Guantanamo prison facility;
* Restore the moral standing of the USA in the world stage;
* Restore the economy to its past grandeur (height);
* Help the middle class and the less fortunate classes in the society;
* Bring a fresh air (morality?) to the way politics is conducted in Washington;
* etc.
After two term it seems that:
* Despite the decrease of direct American involvement in military operations some claim that it didn’t end totally and a surge in indirect operations materialized (Arab spring, maybe?) and a sharp increase in new techno-military hardware (drones) caused many deaths anyway in the same region;
* The Guantanamo prison facility didn’t close;
* The economy remains in a difficult position;
* Social malaises such unemployment remain high;
* The perception of low morality and ethics in the way politics is made in the center of power remains;
* etc.
This was an exercise in finding a Messiah on the left. Result: disappointment.
Now, it seems, some want to find a new Messiah, and this time, on the right.
He has already promised:
* To build a gigantic wall to materialize a real border against America’s southern poorer neighbor, and through it sharply decrease illegal immigration to the USA; when conservative critics bring to the fore the financial cost that such enterprise would signify to an economy in acute need to rationalize expenditures, Trump says that the poorer neighbor will pay for its construction;
* Increase the control of, or outright ban the entry to American soil of followers of Islam, wherever they come from;
* Revise trade relationships with the outside world in order to secure and ameliorate the position of the USA in such relationships;
* Stop the flux of jobs from the American economy to outside countries and even bring back some of the jobs lost in the last decades;
* Decrease perceived social fractures that malign the society (racial tensions, etc)
*etc
The new Messiah wasn’t yet crowned and nobody for sure knows if he’ll even be able to get crowned, but let me speculate about some of the promises that most likely will not be accomplished:
*No wall will be built in the southern border; certainly the USA has no way to force its poorer neighbor to pay for it and its cost will remain high anyway to merit a serious follow-up; maybe a less costly alternative will be put on the table;
* A ban to movements of followers of Islam would be costly for any modern society; probably this principle would be materialized with many modifications that eventually would turn it unrecognizable for many of its first adherents;
* Revision of trade relationships can be done, probably in one-to-one basis with foreign nations;
* The stop of the flux of jobs to foreign countries or the return of some jobs lost in the past will require a deep restructuring of the American society; to convince people to buy more expensive items in place of the ones they are buying now will not be easy, and this one the consequences of giving preference to products coming from high salaried personnel (from USA) instead of low-paid personnel from other countries; but can be done, at least partially;
* Racism will most likely increase and with it some other social fractures of the American society; minorities will find themselves within a more rarefied social environment; authoritarian tendencies of the state will show some increase too;
* etc.
If this scenario even comes to reality a probable disappointment will come as a result. And then, the possibility of a new reborn of the society as a whole. This time with more maturity and a deeper sense of the limits of reality.
P.S.:
I would like to ask Abagond to reflect and write about a possible Trump’s Presidency, in case he remains in the race in the months to come…
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@afrofem einstein said we cant all go chasing flags and succeed as the human race but there is just too many people out of work and so many abandoned workplaces in philly it is ridiculous
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“Manufacturers don’t require any loans from the government. We have a huge private industry full of venture capitalists, online crowdfunding, stock markets, banks with plenty of cash to loan.” Like all your claims, this one has been refuted countless times. (http://www.dvirc.org/u-s-manufacturing-benefiting-from-government-subsidies/),
(http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/07/smallbusiness/manufacturers-loans/)
(http://www.americanjobsalliance.com/content/too-big-loan-banks-stingy-lending-us-manufacturers), (http://www.wsj.com/articles/big-banks-cut-back-on-small-business-1448586637)
“As to balancing trade and reversing the trade deficit and national debt, you either have a warped view of history or don’t know the subject matter.
Neither Reagan nor the Bushes made any promises about balancing trade or protectionism like Trump. Reagan was very much pro free trade. In fact, he led the Uruguay Round and vetoed tariffs on textiles.
Bush I was also very much pro free trade and actually signed NAFTA. Trump has repeatedly attacked NAFTA, FYI. Bush II entered free trade agreements with at least a dozen countries. It’s clear they did the complete opposite of what Trump says he wants to do.” True, Reagan didn’t make the absurd claims Trump is making, but he “convinced” the Japanese to cut their export of cars and other goods to the USA. (https://mises.org/library/ronald-reagan-protectionist). I could find similar evidence for Bush I and Bush II, Clinton, etc. but why bother? You can’t tell the difference between rhetoric and policies, either because you are too young or your salary depends on not being able to do so.
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@munubantu
“This was an exercise in finding a Messiah on the left. Result: disappointment.
Now, it seems, some want to find a new Messiah, and this time, on the right.”
Absolutely. However, as I mentioned, polls show Trump supporters like that he’s not a politician and he’s not taking campaign contributions. That makes him appear very different than Obama.
For example, Lockheed Martin contributed to Obama’s campaign and lobbied the government for weapons and drones. Obama’s DOD has bought lots of drones and new weapons, and Lockheed Martin’s stock price went from about $60/share when Obama took office to $211 today.
Since Trump has never been lobbied by Lockheed Martin (presumably and never accepted any campaign contributions from them, Trump’s supporters have far more reasons to believe that he won’t be pressured by weapons makers than Obama’s duped supporters had for believing his promises about ending military conflicts.
“certainly the USA has no way to force its poorer neighbor to pay for it”
If your wages were garnished to pay someone you owed, does that mean you didn’t pay them back? No. Just because you never wrote a check doesn’t mean you didn’t pay. “Pay” means both compensate AND suffer a loss.
Mexico has a trade surplus with the US, and so if tariffs were placed on Mexican imports, sales would drop and the Mexican government would lose tax revenue. So just because the Mexican government doesn’t write a check for the wall doesn’t mean it won’t “pay.”
My guess is that voters and politicians in Arizona, where most of the wall will be built, will fully support a wall thereby increasing the chances that it will at least be partially built.
“A ban to movements of followers of Islam”
Actually, he proposed a temporary ban on “Muslims entering the United States,” which would likely be legal. That’s not the same as a ban on movements (and no, my pointing out this difference is no indication of my support for his proposal).
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@v8driver
Yeah. Theoretical discussions about politics and economics don’t mean much when you have to live with economic devastation and despair all around you.
You have to wonder what’s next— poisoning your water for profit like they do in Flint, MI?
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@munubantu
I read an article by journalist, Roberto Savio, where he discussed similar observations. His article was focused on young people in Europe and the Middle East turning to rightwing politics out of fear, economic frustration and alienation.
Savio quotes one young person in the article who lays out the sources of his frustration:
In America, those feelings are not confined to youth. There is a multi-generational search for a savior on the Left with Bernie Sanders and on the Right with Donald Trump. That yearning is especially intense on the right where working class Whites (like their European cousins) are:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/opinion-what-if-youth-now-fight-for-social-change-but-from-the-right/
I agree that disappointment will be the result of a Trump presidency. More than likely his supporters will misdirect their anger and disappointment on people who are suffering far more. It is traditional in US society (since Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676) for powerful White community leaders to deflect the wrath of their poorer cousins by yelling “negro, negro” and channeling the rage of working class Whites onto the backs of Black people, Native Americans and most recently Latino immigrants.
munubantu, I also agree with about the likely long term result (after much suffering):
“…the possibility of a new[ly] reborn…society as a whole. This time with more maturity and a deeper sense of the limits of reality.”
Winter to Spring….
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@gro jo
“Like all your claims, this one has been refuted countless times”
Yet not a single link of yours refutes “We have a huge private industry full of venture capitalists, online crowdfunding, stock markets, banks with plenty of cash to loan.” But nice try!
“True”
I know.
“he “convinced” the Japanese to cut their export of cars and other goods to the USA”
Thanks for the anecdote, and 4 years later, Reagan was begging them to end the quota and expand numerous industry exports to the US. So sorry to break it to you.
“either because you are too young or your salary depends on not being able to do so”
Another example of personal attacks because you can’t win a debate.
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resw, you can’t even quote yourself in full. Let me help you: “Manufacturers don’t require any loans from the government. We have a huge private industry full of venture capitalists, online crowdfunding, stock markets, banks with plenty of cash to loan.”
You left out the first sentence in your new and improved quote. I won’t waste any more time on an obvious shill like you.
If you had read the links, you would have understood that loans weren’t being made because nobody had money, but because they didn’t want to risk their money making loans to small manufacturers.
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Resw said,
“Manufacturers don’t require any loans from the government. We have a huge private industry full of venture capitalists, online crowdfunding, stock markets, banks with plenty of cash to loan.”
The trade deficit narrowly looks at one economic indicator. It doesn’t show the whole picture. The amount of money American business, with the help of banks and venture capitalists, have invested in China’s manufacturing infrastructure is upwards to 58 billion dollars. The amount of money China (both private and state) has in invested in the U.S. is greater then 63 billion dollars.
If Trump starts a trade war that jeopardizes the investments American companies have made in China and other places.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-trade-idUSKCN0WQ0WG
“It’s not just about bringing jobs back, it’s about balancing trade, which has a net effect theoretically of creating more jobs as well as other perhaps more important effects like reversing the gargantuan trade deficit and national debt.”
The National debts is about government deficit spending and isn’t related to trade.
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/256/economics/government-debt-and-the-trade-deficit/
America manufactures weapons and that’s our main export. $46.6 billion in 2015 alone. We also manufacture shity cars and supply the world with tear gas.
Afrofem said,
“All of Trump’s supporters are indeed loud and proud White Supremacists”
I don’t know if I would characterize all of Trumps supports as such. I see the majority of his supporters being a right version of our friend Mirkwood. The same kind of denial of their role within white supremacy but not conscious racists in the Klan sense. I’m in California and my sense is the state will go to Trump not Cruz.
Kiwi said,
“The only democratic, White minority country I can think of that avoided slipping into violent coups or fascism is South Africa.”
South Africa was fascist during apartheid and remained fascist after apartheid. Their are more Blacks incarcerated within South Africa today then at the height of apartheid. Democracy acts as a smoke screen for white supremacy.
“California, although not a country, is an example of a White minority society that has not become fascist, war torn, or susceptible to violent regime changes.”
California may not be “war torn” but it is a fascist, repressive society. The police kill more people here then any other state in the union. It also incarcerates over 200,000 people. The police and prison guard unions are the most powerful in the state. It is not a friendly state for business and in fact many large business’s have left the state for neighboring ones taking with them well paying jobs resulting in shrinking California’s tax base.
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Comment in Mod.
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@gro jo
It doesn’t matter since you haven’t refuted it because you can’t.
“If you had read the links, you would have understood that loans weren’t being made because nobody had money”
Really, no loans? Is that why one bank alone, Citibank, lent $10 billion to small businesses last year, a 120% increase from the 2009 recession? Please stop trying…especially because this is getting way off topic.
@Kiwi
My beliefs are completely irrelevant to the facts I’ve stated. I’m not emotionally charged about the election like you. And since you know nothing about what I will do, please stop with the ignorant assumptions.
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Not surprised. Trump understands black people like any other average white male Republican. And like them, they pander to the white male vote as always through their wealthy supporting, hate mongering, misogynist, Islamophobic, fascist politics.
It should also be noted that I read that the source in that graphic about black-on-white crime doesn’t even exist. It’s also noted in the link to Factcheck.org.
But facts don’t matter as long as you’re pushing a divisive agenda and then blame those who point it out as the true culprits of division. SMH.
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resw, I made a typo in the sentence you quote, it should have read thus: “If you had read the links, you would have understood that loans weren’t being made not because nobody had money, but because they didn’t want to risk their money making loans to small manufacturers.” Given your propensity to misquote and lie outright, I’m not inclined to take your Citibank claim at face value. Provide me with a link backing your claim.
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@Brothawolf
Thanks for mentioning the FactCheck.org article about Trump’s re-tweeting of a bogus graphic:
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/trump-retweets-bogus-crime-graphic/
The link is at the end of Abagond’s post, but I missed it.
While I was at FactCheck.org I also saw this article about the whoppers (lies) that both Trump and Clinton have been dishing out:
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/12/the-king-of-whoppers-donald-trump/
Trump may be “King of the Whoppers”, but Clinton is not too far behind him.
Brothawolf, this is beyond shaking one’s head, their lies are enough to make a person’s head spin 360º at 100mph!
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@michaeljonbarker
“The same kind of denial of their role within white supremacy but not conscious racists…”
I respectfully disagree with that reasoning. To me, Trump supporters are emphatically affirmative of White Supremacy, very conscious and very vocal of their anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiment. What’s more, I think they are ready to act on those sentiments in extremely negative and destructive ways.
From my perspective, denial of White Supremacy and unconscious racism arguments have been two methods over the past thirty five years of evading discussion of anti-Black racism. Denial and supposed ‘unconscious’ racism also enable the continuation of both personal and structural White Supremacy.
Perhaps if I were not an American of African descent and unconcerned about my personal safety and survival, I could make the same arguments. I could see those violent Trump rallies and hear Trump spouting his whoppers and not think about consequences.
However, mjb, from where I stand consequences are paramount.
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Donald Trump promises to take any measures necessary to help boost employment of American citizens in the USA. But his record up to date as a normal capitalist, mainly interested in his own profit, tells us otherwise. Look at following testimony, inside the video-clip Trump’s Mar-a-Lago hiring problem, in the Webpage:
(http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/23/news/trump-model-case/index.html?iid=obnetwork)
Ahhhh….
Do what I preach… but not what I do!
Dejà vu!
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TwRmX6zs4)
President Obama Roasts Donald Trump at White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
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“Donald Trump promises to take any measures necessary to help boost employment of American citizens in the USA.”
.
Imagine that an (s)elected politician has 1 – 100 jobs.
In Amerikan politics, political PROMISES are job 1.
LYING is job 2.
GETTING PAID (receiving political donations, bribes, etc) is job 3.
Jobs 1 & 3 are interchangeable!
Giving something that’s beneficial to the people is job 100.
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The Daily Show did a good sketch on Trump the other night:
(https://youtu.be/2aJ1f1i2JZI)
And Midnight had a hilarious debate betweenTrump and Sanders:
(https://youtu.be/8Poi5x0E2CM)
@gro jo
I guess it’s hard to admit when you’re wrong. But just to keep you moving along, and since you’ve probably never heard of a search engine, here you go: http://www.citigroup.com/citi/news/2016/160127a.htm
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resw, thanks for the link, your credibility with me has risen a notch above subterranean. I’m wrong? How so? You claimed that government wasn’t needed because “free enterprise” had plenty of money to lend, BS. You forgot that the govt. bailed out you free enterprisers to the tune of trillions?
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My brain is also hurting, trying to wrap around itself round a very, very scary political chess game of the Republicans and American politics in general.
My take is that brown shirt Trump Donald, an oligarch himself, by fake detaching of himself from the fascist über-oligarchic Koch machine and the other Republican puppets is a pre-strategized move orchestrated by the Koch brothers (or strategists) so that Donald Trump can come across in his position as politically his own man.
Trump could be a Koch candidate.
So, in a sophisticated political game of fascist corporatism, perhaps an oligarch could be a puppet of über- oligarchs.
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You forgot that the govt. bailed out your free enterprisers to the tune of trillions?
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@taotesan
Your guess that Trump is linked to the Koch bros. is without any basis. Whereas we know for a fact that Rubio, Cruz, Hillary and Obama took Koch money in the past. Yet I’ve never heard anyone accuse Hillary or Obama of being “Koch candidates”
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@michaeljonbarker
I just read this Guardian article that delves into the pain of the White working class in America:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/24/white-working-class-issues-free-trade-american-south
He describes how the top of the Republican food chain is openly mocking the very people who have supported their policies for the past 40 years. The people they thought were in their pockets. The people who are now supporting Trump in droves.
The article’s author, Chris Arnade has this to say about the White working class:
Where have we heard that language before? “Two Americas…isolation…marginalization…drug epidemic….trauma…pain”
The White working class hits a rough patch and they are implicitly compared to Black people? However they are still White enough for Arnade to care about and plead for understanding and leniency. I wish Arnade and his cohorts felt and expressed the same empathy for Black people who have been on this path for decades.
Chris Arnade cannot bring himself to acknowledging what Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report called the “negroization” of all working people in America. (Glen Ford used the more pejorative slur). Arnade also can’t bring himself to talking about how a coalition of working people of all ethnicities could make a tremendous difference in the life chances of all Americans.
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@ resw
In my reading of different sources including Jane Mayer’s book on Dark money, the brothers have funded many opposition campaigns AGAINST many Obama policies – from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program and pumped lots of money into campaigns against climate change.
Perhaps you have never heard of Obama or Clinton being Koch candidates is because they have never funded either of them.
I am not “accusing” Trump of anything as I am third party bystander.
Donald Trump has at least four Koch men in his stable:
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, is a Koch man. That puts to rest that he is an “independent” anti-establishment candidate.
So is his strategic consultant, Alan Cobb.
Donald Trump’s counsel, Donald F. McGahn who is affiliated with the Freedom Partners Action Fund, set up by the Koch brothers.
And Trump’s state director is Matt Ciepielowski, former New Hampshire field director for Americans for Prosperity.
Why could Donald Trump being a Koch Candidate be implausible as to dismiss it outright without at least investigating the most expensive Republican campaign- I stand to be corrected- $889 million dollars from a family that has strong Fascist leanings not dissimilar to Trump, who had been invited to Americans for Prosperity “Freedom Summit” in April 2014 at the behest of the Koch bothers and with whom still has friendly relations?
We don’t know if Trump was not invited or it is part of a plan for him not to go to the private fundraiser hosted by the Koch brothers at a retreat in Southern California, or if he was he was invited or not to the Americans for Prosperity “Defending the Dream” summit in Ohio.
So even if his Republican puppet peers were present there and Trump had tweeted: “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?”
One is to take his word for it at face value as some-one who knows how to work the media and has a full-scale propaganda machine behind him?
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@ taotesan
Good digging into the Trump campaign!
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The Koch brothers and Trump disagree on a number of issues.
Rand Paul was the Koch brothers candidate.
The Koch brothers support marriage equality while Trump wants to derail it. The Koch brothers are pushing for immigration reform/amnesty and Trump wants to build a wall. The Koch brothers are pro choice while Trump is “pro life”. The Koch brothers just spent 40 million lobbying for the Pacific Trade Deal which is another free trade agreement, Trump want to “renegotiate” free trade agreements . The Koch brothers are funding criminal justice reform while Trump says “I have to say that the police are absolutely mistreated and misunderstood.”
The Koch brothers lobby and buy political favors which is why they are disliked. But so do liberal billionaires like Sores. The Koch brothers are a part of the Republican establishment but within that establishment their are differing views by other big players. That’s one reason why the Republican party is in disarray. The Democratic party is fairly unified in their over all message.
Reason magazine is the Koch brothers mouth piece. Reason editor Nick Gillespie on Trump. “GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is a seriously deranged male chauvinist pig”.
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@ Afrofem
Thanks for your response. It got me to question some of my assumptions.
I don’t disagree with you.
“From my perspective, denial of White Supremacy and unconscious racism arguments have been two methods over the past thirty five years of evading discussion of anti-Black racism. Denial and supposed ‘unconscious’ racism also enable the continuation of both personal and structural White Supremacy.”
That’s true but I would think it applies to all whites not just Trump supporters.
I see Sanders supporters and Trump supporters having the same thing in common. Both see an anti establishment figure and both are heavily supported by whites. Sanders and his willingness to go after Wall Street and Trump being politically incorrect. The more the media criticizes Trump the more he appears be an outsider and “anti establishment”.
I’m going to speculate that 99% of the white population denies that white supremacy means anything other then white power/Klan affiliations. Maybe 15% of the white population admits to white privilege but they won’t go so far as to acknowledge that Western society is grounded in white supremacy.
You are saying in part that whites denying or refusing to acknowledge white supremacy does not take away their personal responsibility in being a part of it.
“Perhaps if I were not an American of African descent and unconcerned about my personal safety and survival, I could make the same arguments.”
“from where I stand consequences are paramount.”
This made me rethink my earlier statement. Personally I’m detached from this presidential race as I see nobody running who deserves my vote. I have heard of the violence at Trump rallies but hadn’t paid to much attention to it.
I’m pressed for time and will write more later.
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@michaeljonbarker
“I see nobody running who deserves my vote.”
We are in total agreement there. All of the candidates are downright scary to me except Sanders and I have deep foreign policy divisions with him.
At this point in history, it is a matter of the least noxious choice instead of a leader you can trust and believe.
michaeljonbarker, I’m looking forward to further discussion with you this weekend.
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Trump summed up in this old adage:
‘There’s a sucker born every minute’!
Win or loose, this running for president may bolster his businesses.
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@Herneith
I’m sure it already has bolstered his businesses. He is such a self-interested mercenary.
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Trump is freeking people out!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3506491/Emory-president-Students-scared-Trump-2016-chalk-signs.html
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Afrofem
I know this is offtopic but I can’t help myself. While this is true, do not forget that the establishment has the Power of Veto; we are only as free we are allowed to be free (not that this is a condition unique to us). Hence slavery lasting for centuries and Jim Crow for decades.
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@taleoflions
You make a good point about the Power of Veto held by the Establishment.
My comment had to do with the very limited gains Black people have pushed for over the centuries and our own agency in the struggle for those gains. The frustrating part is the “Labors of Sisyphus Effect” Black folk are forced to endure to maintain even a semblance of freedom.
(story of Sisyphus here: http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Sa-Sp/Sisyphus.html)
It seems to be a never ending struggle. However to me, it is a worthy struggle.
It’s a funny thing about powerful Establishments across history and cultures, they always forget that they rule with the consent of their subjects. That consent can be explicit in the case of a representative democracy or implicit in the case of monarchies, autocracies, juntas, authoritarian states or even totalitarian states. In the latter cases, the ‘consent’ is coerced.
Yet even in those cases of coercion and force, when a critical mass of the people decides that the Establishment is illegitimate or irrelevant that Establishment will find itself swept away—veto power or not.
Of course, in real life and real history, the old Establishment is often replaced by a new Establishment. And the cycle continues….
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@Kiwi
No one knows (or cares about) what you’re talking about.
@taotesan
“Perhaps you have never heard of Obama or Clinton being Koch candidates is because they have never funded either of them”
Koch Industries (KochPAC) gave $4,550 and $3,550 to Obama and Clinton respectively in 2008, and another $10,650 to President Obama in 2012. How much has Koch Industries given to Trump? $0?
“Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, is a Koch man.”
Right, he worked for AFP for 4 years? He also worked for Schwartz Communications for 8 years, so that must make him a Schwartz man too. Or does your logic suggest Lewandowski must follow the orders of what the funders of his most recent former employer ad infinitum?
“So is his strategic consultant, Alan Cobb.”
Don’t forget his Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce endorsed Carly Fiorina in October, not Trump.
“Donald Trump’s counsel, Donald F. McGahn who is affiliated with the Freedom Partners Action Fund, set up by the Koch brothers.”
McGahn also served in the United States Federal Election Commission under Obama from 2008-2013. So are you saying that being a member of the FEC is somehow secondary to privately supporting a partially-Koch-funded political group?
“And Trump’s state director is Matt Ciepielowski, former New Hampshire field director for Americans for Prosperity.”
He also worked on Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign, which did not get funding from KochPAC.
“Why could Donald Trump being a Koch Candidate be implausible as to dismiss it outright without at least investigating the most expensive Republican campaign”
I actually haven’t dismissed anything. But why is it implausible that Trump is NOT a Koch candidate, considering Trump is a billionaire himself? How do you know it’s not all a big competition for Trump to replace the Koch’s political influence with his own?
The fact that Trump and Kochs align on issues or that Trump poached former employees of Koch advocacy groups does not mean Trump is taking orders from the Kochs. You can assume all you want, but it’s still an assumption.
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@ resw and michaeljonbarker
Please give me a few days to reply: re: Koch brothers
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In regards to resw comments …
Wall Street often supports both opposing candidates as they are buying political favors. It’s no different then banks funding both sides of a war. Wall Street doesn’t represent a specific political philosophy. Now their are some like the Koch brothers and George Soros who have pet issues they support.
The Republican party is splintered into two groups. Those that want immigration reform and those that want to build a wall. The first group sees immigration as good for the economy and hopes to draw Hispanic voters into the Republican party. The second group, led by Cruz and Trump, draw on nativist and a xenophobic populist and appear to out number the first group significantly.
Keep in mind that the current corporatacracy is a bunch of revolving doors where the same people, drawn from the upper hierarchies of the media, military, corporations ect, compete for power positions within the system.
“The fact that Trump and Kochs align on issues” .. I’d be interested in what those issues are because I’m not seeing it. What I’m seeing is two wings of the Republican party unable to come together on key issues.
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@michaeljonbarker’s comments
“Now their are some like the Koch brothers and George Soros who have pet issues they support.”
Right, so I find it hypocritical when liberals point out the Kochs’ influence on Republicans, but never talk about Soros, Steyer, etc.’s influence on Democrats.
““The fact that Trump and Kochs align on issues” .. I’d be interested in what those issues are because I’m not seeing it.”
Issues such as lower taxes, simplifying the tax code, repatriation of corporate profits. I didn’t say they align on ALL issues, but should probably have said “some,” to eliminate this sort of conversation. But you are right to note the differences between the Koch bros and Trump, which furthers my point about the possibility that Trump not a “Koch man”.
“The second group, led by Cruz and Trump, draw on nativist and a xenophobic populist and appear to out number the first group significantly”
Cruz has a long history of supporting amnesty. He has recently changed his view to appeal to those who are against amnesty for people who entered the country illegally.
“Keep in mind that the current corporatacracy is a bunch of revolving doors where the same people”
The same with campaign staffers and government bureaucrats.
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@ Resw :
Sorry, my post is long.
I will break it down in two parts.
My take was a theory, a possibility of, a take on the machinations of power; a quess who the villains are in this ultra-right political thriller : I peppered my theory/take with ‘could’,’ perhaps’, ‘I think’. To put our exchange into perspective, I am not an American voter, so I am not backing any horse. I have read different sources to support my theory and have not found any to back my ‘conspiracy theory’ that Trump is unanimously Not a Koch man and you may be right.
“How do you know it’s not all a big competition for Trump to replace the Koch’s political influence with his own?” I don’t . But than is an interesting take!
“Koch Industries (KochPAC) gave $4,550 and $3,550 to Obama and Clinton respectively in 2008, and another $10,650 to President Obama in 2012”
Are you try to making out that a paltry sum will buy Presidential favours? Or that a miserly donation, to cause some confusion by throwing some small change at the Democrats, by ultra-right wing oligarchs hell-bent in getting anti-climate and anti-environmental laws promulgated, having a strong anti-immigration stance (forming Libre to augment Latino voters because they voted for the democrats in the 2012 election) despite what the media says, and tax slashes for the rich and so on and who had formed the Tea Party to undermine Barack Obama and the one brother had ran as the Libertarian Party candidate against Ronald Reagan because he thought he was too conservative, are Democrat puppeteers? These guys are worth more than $80 000 000 000 combined with annual revenues in the region of $100 000 000 000.
Whether (if) Trump is a Koch man or not , how would he play his out role in the machinations of Kochtopia should he win the nomination or gasp! the presidency? Will they be backing him then? Remember, they had pledged $ 889 million to the 2016 Presidential campaign backing the Republican party. And only $ 400 million thus far has been spent.
The Brothers have already said that they would not oppose him before the nominations.
So now that the Republican has been zugzwanged ( in chess,German for “compulsion to move”), do they form a new party, do they put forward a candidate who runs as an independent, do they tell voters “No, vote for a Democrat woman or a socialist!?” Or do they tergiversate on Trump, pull out the rest of the pledged campaign millions or endorse Trump? Anyway, any move makes them (seem) weaker. One will have to wait and see how the next chess game will start. An attack on the Koch’s by Trump to distance himself from the plutocracy of which he is part of, to pander to the played plebiscite who are interested in anti-immigration?
“The fact that Trump and Kochs align on issues or that Trump poached former employees of Koch advocacy groups does not mean Trump is taking orders from the Kochs”
While all the candidates have policy differences with the Kochs and Trump’s position apparently seems to veer far from the Kochs’, although they a have similar virulent Fascist bent, it is more than likely should Trump win despite the seeming divide, that the Koch’s will bring their careerist operatives in to the Republican stable.
In an article in the Washington Post , that supports my position of the careerism of Trump’s advisers and the influence of the Koch oligarchs ( I have not asserted that he is taking orders yet):
“ We have every reason to think that Koch influences will continue to pervade Republican politics – even if particular candidates (such as Donald Trump) not preferred by the brothers and many of their donors defeat other candidates (such as Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz) that the Koch network would find more simpatico. After all, right now we find Koch-connected donors and operatives playing major roles in all of these GOP presidential campaigns; and if any of these men ends up moving into the White House in 2017, he will surely tap Koch operatives and ideas to govern. That includes Donald Trump, because we know that his campaign manager, the former highly successful head of Americans for Prosperity in New Hampshire, has already recruited other Koch alumni and would be able to attract many more.
Indeed, even if a Democrat wins the 2016 presidential election, she will find herself dealing with key network-supported Republicans in Congress, above all House Speaker Paul Ryan, who is prepared to push forward a budget and other policy initiatives long favored by the Koch network. Democrats will also face opposition from AFP* and its allies in most state governments. Regardless of which candidates win in November, the Koch network has succeeded in shifting the center of gravity in 21st-century U.S. politics.”
* Americans for Prosperity.
Alex Hertel-Fernandez is a Ph.D. student at Harvard and an incoming assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.
Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas professor of government and sociology at Harvard University and director of the Scholars Strategy Network.
End part one.
The next comment might be in moderation.
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That, not than.
sorry for any more typographical errors:
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continued
And this frightening sphere of influence is what I was alluding to in my theory of the Koch’s power:
“ If the new president is a loose cannon like Donald Trump, he may go off script but is likely to accept much of this far-right agenda. Trump lacks his own policy cadre, and his national campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski,* was previously the highly successful director of AFP-New Hampshire and will be able to draw appointees and ideas from the Koch network. Finally, if the new president is Democrat Hillary Clinton, she will have a guerrilla war on her hands. Democrats are in the minority in Congress and in most state governments, and Koch leaders and their well-organized allies are working through a radicalized GOP to enact policy changes that will be hard to reverse. The Koch brothers and other dark-money oligarchs may have to put up, now and again, with unruly grassroots populists and occasional Democratic victories. But they have the entire Republican Party in their grasp. They are patient and determined—and in it for the long haul.”
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Continue to read an incisive critique of Jane Mayer’s Dark money:
(https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/jane-mayer-dark-money-review-koch-brothers-gop)
And the Washington post:
( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/29/trump-may-win-or-lose-either-way-the-koch-network-will-still-shape-the-republican-party/)
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@michaeljonbarker
Two key issues regarding the Koch reform is not what it appears to be:
“The Koch brothers are funding criminal justice reform while Trump says “I have to say that the police are absolutely mistreated and misunderstood.”
“The Koch brothers are pushing for immigration reform/amnesty and Trump wants to build a wall”.
Here are two exposés of the Koch’s spin on criminal justice and immigration reform:
(http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/12/13002/koch-criminal-justice-reform-trojan-horse)
(http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/libre-initiative-koch-brothers-new-focus-winning-latino-voters)
Perhaps every American should scrutinize the robber barons.
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“Are you try to making out” ,should have read: “Are you trying to make out”
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@taotesan
“Are you try to making out that a paltry sum will buy Presidential favours?”
No, but it does establish a “link” between Obama/Clinton and the Kochs. Now, are you trying to make out that $0 will buy Koch presidential favours from Trump?
“Will they be backing him then? ”
I’m not really in the guessing business, but whether or not they support him, it does not mean Trump will be under their control or push their agenda. As an analogy, I give to a charity to support causes with which I agree. It doesn’t mean I control the decisions of the charity or that the charity listens to me (of course some charities do listen to their biggest donors, but it doesn’t mean they have to).
“Speaker Paul Ryan, who is prepared to push forward a budget and other policy initiatives long favored by the Koch network”
You’re trying to have it both ways. You suggested a “paltry sum” can’t “buy Presidential favours” but now you seem to be implying that Ryan’s bought off because the Kochs gave him $20,000 in the last election. Yes $20K is more than the $10.5K they gave Obama, but both are relatively “paltry”.
So which one is it? Does a few thousand dollars buy a candidate or not?
“it is more than likely should Trump win despite the seeming divide, that the Koch’s will bring their careerist operatives in to the Republican stable”
“In an article in the Washington Post , that supports my position of the careerism of Trump’s advisers and the influence of the Koch oligarchs”
If you and the Post allege that these are careerists, and I agree (as with any campaign staffer), then why do you assume they will keep allegiances to their former employer/benefactors? A true careerist wouldn’t.
“I have not asserted that he is taking orders yet”
But you called him a “Koch man.” So what did you mean by that?
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@ Tattesan.
The last link you gave shows the millions of dollars the Koch brothers have poured into promoting Libre . The link writes that it is skeptical of the Koch brothers intent but the Libre site clearly pushes for immigration reform. As I said in my prior post some elements of the Republican party aren’t xenophobic and are looking to expand the Republican party into the Hispanic community. Its the Koch brothers that are behind it. Their positions are very similar to Obamas position on immigration.
https://www.thelibreinitiative.com/issue/immigration#
This is the Koch Brothers “Coalition for Public Safety”. Let me know what their site says that you disagree with.
http://www.coalitionforpublicsafety.org/
The Koch Brothers also have donated monies to the National Association of Defense Attorneys as well as other groups working towards reduced sentencing.
The CATO institute is the Koch Brothers think tank. If you want to know what they think browse that site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#Conservatism
David Koch ran against Regan because he wanted to legalize drugs and gay marriage. Those aren’t conservative issues.
Another way to look at it is would be what the American political system would look like today if the Koch Brothers never existed. I would argue that their would be no difference in the state of affairs here. In other words you are giving them to much credit and power for being behind the scenes manipulating things.
Planned Parenthood is behind the scenes reducing the populations of POC and everybody including Obama thinks that great. I’d argue that Planned Parenthood is far more insidious the a 1000 Koch Brothers.
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@ Resw
( I should have stated that in my previous comment that this would be my last comment on this theme , and I would look forward to your reply. Mainly because my head is breaking just reading the murk of Donald Trump and the Koch’s and it is not my style to have a continuous argument for the sake of arguing about a subject I do not feel passionately about.)
“But you called him a “Koch man.” So what did you mean by that?”
I had underlined my stance very clearly in the opening paragraph that it is a possibility, a theory. I did not assert or assume anything, even further employing ‘whether’ or ‘if’.
” but whether or not they support him, it does not mean Trump will be under their control or push their agenda.” That is your interpretation of the politics played out and a valid position.
.”You’re trying to have it both ways. You suggested a “paltry sum” can’t “buy Presidential favours” but now you seem to be implying that Ryan’s bought off because the Kochs gave him $20,000 in the last election. Yes $20K is more than the $10.5K they gave Obama, but both are relatively “paltry”.
So which one is it? Does a few thousand dollars buy a candidate or not?”
You are the one to have introduced Obama and Clinton into the equation.
The brothers have funded opposition campaigns against many Obama Administration policies – from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program. The question why would they donate a paltry sum to the President of the United States and then spend $412 million in the 2012 election cycle where $60 million was directly spent opposing Barack Obama. “Earlier this year, the Huffington Post reported that Charles Koch has pledged to give $40 million to unseat Obama while David Koch has pledged $20 million against Obama” But I can try to ascertain by making sense of the Dark money that is used to gain political power through the Republican party.
(http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/charts-map-koch-brothers-2012-spending)
(http://www.thenation.com/article/koch-brothers-spent-twice-much-2012-election-top-ten-unions-combined/)
You could read the links I had posted to you and the ones to Michaeljohnbarker to give an idea of the intricate grasp of the Kochtopia in Republican politics.
I am not going to argue point for point. My first comment was a theory, not an assertion.
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Comment in Mod for too many links.
@ Taotesan, I always appreciate your commentary and value your insights. I feel like we’re not arguing but rather exchanging information.
Keep in mind that the media spins information whether it’s right or left so I go to source material and make my own judgments.
Some things Koch supports are things I agree with. Others things they do I do not. Same with Obama. I support his health care and his Iran deal. I’m pretty sure Hillary or a Republican in the White House will try to derail the Iran deal.
Trump is becoming more and more troubling to me everyday. He needs to be defeated.
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@michaeljonbarker
Planned Parenthood takes a lot of heat from nearly everyone except the low income women they serve. Some of that heat is deserved.
To me, the institution most responsible for reducing the Black population in America is the vast US Prison Industrial Complex. Black men and women are locked away during their most productive years because of racist drug laws that are not enforced in the White community.
Not only does the Black community lose out on the brainpower, creativity and youthful energy of that population, we also lose out on children raised in stable homes with fathers and mothers. We lose out on entrepreneurs. We lose out on leaders and warriors for the community.
Journalist Dan Baum interviewed former Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman in 1994 while working on a book about drug prohibition. This is Ehrlichman’s insight into the motives behind the highly destructive War on Drugs:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nixon-drug-war-racist_us_56f16a0ae4b03a640a6bbda1
No matter how insidious you consider Planned Parenthood, they would have to go ten country miles to beat the Prison Industrial Complex for its sheer destructive power in the Black community.
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I agree Afrofem that the industrial prison complex is part of white supremacy; it deliberately targets Blacks which disrupts and weakens Black families.
But so does Planned Parenthood. It’s an extension of White Supremacy whose goal to reduce the over all population of POC while hiding behind a “women’s right to choose and reproductive rights “. It’s not a coincidence that 70% of clinics are located in white neighborhoods that are within walking distance of Blacks neighborhoods. Planned Parenthood is a white owned and conceived institution whose mission is to reduce “crime and poverty” by riding society of “undesirables” so that the great white race can survive.
The number of abortions have dropped amongst Blacks over the last few years because 30 years of population reduction amongst Blacks has caused Blacks.to stagnate when compared to other populations. Blacks have still increased in the U.S. but part of that is from a growing African population that has off set a more obvious population decrease. Blacks are.also five times more likely to get an abortion then whites.
When you compare Asian and Hispanic increases in population from 2000 to 2012 is at roughly 43%. During the same time period Blacks increased their population by 12%. That figure shows what a direct assault against Blacks families looks like when a group is targeted on multiple fronts.
It doesn’t end in the U.S. The World Bank ties birth control in with its bail out packages that it sends to countries like Hati that suffered from a natural.disater. Does the World Bank have such requirements for majority White Nations ? Of course not. The long term goal of White supremacy is about eliminating non white people from the planet.
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@michaeljonbarker
“The long term goal of White supremacy is about eliminating non white people from the planet.”
Not disagreeing with you about that, but they’re doing a pretty bad job of it, given the population explosions that are going on in Africa and Southeast Asia.
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@Taotesan
“I had underlined my stance very clearly in the opening paragraph that it is a possibility, a theory”
I understand it’s your theory, but it doesn’t explain what is meant by “Koch man.” I took it as he’s controlled by the Kochs, but you said that’s not what you meant. So I’m left scratching my head.
“You are the one to have introduced Obama and Clinton into the equation”
Yes because I find it odd that Trump can be considered a “Koch candidate” in your words, but not Obama and Clinton, who actually accepted Koch money.
If $10K is not enough to influence a candidate, then $20K isn’t enough to influence Ryan. And certainly $0, the amount the Kochs gave Trump, is not enough to influence him. But maybe, just maybe $10K goes a long way in Washington.
“The question why would they donate a paltry sum to the President of the United States…”
Well let’s see, Obama did sign the FAST Act that the Kochs pushed. He also has been working with Koch’s Industries’ General Counsel, Mark Holden, at the White House, on criminal justice reform and occupational licensing reform (which many Democrats don’t support).
“But I can try to ascertain by making sense of the Dark money that is used to gain political power through the Republican party”
And the cry of “Dark money” in the Republican party is equally matched by dark money in the Democrat party. And you still haven’t explained what any of this has to do with Trump, since he’s not accepting any.
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@ resw
Please read my opening paragraph in brackets.
@ Michaeljonbarker and resw
“I always appreciate your commentary and value your insights.”
Thank you. May I take this opportunity then to requite your compliment?
I am preparing a project and and preparing for a Jazz Festival. I might reply after the weekend and after reading your links and reading some more. I want to underline the person you are having an exchange with, is non- American. I am a greenhorn 101 in American politics. I am trying to create a synthesis and argument online where the information is like reading Greek and all the politicians read like the dramatis personae out of War and Peace. I have stopped watching American news years ago after the embedded reporting in the Iraqi war.
@Resw
I do not have any horse to back.
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@Afrofem
American blacks are very aware of the degree to which drug laws are not enforced in the middle and upper income white communities. More blacks guys (I am thinking of guys specifically, meaning adolescent, post adolescent and adult males. The women can speak to their own experience) than people are aware have at some time in their life hung out with a with predominantly white crowd. Not as a “player”. Not as a hustler. As one of the crowd, treated exactly the same as everyone else. These guys know the extent of street drug use among middle-of-road whites and the very limited extent to which any of these are arrested, prosecuted and punished. Within the middle and upper tiers of white American society only those who have suffered a downfall into the drug underclass or are involved in dealing and trafficking get busted and locked up in any significant numbers.
I always make clear, I am a white guy myself, now of some years. In my 20s, 30s and into my 40s, I refused all invitations to go to parties and get-togethers within my peer group because I did not want to get involved in drug use. This was the era when white powder cocaine was the prevalent drug of choice. I call this period of time, from the 1970s into the 1980s simply “the cocaine era” in American social history.
It became such a habit to me to refuse all invitations that I more or less forgot why I was doing it. One time, when I was close to home and not responsible for providing anyone else with transportation or dependent on someone else for the same, I did accept an invitation. Up in the apartment there were a bunch of stupid middle class white guys, maybe a couple of chicks, and a cereal bowl full of white powder which one of the guys braggadociously declared was “$500 worth of cocaine” The other feature of the evening I remember was the guy who was sitting there with snot running down his face babbling about his “Silicon Valley startup.”
You got a point there.
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@michaeljonbarker
We have some points of agreement and disagreement. I will write a longer reply soon.
@Abagond
I don’t want to hijack this thread with an involved comment about Planned Parenthood. Any suggestions as to the best place on your blog to post a comment that is way, way off topic from Trump?
Or does it matter?
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My apologies for deraling with Koch and Planned Parenthood.
A good place for a planned Parenthood discussion might be on the eugenics thread.
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@ Afrofem
Eugenics would be a better place:
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@ Abagond
Thanks for the suggestion.
@michaeljonbarker
I will make a comment on the eugenics thread about Planned Parenthood in a few days.
In the meanwhile, my garden will get a spring clean-up. (smile)
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Kiwi, “dispute” not refute. Facts are facts, I’m afraid.
And as usual, you’ve contributed absolutely nothing of value.
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@Kiwi
In reality, I’ve stated facts that refuted several inaccurate statements made by commenters. What facts have you put forward? Absolutely none. Calling something “crap” or someone a “liar” without any justification are fine examples of your typical childish behaviour as a last resort because you can’t win a debate.
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@michaeljonbarker
My response in in the Eugenics thread:
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@Kiwi
“You claimed I contributed nothing of value ”
Correct because it’s true, unless you count derailing the thread.
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@ Resw
To conclude:
“And the cry of “Dark money” in the Republican party is equally matched by dark money in the Democrat party. And you still haven’t explained what any of this has to do with Trump, since he’s not accepting any.” And all the rest.
There is no doubt that the American Democratic and Republican parties and presidential candidates are recipients of dark money whether by Soros, the Kochs and other major players in the murky game of politics. Am I going to be asked to prove this?
To re-iterate that Trump MAY be a Koch man ( an opinion that I no longer care about), a surmising , a playing around with the possibility of, a hunch. It is not an assertion, a statement of fact. I had explained that it was not backed with supported facts. It is my own limited understanding and cynicism of plutocratic intrigue. My opinion comes from speculating behind the scenes: Could the uber-billionaires have more power than the ‘poorer billionaire’? What did they talk about behind the scenes? Could the campaign be some kind elaborate plan on the part of the plutocrats? Even though Trump has his own money, and no direct money has been plied into his campaign,(and even if there is media ‘spin’ that they are diametrically opposed on certain issues, but bear remarkable resemblence in their fascist outlook). Perhaps Kochhtopia supersedes Trumps sphere of influence by them ‘owning’ the Republican Party, and favours would be paid further down the political line? The reach of their power MAY be way more than we know. Could their propaganda and power be so sophisticated that Donald Trump is a Trojan horse? These are my musings and not questions to you. I do not know any of this as fact. I am merely SPECULATING, OPINING as an outsider on the machinations of (corrupt) power . I CANNOT PROVE IT. I am not an on the ground American political analyst with no axe to grind.
(If an article was posted about Jacob Zuma and Nklanda, the fall of the Rand, Mandonsela, Pravin Gordhan The Gupta’s, Marikana Massacre,Zuma’s impeachment, DRC, Panama Papers, the parliamentarian opposition to Zuma, biased reporting of Gupta’s and omission of reporting of the white influence of economic involvement and behind the scenes shady deals and the Groote Schuur Estate, etc. would you be in your element?)
And if one had an OPINION, albeit in a limited way, one would be free to express it. The onus would/could be on one/me , should one’s understanding exceed yours , and if one is inclined, enlighten , discuss, inform, point out discrepancies, exchange ideas, where one may be somewhat uninformed in one aspect and more informed in another, and not with ones insider information to undermine or ask you to prove it to prove a point, as if you were au fait with South African politics. On this thread, I can admit I am way out of my league with American politics.
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@ michaeljonbarker
Belated response, I had been meaning to reply sooner.
“Trump is becoming more and more troubling to me everyday. He needs to be defeated.”
Absolutely agreed, for the sake of international and domestic politics. Not that I think that Obama and Clinton are that radically different.
Out of our exchange, I would like to conclude with the Koch’s criminal justice ‘reform’.
The two links you provided are their own PR spin and propaganda.
This is my smattering of my understanding of the criminal justice ‘reform.’ where we at variance with each re:Koch involvement.
When you spoke about ‘reform’ my understanding of the American sense differs. ‘Reform’ as I have come to understand, in American politics seems to be ‘to change’ not necessarily ‘to make better.’
Although the Koch brothers have received favourable press for backing a bipartisan effort to reform American criminal justice laws, their clear agenda has nothing to do with the altruistic race-based intentions of ameliorating the mass-incarceration of African Americans, ‘Native’ Americans and other groups that are disproportionately targeted.
Behind the façade as a proponent for mass-incarceration reform, they have a very clear agenda to make it impossible to prosecute corporate violations of American environmental and financial laws meant to protect the man in the street from corporate criminality. It will make it much more difficult to prosecute corporations for violating US laws, whilst the corporation’s financial interests would remain intact.
One bill passed, that does not address mass incarceration and is sponsored by Koch heavily backed Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, but a bill that scraps federal laws requiring for prosecution to prove that the corporations knowingly engaged in illegal activities that violate said federal laws, not unlike Koch Industries backed ALEC “Criminal Intent Protection Act.
Even though, many civil rights activists have been focused on mass –incarceration, the Kochs and their backed Republicans have not, instead focusing on ‘over-criminalization’ not mass-incarceration, which in essence is that there are too many white collar crimes that might affect corporate interests.
The Centre for Media and Democracy PR watch goes into very great detail about what ‘over criminalization’ means and what the ramifications are. The overwhelming focus of Koch-backed groups has been on criminal justice issues that would directly benefit Koch Industries and other corporate interests.
If one pays close scrutiny to the Koch’s involvement in judicial ’reform’, the bare-bones fact is that they are interested in protecting theirs and other corporate interest.
Even though the PR spin has garnered praise for them for supposed ‘opposition’ for mass-incarceration, one can look at their support of Scott Walker, who opposed criminal justice for citizens targeted for the exploitative mass-incarceration complex. One can look at their heavily backed Walker, who helped, in one state, Wisconsin, to make it one of the worst states in racial disparities in the prison population. I have also read about their involvement in in voter suppression policies, heavily impacting on the voting rights on Americans, esp, African Americans. And also read Kochs’ ties to Justice Antonin Scalia regarding corporate spending around elections.
With excellent PR spin, and a campaign to clean their image* appearing to be concerned with ‘reform’ is a Trojan horse so that the Koch’s can continue as one the three leading American environmental criminals (EXXON being another one) and get off scot-free whilst protecting their financial interests.
What do I think this would this have to with then with Trump?
Heaven forbid that Donald Trump is elected President of the United States of America, what kind of reach would these influential players have on him and the American public in so far as plutocratic interests overrun the interests of the American plebiscite?
*They had been embroiled in decades long litigation for gross criminal violations of environmental laws.
Sources: mostly from
Common Cause
Centre for Media and Democracy
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@Kiwi
“False because multiple commenters indicated the contrary, confirming your penchant for lying.”
I don’t know who said you contributed anything of value, and even if they did it doesn’t make it true.
But I could see how you could consider derailing the thread a valuable contribution. So good job. At least you’re good at something.
@taotesan
“it is not an assertion, a statement of fact”
That’s long been clear, which is why I referred to it as “your guess” and “assumption.”
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@Taotesan
Thanks for replying both to me and ressw. Your comments now make better sense giving the whole context.
I actually agree with the Koch brothers that you have to prove intent before you can haul somebody off to prison for an ecological disaster. It’s simular to the criticism Sanders received recently for defending “gun manufactures”. You can’t hold them responsible for mass shootings. You hold individuals responsible for their deliberate actions. A few years back somebody drunk drove an Exon oil barge into an iceberg creating an ecological disater. He was charged and the company fined and made to clean it up. But the board of directors weren’t hauled off to prison.
A few.other observations: if the Koch brother’s were as influential as the progressive makes them out to be the Republican party would mirror their socially liberal think tank the CATO institute and instead the opposite is more true. The Kock brothers are the moderate wing of the Republican party. The party now is socially conservative, protectionist (Trump), anti-immagration reform (the Democratic base is just as resistant to immagration reform which is why Obama wasn’t able to move it forward) . Yes they support candidates and buy politicale favor. But they are small fish in the larger picture. The dark money out their dwarfs what the Kocks game is.
So the left wants to have a monopoly on who can be socially liberal ect. The idea that hard core capitalists can also be socially liberal makes their heads explode. For them the world needs to fit neatly into left/right, Liberal/Conservative boxes. Blaming the Kocks also works as a kind of deflection away from Wall Street, Fossil Fuels, Banks and the amount of money these corporations use to back Democrat candidates since they get guaranteed political favor when they support both parties. Let’s talk about Koch and ignore the Clinton foundation and the Panama papers.
As I said earlier people give the Kocks way to much credit while seeming to be unaware of the politicale corruption on their side of the aisle.
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@michaeljonbarker
Thank you for your considered reply. Your post merits a re-read. I am gaining a better insight into American politics and cannot argue with you. It would serve me best to read much more. I ‘know’ little in a vague sense of the Soros Brothers and the Clinton Foundation, but not enough to about to make any comment.
“As I said earlier people give the Kocks way to much credit while seeming to be unaware of the politicale corruption on their side of the aisle”
.”The idea that hard core capitalists can also be socially liberal makes their heads explode. For them the world needs to fit neatly into left/right, Liberal/Conservative boxes. Blaming the Kocks also works as a kind of deflection away from Wall Street, Fossil Fuels, Banks and the amount of money these corporations use to back Democrat candidates since they get guaranteed political favor when they support both parties. Let’s talk about Koch and ignore the Clinton foundation and the Panama papers.”
And thanks for putting in perspective a balanced interpretation that makes for better understanding. I am learning.
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^^Soros! have brothers on my mind
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@ resw
You might find this video interesting about Trump. It lays out how blind the right is (conservatives, republicans, some libertarians ect) are in recognizing what fascism is and how it manifests in society. The interview is a white centric conversation between some libertarian anarchists so their is some white assumption displayed but overall its insightful to the politics and psychology behind the rise of Trump and the direction the U.S. is heading.
“Donald Trump, Fascism, and Racism with Jeffrey Tucker”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PxhVuZGhqM&ebc=ANyPxKopFQ4nbvQuBbj_2Dns2XCEM_EfXviOZoGq8IbUOvf1jthoGI9LnQ5DVgw2weLeKSMyHwodv-c0V1zCE4rSTZNuvl8DOg)
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@Kiwi
I already gave you credit for derailing the thread. Now, I’d really be a liar if I said you contributed anything else of value.
Now back to Trump…
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This list deals with his attitudes and actions towards American Blacks.
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^^ I didn’t realize the link would open up like that.
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I can’t believe those buffoons who follow Trump the Uncle Ruckus/ Clayton Bigsby sheriff from Milwaukee is really disgusting. And those two minstrel mammies Silk&Diamond are what a horrible display of stereotypes of black women. Then there is Ben Carson and Omarosa I hope being a sellout and a boot licker for Trump pays them well. And to add insult to injury the orange pig in the ugly wig wife the dumb as a box of rocks Melania plagiarism of Michelle Obama’s speech. This Republican convention is a hot mess.
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When Trump is referring to Black Americans as “The blacks or My blacks” like he is some plantation slave boss. He is reprehensible.
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Is anybody going ask for Melania Trump’s college transcripts? At least Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton are educated they are Ivy League. Where did Melania go to college Trump University?😝😝😜
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@Mary Burrell
” Where did Melania go to college Trump University?😝😝😜”
LMAO!!!
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