Trump Is Giving This Country Its Identity Back

[Dill]

(04-17-2017, 03:10 PM)hollodero Wrote: In general, I can understand the appeal though. I've learned that Americans consider all career politicians to be total sellouts. Probably because they actually are.

The moment it's Trump vs. Hillary, one has to think about public campaign funding. Yet no one does. It remains Kochs and Soros and SuperPACs and lobbies and Wall Street. Trump actually could make the case that he doesn't need to be bought by those people, and although that's probably not true I really saw the point there.

Still, though, the ultimate, far over-riding issue should be COMPETENCE. When presidents make errors, people die, HUNDREDS of billions of dollars flow down the drain. The future is changed for millions of people.  The Iraq disaster is exhibit #1 (4,500 American dead, 150,000 Iraqi dead, 3 million refugees, and finally ISIS), but there may be damage from a thousand cuts as well, if a president starts tearing up EPA regulations and separating parents from children to deport the former and rolling back voter laws and appointing extremist supreme court justices. Damage in the policy pipeline just waiting to flow downhill. 

No single office in the world has the power to disrupt so many lives worldwide.

The difference between Trumpsters and the rest of is that they either don't care about all that if trump will just bomb someone and kick Mexican children out of the country, or they don't see any competence issue.  He is a "successful" businessman, right? If you don't believe so just ask him. If you don't know anything about foreign policy then kicking sand in China's face and teaming up with Russia to beat ISIS seems nifty and cool  rather than fatuous and short-sighted.  Competence is front and center of every debate about Trump in this forum; it is what divides the Trump vs anit-trump camps.

Throughout the campaign there were alarm bells about Trump's debts and assets in foreign lands, which are more troubling than a check or two from Soros. And people do think about campaign funding. Ask Bernie. Citizens United has been loudly criticized by liberals and leftists.

Finally, all Americans don't think all politicians are sell outs.  The late Paul Wellstone was a wonderful example of that. I don't view Bernie or E. Warren as sellouts either. I don't like Kasich, McCain or Graham, but I don't think they are sell outs. They are people the sellouts obstruct.  Many Trumpsters--incredibly--don't think Trump is a sell out. ANd even if he is on most issues, they will still back him if he persecutes Muslims and dreamers and drops the largest bomb in the world on someone. I met one who was willing to give up Medicare if it meant all those brown children would be sent back over the border.