And a lot of us on both sides of the former partisan political spectrum are wonder what - if any - boundaries Trump supporters have past which they would not defend the actions of this administration.
There aren't any, and I'm serious about it. Unless Trump does something that is totally and obviously anti-populist, like raise taxes for everyone by 20% or send in the National Guard into a city.
It took me a while to understand why but you kinda have to see where Trump supporters get their worldview. Unfortunately, they use Facebook/Twitter a lot, and have been bombarded for years and years by outrageous fake news. When they try to debate some of this fake news, they are immediately dismissed by the reasonable sort who know fake news is fake news. They see shares/feeds from their friends about mostly the same thing. End result: an unreasonable hatred of the left and democrats. And an acceptance of Trump: just because he ain't a "damn liberal".
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It took me a while to understand why but you kinda have to see where Trump supporters get their worldview. Unfortunately, they use Facebook/Twitter a lot, and have been bombarded for years and years by outrageous fake news. When they try to debate some of this fake news, they are immediately dismissed by the reasonable sort who know fake news is fake news. They see shares/feeds from their friends about mostly the same thing. End result: an unreasonable hatred of the left and democrats. And an acceptance of Trump: just because he ain't a "damn liberal".
I don't even think it's the fake news or etc, it's the moral highground/horse that the far left stands on, and is unwilling to debate, talk, communicate.
Regardless of all this political shitstorm, i am quite sickened by the thought control that the far left seems so unwilling to yield from. They have so many dismissive weapons in their toolbag of verbal war that make hope for discussion a fickle thing. A lot of people have very unpopular views, either on the edge or over it from what the far left believes, and we all need to be willing to discuss. No ones views should be dismissed. Once we start doing that, a "surprise" voter turnout happens - ala Trump.
The term "fake news" is totally misleading because it conceals political agenda behind it. Yet it is all over the place. Did everybody forgot what propaganda is?
"End result: an unreasonable hatred of the left and democrats."
Is it irrational to hate those who find your religion, race, gender, education level, employment, state of residence and political affiliation to be "deplorable"? After all, the Democrats started it.
A near perfect consensus of legacy media self admittedly being politically aligned with the Democrat party doesn't mean their propaganda is true and any other political spin is fake news, it just means its dominant in the legacy media, which is rapidly losing influence, leading to people not under single party control gaining leadership positions...
> Is it irrational to hate those who find your religion, race, gender, education level, employment, state of residence and political affiliation to be "deplorable"? After all, the Democrats started it.
No they did not "start" anything. And lets not even get into the whole business of who started what. Its true that liberals do find racist xenophobes deplorable. Its true that liberals do find people who try to impose restrictions on the rights of anyone in the community for their reproductive rights, sexual preferences and gender identification to be deplorable.
> A near perfect consensus of legacy media self admittedly being politically aligned with the Democrat party doesn't mean their propaganda is true and any other political spin is fake news, it just means its dominant in the legacy media, which is rapidly losing influence, leading to people not under single party control gaining leadership positions...
They are NOT aligned with Democratic party. They are aligned with reason and facts and are pretty fearless about reporting on those.
I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years, when it was supporting the Democrat world view.
For instance, just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. The Russian army is huge and what's left of the Ukrainian army is made of fresh conscripts. If those events had actually happened then the Russian flag would have been waving over buildings in Kiev within 24 hours, there would have been videos of it all over the world. You can't hide an invasion of an entire country, that's not what the word means. Yet these conquered cities are mysteriously missing.
What actually happened is a civil war in Ukraine with two opposing sides from the same country who hate each other, one side trying to break away by force. The west supports west Ukraine with materials and training, Russia probably supports east Ukraine/Donbass in a similar way, although the west admitted they were doing it and Russia never did. But let's put that to one side and assume both were at it. That's not an invasion, that is at most a proxy war.
And what happened in Crimea was even simpler, they had a vote and voted to join Russia just like they did twice in the 1990's (but were ignored). Western/Ukrainian polling and journalists have visited since and didn't find any evidence that the vote was not representative of what people there actually think.
Yet fake news stories that talk of invasion, literally fake as in "reporting on things that never happened", goes largely unremarked, especially by the kinds of people who hate Trump. They usually aren't even aware how thoroughly they've been fooled.
If you want an example of how people are manipulated through missing news rather than fake news, the recent Greenwald article on a SEAL Team raid in Yemen and how CNN reported it is a good one.
So "fake news" is the kind of thing that both sides can levy at the other, with some justification, but trying to claim one side or another is smarter than the rest is not going to work. People will just tune it out, exactly as you report.
I am speechless at this revisionist view of recent history.
Two things:
1. If anyone is confused about the Crimea invasion simply go back and read the primary sources. Read newspapers from overseas, especially those in different languages. No one believed that the recent invasion of Crimea began as a civil war/proxy war. It had become that, sure, but let's keep the facts straight.
2. To the poster: how can you be so sure of global events? Your viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government. Does that not give you pause, to repeat the words of a clearly self-interested party?
I did read the sources, at the time it was happening. And I, too, am shocked at the total and successful rewrite of recent history the western media and government establishments have pulled off. It is stunningly Orwellian and extremely scary.
Now. Please show me where a shot was fired during this so-called "invasion" of Crimea? Please explain to me why all the evidence suggests that the people who live there are happy to have been "invaded"? These are simply not normal uses of the word "invasion", which normally involve shooting rather than voting.
2. How can I be so sure? I remember what was reported at the time. There were plenty of news stories that covered what was happening. I remember fact checking and them often discovering blatant propaganda inside, but the whole "Russia invaded Ukraine and Crimea and you're crazy if you remember otherwise" line didn't start until long after the events in question. If you go back and read the stories in the press at the time they only talked about "pro Russian forces" or "pro Russian rebels". No invasion, no army.
I remember noticing newspapers just starting to repeat one day that what had happened was not in fact a civil war between pro-EU and pro-Russian forces, it was an invasion, but that happened after Ukraine had dropped out of the daily news cycle. I remember at the time the sequence of events that led to the breakout of civil war there. The overthrow of the rather poor but still democratically elected government by people who wanted Ukraine to align with the EU, the outbreak of fighting, the supposedly free and fair "elections" that happened whilst the revolutionary government was busy shelling its own citizens. The flight of refugees from east Ukraine towards Russia instead of away from it.
What actually happened is not a secret. You can go re-read original coverage, original sources, go do some research. Here, I'll help you. Here's a story from 2014 in the fanatically pro-EU and anti-Russian Guardian:
Read this article and observe the following things:
1. The fight is described as being between Kiev and separatists/pro-Russian forces, or in Kiev's term, "terrorists". Not the Russian army.
2. The only mention of Putin or the Russian government is in a paragraph saying the separatists had possibly wanted to delay the independence referendum they were trying to organise there, because Putin was signalling he was not willing to lend them military support or absorb the region.
Where in this story is there discussion of a Russian invasion? It isn't there because no such invasion ever happened. At most, small groups of special forces were sent in to aid the rebels covertly in a proxy war, which is no more than what the west did (the US and UK sent soldiers and equipment to support the Ukrainian army). Talk of an actual invasion appeared much later.
Now, saying my viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government is pure ad hominem. So what? By stating that my views are revisionism and that in fact there was an invasion, you are doing the same thing: repeating the words of clearly self interested parties, namely the western governments and the media who support them, who want Ukraine to have close relations with the EU instead of Russia.
You can read an essay with a similar viewpoint by an American journalist here:
Exactly, there were "rebels" driving around in Russian armoured vehicles, using modern Russian military equipment, just without insignias on their uniforms. This story[1] is one of many from a few years back about poorly-disguised Russian troops who were deployed in Ukraine.
Vice News did an amusing piece of reporting where they tracked down a Russian soldier who was deployed in Ukraine based on his social media presence[2].
The idea that Russian troops weren't involved is laughable, obvious propaganda that was aimed mostly at the Russian population, not really meant to fool the rest of the world.
I say explicitly that both sides in the civil war were being supported by US/UK and Russia respectively, with soldiers and equipment. However, this does not mean the USA invaded Ukraine, nor did Russia invade Ukraine.
Perhaps you guys are all using the word "invasion" to mean something different to what I'm using it to mean, but in my book a country can't quietly invade another. Especially not countries with wildly superior militaries. Invasions are kind of hard to miss. Nobody in Iraq or Afghanistan was in any doubt that their countries had been invaded by the USA.
Speaking for myself, I'm mixed on this particular EO. I don't like the restrictions placed on people who were already determined to be legal residents via green cards / visas whatever. Fortunately, I think that's going to get struck down. So my support of this current EO is mixed. When would I not support him? Had he tried to do something permanent, had he tried to go forward with a ban all Muslims approach. Those both seem pretty clearly wrong to me.
I find the hyperbole around this EO kind of absurd though. We're talking about two bans of 120 and 90 days respectively, from a list that was generated via a similar ban in 2011 and which doesn't actually specify any religion. In so far as I can tell, due to the 'persecuted religious minority' aspect of the EO, a Sunni in a predominantly Shia nation and vice versa would still qualify. It also lays out being open to reviews on an individual basis.
I think it's overall mixed, and probably not the best way to get this done. I also think claims of fascism, literally Hitler and other hyperbole are overblown. It's also not a Muslim ban. Even if he stopped all people from those 7 countries permanently, there's still something like one billion Muslims still eligible to enter the country.
> We're talking about two bans of 120 and 90 days respectively
Proponents say they are temporary measures, so that there is time to 'figure out what is going on'. No matter how you feel about this EO it was implemented in sloppy and unprofessional manner. It was poorly written, Agencies were not notified or instructed on the exact intent, there was no time for review from Legal Council. How am I supposed to extrapolate that this farce will produce better immigration enforcement than the already stringent vetting that was in place? When they have no better alternative I have to predict that these blanket bans get extended for 'safety reasons'.
> due to the 'persecuted religious minority' aspect of the EO, a Sunni in a predominantly Shia nation and vice versa would still qualify. It also lays out being open to reviews on an individual basis.
This is great conjecture, but it is unclear, at this time, if as implemented a Sunni qualifies for this status. You have frontline DHS agents deciding these case by case reviews without clear orders. I don't believe they will err on the side of possibly getting it wrong. Denying will always be the default.
> It's also not a Muslim ban.
It's obviously not a muslim ban, but that is who will be disproportionally affected.
I don't disagree with anything you've said here, it's pretty spot on in my estimation, I just don't think it's a sky is falling kind of situation. I was trying to answer the question: 'What would it take for his supporters to turn away from him?' and keep it in the context of why this thing just isn't an abandon ship situation, though it is certainly a fumble in a number of ways.
|Proponents say they are temporary measures, so that there is time to 'figure out what is going on'
Wasn't there a report from DHS in 2015 or so saying that it was the case ISIS was looking to take advantage of refugee programs to get agents into various Western nations? And further, that dept. heads felt some concern about the efficacy of our vetting processes?
Whether such a vetting process could ever exist is unlikely, but it would seem this is kind of a 'get your bearings' order. Your criticisms still stand, of course, I'm just pointing out it's not a totally baseless idea.
The current refugee vetting process is very rigorous and would be a terrible avenue for ISIS agents to get into the US and other western nations, although I'm sure they would try. The process I went through to get a security clearance was about an 1/8 of the refugee vetting process and it was an incredibly invasive process. Obviously no vetting is 100% effective, but I'm highly skeptical that there will be a better process in 3 months. Then do we continue to ban these people our of fear?
As you said the question is: 'What would it take for his supporters to turn away from him?' Trump supporters may not not have breaking point when it comes to helping those that they don't have a perceived connection to.
|Trump supporters may not not have breaking point when it comes to helping those that they don't have a perceived connection to.
This is kind of absurd. I think there would definitely be a point where they wouldn't support him on this. It's just that a 120 / 90 day ban of countries considered failed states / enemies isn't it. This is just a more subtle form of demonization. You're basically saying 'They'll agree to anything!'. I don't buy it. But who knows?
I think what is interesting is: What did it take to turn away from Obama? For me it was continued expansion of executive power, continued pursuit of destabilizing nations in the Middle East and continued support of erosion of civil liberties largely via domestic spying programs.
I'm expecting my answer to the Trump question to end up being roughly the same. I'll be pleasantly surprised if any of the above are missing. I'll be unpleasantly surprised if anything new is added. So it goes.
Green cards holders are basically citizens. You can revoke their lawful permanent residence for well-specified (legally) reasons, but while they hold it they are entitled to the full protection of all US law.
People that should have had that protection had their right of habeas corpus violated, one of the most fundamental rights that exists in this country. It was done without the consulation of the legislative branch. It was (and is) continued after it was ruled illegal by the judicial branch.
There isn't any hyperbole here. This is facially fascist. Hopefully it marks a low point and they learn from it.
