Mantis Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, villakram said: I really fail to understand how you could think Trump is worse than Bush? What are the exact points that Trump has made that you find so offensive to common sense and logic? I'm not trolling here... watching the GOP and their media shills run around like headless chickens, throwing stuff pretty much randomly at the wall in an effort to hurt Trump is hilarious. They could really use some help! Bush never said he wanted to see all Muslims banned from entering America for example, nor did he make xenophobic attacks on Mexicans by saying things like "they bring rape". That alone is enough to make Trump worse but there are a load of other things. Trump is just extremely vulgar not just with some of his policies but his rhetoric and tone. There's a reason why the Republican establishment are scared of him and it's because they know that he could keep them out of power for a generation - he's toxic. Edited March 9, 2016 by Mantis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 7 minutes ago, Mantis said: Bush never said he wanted to see all Muslims banned from entering America for example, nor did he make xenophobic attacks on Mexicans by saying things like "they bring rape". That alone is enough to make Trump worse but there are a load of other things. Trump is just extremely vulgar not just with some of his policies but his rhetoric and tone. There's a reason why the Republican establishment are scared of him and it's because they know that he could keep them out of power for a generation - he's toxic. I think this comment illustrates perhaps the difficulty that some people are having with this 'Trump is worse than Bush' idea. You've made two valid points - he said an outrageous and unquestionably racist thing about Mexicans, which he hasn't repudiated at all, and has made a commitment to barring Muslims from entering the country, a commitment which he will very likely be either disinclined or unable to pursue if he ever takes office, for all sorts of political, legal, constitutional and practical reasons. The more substantive part of the criticism is that a] he's 'vulgar' and b] he's unpopular. Both of those things are true, but are of course orthogonal to his suitability or otherwise to being president. The reason I have difficulty with 'Trump is worse than Bush' is that this rap-sheet is bad, but really rather light when compared to Bush. Much in the same way Villa players get better the longer they're out of the team, there seems to be a 'time heals all wounds' forgetfulness about where we were at the end of the Bush presidency. So, let's recap, choosing the three most significant facts which defined his presidency: a] the country was embroiled in two foreign conflicts, neither of which is it was obviously winning and arguably both of which it was 'losing', in some sense, into which it had poured billions and billions of dollars and thousands of servicemen's lives, b] he had overseen the failure to adequately protect, adequately help or adequately reconstruct a major American metropolis due to a natural disaster, and most importantly c] the American economy was entering its' worst crisis since the 1930's. Bush left office with historically-low approval ratings and with his own party's nominee campaigning against him. Trump would have to go some to actually be worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Trump would have to go some to actually be worse. Well he'd have to be elected which would be going some. If he were to obtain office, I very much doubt that The Donald would row back on some of the shite he's come out with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 9 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: I think this comment illustrates perhaps the difficulty that some people are having with this 'Trump is worse than Bush' idea. You've made two valid points - he said an outrageous and unquestionably racist thing about Mexicans, which he hasn't repudiated at all, and has made a commitment to barring Muslims from entering the country, a commitment which he will very likely be either disinclined or unable to pursue if he ever takes office, for all sorts of political, legal, constitutional and practical reasons. The more substantive part of the criticism is that a] he's 'vulgar' and b] he's unpopular. Both of those things are true, but are of course orthogonal to his suitability or otherwise to being president. The reason I have difficulty with 'Trump is worse than Bush' is that this rap-sheet is bad, but really rather light when compared to Bush. Much in the same way Villa players get better the longer they're out of the team, there seems to be a 'time heals all wounds' forgetfulness about where we were at the end of the Bush presidency. So, let's recap, choosing the three most significant facts which defined his presidency: a] the country was embroiled in two foreign conflicts, neither of which is it was obviously winning and arguably both of which it was 'losing', in some sense, into which it had poured billions and billions of dollars and thousands of servicemen's lives, b] he had overseen the failure to adequately protect, adequately help or adequately reconstruct a major American metropolis due to a natural disaster, and most importantly c] the American economy was entering its' worst crisis since the 1930's. Bush left office with historically-low approval ratings and with his own party's nominee campaigning against him. Trump would have to go some to actually be worse. You could argue that A and C were the direct result of policy by Clinton who seems to have come out of his tenure remarkably scot free Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 2 minutes ago, snowychap said: Well he'd have to be elected which would be going some. If he were to obtain office, I very much doubt that The Donald would row back on some of the shite he's come out with. I agree he's unlikely to be elected president. He hasn't even won his own party's nomination yet, and while he is the front-runner it's far from a foregone conclusion at this stage. Should he get through that, his general election polling looks pretty shocking, although of course a lot can change in a short time in politics. If you think he is going to get every idea he's come up with turned into legislation, I'm sorry but I can't agree. It's certainly never happened for any president yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 4 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: You could argue that A and C were the direct result of policy by Clinton who seems to have come out of his tenure remarkably scot free I'm a bit at a loss as to how Clinton can be blamed for Afghanistan or Iraq, beyond noting his wife voted for the latter. I'd be more inclined to blame [c] on 30 years of neoliberal economic thought, dating from the late 1970's, rather than on Clinton or Bush personally, though of course both passed legislation that made the crisis worse when it occurred. The point about the economy, though, is it's like 'pass the bomb' - the one holding it when the music stops is the one who gets blamed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Clinton as I understood it had Bin Laden and his crew surrounded and there for the taking but was worried about another black hawk down scenario and American body bags so wouldn't give the order ... Bin laden lived and the rest is history its probably more complex than that but I'm fairly sure that's what I read yonks ago , I probably should have double checked that before I blamed him though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Ah, okay, I wasn't aware of that. I'll read up on it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 If you find it come back and tell me it's true and I didn't dream it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: If you think he is going to get every idea he's come up with turned into legislation, I'm sorry but I can't agree. It's certainly never happened for any president yet. I don't think that at all. What I do think is that were he to be elected (bearing in mind the executive action that the likes of Obama has been able to prosecute) then some of the really popularist stuff may happen especially if it can be effected by way of presidential diktat. Or even if it were just a case of acting first and seeking approval after. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 20 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: Clinton as I understood it had Bin Laden and his crew surrounded and there for the taking but was worried about another black hawk down scenario and American body bags so wouldn't give the order ... Bin laden lived and the rest is history its probably more complex than that but I'm fairly sure that's what I read yonks ago , I probably should have double checked that before I blamed him though I hadn't heard that one, but I do know that the Army Rangers had him pinned down in Afghanistan back in GWB days. They called for airstrikes, but Rumsfeld refused. I think the idea was to let him live and act as a scary bogeyman while the US took over the country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Just now, maqroll said: I hadn't heard that one, but I do know that the Army Rangers had him pinned down in Afghanistan back in GWB days. They called for airstrikes, but Rumsfeld refused. I think the idea was to let him live and act as a scary bogeyman while the US took over the country. Could well be an element of truth in that ... I say the similar type of thing about North Korea , it's not in China or Americas interest to have a united Korea the DPRK bogeyman suits both sides , China have a huge buffer zone on their flank and America get to keep a huge military presence in the region and not a million miles from Taiwan either which I'm sure is also rather handy ? i did a google on Clinton and BL and it seems my memory hadn't failed me ... Of course there are differing views on it , Clinton himself appears to have openly talked about it as a regret but put it down to civilian causalities ... Other reports say he bottled it , i suspect the truth is somewhere between the two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 (edited) 24 minutes ago, snowychap said: I don't think that at all. What I do think is that were he to be elected (bearing in mind the executive action that the likes of Obama has been able to prosecute) then some of the really popularist stuff may happen especially if it can be effected by way of presidential diktat. Or even if it were just a case of acting first and seeking approval after. Okay, I see. Yes, if he were elected, he would doubtless use 'executive actions' where possible, because all presidents do so where they can't get Congress to agree. However, these executive actions are certainly not immune from being overturned by the judiciary. For one recent example, some of Obama's executive actions regarding the EPA regulating carbon emissions have been overturned recently. Constitutional scholars seem to be pretty divided about whether a ban on all Muslims entering the US would be constitutional, but you can certainly bet it wouldn't go unchallenged. EDIT: I suppose the point I'm trying to make here is 'I'll worry about it when the time comes'. None of this should be taken as endorsing or excusing Trump, obviously. Edited March 10, 2016 by HanoiVillan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 Meanwhile, Obama just killed 150 Somalis not in a war zone because "they were terrorists"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 (edited) If Trump wins the nomination he'll move to the centre and most of the shite he's come up with so far will be toned down because while the racists may push him up to 35%+ of the Republican base, it isn't enough to win him the White House. Anyway Trump's racism is nothing new for the Republicans. He may be more direct in his approach but that party has been relying on stoking racial prejudices to win elections for too long. Edited March 10, 2016 by CarewsEyebrowDesigner 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 On 09/03/2016 at 23:31, HanoiVillan said: I think this comment illustrates perhaps the difficulty that some people are having with this 'Trump is worse than Bush' idea. You've made two valid points - he said an outrageous and unquestionably racist thing about Mexicans, which he hasn't repudiated at all, and has made a commitment to barring Muslims from entering the country, a commitment which he will very likely be either disinclined or unable to pursue if he ever takes office, for all sorts of political, legal, constitutional and practical reasons. The more substantive part of the criticism is that a] he's 'vulgar' and b] he's unpopular. Both of those things are true, but are of course orthogonal to his suitability or otherwise to being president. The reason I have difficulty with 'Trump is worse than Bush' is that this rap-sheet is bad, but really rather light when compared to Bush. Much in the same way Villa players get better the longer they're out of the team, there seems to be a 'time heals all wounds' forgetfulness about where we were at the end of the Bush presidency. So, let's recap, choosing the three most significant facts which defined his presidency: a] the country was embroiled in two foreign conflicts, neither of which is it was obviously winning and arguably both of which it was 'losing', in some sense, into which it had poured billions and billions of dollars and thousands of servicemen's lives, b] he had overseen the failure to adequately protect, adequately help or adequately reconstruct a major American metropolis due to a natural disaster, and most importantly c] the American economy was entering its' worst crisis since the 1930's. Bush left office with historically-low approval ratings and with his own party's nominee campaigning against him. Trump would have to go some to actually be worse. You're comparing somebody who was in office for 8 years to somebody who hasn't even got the nomination yet. Of course 9/11 changed quite a lot but if you look back to Bush's campaign in 2000 he didn't come up with anything like the sort of shit Trump has come out with. If Trump became president for 8 or even 4 years I struggle to see how he wouldn't be worse than Bush based on what he's said already. Personally I don't think Bush was actually as bad as some make out. Certainly not a great president and I don't want to drag this off the topic at hand but if you look at it objectively I fail to see how somebody could think that a Trump presidency could turn out better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 10 minutes ago, Mantis said: You're comparing somebody who was in office for 8 years to somebody who hasn't even got the nomination yet. Of course 9/11 changed quite a lot but if you look back to Bush's campaign in 2000 he didn't come up with anything like the sort of shit Trump has come out with. If Trump became president for 8 or even 4 years I struggle to see how he wouldn't be worse than Bush based on what he's said already. Personally I don't think Bush was actually as bad as some make out. Certainly not a great president and I don't want to drag this off the topic at hand but if you look at it objectively I fail to see how somebody could think that a Trump presidency could turn out better? But you're making my point for me. In 2000, Bush campaigned as a 'compassionate conservative'. Plenty of political writing at the time highlighted that Bush and Gore didn't actually have the sort of vast oceans of space between their views (as expressed by their manifestos) that we consider normal in 2016. One whole chapter of PJ O'Rourke's 'The CEO Of The Sofa' was spent highlighting areas of overlap in their manifestos, and the election is commonly thought to have swung towards Bush as much as anything because of his more relatable persona - 'the guy you'd choose to have a beer with' was as I recall the common formulation. Of course I'm not saying they were the same - obviously they weren't - but the ideological gaps were smaller. None of that counted for jack shit when Bush was president. With the arguable exception of No Child Left Behind, he didn't govern as a 'compassionate conservative' at all. Especially after 9/11, all of the stuff about conservatism that benefitted everyone went out of the window, and instead was pursued maximum culture war and Karl Rove's '50%+1' re-election strategy. Bush changed enormously, and his pre-election words counted for nothing at all when in power. You seem to be absolutely certain that Trump's words now, in a competitive primary, represent his true and total opinion on things, and are a reliable guide to how he would govern. Yet this isn't borne out by Trump himself, who was a major Clinton donor until the end of the noughties and has repeatedly tried to have issues both ways even in this primary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted March 11, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted March 11, 2016 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 George Bush should be indicted as a war criminal. Donald Trump is an offensive loud mouth. He could have the potential to engage in all sorts of murder ala Bush, but as he is not directly connected to the military/cia nexus as Bush/Rubio and to a lesser extent Cruz are, this is all very uncertain. On the other side, we can be quite sure what way Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton will play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted March 11, 2016 Moderator Share Posted March 11, 2016 Is he trolling the world? His latest idea is to declare that after a terrorist attack of any kind, he'd kill the family of the terrorist, because erm...they would have known right? Yeah, they'd definitely have known - and anyway, it would put the terrorists off if they knew that their families would be killed after they did their dirty business. He's a nutcase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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