John Cassidy, in The New Yorker, tries
"Donald Trump Isn’t a Fascist; He’s a Media-Savvy Know-Nothing." Various people are trying to wreck Trump by calling him a fascist, and Cassidy doesn't exactly want to absolve Trump of the charge...
Originally used as a collective noun for the murderous, revolutionary hypernationalist movements that emerged in Europe from the embers of the First World War, the word is often employed today as a catch-all term of abuse for right-wing racists and rabble-rousers. Trump certainly qualifies as one of the latter, but calling him a Fascist serves to obscure rather than illuminate what he is really about.
... he just wants to find something that works.
Part of the problem is a definitional one. Even historians who have spent their lives studying Fascism can’t agree on what the word means....
Once something becomes an insult — like "asshole" — it loses its particular meaning and at some point it doesn't even hurt. But if you could get all historical about what "fascist" means, you'd have to admit Trump isn't a fascist:
Fascism, in its original form, had no time for parliamentary democracy, peace, or limited government. It exalted “direct democracy”—the incarnation of the popular will in a great leader—war, violence, and popular engagement in a totalitarian state. Trump, for all his bluster, hasn’t yet called for the repeal of the U.S. Constitution. He has expressed deep skepticism about U.S. military interventions overseas. And... he hasn’t endorsed the sort of systematic violence that characterizes Fascist movements. Plus... Trump is too much of a hedonistic individualist to endorse the sort of collective action and political mobilization that lay at the heart of Fascism....
Cassidy says Trump is "the latest representative of an anti-immigrant, nativist American tradition that dates back at least to the Know-Nothings of the eighteen-forties and eighteen-fifties." Know-Nothing is another historical term that most people use without bothering to know the historical details, but...
The Know-Nothings originated as secret societies of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants angered by an influx of immigrants, particularly Irish Roman Catholics who were crossing the Atlantic to flee poverty and find work in the rapidly industrializing U.S. economy. The Know-Nothings got their name because, when asked about their clandestine activities, they often said, “I know nothing.” Fearful of popery, liquor, and big-city political machines that harvested the votes of new arrivals, they called for restrictions on immigration, the closure of saloons, and a ban on foreign-born people holding public office. “Americans must rule America,” they said....
I don't see the objection to placing Trump in this "tradition," but what form has this tradition taken? As we say in constitutional law,
"tradition is a living thing," and the tradition that exists now is something that has developed from the tradition that existed earlier and that contains what we've seen reason to keep and has lost what we did not value. Trump's message is resonating with many people, but why? Is it a tradition of hatred and fear? Those who would like to stop him assume it is, and connecting him to the 19th century tradition might seem to help defeat him, but you're missing a step if you assume that if he fits a tradition, he and his supporters have the same thoughts and feelings as the people back then. Obviously, he's not trying to close saloons and
he seems to be okay with the Pope:
“I have great respect for the Pope. I like the Pope. I actually like him. He’s becoming very political, there’s no question about it. But I like him. He seems like a pretty good guy.”
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112 comments:
The Know Nothing label is appropriate. Instead of fearing Catholics, he and his followers fear Islam. Instead of the Pope ordering society, he stokes the fear of Sharia Law. Mexicans have replaced Irish and Southern and Eastern Europeans who want to take our jobs and lower our wages.
Trump is a Know-Nothing. But progressive Democrats totally have nothing to do with eugenics, segregation and the KKK. Got it.
A know nothing.
As opposed to the "professionals" who are presiding over a disastrous foreign policy, idiotic collectivist pipe dreams, looting the treasury to pay off cronies and enacting policy that the voters specifically elected them to oppose. All the while pissing on us and telling us to enjoy the rain.
Are Trump critics just dense or what?
He's not a "know nothing" even in the specific immigration or nativist sense I think. A true "know-nothing" would be Vox Day, and there are few like that.
What Trump has been saying is not a lot like what he has been saying in the past, pre politics. So its likely to be tactical not a defining position.
Trump just has a good feel for the public mood. He figured he could get ahead of a strong strain of sentiment among much of the public, which most traditional politicians could not touch as it would hurt their fundraising. He can mostly ignore such concerns.
"The Know Nothing label is appropriate. Instead of fearing Catholics, he and his followers fear Islam."
All the candidates are working with fear of Islamic terrorists, so that doesn't make him special. There's some fine tuning on the topic, and they all are trying to win hearts that are not entirely rational. Don't pretend the others don't do it too or that there is no rationality in him. I'm really tired of these exaggerations. I originally disliked Trump so much I refused to say his name when I felt I had to blog something related to him. That was last summer. Now, I feel like defending him, because the attacks on him are so crude.
The "Know-Nothing" label is bad because 95% of Americans think it's just another way to say ignorant. Those know nothings!
Althouse has recognized crude attacks on Trump and now will write his name.
When will Althouse recognize the truth of the attacks on Hillary and begin to refuse writing her name?
I'm guessing three years after voting for Hillary, which leaves a year to reconsider, and vote for Hillary again. Because she's a WOMAN!
I, for one, look forward to the Hillary presidency, when every day that a nuke does not explode in a US city is a victory for my expectations of her administration.
In the progressives world, Trump is a threat.
But Islam, being an expansionist, Imperialist, supremacist religious creed where gays are killed, civil liberties are routinely outlawed as "heretical" and women are chattel that can be raped with impunity even in the countries where the "moderate" ones are in control? Not a threat at all.
It is routine for Progressives to call anyone in the GOP "stupid". This is yet more of the same.
When this 'intellectual' name calling doesn't work perhaps they capitalize on the Star Wars wave. Call Trump a Moof-Milker, Scruffy Looking Nerfherder or Bantha Fodder.
Trump isn't tapping fear, he is tapping anger.
God but these journalist people are trying hard are they not?
We don't fear Mexicans. We just don't want to become Mexico.
We don't fear Muslims. We just want to be able to defend ourselves from them.
What we fear is a wealthy elite that is hell bent on taking our freedom and turning this country into a borderless plutocracy where you have to be politically connected to get ahead and donations to the ruling party are the key to success.
Trump can't be called a "Know Nothing" because he doesn't deny the things he's being accused of Know-Nothingism over.
I'm not fond of Trump--in part because he's a blustering buffoon, and in part because he's as big a narcissist as the current occupant of the Oval Office.
But all of that bluster speaks to a deep resentment in flyover country of the condescension of our ruling class--our "betters" who know what's "good for us". If you look at the results of what our coastal elite ruling class has done, things aren't working out too well. The old joke about how baby's diapers and politicians are alike---in that you need to change them often and for the same reason, seems to be appropriate now. It's time for a change. Now if or when Trump ascends to the Presidency, it may well prove to be a case of "Same old sh@t, different day."
Will I vote for Trump---probably not. But if it's a case of Trump versus Hillary, I will NOT be voting for Hillary.
" Instead of the Pope ordering society, he stokes the fear of Sharia Law. "
You are right. Instead of being afraid of Sharia law we should wipe it out. There is nothing defensible about Sharia law. It is fascism, misogyny, murder and hatred all in one package and completely antithetical to a modern liberal way of life.
Many know-nothing members were abolitionists, and some were in favor of women voting. They were anti-immigrant, but had a variety of responses to other issues....... Being anti-immigrant is one of America's oldest traditions. Cotton Mather complained about the heavy drinking and loudness of the new Scotch Irish arrivals--and who could blame him. Ben Franklin wasn't too fond of the "swarthy" German immigrants who found their way to Pennsylvania. He also complained of their noise and drunkenness. There's something about America that attracts people with drinking problems apparently.......One should note, however, that Germans aren't especially swarthy. Some will point to the example of Hitler, but he did what he could to overcome the stereotype of swarthiness by staying out of the sun. He was sometimes noisy, but he never drank to excess. In the final analysis, Hitler just goes to show how wrong Ben Franklin was in his casual stereotyping of Germans.
Trump is for abolishing political correctness in debates, and has found a way to do it.
Cassidy says Trump is "the latest representative of an anti-immigrant, nativist American tradition that dates back at least to the Know-Nothings of the eighteen-forties and eighteen-fifties."
The kind of 'anti-immigrant, nativist American tradition' Trump represents goes back no further than the 1990s.
I keep thinking that facists are bassoon players, but that's faggots.
"The "Know-Nothing" label is bad because 95% of Americans think it's just another way to say ignorant. Those know nothings!"
If I recall correctly, the "Know Nothing" movement got its name because they were originally formed somewhat in secrecy, and- when asked by outsiders about their organization, activities, etc.- would always respond "I know nothing about that." It wasn't supposed to imply that they were ignorant, but that they were secretive.
"He's not a Fascist, he's a Know-Nothing"
This doesn't work for several reasons. Think about comparisons -- he's not a Nazi, he's just a meany. Or, -- He's not a racist, he's just an "A$@hole."
It doesn't work. The acquittal of the antecedent charge, negates the minor infraction that comes next, even if true.
Second, as AA notes above, "Know-Nothings" were from the Millard Fillmore era for chrissake. Nobody even knows what it means or thinks it means generally ignorant.
If Trump is so ignorant, why is he so rich?
Feeble, feeble news-analysis at the New Yorker? What a surprise.
If Trump got rid of political correctness as the sole form of debate, the New Yorker would have more topics to write about.
You will not stop Tromp by calling him names. That's been proved. Some people think that's because he appeals to the facists and know-nothings in the Republican Party, and that calling him such names will work in the general election where most voters are liberals and moderates. Those people may have a surprise in store for them.
To stop Tromp you need to take seriously the concerns of the voters that he appeals to and show that another candidate cares about those concerns, too, but can address them more effectively. Someone really needs to try that.
America went downhill ever since we started taking in papists.
But you are missing the key ingredient in the American cultural Tradition. That is a belief in the Providence of the "supernatural" God described in the King James Bible translation of Scripture given to The Hebrew Prophetsthat and is always Trusted.
It was, and may be again, our Oracle at Delphi consulted by leaders before making momentous decisions. The FACT that Muslims despise that cultural tradition over all and see their role in its annihilation as their sole Raison D'etre is not a mystery at all. The mystery is why the Communists like Obama hate it too, but Putin goes with it.
Let's see. No time for parliamentary democracy or limited government, preferring the incarnation of the popular will in a great leader, systematic violence without constitutional constraint, faith in collective action and political mobilization -- where do we find such a person or party?
"I'm really tired of these exaggerations" You are, are you? Time to change your approach. Expect Progs to lie and exaggerate, yawn, and be pleasantly surprised to find an honest one here and there.
Trump represents a healthy American trait of identifying a wrong ( without the PC mumbo jumbo) and refusing to accept it. He may do this from the crassest of motives, but he represents a healthy aspect of American politics.
I'm surprised that the New Yorker would bother with Trump right now. A Trump nomination would be the greatest electoral gift to an opposing party since the Democrats nominated Eagleton for Vice President.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/minorities-line-up-behind-donald-trump/
Pundits might point to billionaire Donald Trump’s huge lead in the GOP presidential primary race as being the result of his generally anti-Washington, anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-politically correct attitude.
If so, it’s not just whites who are ticked at the bureaucracy, but minorities too.
Because a new poll, which still has Trump leading the race, shows 40 percent of blacks are lining up behind Trump, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, and even nearly 19 percent of Asians.
I don't think any of the fevered explanations are working very well.
Cassidy says Trump is "the latest representative of an anti-immigrant, nativist American tradition that dates back at least to the Know-Nothings of the eighteen-forties and eighteen-fifties."
I won't hold my breath waiting for Cassidy to advocate the repeal of the Blaine Laws.
Tradition is an imposition and a choice.
If it isn't both, it's not tradition.
A man in a "know nothing" popular culture who succeeded without the old connections and affirmative action that create an illusion of achievement for men (and women) in a narrative state.
His pro-human policies recognize the dignity and value of individual human lives that is rejected by the pro-immigrant and class diversity policies of amoral and immoral men (and women).
His pro-life philosophy defies the popular pro-choice cult that denies the science of human life and human rights of wholly innocent lives at a uniquely vulnerable stage in our development.
A leader, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and father. It's clear why less accomplished men and women would be envious of his life.
Not only are the attacks crude, the American public seems to have reached a tipping point on the recognition of media bullshit and the attacks only seem to stengthen him. But the attackers can't help themselves; they can't stop. It's very entertaining to watch this dynamic play out.
I suspect that many people are like me and don't have Trump anywhere near their favortie but enjoy his working over of the media. I think his effect is a net positive for the GOP and that he eventually endorses Cruz.
Remember that political correctness is only playing for 40% of women, and no men. That's how Trump succeeds. The other people like him.
Perhaps this will come out in an obvious form and PC will suddenly end in massive ridicule.
Being called a know nothing helps Trump with a huge swath of the American electorate who take great pride in being know nothing, dumbasses.
I think I like Sgt. Ted's first,
"As opposed to the "professionals" who are presiding over a disastrous foreign policy, idiotic collectivist pipe dreams, looting the treasury to pay off cronies and enacting policy that the voters specifically elected them to oppose. All the while pissing on us and telling us to enjoy the rain.
"
Cassidy says Trump is "the latest representative of an anti-immigrant, nativist American tradition that dates back at least to the Know-Nothings of the eighteen-forties and eighteen-fifties."
Lets not forget FDR and the Davis-Bacon Act. Got to keep the Blacks down South and not immigrate to the North and steal our unionized overpriced government building contracts.
Hey Donald, show your concern for minority construction workers and permanently waive the Act for federal and federally subsidized projects.
Char Char Binks said...
America went downhill ever since we started taking in papists.
Look out Itchy! He's Irish!
Could it be that who Trump resembles is Clinton?
Not Hillary!, but Bill, and perhaps with "bimbos" but not "bimbo eruptions."
The important thing is to label him. Once he is labeled, we no longer have to think about it.
If "better than nothing is a high standard," is it better to know nothing than to know a lot of things that ain't so?
Asking for a friend.
This is the original Umberto Eco piece that Douthat referenced in his "proto-fascist" column some weeks past: http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf
This section speaks to the evolution of movements and traditions, which seems relevant to Althouse's points:
1 2 3 4
abc bcd cde def
Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one
since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
If you read through the rest of Eco's piece you will see his proposed common elements of fascism, some of which seem to match Trump and his supporters and some which do not. Some you have to set aside for now because they represent what fascist movements do when they are in power. In the case of Trump we can only speculate.
My criticism of Trump is not that he *is* these things (we can't really know), but that he is historically careless about how close he gets. His equivocation on Putin's killing of journalists should at least set off a tiniest of alarms.
The fact that some Trump critics go too far does not mean there is nothing there.
Blogger Achilles said...
We don't fear Mexicans. We just don't want to become Mexico.
We don't fear Muslims. We just want to be able to defend ourselves from them.
What we fear is a wealthy elite that is hell bent on taking our freedom and turning this country into a borderless plutocracy where you have to be politically connected to get ahead and donations to the ruling party are the key to success.
12/29/15, 10:18 AM
Nailed it. Regarding a fear of Islam, seems justified in that we aren't facing a murderous onslaught from the militant Amish or radical Methodists.
I do not "like" Trump as he is a "Blowhard"; But, he does have some very good ideas.
The real Fascists are such as "Executive Order" Obama and "The Lie" Hillary.
It seems to me that Trump's central message is that our leaders are 1) stupid, 2) corrupt, and 3) incompetent. He doesn't go so far as to claim that they are 1) lawless and 2) self serving, but a good case could be made for that as well.
The failure of our immigration system to keep bad guys out and let good guys in through a legal process, the multiple failures of our foreign policy (Libya, Egypt, Ukraine, Crimea, Iraq, Syria and soon to be Afghanistan), the failure to address Islamic terrorism are simply testimony to Trump's central message.
A message that strangely seems to resonate with quite a few people.
That is, Trump has a talent for "getting out in front of the parade," which is the important thing, and he likes women as people, not just "sex objects."
garage mahal said...
Being called a know nothing helps Trump with a huge swath of the American electorate who take great pride in being know nothing, dumbasses.
12/29/15, 10:55 AM"
Let me guess our boy Garage has got the Bern. A true know nothing (in the literal sense) and invincible in his know nothingness and out, loud and proud of it. Of course if that fails he has Plan B which is vote for the other no nothing, learn nothing grifter and criminal Hillary Clinton.
The wife and I were in Munich and Salzburg for the Christmas markets and Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps for Christmas. On the way back to from Garmisch to the Munich airport, we decided to visit the former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau to pay our respects to its victims. Walking through the museum, the barracks and on to the gas chambers and crematorium, all the while considering the manifest evil and pure depravity of the real facists who created that hell on earth, I developed a new appreciation for the terms "fascist" and "NAZI." It was also the strongest possible argument for gun ownership rights among citizens that I could imagine, and I suspect all of the defenseless people who met their end there or in another such camp would have given anything for the means to fight their arrests. Standing defenselessly and watching your family being beaten, starved, abused and worked to death would tend to turn anyone into a "gun nut." Regardless, I for one will never again throw the words "facist" or "NAZI" around so casually, and I think I have become a "gun nut", myself.
Cassidy writes: "Fascism, in its original form, had no time for parliamentary democracy, peace, or limited government. It exalted “direct democracy”—the incarnation of the popular will in a great leader— ..."
Hmm, kind of like someone with a phone and a pen maybe?
ecause a new poll, which still has Trump leading the race, shows 40 percent of blacks are lining up behind Trump, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, and even nearly 19 percent of Asians.
I don't believe this because WND. But it may be fake but accurate and that explains why they are mobilizing Obama to attack Trump.
The Know Nothings were an anti Catholic immigrant of the 1850s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing In trying to get your beloved Donnie out of the frying pan, you threw him on the fire. The point is moot, once he loses in Iowa, he's complaining about media and then back to suckling in NBC's teat.
Dan Hossley said...
It seems to me that Trump's central message is that our leaders are 1) stupid, 2) corrupt, and 3) incompetent. He doesn't go so far as to claim that they are 1) lawless and 2) self serving, but a good case could be made for that as well."
Spot on. That's Trump's winning edge. He pointed out that emperor has no clothes which is undeniably visible to all those who aren't willfully blind. Indeed your description matches Hillary Clinton to a T (pun intended).
So, the liberals are promoting the know-nothing scare? BTW, is it fair to say that Obama and the liberals are closest to good old communist thugs?
yet they were one of the three constituent groups of the new Republican party, he's not expected to win Iowa, but place reasonably,
, or not entirely, anyway.
As the New York Times once wrote about another candidate for President, "we love him for the enemies he has made." The Times needs to check its own archives -- Grover Cleveland won that election.
Everybody is against illegal immigration.
Why wouldn't you be?
The reason they "don't know what it means" is that they don't like the actual meaning and practice and want to use it to mean "thing I don't like".
Being called a know nothing helps Trump with a huge swath of the American electorate who take great pride in being know nothing, dumbasses.
No joke. Obama won two terms with them as his base.
I would consider myself a bigot if I stereotyped immigrants in the crass and hateful way that liberals characterize Trump supporters.
Garage, a true know-nothing about just about everything, jumps in and exposes his own ignorance as to precisely why the "Know Nothings" were called Know Nothings.
Thanks garage! No day would be complete without another garage self-beclowning!
Btw, if you believe garage will research to understand how he has beclowned himself so as to avoid doing it again, you would be mistaken.
His ignorance is proudly invinceable!
The irony of five deferrments, three wives, and liar of the year award is completely lost on his dopey following.
All the candidates are working with fear of Islamic terrorists, so that doesn't make him special.
That may be true, but Trump is the only candidate who suggested banning all Muslims from entering the country, even apparently U.S. citizens (granted he did kind of walk that last part back a bit). He is the most extreme of an extreme bunch.
Speaking of the "liar of the year award" - Garage, did you believe when he said 36 times in 4 years: "if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance"?
Garage fails the understanding-the-meaning-of-irony test.
Unexpectedly.
There is nothing more ironic than an under-educated buffoon like garage who exposes his ignorance while attempting to paint others as idiots!
Again, thanks garage!
Note for our middle-schooler: the "Know Nothings" didnt actually know nothing. Lol
Most people who support simply think he is a better choice than Hillary and has the best chance of winning.
Libtards still bitch about draft deferments even as they run Sanders and Clinton.
The public expression of anti-native sentiment has revealed the prejudice of [class] diversity schemes that are used to deny individual dignity and civil rights. The consequences of the social justice activism in The Middle East and North Africa created a humanitarian disaster that has progressed to Europe and America. It's probably not a coincidence that the anti-native movement is notably pro-choice in their support for elective abortion and defense of clinical cannibalism by Planned Parenthood et al.
"In the progressives world, Trump is a threat."
That WND poll, while it may be suspect, is now linked by Drudge. It will scare the shit out of progs like garage and Freder.
I don't like Trump and still think that Cruz or Rubio might be the nominee but the left is dead wrong about Trump's appeal.
I think Jim Treacher put it nicely:
"Clearly, he’s not playing the same game as anybody else in either party. I’m still not ready to embrace the idea of Trump as the Republican candidate for president, but I’m not going to deny that it’s possible. It could happen. And if it does, we all need to understand how he did it. We need to accept the possibility that we’re the dumb ones, not Trump. We need to come to grips with the idea that he’s playing three-dimensional chess while the rest of us are playing checkers. With mittens on. In the dark."
"Originally used as a collective noun for the murderous, revolutionary hypernationalist movements that emerged in Europe from the embers of the First World War, the word is often employed today as a catch-all term of abuse for right-wing racists and rabble-rousers."
Actually it's a catch-all term of abuse by the Stupid Left (where Saul Alinsky meets the Dumbest Generation) for anyone who opposes their agenda. In their world--that strange red-sun Bizarro planet where statist economics always bring prosperity and the law of Supply and Demand has been repealed--"fascism" consists of OPPOSING statism.
The tradition that resonates for me in Trump is iconoclasm. That alone is not enough to make him an effective president, but it's a very nice start. I'm still waiting to see if he can deliver the rest. A good test will be whether he can master all the non bombastic details necessary to win delegates and dominate the convention. Don't sell him short.
Garage: The irony of five deferrments, three wives, and liar of the year award is completely lost on his dopey following.
If someone wants the unenviable task of trying to teach our resident idiot what the word "irony" means (and how to spell 'deferment'), now's as good a time as any.
If Donald Trump isn't a fascist, how about calling him a Know-Nothing?
John Cassidy, in The New Yorker, tries "Donald Trump Isn’t a Fascist; He’s a Media-Savvy Know-Nothing."
If Cassidy is so smart, how come he ain't rich?
Why do deferments matter?
Why do three wives, none of whom speak ill of the man, matter?
Never mind explaining why "Liar of the Year" would matter. You didn't keep your plan or your doctor and health insurance price increases have not slowed.
Can one be beclowned by other than oneself?
It should be enough to criticize what Trump proposes (which generally seems to be off the cuff, stream of consciousness rather than carefully considered proposals) as being idiotic, unlawful, collectivist or counterproductive without having to go over the top with this "fascist" talk. If he's a fascist, then so are several of the candidates for president, including Hillary of course (who never saw a power grab she never approved of) and existing president Obama (who does not appear to be too concerned about the rule of law when deciding not to let a crisis go to waste).
But even the worst of them has nothing on FDR, who among other things actually put American citizens in concentration camps and took away their property, depriving them of due process, simply for their racial origins. If Trump is a "fascist" then isn't FDR something far worse? And if so, can we take his name off of things as we apparently decided to do with Woodrow Wilson?
If that's over-the-top because it's folly to compare FDR to the dictators we fought against in the '40s, then let's dispense with the "F word" for everyone else running this year.
The irony of five deferrments, three wives, and liar of the year award is completely lost on his dopey following.
You want to compare draft dodging stories given the Dem frontrunner and her husband's history of it?
And, is being a doormat while you're husband rapes and fucks underlings with impunity REALLY what feminism is all about?
That may be true, but Trump is the only candidate who suggested banning all Muslims from entering the country, even apparently U.S. citizens (granted he did kind of walk that last part back a bit). He is the most extreme of an extreme bunch.
Can you list the benefits of increased Muslim immigration to the US? And why are Dems so opposed to bringing in Christians from the ME who are being massacred?
The US has severely restricted immigration since 1924. It made a specific exception to these restrictions in the late 1940s for 500,000 refugees displaced from Eastern Europe as a result of WW2. The US has limited legal immigration from Mexico since 1965 (before then there was no restriction on immigration from the other countries in the Americas).
About 1% of Muslim Americans (citizens and green card holders) are listed in the TSDB (the FBI database of suspected terrorists). The 9/11 terrorists were all here legally (most on tourist visas and one on a student visa) and Tasfin Malik came to the US legally on a fiancée visa.
Those who support amnesty are basically for repealing the 50 year old restrictions on migration from Mexico. But instead of repealing those restrictions through the legislative processes, they are for undermining the rule of law.
And instead of restricting immigration and visitation of Muslims to the US, even temporarily, they are in favor of maintaining a secret database that is filled mostly with Muslims. (The vast majority of names have been added to the TSDB during the Obama administration). So the government is telling us Muslims are not a problem while they are adding even more Muslims to the terrorist database.
I'd say the Know Nothings are Obama, Hillary, Jeb, and Rubio. They favor things they don't want to admit to the public.
garage mahal calling someone a Know Nothing. There's irony for you. When I referred to the Stupid Left (where Saul Alinsky Meets the Dumbest Generation), ol' garage came immediately to mind.
What I have long enjoyed in regards to fascism is the left's logic, which seems to be that everyone hates fascists, and esp. Nazi type fascists, and since everyone also hates Republicans, or at least should hate them, then they are fascists. But, of course, they ignore that fascism, before almost anything else, was a socialist economic system developed to counter communism. And, yes, it was a crony capitalistic type of socialism where the central govt. does not actually own the means of production, like it does with communist style socialism does, but rather the means of production are left in the hands of their private owners as long as they do what the central govt. wants. And, in trade, the people running these big companies get special benefits - in Hitler's time, it was often free or below market labor. In ours, it has been reduction of patent royalties and protection from competition (esp. Dodd-Frank implemented in response to a screw up by large financial companies, but were ultimately given protection against smaller banks, instead of being broken up, because they were too big to fail, and had given Obama and Hillary many millions of dollars). While there have been plenty of Republicans at the gravy trough, and Trump doesn't appear to have been immune, it is, by far, much more something that is pushed by the top-down Democratic party.
Achilles: ...Instead of being afraid of Sharia law we should wipe it out. There is nothing defensible about Sharia law. ...
Agree, but
It is creeping into our legal system as we speak:
"American courts ... consider sharia in civil disputes—at least indirectly. Courts, for example, enforce contract terms requiring certain disputes be resolved through sharia-based arbitration. They also address sharia in domestic-relations cases, including those arising from relationships among Muslims in this country as well as those begun, and perhaps previously adjudged, overseas (i.e., in Muslim countries). And courts defer to Muslim officials when reviewing clerical or other intra-faith disputes. In the end, the results in these cases might differ from what civil law would otherwise require."
Excerpted from http://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1539&context=shlr
And why are Dems so opposed to bringing in Christians from the ME who are being massacred?
I didn't know we were. You are just making shit up.
Being called a know nothing helps Trump with a huge swath of the American electorate who take great pride in being know nothing, dumbasses.
In which GM affirms he is soldily in the 95%.
I'm guessing three years after voting for Hillary, which leaves a year to reconsider, and vote for Hillary again. Because she's a WOMAN!
But our hostess voted for the Romney/Ryan ticket. I made the same mistake awhile ago. She’s an independent voter.
America went downhill ever since we started taking in papists.
Moby alert?
A Trump nomination would be the greatest electoral gift to an opposing party since the Democrats nominated Eagleton for Vice President.
And I think Trump will trounce Hillary. Let’s meet here after the election and compare predictions.
Because a new poll, which still has Trump leading the race, shows 40 percent of blacks are lining up behind Trump, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, and even nearly 19 percent of Asians.
I’m a Trump supporter and believe he’ll do much better than expected among minorities and independents and will even get a sizeable amount of crossover but I’m going to need some confirmation of this with other polls before I pay much attention to this one.
Btw, I’m not very confident of the results of polls in general this political season. Most polling procedures are following a protocol developed during the pre-cellphone era. On-line polls are no answer to this cultural-technical change, either; such polls are too much the result of which demographic reads that particular blog.
I think a better albeit ostensibly a less precise measurement is the size of the rally crowds. Sanders draws pretty good. Hillary should be worried. But Trump’s giant rallies put them all to shame.
But the attackers can't help themselves; they can't stop. It's very entertaining to watch this dynamic play out.
I’ve been watching Morning Joe for 2 or 3 months. They haven’t a clue as to exactly what is happening but the host and hostess seem dimly aware that there is something very, very wrong in their neat little world. Joe alternates between faint praise which is actually criticism by implication and heated pimping of more conventional GOP candidates. Mika, the smarter of the two, seems to be continually stunned by Trump’s success. Their drug of choice is speculating about the ways that Trump could be brought down; they need an injection every episode.
I'm guessing three years after voting for Hillary, which leaves a year to reconsider, and vote for Hillary again. Because she's a WOMAN!
But our hostess voted for the Romney/Ryan ticket. I made the same mistake awhile ago. She’s an independent voter.
America went downhill ever since we started taking in papists.
Moby alert?
A Trump nomination would be the greatest electoral gift to an opposing party since the Democrats nominated Eagleton for Vice President.
And I think Trump will trounce Hillary. Let’s meet here after the election and compare predictions.
Because a new poll, which still has Trump leading the race, shows 40 percent of blacks are lining up behind Trump, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, and even nearly 19 percent of Asians.
I’m a Trump supporter and believe he’ll do much better than expected among minorities and independents and will even get a sizeable amount of crossover but I’m going to need some confirmation of this with other polls before I pay much attention to this one.
Btw, I’m not very confident of the results of polls in general this political season. Most polling procedures are following a protocol developed during the pre-cellphone era. On-line polls are no answer to this cultural-technical change, either; such polls are too much the result of which demographic reads that particular blog.
I think a better albeit ostensibly a less precise measurement is the size of the rally crowds. Sanders draws pretty good. Hillary should be worried. But Trump’s giant rallies put them all to shame.
But the attackers can't help themselves; they can't stop. It's very entertaining to watch this dynamic play out.
I’ve been watching Morning Joe for 2 or 3 months. They haven’t a clue as to exactly what is happening but the host and hostess seem dimly aware that there is something very, very wrong in their neat little world. Joe alternates between faint praise which is actually criticism by implication and heated pimping of more conventional GOP candidates. Mika, the smarter of the two, seems to be continually stunned by Trump’s success. Their drug of choice is speculating about the ways that Trump could be brought down; they need an injection every episode.
The problem for Republicans is that they lack an Abraham Lincoln, who wrote privately while publicly courting the Know-Nothing vote:
"I am not a Know-Nothing — that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
Brando: I am NOT, repeat NOT a fan of FDR. I think the downfall of the republic is to a large extent his doing. However; whatever one might think of the WW II internment policy, the Issei(SP?) and Nisei were not put into "concentration" camps, and they were not interned solely for their race. We were at war with a vicious and determined enemy. Reasonable people can argue about Executive Order 9066 and Korematsu; were they justified, mistaken, whatever? But don't distort what really happened.
I really love it when leftists complain that Republican candidates received draft deferments back in the olden times of the Viet Nam War. Most of the Republican candidates this year are too young to have been subject to the draft -- because Richard Nixon ended the draft in 1973. On the Democrat side, O'Malley is also too young, and Hillary! enjoyed the female privilege of being exempt from the draft. Tromp and Sanders are among the few candidates who were potential draft bait. I don't know how Bernie avoided the draft, and I don't know whether Tromp's deferments were legitimate or not.
But I will not pay any attention to lefties calling Republicans "chicken hawks" unless they certify that they voted for GHW Bush (a war hero) against Clinton (who avoided military service), and for Bob Dole (another war hero) against Clinton.
"Why do deferments matter?"
Because almost all Republicans that want endless wars pants - pissing chickenhawks when their country asked for their help? The list is long.
I don't know how Bernie avoided the draft
Conscientious objector for religious reasons.
Because Jews, apparently, don't fight or something.
News to Israel, I'd bet.
I'm really tired of these exaggerations
I've told everybody in the entire world a million times: Don't exaggerate!
"Because almost all Republicans that want endless wars pants - pissing chickenhawks when their country asked for their help? The list is long."
Do you have the list of rich Democrats (like John Kerry, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, George Soros) who pay their "fair share" in taxes?
Same people who want unending increases of taxes on the "richest 1%", do their best to pay as little as possible in taxes. Right?
And one more thing - any white liberals who support "diversity", "affirmative action", decry "white privilege" gave up their places in Ivy League schools for blacks?
And lastly, Obama and the entire liberal elite want Americans to send their kids to government run schools. This is why they object to vouchers, that give a way out of the government system. Yet, Obama sends his kids to private school, as most, if not all, rich liberals. Explain.
Ann Althouse said...
"I originally disliked Trump so much I refused to say his name when I felt I had to blog something related to him. That was last summer. Now, I feel like defending him, because the attacks on him are so crude.
12/29/15, 10:12 AM
Oh my. Althouse finds herself on the road to Trump!
She just might vote for him yet.
Because almost all Republicans that want endless wars pants - pissing chickenhawks when their country asked for their help? The list is long.
Hey, isn't noted non-veteran Obama sending troops to Iraq?
Didn't noted non-veteran Bill Clinton do the same?
Oh, sorry...only an issue for Republicans.
Garage
Trade you three deferments for six blowjobs in the Oval Office from underlings.
LOL Stand by your man, Garage, stand by your man.
Blogger Brando said...
It should be enough to criticize what Trump proposes (which generally seems to be off the cuff, stream of consciousness rather than carefully considered proposals)
You need to pay better attention. His proposals have been rather detailed and anything but stream of consciousness. You're confusing his speaking style with his actual, written down, proposals. Go to his website and read, you'll be surprised.
garage: "Because almost all Republicans that want endless wars pants - pissing chickenhawks when their country asked for their help? The list is long."
Says the adoring Bill Clinton fan. And Joe Biden fan.
And thanks for your service garage....oh, that's right. You're the guy who shat upon your own fathers service to his country.
And don't even get us started on Bernie Sanders "heroic" efforts at draft deferment during Vietnam.
Freder Frederson: "The Know Nothing label is appropriate. Instead of fearing Catholics, he and his followers fear Islam."
You should submit this thought for publication to the San Bernadino Sun newspaper.
This is for all the Trump fans
"I didn't know we were. You are just making shit up."
Says the lefty who doesn't know that Christians are excluded from refugee camps and thrown over board by Muslims.
The truth is that because of the way the selection process is handled the persecuted Christians are being excluded from the Middle East refugee camps that are the source of the candidates chosen for relocation. This is the reason that the majority of those we see in photos of the camps are young fighting-age men; if there are women they are wearing the hijab. These are not the persecuted Christians we are supposedly helping. Another example is a raft loaded with refugees that left Libya to enter Greece. When it arrived the 14 Christians who had been on board had all been thrown overboard and only Muslim passengers remained.
No matter. Reality is foreign to the left.
Trump is an old school centrist Dem who has seen the light on immigration. The GOP hates him because he is basically a centrist-Democrat. The Democrats hate him because he is running as a Republican and because his immigration views are heretical. In a world of progressive smarmy-marms, snarfy libertarians and cookie-cutter amnesty-pushing establishment Republicans, Trump is like the only alternative.
He can take voters away from Hillary. A lot of Democrats are not happy with the progressive direction of the party, especially the race-baiting, white guilt and sloganeering on behalf of identity politics. They recognize that Trump is ideologically not that different from Bill Clinton, and they will vote for him. The whole game with Trump is to get over the initial ridiculousness of "President Trump". Once over the hump, he becomes a viable candidate. The longer he stays in the light, the more people come over the hill.
Well, I'm a Vietnam-era veteran who does not advocate going to war in the Middle East. I favor "kinetic military action," like Obama did in Libya. That way we don't have to worry about formal declarations of war or the War Powers Act or even the Geneva Convention! How cool would that be?
Who's the know-nothing, Trump or Cassidy?
" 'Originally used as a collective noun for the murderous, revolutionary hypernationalist movements that emerged in Europe from the embers of the First World War....' "
Fun fact: our local German-Irish Catholic Church was bombed by the Know Nothings in the mid-1800s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing
Look, the immigration question is the issue just now. In the EU, too. What's the definition of a "far-Right" party in Europe? Well, there are actual far-Right parties (cf. Golden Dawn), but in general it means you oppose immigration and the European Union. Oh noes! That's what it means to be "far-Right." So UKIP and National Front and Lega Nord and the rest can just deal. If you twitch a finger against the European Union, you're a fascist. If you don't want unlimited immigration, you're a fascist.
I've just been re-reading some Chesterton columns from the 20s, and he argues very passionately for something I've also supported all my life. Which is (in the context of the 20s) let's have a League of Nations, only a real League of real Nations. Let France and England and Italy and Germany and the rest all participate, but as themselves. Let the French be French, the English English, the Greeks Greek, the Spanish Spanish, the Italians Italian. Let them be as different as possible. Please don't throw the lot into a blender with a pile of immigrants from Muslim lands all over and call it the EU.
But that's what we have now, yes?
OK, never mind.
" 'Originally used as a collective noun for the murderous, revolutionary hypernationalist movements that emerged in Europe from the embers of the First World War...' " was a reference to Fascists; my mistake.
In the end the case against Hillary is that she's a terrible manager and clueless about computer security. Trump at least is at least competent as a manager, and probably a great deal better than that.
So draft deferments matter because "garage mahal" says the word chickenhawks? Try logical reasoning, middle school football hero.
Try logical reasoning, middle school football hero.
Dude, get some new material. It's not even a factually correct attempted burn.
Funny thing about open-borders libertarians. They are convinced that every individual is the best at determining their own values and economic interests until that individual opposes open borders. Then they are suddenly stupid and can't be allowed to make up their own mind. Hey, libertarians, if working people are wrong about their economic interests regarding immigration (or drug legalization or whatever), your whole political enterprise is built on fraud!
A WND poll will "scare liberals"? Hahahahaha, oh my but you people are stupid. No liberal takes anything seriously that comes out of WND.
Michelle Dulak Thomson:
Far right also implies, apparently, an opposition to anti-native policies, including the refugee crisis created through expanded warfare and negligence, and the subsequent denial and shifting of a select population to other jurisdictions.
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