The Etiquette of Being a Trump Supporter

a reply to: Gothmog

No, I'm sure he meant relatives. Nobody refers to ISIS, for example as a family and if that's what he meant, then his policy wouldn't be a departure from what is being done now, anyway.

I think you are reaching with that analysis.

a reply to: ReadLeader

In both cases, it invites the media to put the inevitable follow-up question to Trump’s rivals in the GOP field: Do you agree with Trump that we should kill terrorists’ families? That’s a Catch-22 for someone like Ted Cruz. If he says yes, he’s endorsing collective punishment and going further than even a Republican superhawk like Dick Cheney went while in office. That’s not who Cruz, who supported the USA Freedom Act in the name of defending civil liberties, is supposed to be. If he says no, then he’s a squish who won’t do everything needed to deter terrorism, up to and including making a hard choice to liquidate a jihadi’s family if need be. Can Trump’s Jacksonian fans really trust a guy like that to be commander-in-chief?

Ted Cruz has slightly more self control than Donald Trump but of all the candidates, he has the most serious Christian extremist pedigree. His father Rafael (an evangelical pastor) goes all the way back with the Christian Right movement.

Huffington Post - Video: Ted Cruz Anointed by Antigay, Pro-Religious War Pastors (Dec 2013)

In the video, Tea Party potentate Ted Cruz is blessed by pastors who claim the Constitution is based on the Old Testament, appear to endorse biblical slavery, depict gay marriage as a socialist plot against the traditional family, and call for a Christian war on secular society.

The following is excerpts from the above link are Rafael Cruz speaking in August of 2013 at a religious rally in Iowa:

"[in 1979] I became very involved in an organization called the Religious Roundtable. The Religious Roundtable was a Judeo-Christian organization that mobilized millions of Christians all across the United States and helped elect Ronald Reagan. It was a precursor of the Tea Party, even before the Moral Majority."

Socialism requires that government becomes your god. That's why they have to destroy the concept of God. They have to destroy all loyalties except loyalty to the government. That's what's behind homosexual marriage. It's really about the destruction of the traditional family than about exalting homosexuality -- because you need to destroy, also, loyalty to the traditional family."

"Have you ever heard of the 'Black Robe Regiment'? The Black Robe Regiment were a series of pastors that wore long black robes, many of them had the Continental Army uniform underneath the black robe. They would preach on Sunday, take off that robe, and with half their congregation they would go out and fight for independence."

They have a whole revisionist/fraudulent history that makes religious warriors out of the FF. They're in deep with the dominionists who are essentially theocrats that believe God has granted them dominion over everything and everyone. When I have the time to do it, I'm going to make an infographic that shows all the connections between these extremists and politicians but suffices to say Rafael Cruz was in at ground zero of the movement when it was first taking off in 1979.

You may remember this other crap his father was saying that year. Here's some excerpts from

Praise God. What a blessing. The pastor referred to Proverbs 24:13, a little while ago, which says that the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the Kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur.

God, even though he's sovereign, even though he's omnipotent - he doesn't just let it rain out of the sky; he's gonna use people to do it.

If you remember, the last time I was on this pulpit I talked to you about Genesis chapter 1 verse 28, where God says unto Adam and Eve, "go forth, multiply, take dominion over all creation."

And if you will recall, we talked about the fact that that dominion is not just in the Church. That dominion is over every area: society, education, government, economics.

But there is a second anointing. And it's the anointing of priests. I mean of kings - kings who are anointed for a totally different reason than priests. Kings who are anointed to take dominion. Kings who are anointed to go to war, win the war, and bring the spoils of war to the priests, so the work of the kingdom of God could be accomplished.

Basically since at least the age of 8, Ted Cruz has been told that he was chosen by God to be an "anointed king" who will "take dominion" over... ermm.. everything. He was molded (and brainwashed) from a very young age by his well connected extremist father to become a politician who could advance their agenda. One who unlike Reagan and other Republicans, wasn't somebody they would have to settle for influencing with money and votes but instead, a 'true believer' who would be utterly loyal to their agenda.

I'll plug a couple of my recent threads from the last month or so dealing with this issue:

Radical Christianity — Pastor Who Hosted GOP: Paris Victims 'Devil-Worshippers'
Three GOP Candidates Speaking At Hate Monger's Bigotry Fest

As bad as Trump is, Cruz is even worse.

a reply to: ipsedixit

I think all of Trump's statements should be taken seriously, fact checked and that he should be called on his absurdities.

No offense, but it's not like Trump is the first candidate to say BS stuff...this could apply to every politician that ever ran (Pres/Senate/Congress) and there would be plenty more from them than Trump I'm afraid

Hell, Obama himself does not have a very good track record when it comes to telling the truth
But neither did Bush (both) or Clinton (both Clinton's)

It's all part of the game
Not limited to just one guy
Or one political party

a reply to: snarky412

I think there is a difference with Trump. I agree that all politicians are loose with the truth, but it is the overall tone of what Trump is saying that bothers me. The tone is not of hope, or idealism or aspiration. It is of grievance.

That is a first in American politics, during my lifetime at least. There is a dangerous precedent for that tone in Europe of the 1920s.

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: Gothmog

No, I'm sure he meant relatives. Nobody refers to ISIS, for example as a family and if that's what he meant, then his policy wouldn't be a departure from what is being done now, anyway.

I think you are reaching with that analysis.

I think I remember stating possibly ?

a reply to: ipsedixit

Though you painted a drastic picture of a hypothetical situation of pure abjection, get real.

Just because the man Trump says outrageous and terrible things sometimes, because there is no real filter between his brain and his mouth, doesn't mean we should take this as gospel.

People say crazy stuff sometimes, and if your not anally retentive with your script and 100% consciously aware of the nuances of this ever-evolving insanity called modern life, then sometimes you sound like a psychotic lunatic.

But look at this way, lets say you, me and everyone else wanted to vote for Ron Paul.
- well Ron Paul says he's against abortion and that he's pro life, should we be worried he's going to make abortion illegal?
Of course not, but we still want him to be the president.

Same thing with Trump, just because he says that he'd do this or that outrageous thing doesn't mean that he could or will, it just means - wow, ok…

Regardless, wouldn't you be proud seeing this non politician, super businessman, world leader wheeling and dealing our way back to the top?

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: interupt42

He really needs to control his mouth.

People have a choice, an awkward choice in the Republican Party. Take this guy seriously and work like hell to defeat him or take his pronouncements with a grain of salt, knowing that they are voting for a "pig in a poke".

I'm not sure who, if anyone Trump is working for but what I can say is that he's dividing the party into a three way scramble between the tea party vote, the establishment vote, and the idiot vote. Tough talk sells well with a particular demographic and Trump has a lot of that. The TP is cringing at him, and the establishment is terrified that he might actually win.

Trump is not electable to do the general population. If he gets the nomination the Democrats will be handed a super majority, and the Republican party will likely fracture into multiple smaller parties. Trump worries me because completely in line with his fascist rhetoric, if he makes the ticket and the Republicans lose we're going to be left with a 1 party system.

a reply to: ipsedixit


Sounds like Trump is ripping off Obama's policy. Drone strike large groups of people to kill a suspected terrorist. If you kill innocent people, well, they weren't innocent.

originally posted by: NowWhat

. . . it just means - wow, ok ...

Regardless, wouldn't you be proud seeing this non politician, super businessman, world leader wheeling and dealing our way back to the top?

I think most Americans (I am not an American except in the sense of being born in North America.) would certainly like to see that, but, the number one thing to keep in mind when you are listening to Donald Trump is that he is a salesman, a huckster who talks in run-on sentences, which means that you are going to have to let him blow and then later on, after the blow has blown over, go out and fact check every single thing he says.

Fortunately the internet makes that an easy thing to do nowadays.

American politicians have been creating boogie-men to scare American voters forever. Trump is not an innovator in that sense. What's new is his boogie-man of choice, China.

In a recent interview with America's greatest dramatic actor, Alex Jones, Trump put China's greatest crimes on display for voters. Those crimes, according to Trump, are running a trade suplus with the United States, investing in the Iraqi oil industry and investing in the Afghan mining industry.

(Side note: Jones is America's greatest dramatic actor because he sat there, during the interview, with a straight face, and let Trump tell him that bin Laden knocked down the World Trade Center on 9/11, a stupid notion that Alex has been debunking for well over a decade.)

When Trump talks about China, he sounds like a demagogic simpleton. Here are some examples from the interview with Alex "Olivier" Jones.

"We're gonna take back our jobs, we're gonna take back our manufacturing. We're gonna take back our base, but they'll (China will) like us more than they do now. Sort of amazing."

This is a great example of the kind of thing Trump says that goes completely unanalyzed.

What does he intend to do, exactly, because China is not solely responsible for the trade situation with the United States? Far from forcing radical changes in the way that China does business, Trump will have to go into the offices of Walmart and tell their CEO to get a new business plan because they are no longer going to be allowed to be the face of Chinese capitalism in the United States and Walmart won't be the only American business that will have to wake up and smell the coffee, if Trump actually does what he says he is going to do.

But that won't be as easy as he makes it sound.

Trump says, "We have a 450 billion dollar trade deficit with China."

He's right. How did that happen?

fortune.com...

U.S. trade deficit with China reaches all-time (monthly) high

The rise was due mostly to an increase in imports, ( My note: "Helloooo, Walmart!") which skyrocketed by 7.7%, while exports increased just 0.9%. The U.S. (My note: monthly) trade deficit with China was $37.8 billion, or 74% of the total and the highest ever monthly deficit with that country on record.

In fact, the US has been running ever increasing trade deficits with China since before 1985, i.e., for the past 30 years. I agree with Trump that something has to be done about this, but there is nothing in his approach that makes me think that he is capable of handling the problem peacefully.

The American and Chinese economies are highly symbiotic and getting rough and tough about that relationship would be like one Siamese twin deciding to beat the other Siamese twin up. It's just not a sane option. This is another example of where Trump's attitudes and "hypothetical" policies are dissociated from reality.

China's trade surplus/US trade deficit figures with China, can be seen at the link below:

www.census.gov...

Details on America's symbiotic relationship with China, its Siamese Twin like association with the world's largest economy, are at the following link in an easily read summary:

useconomy.about.com...

As Trump said in his interview with Alex Jones, "I'm the most militaristic person there is . . . "

Unfortunately, as American history since 1963 teaches us, you can make war or you can do business, but you can't do both, unless you are committed, as Trump says he is, to increased spending on the military, basing your economic activity on arms procurement and foreign military adventurism, i.e., war.

I have more to say about the Alex Jones interview, but I am going to pick on my guitar for a while. Mr. Trump will have to wait a bit for further remarks.

I am looking forward to the etiquette of a Clinton supporter thread after this. I mean, most of the times Dems will hold their noses just so the Reps don't win the presidency but at this point I think the stink of this woman is too great for even them to withstand.

originally posted by: ipsedixit


"We're gonna take back our jobs, we're gonna take back our manufacturing. We're gonna take back our base, but they'll (China will) like us more than they do now. Sort of amazing."

All fair points, but I think the overall "idea" we should be thinking about is not that he has any plans to do any of these things, but he has the gumption to go in this direction.
The direction of a bully that is sticking up for his fellows and forcing action and demanding results through quazi-hostile actions towards other companies (countries).

Even though he may have no ideas on how to do any of these things that he spouts off, he's still thinking the right way.
He will be surrounded by a group of intelligent strategist and generals that will guide his new direction for America.

He's sick and tired of loosing (seeing his country loose).
He doesn't understand how all these PC pussies made it to the position that should be held by no-nonsense sons of bithces.
He really had no choice but to roll up his sleeves and do what he can afford to and should.

I think he is sincerely pissed off and can't take it anymore.

And he needs your support.

Edit: I actually want Sanders to be the next POTUS.

However, I'm pretty sure he won't make it on ballot. If he did, that would be fantastic and I'm going all in for Bernie.

Felling this way, I feel the need to promote Trump and through these posts throughout this site, hopefully work some logic into the madness. Damage control, if you will.

To jheated and NowWhat, I hear ya.

Trump is a conundrum to me. I think he is the kind of bonehead who hasn't a clue but when you throw him into a fight, he will fight like hell and most often win.

The problem is the kind of fight he and any US President faces in office and the kind of weapons that are available to them

To chart a new course that differs in any meaningful way from America's course over the last couple of decades, Trump will have to be the most innovative and shrewd American President in history. Frankly I don't see it.

Maybe, he will be elected and maybe I will be pleasantly surprised, but the odds are against it, I think.

I honestly don’t know what goes through the head of these trumpeters.

Least on ATS I can see who is a idiot and who is not based on there support of Trump.

a reply to: NowWhat

I think he is sincerely pissed off and can't take it anymore.

And he needs your support.

Eventually the Donald will get around to insulting enough groups that his support base will be composed of adolescent male, southern, white vollyball players with big ears. Not quite enough to get the GOP nomination.

I personally can't support him because I know eventually he will get around to insulting bald, myopic, paunchy middle aged men with IQs over 95. It's just not fair that any man like Trump can be so handsome. Perhaps it's a jealously thing idk.

I have come to the conclusion that Donald Trump is the Real life equivalent of Zaphod Beeblebrox...

He is proving the what the lie of the Office of the President is by running his campaign as if it is and election for the Worst dressed being in the galaxy. Showing that the Contest is not on Substance but on fame.

If the news is not about him he finds a way to make the News be about him so his name is heard more then the other candidates.

And if he makes the Media and the establishment both sides GoP and DnC have twisted panties and black eyes for it that only feeds his popularity and Name Recognition.

At this point the way he has gone after the media and his detractors he now has reached the point where he can not commit political suicide with his own or someone elses words unless he says I quit like Ross Perot did.



CoBaZ

The problem that happens when someone like Trump becomes President, someone who shoots from the lip in a disorganized way, and whom one usually takes with "a grain of salt", as a previous poster put it, is that at some point in the "babble time line", distinct orders must be given.

As a poster said, when President, Trump will have expert advisors who will help him make decisions. Trump himself, however, has said, referencing his large personal fortune and consequent immunity from lobbyists and financial backers:

"Nobody is gonna control me. I'm gonna do what's right for you (Alex Jones) and the American people."

That brings us back to Donald himself, not his advisors. As George W. Bush put it, as President, he's the "decider".

We're driven back to the "babble time line", which is a reflection of Donald Trump's mind. At some point on the babble time line, the last bit of babble will be an order transmitted to somebody who won't have the option of taking it "with a grain of salt".

If you have a Presidential candidate running for the nomination of his Party and your default position is to take his policy pronouncements with "a grain of salt" and to support him on faith alone, what kind of political process is that? It is a process driven, not by policy, but by demagogy.

Here are some statements/positions/views voiced by Trump or by Alex Jones, which Trump did not dispute.

Trump thinks it's disgraceful that "radical Muslims" were celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center. Apparently there was some kind of press uproar because Trump asserted that this happened. No mention was made in the same context of the Alex Jones interview of "dancing Israelis" celebrating the fall of the WTC.

Trump's policy response in that context was the need for more surveillance on mosques. Not a word about Mossad.

Alex Jones said, that Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany (the "admitted socialist") has made a deal with Turkey to bring "millions of radical Islamicists that basically invaded Syria" into Europe.

Except for the possibility that Merkel is likely a socialist (virtually all politicians outside the United States, particularly in Europe, are socialists) the rest of the statement is an outrageous, completely inaccurate falsehood.

This brought no challenge from Trump.

(See note at bottom for accurate details on the Merkel/Erdogan agreement.)

Does Trump agree with Jones's misrepresentation of the facts about Merkel's agreement with the Turkish President? Does he simply not know what Merkel and the Turkish President have discussed regarding refugees? We don't know. It's a specific issue that Donald Trump appears to have no facts and no position on, except that he doesn't challenge Alex Jones's misrepresentation of the Merkel/Erdogan discussions.

Trump had a bizarre characterization of the President's participation in the climate conference currently underway in Europe. He says that the President is "over there" "celebrating . . . getting people excited about" global warming, our, according to the President, "number one problem".

That's Donald the Promoter's interpretation of what happens at big international conferences.

His own evaluation of America's Number One Problem is that Islamic zealots who want to blow up American buildings and cities are America's Number One Problem. That, quite simply, is a joke. That's George W. Bush and the military industrial complex all over again.

Note: Merkel/Erdogan Agreement

www.lefigaro.fr...

Translated excerpt:

Europeans Sunday gave a half hearted green light with € 3 billion in aid for Turkey, which will in turn slow down the arrival of refugees in Greece. This is a success for the combined efforts of Angela Merkel and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For others, the summit did not dispel two concerns: the extent of the concessions made in Ankara and the ambition of Berlin for the "resettlement" of more Syrians across the EU, through a new quota system.

Turkey ignored by Europeans for years, has had a "fifteen minutes of fame". "This is a historic day for our process of accession (to the EU). We will forge the destiny of the continent," has assured a smiling Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on his arrival in Brussels. His interlocutors,like François Hollande, insist on the respect of "commitments", above all, a measurable decline of illegal crossings across the Aegean Sea.

Along the same line, Merkel, at the same time, increased the pressure on her European partners.

Germany, overwhelmed with over 800,000 arrivals since the beginning of the year, wants to "replace illegal immigration with legal immigration," direct from Turkey to the EU. Scenarios cited in the German press evoke from 300,000 to 500,000 of these "resettlements" organized, to be shared in the coming years, beyond the 160,000 approved in September. None of the other leaders has supported Berlin's project, which was termed a "pure chimera" by one senior diplomat.

More to come.

At times, A/B'd against one another, Trump's statements lapse into incoherent self contradiction. Many mainstream media interviewers don't make an issue of this.

On a conversational level, I can understand why.

Who, apart from professional educators in the nation's centers of learning, would be bothered trying to help a huckster assemble his jumbled, self contradictory thoughts into a semblance of rational cohesion?

Trump wants to "bomb the oil" to fight ISIS. He also wants to "keep the oil".

"You better take out the oil." "Take the oil" "We didn't take the oil so ISIS got the oil and, as you know Iran is getting the oil."

Mr. Trump must know that Iran, itself, has very large oil fields. What is actually happening in the real world outside of Mr. Trump's fevered imagination is that the Kurdistan Regional Government, friendly with the United States, friendly with Iran, and, except for the Russians, the most potent enemy of ISIS, is planning to build oil and gas pipelines between Iraq/Kurdistan and Iran.

That is what is called doing business with your neighbors.

Numerous aspects of the Iraqi oil business are reported on at the following link:

www.iraq-businessnews.com...)

Iraq proper, is a major supplier of oil to the European Union.

Mr. Trump says,"Iran is going to take over all of Iraq." He doesn't elaborate on what he means by this, but in any case, however interpreted, the idea is completely absurd.

Trump is the cognitive dissonance candidate. He makes scary stuff up and then acts as if it were true. In psychiatric practice, where a patient has delusions that he believes are real and that frighten him, his condition is termed, I believe, "paranoid schizophrenia". I don't think that term applies in this case. Trump is just a huckstering scaremonger.

During the interview with Alex Jones Trump says at different times:

"Iran is running Iraq . . . "

" . . . if you're gonna leave (Iraq), take the oil . . ."

" . . .so ISIS got the oil, Iran is getting the oil . . . "

Just to put Mr. Trump's statements on who is "getting" Iraq's oil into a real world context, here is a statement from MIT's project called, the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Iraq is the 44th largest export economy in the world. In 2013, Iraq exported $77.7B and imported $39.1B, resulting in a positive trade balance of $38.6B. In 2013 the GDP of Iraq was $229B and its GDP per capita was $6.86k.

The top exports of Iraq are Crude Petroleum ($76.4B), Refined Petroleum ($886M), Ethers ($137M), Tropical Fruits ($65.1M) and Gold ($50.1M), using the 1992 revision of the HS (Harmonized System) classification. Its top imports are Cars ($1.58B), Raw Iron Bars ($1.4B), Insulated Wire ($902M), Rice ($853M) and Delivery Trucks ($806M).

The top export destinations of Iraq are India ($18.3B), China ($16.1B), the United States ($12B), South Korea ($8.26B) and Greece ($4.37B).

Iran is not getting significant amounts of Iraq's oil.

Sorry Donald.

Also note that China is not getting a heck of a lot more oil from Iraq than the United States is, especially when one considers the size of the Chinese population.

China is an important player in the Iraqi economy but they are a far cry from being influential in the politics of the country as the following makes clear:

www.csmonitor.com...

Nor, despite the scale of Chinese multi-billion dollar investments in Iraq, is there much Beijing can do about the current crisis, says Yin Gang, a Middle East expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

“China cannot protect our interests in Iraq,” he says, since it has little political influence over the government and no intention of sending any troops to support the Iraqi authorities.

“Though China has important interests in Iraq…it is not a traditional Mid-East player…and has few historical roots in Iraq,” adds Ma Xiaolin, a Beijing-based Middle East commentator. “It has the least influence in Iraq of any permanent UN Security Council country and it does not have the strength to solve the problems.”

. . .

CNPC (Chinese National Petroleum Corporation) lifted 299 million barrels of oil from Iraq last year, one third of its total overseas production, and China intends to buy nearly 25 percent of Iraq’s oil exports this year, but Iraqi oil is by no means critical to the Chinese economy.

As the fifth largest supplier of oil to China, Iraq accounts for ten percent of Chinese oil imports, but that represents only one percent of its total energy consumption, which is heavily based on domestic coal.

We really should get one thing straight, Iran is not running Iraq.

Most of Iraq is being run by Iraqis, Iraqis who, a couple of years ago, repeatedly requested assistance from their ally, The United States of America, in dealing with takferi (ultra extremist) jihadi types operating against the Iraqi government.

Repeatedly, the United States refused the requested assistance, specifically air strikes, with a lot of suspicious, mealy mouthed double talk. These American refusals to help their Iraqi ally led to another sectioning of the country and to appeals, from the abandoned Iraqi government, directed at their former enemy Iran, for air support against the proto-ISIS forces tearing the country apart.

Trump might want to ponder the meaning of that sequence of events.

This was the genesis of ISIS, the folks who also, at this point, run a large portion of Iraq, including some oil resource areas. This part of the story, involving the alleged collusion America's NATO ally, Turkey, with ISIS, is in the mainstream news a lot these days, especially since Russia entered the picture. I won't go into detail about it.

The third group who runs Iraq, or part of it, is the Regional Government of Kurdistan, who have made independent oil deals with American corporate interests, against the will of the Iraqi government, and who, as previously noted, intend to build pipelines into Iran.

The next post will wrap things up.

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: snarky412

I think there is a difference with Trump. I agree that all politicians are loose with the truth, but it is the overall tone of what Trump is saying that bothers me. The tone is not of hope, or idealism or aspiration. It is of grievance.

That is a first in American politics, during my lifetime at least. There is a dangerous precedent for that tone in Europe of the 1920s.

I agree. As was stated, there has always been the extremes in political elections. Hell even Jefferson vs Adams got really nasty and personal, however, Trump is really showing how radicalized our politics have become. There is no room for middle ground in our political climate. It is a dangerous game he is playing. Rhetoric may help him get elected but it will solve nothing once he is in office.

a reply to: Cypress

That's right.

I'm just sitting down to write the last part of my presentation and I am going to mince words, be polite, but even minced, Mr. Trump is not going to like them.

Two words that should not be used together.

Trump and ettiquette.

CX.