Nordic » Wed Aug 10, 2016 3:55 pm wrote:you're still falling for any of his more "leftish" or "peaceful" statements as though they have even the face value.
What a strawman. Nobody thinks they're "leftish" or "peaceful". How old are you and how long have you lived in this country? Do you not remember old school conservatives like Pat Buchanan who were actually isolationist? That's what Trump is. With his hair he clearly emulates his mother; quite possibly with his politics he's emulating his father.
It's been so long since we've had anything but neocons bent on world domination we all seem to have forgotten that right wingers used to be against anything beyond our borders. They were for tariffs and minding our own business. They were also racist and elitist. Not nice guys. But against wars that weren't for defense and against shipping our industries to overseas countries.
Buchanan seems to be backing Trump. There you go. A fine precedent.
You could have also said tariffs, "minding our own business" (which in practice was to have more quiet interventions on behalf of United Fruit and fewer ones for "democracy") and restoring Jim Crow and enforcement of sodomy laws in the homo-bashing way that God intended. Great. Also, ban abortion and get those bitchy women to shut up already.
Surely you don't wonder why anyone who isn't already white is going to have a tough time weighting the various elements of Buchanan politics in the sanitized way you do. This approach of, "yeah, things may get worse socially for your group, which the Trump ideology specifically targets, but hey, tariffs and no NAFTA will make it worth your while!" -- it is just not going to speak to anyone who doesn't already encode as white and straight. You see that, yeah?
"Leftish" and "peaceful" (note I used quotes) would be my shorthand for opportunistic positions like anti-TPP, anti-regime change (if hardly antiwar, if you're listening), and occasional nods at things like universal health care (just as consistently denied). Also, the laughable direct pitches to Sanders' voters (and Trump will surely get 6-9% of those, doing as well as he will do among black people).
Now I thought I'd never say this, but by comparison Buchanan is a trustworthy actor, in that he believably represents what he claims to represent. To think that of Trump when he talks that kind of stuff is to ignore pretty much everything Trump is telling you as a person -- and to do so in the context of a campaign that has been entirely and proudly about his cult of personality. Everything he does is about himself, the moment, and his performance in the moment. There is absolutely nothing he will not say, or deny having said while watching video of himself saying it. It's all show and designed to not matter factually a minute later, long as the right emotional register was hit with the reality TV audience/base. The most incredible aspect of it is how many smart people find that deniable, and want to take
some of his statements at face value, generally while ignoring those that are actually core to his achievement so far (walls and bans and take their oil and more torture and let the cops loose on the criminals already, beat that guy, take his coat, etc. etc.). And now he's got Paulson and the hedge fund pirates on his go-team for actual policy, and you're still believing any of it?
It's also kind of a capitulation to the current liberal mythos that he got where he is as an economic populism (since the current "liberal" mythos hates economic populism a lot more than it does racism). You don't see the Clinton surrogates hitting on the racism lately as often as they mock economic populism and trot out expert opinion on the dangers of Russia. Why do you think that is? The actors in this show fit together perfectly.
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