Trump goes against Republican party elites on a few big issues. He doesn't want to cut Medicare or Social Security, he isn't a committed foreign interventionist, and he opposes free trade. Thing is, none of those deviations from orthodoxy matter much to the typical Republican voter. In fact, I'd guess that the typical GOP voter's stance on those issues is probably closer to Trump's position than to the GOP elite's. If we think of the "Republican platform" as the main messages that the GOP has presented to its core electorate (as opposed to specific policy stances that are mostly irrelevant to that electorate), Trump actually reflects those quite well.
This is a meme that needs to end: 1. He stood with Clinton, Cheney, and Bush on the Iraq War when the debate was raging about it. What Trump said about opposing it from the start was complete bullcrap. Opposition after the fact is way less persuasive. 2. He's the only Presidential candidate that's advocating for a substantial number of US boots on the ground to defeat ISIS. 3. His policies on trade are so blatantly belligerent and aggressive in attacking imports, it might as well be considered interventionist. 4. He's the only candidate actually trying to get Mexico to pay for a border wall. 5. You look at the people behind him and endorsing him and likely advising him behind-the-scenes, it's mostly interventionist neocons through-and-through. Giuliani, Sessions, Gingrich, etc. I'd probably say Trump is by far the most aggressively interventionist and belligerent candidate to run in this entire race on foreign policy since Graham dropped out. Every once in a while he'll give a bit of lip service to something resembling non-interventionism, but you look at his policies, and it's coated with interventionism from top to bottom. How he got to be the "dove", I have no freaking clue.
Yep. As a reminder, from the Japanese perspective, the U.S. trade sanctions against Japan in 1940-41 were effectively an act of war. The Japanese government believed it needed a successful military response, or to capitulate to the trade war.
Everyone needs token friend. Joe is the token conservative in MSNBC, at least he has his own show unlike Juan Williams at Fox news.
Cross post. The singe ladies vote. And very importantly. http://www.economist.com/news/books...ing-america-marriage-politics-economy-why-put Specially single mothers go for the Democrats in huge margins, that demographic shift is going to help the Dems for years to come (now if people would just vote more in local and non presidential elections).
Funny that he runs in the Republican primaries and that most of the people that voted for him happen to be registered Republicans. Not to mention that he pretty much agree with Ted Cruz, Kasich and Rubio on foreign policy, economic policy and women's rights...
NGV's point is valid, but I do agree that the bigger issues between Drumpf and the GOP are stylistic and I'd bet money they just want him to tone down the McCain-is-not-a-war-hero and Mexico-will-pay-for-the-wall shit. I'd also guess the GOP elite would not care to hear about schlong sizes, either.
"Interventionist" was a poor word choice on my part - when I used it, I was thinking about the current brand of Republican interventionism, embodied by people like Graham, McCain, Tom Cotton, Bill Kristol, and so forth (and most prominently espoused by Marco Rubio during the campaign). Trump's blend of selective and vindictive militarism, economic nationalism, and Fortress America rhetoric is actually pretty different from that, and isn't shared by anyone important in the Republican party (aside from maybe the professional xenophobes like Jeff Sessions and Steve King). On the other hand, I think it has a lot more resonance with the Republican electorate than the usual neocon line does.
Well yeah, Trump is not your garden-variety neo-conservative in terms of how he couches the issues of foreign policy, but the reality is he's not doing anything different from the neo-cons on anything important besides trade. He'll make noises about cutting foreign aid, and he's tremendously protectionist, compared to the neo-cons' preference for free trade, but other than that, there's nothing else there. It's either more radical or it's virtually the same.
Is Juan Williams supposed to be the token liberal at Fox News? Honest question, since I don't watch the network. If so, he's woefully unqualified. Token idiot, maybe, but token liberal, never.
A google search for "juan williams token liberal" suggests that's not an uncommon viewpoint on the right wing of the web. I haven't heard (or missed) him since he was bounced from NPR for the wrong reason, but that kinda surprises me, u til I consider the sources.
Somewhere along the way Juan Williams old his soul and became a complete hack. His intellectual integrity has been on steady decline for years.
Completely disagree. One big, big difference is that Trump doesn't see forward bases in Germany and Japan, etc., as part of the burden of being the sole great power in the world. He sees it as a protection racket...if those countries don't pay the vig, we'll pull the bases. I also think that Trump doesn't see intervention in places like Libya as a way to spread American values.
Two New Rules for 2016: 1) Every election you lose is rigged. 2) Anyone who bothered to learn the rules is trying to steal your rights.— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 21, 2016
I'm sure Kasich is our guy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...hats-just-more-votes-in-the-democratic-party/ Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
To be fair - that pic really only describes the Republican primaries. The Democratic party is pretty pedestrian in comparison.
Wow ... speechless. And Kasich wonders why people won't vote for him. That video basically says that primary voters are morons and their votes don't matter ...