So what do you Brits make of Trump ?

[trish]

Sum mosque's should be shut down.

Mosques and Gun Shops are protected by The Constitution.

[martin48]

In England, "trump" is slang term for fart (emit wind from the anus). Says it all really

[broncofan]

It will be interesting to see how our national media reacts as Trump gets closer to the highest office in the land. So far, he has recommended registration of Muslims and surveillance of mosques, has suggested that illegal immigrants are mostly rapists and drug runners, he's posted bogus statistics about crimes committed by African-Americans from a non-existent research organization, performed a hideous pantomime of a disabled person, and claimed Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her ears and her whatever (her whatever probably being her vagina). He's bullet-proof with his supporters despite being a total narcissist who can always pretend to be a victim of the politically correct media.

I hope that he does not win the primary....even if he would lose to Hillary, he is whipping up ugly feelings, knows nothing about public policy, cares nothing about social welfare, and debases the discourse.

[martin48]

He gets more extreme. “But, I Don’t. Care.”


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35037701

[martin48]

Hang on, he's saying Police 'afraid for their lives' in 'radicalised' London



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-35037007

Not true just like most of the shit this guy talks

[flabbybody]

I wonder if people who tell pollsters they back Trump will choose differently in an actual primary contest. Iowa and New Hamshire will be the first test where votes count. There just might be a Trump surprise to the downside

[trish]

What is truly sad is that Trump's brand of fascism is cheered and applauded by nearly one third of the Republican party. WTF!

[martin48]

From today's Guardian

The thing that is hard to appreciate about Donald Trump before you personally enter a room with him – in this case, the hangar deck of a wartime aircraft carrier – is that his first weapon is humor. Long before he fires up his loyal supporters, before he hits them with outrageous comments that send shockwaves around the world, he makes them laugh.
He looks like the man he is: a real estate developer with dodgy hair. But don’t underestimate the guy – he has the intuition and timing of a standup comedian.

Holding his hands out wide like a preacher, the second finger of his right hand pointed to the heavens for added purpose, he reduces his audience within minutes to fits of laughter. It could be any comedy store on a Monday night, except you then realize that there’s something odd about what he’s inviting the crowd to find so funny.

Most standup comics mine gags out of their own weaknesses and inadequacies. Trump produces belly-laughs out of the vulnerabilities of others, in a relentless stream of mockery and disparagement.

One of the largest giggles of the night comes when he lays into the “mainstream media” – that’s us – encouraging the entire crowd to turn around to where we are standing at the back of the hall and boo at us. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

Then he name-checks one particular NBC reporter who he claims misrepresented him in a previous campaign stop. “She’s here tonight,” he says.

Boos and laughs, in equal measure.
“Little Katie. She’s back there. She’s back there.”
More boos and laughs.
“Third-rate reporter. Third-rate. Remember that.”

“I mean, Lindsey Graham, he’s at zero,” Trump says, inspiring a healthy laugh from the crowd. “He’s at zero. Zero! Let me ask you a question: I don’t get this Lindsey Graham. He’s literally at zero. He’s on television all the time and he doesn’t go up, his ideas are so bad.”
Next for the chopping block is Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. “He’s on 3%! He says he’s upset with me because the tone, the tone of Donald Trump is not nice. We have people whose heads are being chopped off in the Middle East because they are Christian. And we talk about my tone.”
As that comment suggests, the technique is pretty simple. Earn the love of the assembled throng through laughter, then draw them into your world.
And what a world it is. The world of Donald Trump is a dangerous place where there are threats around every corner, where the country is going to the dogs at high speed, and where only one man has the strength to avoid disaster.

“Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!” he has the crowd baying by this point.
And they are not any old threats. They are the worst, most lurid, most bloody, most terrifying threats imaginable to any American. Should Donald Trump have the misfortune not to make it all the way to the White House, he could start a new career as director of Saw VIII.

Mexicans don’t just enter the country illegally, they rape and murder. Isis doesn’t just kill, they behead. Christians aren’t killed in the Middle East, they are “dumped in the ground in steel cages”.

The chaos that is the world outside the US is coming home, folks, brought into the country via the uncontrolled immigration of thousands of unknown Muslims who nobody dares to stop and question because of fears about political correctness and racial profiling. In the wake of Paris and San Bernardino, nobody is to be trusted.

“We had a situation in California very recently where somebody was making bombs. The mother saw. The mother didn’t think there was anything wrong. I watched her being interviewed and believe me, in my opinion, she was lying like crazy. ‘Oh, I didn’t know, I didn’t know ...’”

Donald Trump calls for complete ban on Muslims entering the US
So how did we get to this fearsome and fearful place? By now the crowd is much quieter, contemplative. There is energy in the room, lots of it, but it’s curled up like a tiger.

We got to this terrible place because people are stupid. Everybody is stupid who isn’t inside this aircraft carrier, right here, right this moment, listening to the one person who above all isn’t stupid.

“This is a stupid country in so many ways,” said the Republican frontrunner who is vying to become the successor to Ronald Reagan, with his city upon a hill. “Can you imagine what our great leaders of the past would be thinking?” he asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.

The country is stupid. Obama, of course, is more than stupid (“I don’t even know if he knows what the hell is going on”). Even the military generals are stupid. Instead of getting their heads around how to eviscerate Isis in Syria, they spend their time being interviewed by TV stations. Can you believe it? Television!

“Do you think General George Patton would be interviewed? He would be interviewed after total and complete victory. They shoot first and talk later.”
Which brings us seamlessly, and inevitably, to that place where Donald Trump really wants to draw us. The place of final realization where it all clicks together, it all makes sense in a senseless world.
Outside this room lurk beheadings and sharia law, a president who is clueless and weak generals blathering away on TV screens. Inside this room there is a solution that can Make America Great Again.

“We need someone who is strong. Someone with incredible intelligence. That’s it.”

What is that solution? Where is that strength and intelligence?

Donald Trump knows. Does America?

[broncofan]

A good article, the strongest aspects being the description of Trump's rallies. I think it's maybe too simplistic to say that Donald Trump has the skills of a comedian. I understand the author is trying to give the devil his due, but good comedy is not a simple stream of insults. Only cruel people laugh at things simply because they are blunt or because others would hesitate to say them.

Trump prides himself on being honest, but bluntness is not honesty. In Trump's case, he lies, then when others uncover his obvious lies, he attacks them, and lies about what they said about him and on and on....these are the skills of a demagogue. I personally don't think it's outrageous to compare Trump to fascists (the Nazis, Hitler etc). Anyone who has read about fascism knows that before violence or civil rights violations you have counter-factual narratives and delusions.

[broncofan]

And I understand there is a Godwin's Law argument against calling anyone a Nazi. The parallels become so thin that it appears one is only saying it for shock value. Afterall, Bush, Obama, Carson, Sanders have also been likened to Mein Fuhrer. I suppose it depends upon which parallels you like best, whether the comparison makes sense and is helpful in explaining someone's behavior....