@kyanite111 said in #4:
> For example: Build the wall, and get Mexico to pay for it. But Mexico never paid for the wall. And it was never built either. And what's more, is that even if the wall was built, something like 70% of illegal immigrants in the US got in from expired visas instead of border crossings, and its not even clear how effective a static wall would have been to dedicated groups who could tunnel under or rope-ladder over the wall. This is symptomatic of Trump's general thinking, it is sort of fact-free, illogical solutions that don't work and which are in many cases illegal.
So this is the problem. Have you investigated how walls work in places which have border problems? The point of the wall is to stop the majority of opportunistic people and to make it hard enough for even determined people that the limited number of defenders on the other side can deal with them. Just like a well around a vault doesn't stop determined people but it will be enough for most and illegal immigration is a numbers game. Yes expired visas are a lot of the issue, but so are border crossings and in fact even the THREAT of the wall was enough to prevent many opportunists. So far from fact -free it's actually useful .
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> Then he had a pretty inhuman policy for separating families at the border. In fact at the same time he also reduced the number of immigration judges, exacerbating problems at the border. Then there was his decision to ban immigration from Muslim countries, which wasn't based on any real data, just fear mongering about Muslims. Then he pulled out from the Kyoto protocol and mocked climate change, in spite of the fact that it is the world's most serious issue. So he's painting a pretty clear picture that he's an ignoramus who doesn't understand how the world works on several critical fronts that determine our collective future.
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The above is just incorrect on both counts. A) the family separation policy was an Obama policy and not only that it was FORCE by the courts. In fact when the Trump admin conducted DNA testing they found that over 30% of the children brought over were NOT related at all to their "parents" and hence probably victims of child trafficking. The fact that you don't realize that this is a huge issue greatly disturbs me .
On the "muslim" front this is another incorrect fact. The biggest muslim country (Indonesia) was unaffected entirely by this. In fact the Obama administration again had singled out these countries for restrictions on certain visa waiver programs (e.g. if you were a UK citizen you couldn't get an ESTA if you had been to these countries before for example) and Trump just applied it to general visas.
As for the kyoto accords - he didn't - it was the Paris agreement. However he did it because China and India had agreed to NO cuts in emissions. He said that China would become far more of a problem per capita than the US and that the US would meet its targets anyway. BOTH these things turned out to be true. China is now far higher than the US and the US reduced emissions BELOW their obligated levels during the Trump presidency - so even if he had stayed in it would make no difference.
> And then lastly when he lost the election, he tried to overturn the results. He tried to get his vice-president to throw out the results and install him as president again. He literally called Georgia's secretary of state and asked them to "find" extra votes so he could win. He called for ballot counting in Arizona to stop when it looked like he was going to start losing there. That is quite literally treasonous and illegal behaviour, which culminated in an attack on the capitol by his now deranged followers who believed his repeated claims that he won. An attack which could easily happen again considering they still believe the same things and might feel threatened now that Trump is either being removed from the ballot in many states because he violated the 14th amendment or because Trump is going to jail in Georgia, or else because of the 3 other federal cases against him for his other illegal activities.
So read the Georgia transcript. He didn't "ask them to find extra votes" what he did is claim that they had won Georgia convincingly and that even a few extra votes compared to the votes he thought were potentially fraudulent would bring Trump over the winning line. If you actually look at the Georgia election data then its pretty clear he had a point especially given how many suspicious practices took place at the time.
As for the cases against him. Frankly speaking if you take time to look at those cases, they are disgusting. His lawyers are literally being taken to court because they gave him advice. That is EXACTLY what they should have been doing. In addition, the exactly correct approach was indeed to go to the courts. As for what he did to Pence yes it was stupid but there iz ZERO evidence that he did anything other than try to stop Jan 6 being violent. Watch his speech and read his tweets. Anyone who claims Jab 6 was an insurrection is not being fair
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> So, we have examples of really unintelligent policies, one after the other, and a kind of mob-boss or dictatorship mentality where he tries to stay in power no matter what happens, on top of the fact that he committed multiple federal and state crimes and is attempting to lie his way out of them. And he is now threatening to jail his political rivals if he gets into power.
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Far from this being the case it is the Dems that started off trying to jail their political rivals. Trump is the frontrunner in the GOP election and it is the Dems who are trying to put him in jail. The fact that he didn't even try to go after Clinton when she had clearly done ridiculously bad things with her emails is all you need to know as to who started this "jail political rivals" thing.
> I would suggest those are some pretty powerful reasons to dislike Trump. But I think for most democrats, its his refusal to accept the results of a free and fair election and the fact that he actively tried to undermine or overturn those results illegally, which he is now being charged for on the federal and state levels, which are the main reasons.
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> As for Biden, honestly, I think the arguments most people have are kind of dumb...because as far as I can tell its just that he's old and jumbles his words sometimes, yet most people somehow forget that Trump is literally only 4 years younger. But if you actually look at it he speaks clearly 99% of the time and his policies are pretty reasonable. Biden got out of Afghanistan and never started any new wars either. Support for Ukraine is something many countries participate in and I think its a good thing; I wouldn't call it a war since we only send some equipment that the US can spare there. But I would argue it is more about whether a war is just and makes sense than blindly refusing to participate in any war. If the latter were true then we would have let Germany take over all of Europe during WWII.
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Watch ANY speech of Biden in 2007 for example. He is perfectly coherent. Now watch speeches that he gives today - any one and he doesn't sound coherent at all.
Biden's policies have been awful. Inflation has devastated the country - read the "Prospeirity Mirage" if you want a book that predicted his back when Biden was elected. His Afghanistan exit was beyond terrible with over 80 billion in equipment left to the Taliban. The IRA didn't reduce inflation - and even the government itself agreed that it would not before it was even signed.
The US border is now a disaster with 10 times as many people crossing over as they did during the Trump times.
I am genuinely not sure what "reasonable" policy you refer to in terms of what Biden has done. Ukraine - well I think to a certain extent Biden gave Putin some thought that he would be okay with the war - saying "it's one thing if there is a small incursion" is at best not helpful and that's exactly what he did. I think we can all agree that Putin is a scumbag, but honestly, the US should not be putting over 100 billion into the Ukraine in a vain attempt to get the Crimea back or whatever they are trying to do.
> Anyway that's enough, but hopefully that's a good window into the mind of a liberal for you
And that's the problem. Nothing you say really comes from facts. It comes from feelings such as "Trump demanding absolute loyalty" Honestly I have NO idea if he does or not and nor do you, but regardless that doesn't say anything about policy.
We all must understand that politicians almost without exception are not generally "good" people. In that case only what they put in place as policy and how they enforce it matters.
From that perspective, DT was a pretty good POTUS and Biden is a disaster.
