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| Trump-Hatred Is All About Islam |
| 2017-07-17 |
| President Trump's overall approval rating may have fallen, but there's one issue on which he has the support of 60% of the American public. That's the proposed travel ban from certain Muslim-majority countries, according to a Politico-Morning Consult poll earlier this month. In fact, Trump has enjoyed the support of a plurality of all voters, Democratic as well as Republican, since he first proposed a travel ban in December 2015. Trump's boldness horrified the Establishment but probably won him the nomination; three-quarters of Republican voters in the key South Carolina primary backed the travel ban. The whole Republican leadership abhorred him (Paul Ryan in Dec. 2015 accused Trump of "violating the Constitution"). Well, Trump won and the Republican leadership lost. It's always been about Islam--the camel in the living room, to coin a phrase. One and a quarter billion people, roughly a fifth of the world's population, cannot make the leap from tribal society into the modern world. Their anguish and rage is a source of continuous instability and an occasional threat to the security of Western countries. Western leaders from George W. Bush to Pope Francis I struggled to avoid a clash of civilizations, praising Islam as a religion of peace. Trump, by contrast, told Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia May 21 that the onus was on them to extirpate terrorists from their countries and mosques. Trump isn't seeking civilizational war. He's giving Muslim leaders fair warning and a chance to avoid it. That is what the whole kerfuffle is about. The Democrats' notion of intersectional victimization includes Muslims as victims of Western colonialism and "people of color" (never mind that Islam launched the bloodiest wars of conquest of which we have records and created the African slave trade). The Republican Establishment and their neo-con punditeska view the Muslim world as a giant laboratory for the export of democracy. The CIA and the rest of the Deep State made a good living selling arms from the stockpile of the late Col Qaddafi (whom the U.S. helped overthrow in 2011) to "moderate Syrian rebels" -- directly or indirectly abetting the rise of ISIS, as Gen. Mike Flynn warned in a now-celebrated 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency memo. The Europeans want a long-term accommodation with Islam as they drift slowly into demographic oblivion. Trump humiliated his own party's Establishment. He negotiated a ceasefire in southwestern Syria with Russia and Jordan, the first positive step towards ending the butchery in that miserable country since the 2011 "Arab Spring." As he said throughout the campaign, he's willing to give Russia the chance to unite with the U.S. against barbarism--proving himself a tough and canny negotiator with the slippery Kremlin bosses. Russia is part of the issue, but indirectly: The neo-cons thought that a democratized, pro-American Muslim world could be turned against Russia; Trump doesn't care much how the Russians govern themselves as long they help contain strategic threats to the United States. (Neither do I.) That's what "America First" means; we look at what other countries do according to what advances our interests, NOT according to what we imagine is best for them. So far, Trump has done exactly what he promised to do during the campaign, and made a certain amount of progress. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #8 I mean, look at the Left - isn't their primary characteristic is that they hate opposition? That, and anyone who'll deny them the material benefits that they expect. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2017-07-17 15:54 |
| #7 Isn't it putting horse behind carriage, RJ? I mean, look at the Left - isn't their primary characteristic is that they hate opposition? Trump is just a symbol of opposition. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-07-17 15:17 |
| #6 I think a gold amount of the Trump hatred can be explained by the fact that liberals convinced themselves they would have a permanent majority. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2017-07-17 14:53 |
| #5 Except, how many of them can even imagine their paychecks gone, no mo uro? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-07-17 09:33 |
| #4 Both of you guys make interesting and salient points. Yes, there are philosophical underpinnings to this. Yes, the left gives permission to below average pseudointellectuals to go about their lives believing they are genius polymaths if only they parrot the NPR, Frankfurt School party line. Yes, women - four generations and a century into their experiment with the franchise in America - have used their votes almost exclusively to create a society where there is no possibility of negative consequences to an unplanned pregnancy, to the exclusion of caring about any other policy issues. But for Homo economicus, his/her primary motivation is income stream and the comfort and status it can purchase. In a post religious society, it is ALL that matters to them. If you removed abortion from the table, if you removed metric-free welfare, if you told them they weren't really all that smart or didn't have any secret knowledge, they'd grumble but move on. Question the magic paychecks in the slightest and they go berserk. We need a way out of the fiscal mess we're in and that is an obstacle we MUST get past. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2017-07-17 08:55 |
| #3 Their enmity transcends Trump or Pence. It's the hatred of conservatism and the impact it may one day have on 'Choice' and the sale of baby parts. Much of this warfare in the public square comes down to Roe vs War. Just my opinion. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-07-17 08:09 |
| #2 Of course it's material considerations no mo uro. However give some thought to how they justify (to themselves) their bloated salaries, and their immunity from persecution when they use their position (from lowest DMV clerk to erstwhile US sec state) to augment these salaries. They justify it by their beliefs in their own moral and intellectual superiority. Part of being superior is perceiving things the dumb masses cannot. Like the dumb masses think there is no AGW, sex is fixed by genetics, and Muslims are dangerous - proving their inherent inferiority. I might add that most of these people are second raters who stole the top jobs from their betters - so belief in own intellectual superiority is very important. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-07-17 07:27 |
| #1 Outside the U.S., perhaps. Inside the U.S., NO. Absolutely NO, outside of the NPR-listening pseudointellectual class. Inside our borders, Trump-hatred is about MONEY, period, stop. 100% of nonmilitary government workers are overpaid here. Add to that the various forms of welfare and you have a level of fear of loss of comfort and status that causes exactly this kind of idiocy. Any sort of threat to the metric-free, anxiety-free government funded income stream that one out of five workers in the U.S. (and all of their immediate families who depend upon that magic check) now receive will be met with this sort of hysterical hatred. This is why Republicans who claim that someone other than Trump would not be this polarizing are either stupid or lying. No government employee will ever understand a logical argument against his precious magic paycheck. The person delivering the message matters not. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2017-07-17 06:20 |