This is why I support a moratorium on politics here. This kind of assumption and hyperbole is really off-putting. I'm happy to debate these topics, but not here.
Now, that said, it's going to be a little murky. For example, I want to examine Ed Ou's detention at the US border. What if something breaks about Snowden or Assange? How about net neutrality?
I think this is exactly the place to do it as the people who would be involved in its creation are likely here. Where else would be a better place?
I don't understand why people on the left assume he was lying all of the times he delivered toned down statements and was only telling the truth when at the most extreme.
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/donal...
> Donald J. Trump, who earlier in the week said he was open to requiring Muslims in the United States to register in a database, said on Thursday night that he “would certainly implement that — absolutely.” Mr. Trump was asked about the issue by an NBC News reporter and pressed on whether all Muslims in the country would be forced to register. “They have to be,” he said. “They have to be.’’ ... Asked later, as he signed autographs, how such a database would be different from Jews having to register in Nazi Germany, Mr. Trump repeatedly said, “You tell me,” until he stopped responding to the question.
>I don't understand why people on the left assume he was lying all of the times he delivered toned down statements and was only telling the truth when at the most extreme.
As someone on the left, it bothers me too. The guy has said many, sometimes mutually contradictory or impossible things, and has never given any indication of having reached some final disposition on anything. People somehow ignore everything he says that they could agree with as random lies, but analyze every year old tossed off tweet where he references some irrational policy or false fact as established policy of the next administration.
He creates a precarious environment for businesses that rely on established relationships with the traditional Republican and Democratic leadership group, and a precarious environment for minority groups due to his white identity politics pandering during the campaign. It's created such a distorted public discourse around the man that somehow Ted Cruz got painted as a more reasonable alternative. The institutional media attacks him in order to defend their business interests, and the majority (who are each a minority in some way), defend any media critique uncritically. The guy is not the devil, it's just in your interests to paint him as the devil if he isn't friends with the congresspeople that you own, and he's said enough contradictory stuff that your job is easy. Really, on social issues he ran as a mainstream Republican but with faux straight talk rhetoric that felt like it went further when it really didn't - if you're terrified of him, you should have been terrified of any of them. There are Muslim registries, they're just locked within accountable and unexaminable intelligence organizations, large and small. There is a wall. These were institutions born from bipartisanship.
Nevertheless, he's dangerous as any president could be, and more unpredictable than any president we have ever had. It's more important that we talk about the stuff he has said, not less. Whether or not you take it at face value is irrelevant when it's all you have to plan around. What's the alternative; to wait and see, and after it happens, start thinking about it? You shouldn't need to assume the earthquake will result in a tsunami to start preparing for it.
Your comment shows something that does disturb me on HN, though - comments that are being flagged for disagreement, rather than downvoted.
Ok, this is reasonable. There have been some indications that Trump might be softening on the issue. Language alluding to this policy was removed from his campaign website on election night, for instance, and it hasn't really come up since (at least from him). I'm still very concerned that it was said at all, but you can certainly make an argument that this statement doesn't represent the current state of things.
> well then why is Obama so highly regarded by the left?
You have veered into defensive tribalism. We are not discussing in what regard Trump is held, but rather the likelihood of him implementing a particular policy based on what he has said about it. Whether or not liberals forgave Obama's transgressions is irrelevant to a muslim registry.
Make sense now?
What we have is a future president (ugh...) who has repeatedly shown himself to change his mind at the drop of a hat, be easily engaged and enraged on social media, and who has a long career (since long before he even considered running or POTUS in the 90s) of racism and misogyny (not to mention admitting to and taking pride in sexual assault...).
The fact that we DON'T know what he truly intends to do is terrifying, and that is why people discuss it. We know what he has said he intends to do .We know that some stuff he has backpedaled on, only to come back a few days later. That is exactly why people feel a need to discuss it.
And we also know that his vice president and growing cabinet are much more consistently "on message".
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/nov/24/...
"No, he would not rule out a database on all Muslims. But for now, he wants a database for refugees."
And most importantly - it wasn't him that brought up the idea, he was asked this "John F. Kennedy is not a homosexual"-style. The fact that he failed to clarify either way was then reported in ambiguous snippets giving the impression that he had brought this up.
Even an insinuation that someone has a connection with an undesirable group apparently makes it legitimate to repeatedly ask them about it. I think such a low-bar to interrogation is not enough; sometime even being repeatedly asked something can give the impression that it might be true (or more likely), "big lie"-style.
Another interpretation: this is political, literally. "abortions for some, mini american flags for others" can sort of work. We just know as little about what Trump flim-flams about as we do other candidates consistently lie about.
Care to elaborate? Or is this more second-hand media?
> The fact that we DON'T know what he truly intends to do is terrifying
Depends if you're happy with the status-quo, or unhappy with it. For some, the idea of things staying the same are terrifying.
Incidentally, were you not worried about a Dem war with Russia?
NYTimes didn't provide those, right?
"While many headlines came out after this exchange saying Trump would "absolutely" require Muslims to register in a database, it’s not entirely clear that’s what he said."
"Through the end of the conversation, it’s possible Trump thought the exchange was about illegal immigration."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/nov/24/...
Tell me what you think of Trumps reply wrt that last "Nazi Germany" question from NBC?
I think it's fair to say that we can't be totally certain what the intention of his administrations are; though this is trivially true in all cases, I never seriously questioned the possibility of such a thing with previous administrations. As I mentioned in another comment, failing to distance himself from such a comment when given the opportunity later does alarm me.
> Tell me what you think of Trumps reply wrt that last "Nazi Germany" question from NBC?
I read it as ducking the question. What do you make of it?
Ok. When did he say he would build a list of Muslims from Facebook? What is that based on?
Obama actually did target conservatives with the IRS[1] and nobody on here wasting time speculating what he might or might not do even though he clearly does things that weren't in his campaign speeches and lied about other things ("you can keep your plan"[2]).
My point is that suddenly a ton of young liberal people that lived most of their adult life with Democrat in the white house have someone they didn't vote for in office and they don't have the maturity to deal with it. It's constant over-the-top messaging about the end of the country and when Republicans did the same thing during Obama's presidency ("death panels", "secret muslim", etc), they were laughed out of the room as they should have been. It's embarrassing coming from the side that touted things like "facts tend to be liberal".