Trump's Fails versus American Fails

For this article, I am going to create a strawman. I am calling this strawman America. Obviously, he does not represent every single American, but he does represent the amalgam of what America has been doing for quite some time, in the areas of government, politics, and culture. America represents both Democrats and a majority of Republicans, as well as many who do not vote at all.

I do this because of the Business Insider article, "10 things every politician who endorses Donald Trump should be forced to defend". If we are going to attack Trump on these issues, the rest of the country should be able to stand up to scrutiny, right? Mind you, I am not defending Trump, only pointing out that some issues aren't nearly as cut and dried as this opinion piece makes them seem.

Let's take a look at the list...

1. Banning Muslims. Last fall, Trump issued a series of escalating statements against Muslims. He spoke of tracking them through a database and closing mosques. 

He claimed that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey had appeared on television celebrating 9/11, and he persisted in this libel despite his failure to produce evidence. Then, on Dec. 7, he called for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

It is quite convenient to look at this in a vacuum, as we ignore the Bush/Obama "Crusades Against Islam". If the U.S. is going to carry out wars all over the Islamic world, then what Trump proposes makes sense. Political correctness in a time of war is folly.

2. Sowing distrust of Christian minorities.

I am going to skip right past this one. Attacking Trump for his "insinuating tone" and calling it a "cynical appeal to prejudice" is lame. While it may be true, this is just a political game and has nothing to do with what anyone believes. I suspect this was added at the last minute to make the article long enough, or worse to get the list to a nice round 10 items.

3. Dog-whistling against Cuban Americans.

Yet another political game. Moving right along...

4. Stereotyping Latinos. When Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015, he said that some undocumented immigrants from Mexico were drug mules or rapists, but others were “good people.” 

Then he sank into pure tribalism. Illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, unfriendly Latinos—they were all suspect. 

What Trump did here was wrong. On the other hand, what America does is wrong too, in assuming that all Latinos are above reproach. How else do you explain Obama's open borders? Republican's various amnesty plans?

At what point do we look at the rule of law, and either defend it or change it? But don't tell me that tens of millions of illegal immigrants are good or bad. At the least, they are here illegally, which is a strike against them. If you want to have an open borders policy, then change the laws to make it easier for immigrants to come here.

While I believe there are better ways of dealing with the issue, I believe both sides on this issue get it wrong.

5. Practicing group blame against blacks. The worst anti-black statements attributed to Trump are 25-year-old hearsay. But in what he’s written more recently, you can see resentment. 

In December 2011, he tweeted about Kwanzaa, a nonreligious African-American holiday: “What a convenient mistake: @BarackObama issued a statement for Kwanza but failed to issue one for Christmas.” (The charge was false.) 

In November 2014, during riots in Ferguson, Missouri, Trump tweeted: “Sadly, because president Obama has done such a poor job as president, you won’t see another black president for generations!” A few hours later, Trump complained, “President Obama has absolutely no control (or respect) over the African American community.” And in April 2015, after the death of Freddie Gray, Trump tweeted, “Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!”

Trump makes valid points against Obama here, in spite of the article's allegations they are some kind of greater anti-black thing.

America is having a convenient memory lapse with Obama: He was elected as some kind of great unifier of peoples. Unfortunately, blacks have done worse under his presidency than they have under most presidents for quite awhile. Between "Black Lives Matter", race riots, black unemployment, and elevated levels of black incarceration (Thanks Tom Cotton!), Obama may be the best snake oil salesman of our time.

I wonder if they will ever realize that Obama wasn't black? He was just another political whore for Wall Street.

6. Blaming sexual assault in the military on the integration of women...Even if you...give Trump a pass for his crude language about some women, it’s hard to explain two tweets he posted on May 7, 2013. First he wrote: “26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” (The typo was his.) Nine minutes later, he added: “The Generals and top military brass never wanted a mixer but were forced to do it by very dumb politicians who wanted to be politically C!”

I have to classify this one as a "Trumpfail". America is right here, because there is no valid reason to keep the military segregated. (Although I do believe any women who serve should have to face the same physical requirements as men.)

7. Advocating torture. Many Republicans defend waterboarding on the grounds that it isn’t really torture and that it could save lives by extracting timely intelligence. Trump rejects these constraints. He told an audience in South Carolina that even if waterboarding were torture, it would be “absolutely fine,” and “we should go much stronger.” In Ohio, he said that even if waterboarding didn’t extract useful information, he would approve it and even harsher measures, because “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing to us.” That’s a policy of torture, without limits, as sheer retribution. 

Trump is such a good little Nazi! But the rest of America is almost as bad, tolerating waterboarding as if it is some kind of humanitarian torture technique.

I won't say "never torture" anyone. Instead, why don't we avoid putting ourselves in a position where we might need to torture someone? Remove the incentive for people to want to kill us. I won't say nobody will ever try, but killing 210,000 civilians in Islamic nations is a sure-fire way to get them to want to kill us!

Which leads us to...

8. Targeting civilians. On Dec. 2, Trump announced a new target in the war on terror: “With the terrorists, you have to take out their families.” In a follow-up interview, he was asked whether that meant deliberately killing family members. “They would suffer,” he said. “There has to be retribution.” On Dec. 6, he explained that because terrorists “want their families left alone,” these families could be targeted as a deterrent against future attacks. On Dec. 15, he elaborated: “I would be very, very firm with families. Frankly, that will make people think, because they may not care much about their lives, but they do care, believe it or not, about their families’ lives.” The next day, Bill O’Reilly asked Trump: “You’re not going to assassinate them, are you?” Trump replied, “I don’t know what I’d do.”

Ok, we already have Trump down...

But America is no better, as the Bush/Obama administrations have blazed a merciless path of destruction in the Middle East and Asia, killing an ungodly number of civilians in their "War on Terror". But I give Trump credit: At least he is honest about this issue.

9. Rationalizing plunder. Trump says his strategy against ISIS is to “take their oil.” But as Jim Geraghty points out in National Review, Trump has preached oil confiscation since 2011—long before ISIS, in its present form, existed. Trump has said we should seize oil from Iraq, Libya, or any other oil-rich country we invade. It’s “not stealing,” Trump argues, since we’d just be “reimbursing ourselves.” The reimbursement starts with $1 million for the family of every American soldier killed in the target country, plus extra cash to “take care of other countries that helped us” in the war. The Geneva Conventions forbid such plunder, but Trump doesn’t care. He explicitly invokes the ancient rule of conquest: “To the victor belong the spoils.”

I have to give Trump credit here: If you are going to be carrying out wars of imperialism, why not plunder? As opposed to the American system, whereby we go there, kill a lot of people, AND pay the bill for it all, as if paying the bill makes it ok.

Mind you, I am not saying Trump is right. Just that if we continue with the American policy of attacking these Islamic countries, his idea makes more sense. In truth, we shouldn't do either.

10. Inciting violence. Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence at his rallies. On Nov. 22, he defended supporters who beat a protester at one of his events in Alabama. “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” Trump said of the protester. On Feb. 1, he told a crowd in Iowa: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. OK? Just knock the hell—I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.” On Feb. 22, when a demonstrator interrupted his speech in Las Vegas, Trump told the audience, “I’d like to punch him in the face.” Trump went on: “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” On March 13, after a Trump supporter sucker-punched a protester at a rally in North Carolina, Trump said he had “instructed my people to look into” paying the supporter’s legal fees.

After seeing Trump's war plans, this is almost minor. But this is definitely not the American way of politics. Even Bernie Sanders has caught grief for this. For now, I will give America the win on this.

Final score: 2 political games, 5 joint losses for both Trump and America, 1 solo Trump win, 2 solo Trump fails, 2 solo America wins, 1 solo America fail . Overall, America is only up by 1 on Trump. That isn't a lot of room to be pointing fingers, especially when you consider the 6 American fails.