President Donald Trump!

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I read a lot of the international Western media, Kraftie - commentary from the UK, Germany, France, Australia and of course New Zealand - and there is a common thread of genuine bafflement at present as to why a substantial proportion of the American voting public would want to see a man who is a known bully with very substantial signs of a cluster B personality disorder (NPD) elected as president of the United States.

Though you need a strong stomach to even skim through Trump's "The Art of the Deal", one piece of alarming self-aggrandizement in it is the pride he still takes from punching his music teacher in the face as a young child - he was a bully then, he is a bully now, why would America want to see a bully with NPD in the White House?

In another thread, we have been discussing the Roosevelts, and in the 1940s and 1950s the USA was universally admired in the free world as standing for the values which the Western allies (with the exception of Stalin) stood for. Now the USA is seen as an increasingly insular outlier whose values are corrupt. This change did not happen overnight, nor is Trump solely responsible for the raised eyebrows around the world, though recently he has done more to bring the USA into disrepute than anyone, and that is just as a political contender. I know from my own many travels there that over the past four decades, ordinary citizens of the USA have become increasingly indifferent to their international reputation, and perhaps what we are facing in the future is the total breakdown of all the postwar political alliances which were vested in the protection of freedoms from demagogues.

Looking at the big picture internationally, that is a concerning trend - at least to my way of thinking. I know there are many very nice citizens of the USA who still believe in the Four Freedoms, but the rot is nevertheless spreading to what seems to be dangerously approaching a critical mass.

I visited the USA off and on over 40 years and experienced the cultural changes on each occasion, my last visit was 9 years ago and it saddened me a lot to see the changes over that time, none of which were for the better IMO.. once the most courteous country in the world - everyone was so well mannered there in my first visit in 1976 - I was astonished at how this had almost disappeared completely during my last visit. And now Trump personifies that shift in some way. It's all sad and baffling to me..and very depressing.

then I want some too.

it doesn't take a psychic to see that amuuurica is well on its way to becoming something akin to a banana republic.

And that is not a good thing auntblabby

There is a deep deep anger that has been simmering in America for a long time now that is finally starting to boil over into these interparty populist revolts, the elite of this country have a very insulated existence and do live in the same country that you and I have to so they simply do not care about us. The leadership of this country has been terrible for decades, it's like the dying Soviet Union and we solve problems anymore nor do we stick up for the interests of the common man in America. Wages have been stagnant what? 30-40 years now?

People from other countries don't understand the level of manipulation and manufacturing of consent that goes on in this country in our media so they have a very skewed view of this country and have their own countries manipulation going on as well. It's our country that subsidizes the militaries of the western world, that's why you guys are able to have those oh so wonderful welfare states which are now all becoming bankrupt with below replacement rate fertility rates and massive immigration problems.

America will be so much more respected in the world because all our client states will change their tunes when we do, if we can be friends with Russia and use smart diplomacy and work against our common enemies then we might actually have a safer planet. The foreign policy of every other candidate is insane save Bernie, they're the real madmen who want nuclear war and for what? Trump's got a great company and family, half the job of the president is political theater so Trump will do that better than any president ever probably and a man with Trump's ego who has had so much success in this country wouldn't want to drive it into the ground.

B19,

That is a very good discussion. I am very concerned with what may be happening, including the possible rise of a quasi-fascist regime. Trump seems like he could have authoritarian tendencies.

There has been some violence on the part of Trump supporters, but thus far it has been very sporadic. I'm not sure if it is much more than in other elections, but I think watching the violence may be one of the most important things an observer could do. Granted, Trump has reined it in a bit at his rallies, where before protesters who were opposed to Trump would get tackled by reporters, they are now told to surround the protester and shout, "Trump! Trump! Trump!" over and over again until security comes to remove the protester. Still, I could not help but be reminded of something I read on Zompist about fascism:

http://zompist.com/fascism.html

I thought this was an interesting discussion, and it gives a more universal definition of fascism. It also makes the helpful note that fascist leaders are generally not very consistent ideologically over time, and tend to make things up as they go along. Trump has struck me as being like that, and he has been criticized for his inconsistencies.

I wonder how someone more knowledgeable about the campaign would apply Paxton's definition of fascism. He seems to fit the first 2 criteria, though I would have difficulty articulating why. What happens in this cycle will, I think, determine whether he fits the last 2 criteria.

What are your impressions, B19?

What I think is that Vladimir Putin is one of the most dangerous men in the world today, and his record proves that he is an expert in playing the long game... repulsive as I find him personally, and all he stands for, he is the consummate 21st century politican who has an eye not only on preserving his national power and control but extending it internationally.

His supposed admiration of Trump (and Trump's admiration of Putin) should have spoken more loudly to the ordinary American, as I see it, as the tolling of a terribly loud warning bell. How delighted Putin will be to watch a Trump ascendancy if it means the destruction of the post-war alliances and the breakdown of democracy in the USA - that will help clear the stage for the expansion of Putin's internationalist ambitions, and the irony and horror of such a possibility appears to evade substantial portions of the USA electorate.

America once stood, unequalled, in its defence of democratic principles. It now stands on a precipice of becoming a tyrannical power whose closest ally is led by a psychopathic former (perhaps current also) member of the KGB.

How on Earth has it come to this???? It is still not too late, though, for the lemmings to draw back from the cliff. A lot is hanging in the balance, and the focus on the present rather than the big and long picture is blinding many Americans it seems to the terrible dangers of electing someone like Trump.

LBJ, who you describe as "evil," pushed through civil rights legislation. Vietnam was a terrible mistake which he inherited from Eisenhower and Kennedy. As for him being complicit in JFK's death - - well, that's a theory. From what his mistress claimed, when she had pressed him on the issue, was that he broke down and said it was done by the CIA and the oil people. I think he either knew before or after the fact about the assassination, but that doesn't mean he was actually involved.

it's only just begun but this year's politics are simply appalling.

And, as Trump personally is one of the 1%...



Wow.



I didn't notice nuclear war as any of the other candidates' platforms. I did however notice Trump of the mindset that other countries will do what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants.. Not a comforting "diplomacy" tactic to me.



Filed for chapter 11 for four of those companies, leaving workers to foot the bill. And married three times. Again, not good examples for him.

The pitiful lack of Trump's basic ethics as a businessman were exposed in the film "You've Been Trumped", about his misleading promotion of his golf course venture in Scotland and his disgusting personal abuse of the locals who lived nearby, together with the trail of meaningless assurances from him, which bring his lack of integrity into clear view. It can be viewed free on the internet if you are interested.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/

And what did LBJ say about pushing through those civil rights legislation? I believe the quote goes something like "I'll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years!" Goldwater and Kennedy were friends, they had a mutual respect for each other and were looking forward to having a substantive campaign TOGETHER debating the issues. America was robbed of that and what we got was LBJ saying that Goldwater would drop the bomb and that he'd put our buys in harms way when he was planning on escalating our futile involvement in Vietnam and would personally profit off the war.

This Russian sabre rattling, this parroting of neoconservative wannabe Cold Warrior nonsense is exactly why this country is going broke and there is so much chaos in the middle east right now. NATO is a rotting corpse, it's antiquated and does not reflect the reality of the world today. We should not be obligated to the defend a state that has aided and abetting the rise of Islamic State and has mercilessly attacked the only SECULAR fighting forces in the region the are standing up to the genocidal Islamic State, Russia has made more progress in the fight against Syria in just a few months when we've been supposedly been bombing them and using drone strikes for years.

Trump has the most moderate position when it comes the Palestinian and seems to think he could work out a deal and maybe Trump can if he married to these entangled alliances that do not benefit us. This anti-Russian propaganda war that has been waged for some years now is just completely based on lies because it ignores the fact that everything is a two way street and that the US has been encroaching on Russia for years and now that Russia is finally reasserting itself on the world stage Putin is somehow worse than Hitler which doesn't make a lot of sense to me know the history of US foreign policy.

It's such garbage this feigned concerned about oh so evil Putin from the democratic Russian Federation where Putin has approval ratings beyond that of any western leader when we ally with Saudi Arabia who run an ISIS-like state who sponsors most of the Islamic terrorism in the world and then Chinese who have hollowed out our manufacturing base with slave labor and were far far worse than the Soviet's at the time we allied with them. Mao Zedong killed more people than any dictator in the 20th century and that's who Nixon shook hands with so you are telling me that Putin is this bad guy but it just doesn't add up.

I you mean think ISIS and the so called moderate Al Nusra (basically the Syrian branch of Al'Qaida).

I could care less what LBJ said in private, or if he had ulterior motives; the point is, he gave African Americans full rights of citizenship, and that's what primarily matters.

"...know them by the fruits of their labors..."