Thursday, September 01, 2016

Donald Trump and the Mexican Nightmare



He launched his campaign like an angry orange Hitler on steroids, by calling Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, vowing to immediately deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Build a great wall along the southern border, and make Mexico pay for it.

But when Donald Trump realized he was alienating moderate Republicans and his polls were starting to resemble a rapidly deflating piñata, he decided he should moderate his image.

So off to Mexico he went...



But although Trump did his best to appear presidential, to the point of looking dazed. 

Or scared out of his mind...



His meeting with the equally dazed Mexican President ended in confusion. 

"Who pays for the wall? We didn't discuss," Trump had said when asked by a reporter during a news conference following their meeting in Mexico City. "We did discuss the wall. We didn't discuss payment of the wall. That'll be for a later date." 

But Peña Nieto later claimed the two had discussed the wall and who would pay for it -- and he had "made it clear" to Trump it wouldn't be Mexico. "At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump, I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall," Peña Nieto tweeted, after their meeting Wednesday.


Which must have made many of Trump's racist supporters wonder whether the angry orange was betraying them.

Or as NBC's Joe Scarborough suggests, start calling him Amnesty Don. 



But as it turned out, it wasn't long before his rabid redneck supporters were screaming his name again and chanting "Build that wall, build that wall."

As Trump delivered his most racist, and incendiary speech of the whole campaign. 

After a respectful visit to Mexico City on Wednesday afternoon, during which he declared Mexico’s president a “friend,” the Republican presidential candidate delivered an angry evening speech in which he again depicted illegal immigrants as a violent horde and threatened to deport all 11 million.

Returning to his trademark shout, he said the plight of the 11 million “doesn’t matter.” He said he would begin deportation proceedings against any illegal immigrant arrested, not only convicted. Speaking at length about citizens killed by illegal immigrants, he called them “dangerous, dangerous, dangerous criminals” and “thugs.”


A speech which had the grotesque Ann Coulter swooning indecently...


Or wetting herself.

The New York Times' Charles Blow calling him a coward.

Donald Trump is the internet troll of presidential politics. When he’s securely removed from the objects of his scorn, he’s tough as nails; when he’s in their presence, he quivers like a bowl of Jell-O.

Case in point: Trump has spent the whole of his campaign maligning Mexican immigrants, people of “Mexican heritage” and the country of Mexico itself.


And yet, when he made the quick decision to visit Mexico Wednesday and meet with that country’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, Trump was much more contrite in his comments. Indeed, for most of the subsequent news conference, Trump looked lost and confused.


And the Democrats questioning his sanity...



And I think they're right. 

For it makes no sense to try to look presidential, and appeal to alienated moderate Republicans. Only to blow that effort out of the water just a few hours later.

By playing to the mob...



And looking like a dangerous would be dictator, who would set his own country on fire.

A maniac who as Charles Blow says, shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the White House.

This is what every voter must remember: Trump has two faces and two sets of facts and too much latitude to spread his animus, anti-intellectualism and lies, and he must never see the inside of the Oval Office.

And since I strongly agree with that, and I don't think the angry orange can help himself, I think I'll stick to my humble prediction.

The wall made Donald Trump.

And it will bring him down...



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21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Moderate Republicans?! What's that? Do you also believe in moderate Klansmen, Aryan Brothers and neo-Nazis?

Anonymous said...

Definitely quivering and confused. I'm pretty sure he tried to say the word "substantive", but came out with something completely different. I guess the word never showed up in "the lots of books" he claims to have read, nor in all of the articles about himself that he's read. Reading his prepare pared speeches seems to make him quiver.

TS

Steve said...

I also am embarrassed to be on the same wavelength as Ann Coulter but that speech was brilliant and hard to argue with. I think that speech will prove to be the first time he draws baby seal blood as he clubs the hapless Hildebeast to a pulp by Nov.

rumleyfips said...

Trump was failing in the polls so he fired people, hired people, pivoted and presented a moderate persona. Polls have gone his way for a few days. Now he's back to his true beliefs .
Primaries, conventions and Labour day have gone and the serious campaign now starts. Today through Sunday is a new polling period with results due next Tuesday or Wednesday. With the RNC ready to divert their funding and efforts away from Trump if things do not go their way next week, these polls may be the most important of the campaign.

Steve said...

He played the American media like a fiddle in the hands of Charlie Daniels. Go to Mexico in retreat and then attack at night. He dropped the MIKE.

Anonymous said...

Initially I wondering what the hell Mexico was thinking but when I think about it, they are being very smart. They want to be prepared for a worse-case scenario plus if/when Trump says anything stupid it will be proof that he doesn't understand neither how foreign relations work nor how to deal diplomatically with others. The media will do all the work for Mexico as most leaders realize it is not considered appropriate to make public comment on leadership relations in other countries....although they can could certainly be forgiven for looking at Trump and thinking "What the fuck?!"

Anonymous said...

Hey Simon: As I have suggested before, we should not make the mistake of focusing only on the evils of Trump so much so that we lose sight of what the Dems and Hillary Clinton have become.

Here is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Glenn Greenwald, on what the Dems and Hillary Clinton have been doing while we were busy dumping on Trump, albeit much deservedly: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/31/a_new_mccarthyism_greenwald_on_clinton

Here is another POV on the same issue: https://www.rt.com/op-edge/357923-clinton-hackers-sanders-us-russia/

Do we really want a new form of McCarthyism, or accept that the price for defeating Trump is that we have a dangerous neoconservative U.S. foreign policy that is even more right wing than that of Bush or Reagan when Hillary gets into power? Kagan, that Republican warmonger, had publicly endorsed Hillary and had stated that he is confident that Hillary will implement the hawkish policies favored by the Republicans.

Recall that the above views have come after other much respected journalists (e.g. John Pilger) had already suggested that Hillary would be much more dangerous to the world because of her hawkish views than Trump. Think of Libya ("we came, we saw, he died") and also recall that she had once suggested nuking Iran.

Trump or Hillary? I would suggest the correct answer is neither.

Anonymous said...

It always happens when a society is highly stressed. In this case the drought afflicted middle class want a better future but the holy priests of war and financial repression can't seem to deliver.Right on cue along comes a rogue priest to capture public support by claiming that the he has the magic elixir which is super powerful because it involves local human sacrifice.Its wizardry 101,everyone knows that a powerful potent must have someone sacrificed to give it power.What better than 11 million people in your own country rather than unidentified souls living on the other side of the planet.Sad choices.
RT

jrkrideau said...

Eleven million illegal immigrants is about 3.5% of the US population and presumably many of them are of working age AND working. Let's just for the heck of it, assume 2.0% of the US working population are illegal immigrants.

Kick out 2.0% of your productive working population strikes me as something that may have some minor economic effect.

Not to mention a lot of the very rich may be mowing their own lawns and making their own breakfasts for a while.

@ anon

Trump or Hillary? I would suggest the correct answer is neither.

Trump is nuts but Hillary is just as scary in another way. She believes in “American Exceptionalism” which seems to mean that the USA has a right and duty to make the world better even if you have to destroy it to do so.

jrkrideau said...

A couple of weeks ago I was arguing that it was no surprise that Trump had contacts with various Russian oligarchs and so on. He is a property developer. If you want to move money out of Russia, legally or illegally property probably looks like a good deal. The idea that Putin would prefer a mad loose-cannon over Clinton even if she is a cold-war warrior was silly.

At the moment it looks like Trump could do something totally mad in a fit of pique but Clinton may be even more dangerous as she seems to think she would be leading some crusade against the "Evil Empire" just like Ronny. Except Ronny was much more sensible if nowhere near as smart as Hillary.

Putin is probably cursing and regretting not giving Bernie Sanders a few billion dollars. He is not exactly a nice cuddly democratic leader but he actually seems to have done Russia some good.

And all this indignation over an unproven statement that the "Russians" hacked the DNC computers. Totally unproven, it was probably some pimply 19 year old in a California basement. And I am sure Angela Merkel is patting her new Blackberry and snickering.

BTW, as for Crimea, I have no serious problem with the land grab. It was Russian from the time Potemkin (I think) took it in the time of Catherine the Great until Khrushchev transfered it to the Ukraine in the 50's. And that was just some minor adjustment within the immortal USSR. The Soviet Union had a different view about boundaries than we do. We would be horrified to hear that Edmunston NB was being transferred to Québec or that Gatineau was going to be part of Ontario. Apparently this was not that uncommon in the good old CCCP

It is the base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. From a simple security point of view having one of your major navel bases within another country is not good.

So from an historical and military point of view I really don't blame Putin. I just hope that with that success he does not move into the hubris state that some statesmen (and women in the case of Thatcher) where they loose all sense of reality.

Unknown said...

The Laura Ingraham Show - Sept 1, 2016
http://donaldtrumpthenew.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-laura-ingraham-show-sept-1-2016.html

Simon said...

hi anon...yes I did think of putting the word moderate between inverted commas. But believe it or not there are some moderate Republicans. And they are the ones who by refusing to vote for Trump will help defeat him...

Simon said...

hi Steve... you should be embarrassed to be on the same wavelength as Ann Coulter, and it should help you understand why you're wrong to back Trump. But I'll just let reality trump your delusions, for that deranged speech did him no favours, and he is going to lose...

Simon said...

hi TS...I must admit for a while I was worried to see Trump trying to act like a moderate, but luckily he could not keep it up for long. His demagogic speech will only play to his base, and there aren't enough angry old white people to win the election...

Simon said...

hi rumleyfips...yes I agree, the next few weeks are going to be crucial. Trump on autocue is definitely a greater threat than Trump unchained. And Hillary Clinton does need to step up her game. But the Democrats are set to own the airwaves, They have booked the best ad spots all the way to the election, and they have the money to pay for them. So hopefully Clinton will prevail in the end...

Simon said...

hi Way Way Up....Maybe the Mexican President was right not to provoke Trump. But it sure won't do him any good in the short run. Many Mexicans are outraged that he did not rebuke Trump in public, and since he was already incredibly unpopular, I wouldn't bet on his chances of being re-elected. And hopefully Trump's incendiary speech will help defeat him as well...

Simon said...

hi anon...I am fully aware of Hillary Clinon's weaknesses which is why I supported Bernie Sanders so passionately. But I'm afraid this election at least is about the lesser of two evils. Both candidates are incredibly unpopular, but stopping a dangerous racist demagogue like Trump must be the number one priority. This coming election is merely defensive, and the revolution will begin with the nest one...

Simon said...

hi RT...it is as you describe a nightmare, and unfortunately it's a nightmare we have witnessed before. When a society is highly stressed it can become a playground for demagogues and their magic potions that they claim can cure all our ills overnight. I would never dismiss Trump's chances in a time like this one, but can only hope that sanity will prevail...

Simon said...

hi jrkrideau...I agree this is the election why one choice is almost as bad as the other. But Trump is a dangerous demagogue, I do question his sanity. And I don't think I am exaggerating when I say I believe that the future of the world is at stake. Or the Americans defeat Trump or we'll all be in trouble...

Simon said...

hi jrkrideau...I have a great deal of admiration for the Russian people, their culture, their history and their many scientific achievements. I could never forget how the broke the back of the Nazis during the Second World War at an enormous human cost. But I fear that Putin could play Trump like a fiddle, which would not be a good thing. And while Clinton is a bit of a hawk, she at least is a known quantity, and at this point I'll settle for that...

Anonymous said...

You mean guys like Glenn "Clinton is cyanide, but Trump may be worse" Beck? Objecting to Trump because he's not a religious whackjob doesn't make you a moderate.

And while Rush "Trump is an Internet troll" Limbaugh may pass as a moderate among Republicans, that's about the only place he'd be considered one.