edwardmurphy wrote:Anyway, I see what you're getting at but I don't think the coverage has been unfair. Here are my reasons:
1) Trump prefaced his comments on illegal immigration with the claim that nothing whatsoever was being done by the Obama Administration to secure the border or deport criminal aliens. Everything about that was a lie, and now Trump is essentially copying Obama's immigration policy. It's fair for the media to notice that.
Trump's presentation is different, more business director-like, if you've had experience dealing with directors. Tell people how it's going to be, then delegate it to managers and others to work out the best way forward. Directors expect input back. Trump's shoot from the hip style of leading, is seen as more down to earth and refreshing to many people. Even if he gets something wrong, it's not scripted by the political party. By the end though, his initial ideas have been filtered through his political party and people below him, and becomes more tuned and hopefully sensible.
For example, I believe Trump may have said in relation to taking on immigrants from Middle East something akin to a Muslim ban, prior to more carefully talking it as ban on a certain volatile states. If true, I haven't seen his exact words, then Trump is largely to blame for the backlash the media was able to capitalise on with his own initial words. Even if the actual policy itself wasn't a ban on Muslims.
ed wrote:2) The areas where Trump is NOT copying Obama's immigration policy are stupid and alarming.
First off, he insists that he's going to build this huge, tall, massively costly, pretty much pointless wall, despite the facts that illegal immigration from Mexico has actually been down in recent years and that half of our illegal immigrants come in on visas and just never leave. So the wall is a 20+ billion dollar (plus annual maintenance forever) boondoggle that's aimed at ineffectively addressing a nonexistent problem. And this is the plan from the party that claims to be fiscally conservative.
The wall is said to repay itself to the US if it blocks something like 10-20% of illegal immigration. When businesses just focus on expenditure, rather than the returns, they're not going to be a business for very long, if ever a serious business. The wall, while expensive, seems on fiscal paper to make much sense. It keeps jobs with American citizens. It helps curve illegal drugs and blackmarket guns (the latter of which you should be happy about -- reducing guns). And many other aspects.
Fiscal conservativeness doesn't mean "not spending", but rather spending wisely. If the return outweighs the cost of an investment, then that is a wise fiscal decision. In business, you've got to often spend money to make money.
Ed wrote:Second, Trump uses all of this over-the-top, alarmist rhetoric that scares the Hell out of people, whether they're illegals, American business owners who count on undocumented labor, international students, American universities that count on international students, anyone who does business in Mexico, and so forth. No-Drama Obama set records for number of people deported, but he did it calmly and quietly so nobody freaked out. It's not reasonable for Sideshow Don to think he can use his America-first, White nationalist rhetoric to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment without the media pointing out what he's doing and noting who else used that same strategy. If the comparisons aren't flattering to Trump then maybe he should start acting more like a 21st century American politician than one from, say, mid-20th century Spain, Italy, or Germany.
He wouldn't have won being POTUS if he didn't play the game with the image people (and your mainstream media) pegged him as. Becoming all defensive and saying, you're wrong, I'm a nice guy! He would have had polls like Cruz ended up with who tried playing such, became all defensive to Trump's jabs, and ended up saying how appalling Trump's character really was when he bowed out. What happened? Trump grew in popularity, Cruz faded away and then came back tail between his legs.
He played the only card society would let him have, and he's been playing it next to perfect. I dare say, none of us really know what the real Trump is like. Except that he's a successful businessman, and many successful businessman are often emotionally detached and arrogant.
Ed wrote:3) Trump's cluster[love] of a Muslim ban was poorly drafted, chaotically rolled out, and almost definitely unconstitutional, and when the courts called him on it he had a giant hissy fit and questioned the legitimacy of the American Judiciary. These are not things that Clinton, Obama, or any other American President ever did. That's the behavior of a wannabe tinpot dictator and it needs to be reported as such.
Are Christians also banned from such states? If so, then it's not just a Muslim ban, but a ban on states where terrorism is most active. Look at the states listed, they seem valid to me. And who even cares? No one in a country outside the US, even Australia, NZ, Europe or the like, has any right to claim the US should let us in. There is no American right the US needs to provide to non-Americans, and that's the way it should nationally be.
Ed wrote:4) Trump is a reality TV star who's trying to work the media to his advantage by doing and saying stupid, outrageous things and then howling about the injustice of it all when the press calls him out for his behavior. It's a game and the press is - very slowly - catching on.
And he played that card no one would have let him shake to a 'T' and won being POTUS. He's definitely smarter than most of your media there, Hollywood celebs, Democrats and even many Republicans who all nailed him to such a persona and kept promoting such. They all played into his hand, which he happily ran with and won.
