Is Trump an authoritarian? Why are most liberals against him?
Of course TRUMP is an authoritarian just like all of the POST REAGAN REPUBLICANS because he, like all of them want the USA to be totally ruled by a ONE PARTY POLICE STATE.In a democracy there are checks and balances which protect a country from becoming a dictatorship (authoritarian police state) and TRUMP is doing his damnedest to destroy all the checks and balances.The people you call LIBERALS have a good reason to go against him because LIBERALS believe in DEMOCRACY, especially checks and balances and social safety nets such as social security and Medicare, all those good things that TRUMP is hell bent on DESTROYING.
Why are so many liberals opposed to the wall when many of them have 'walls' around their homes. Isn't this a double standard?
Well, my “wall” around my house—by which I presume you're talking about my fence?—is designed to keep things in, not out. Specifically speaking, the “wall” around my house exists so that I can let my doggos out into the backyard and not have to worry about them running away—though, admittedly, they've still gotten out a time or two, so perhaps it's not quite the barrier I think it is!Photographic evidence of said fence keeping said doggo inside said fenceI would also never insist that my doggos, who 1) didn't ask for the fence, and 2) make much less money than I do, pay for said fence. If that isn't the height of impropriety…ETA: On a more serious note, fences or walls around houses are generally used to keep criminals out. Someone trying to get into your or my backyard is almost certainly doing so for nefarious reasons—there are no jobs in my backyard, nor can one apply for asylum in my backyard. The only thing one can do is try to get in my house via the back door, which is less visible than the front door. There is no better life back there (unless it's 75 and sunny, in which case it's very nice to lounge out there with a book).Contrary to popular belief, just crossing into the US without a visa isn't a criminal act. Most people who do it don't have a nefarious purpose or malicious intent. Many are escaping horrors you and I can't even imagine. Many are coming to work jobs you and I would never in a million years work. The vast majority of them are not criminals or potential criminals.That's the difference: If you break into my house, you have at the very least criminal intent, so I have good reason to want to keep you out of my house. If you make an unauthorized (notice I did not say illegal) entry into this country, experience shows that you aren't here to rape, murder, and pillage my village, so I'm not particularly concerned with keeping you out.Thank heavens no one put up a wall to keep my immigrant ancestors out—they didn't have visas either. The fact that they arrived 200–400 years ago is irrelevant.
How do liberals feel about President Trump saving thousands coal jobs by getting rid of job killing regulations from the Obama Administration?
There was a time in American history when the automobile was invented and gave birth to a whole new industry that continues on to this day. A very painful side effect of the birth of cars was people no longer needed horse drawn buggies so the blacksmiths and stable owners saw their jobs evaporate overnight. Would you go back and un-invent the car so those jobs could be saved?That is how dumb it is to prop up the coal industry. Coal is inevitably going to die to make way for renewable energy. This is not an option - coal is finite, so some day it will run out and the human race will either have another option or die. If Trump really cared about those coal miners, he would be working on an infrastructure plan, that retrains them for a new industry, provides infrastructure jobs to hold them over while retraining, and structure an insurance plan that actually contains some actual benefits.Those so called job killing regulations are the pitifully weak rules that protect Americans from unlimited pollution of the air and water. Even with those weak measures we still had a major American city (Flint) get lead poisoning. There is no such thing as a for profit corporation that will incur costs to be a reasonable steward to the environment unless there is a rule that makes it more expensive for them to pollute than follow the rule. So your plan is the honor system to prevent poisoning of the air and water? Also one final question if these regs killed so many jobs then how in the hell is the unemployment rate under 5%? There is this groovy place called reality - please come and join us here.
If Trump becomes President, will liberals go into shock?
Has anyone considered that, from a liberal's perspective, Trump is the best Republican in the primary? Not the one who would make it easiest for a Democrat to win—that's Cruz. But that Trump is genuinely the Republican with the most liberal-friendly policies?I sense your skepticism. Hear me out.Trump's single most conservative position is his opinion on minorities. He dislikes a wide variety of brown people, and he has some ugly proposals for deporting Mexicans and blocking Muslim immigrants.But on every other policy? Trump's a moderate! He mostly likes the idea of government services like public education and universal healthcare, although he thinks they could be done more efficiently. Compare that to the ideologues who want to burn down the IRS, the EPA, and even the Bureau of Land Management.Now add in these three considerations for Trump's worst (least liberal) proposals:Deport all illegal immigrants? Just wait until the public sees the huge price tag. Then some cell phone videos go viral of families being forcibly separated. This policy will implode on its own after the inevitable public backlash.Build a big wall? Liberals should want this to happen! Yes it symbolically makes us look less welcoming to immigrants. But building the wall would finally take away Republicans' last reliable card in stalling the path to citizenship. They'd no longer be able to say "secure the border first!" I'll take that trade any day. The wall would also be an infrastructure project, and it would create jobs just as well as any road or dam.Ban all Muslim immigration? President Trump could do this by executive order. It's a bad policy. It will hurt our public image, hurt refugees, and make fighting extremism harder. But the upside? It can be easily reversed by the next president. Cruz, Rubio, and Bush are the other three plausible winners. While none use rhetoric as harsh as Trump's, their actual policies are all much harsher. All three would pursue repeal of the ACA, which would be horrible. Reversing Trump's Muslim ban could be done in 4 years. But passing the ACA again? That would take a generation!As conservatives go, Trump is style over substance. And that's exactly the kind of Republican a liberal should want.
Why are some liberals willing to point out Trump's faults while overlooking Obama's?
Okay. Let's say we cut out all the political commentary by liberals from the past 24 months, leaving only the commentary of conservatives (your question is effectively doing the exact opposite). What would we be left with?A deafening roar of complaints against Obama by conservatives, and a deafening silence of complaints against Trump by conservatives.EDIT: I overstated my case. Depending on which conservatives you listen to, you either get harsh criticism of Trump, mild criticism, or blatant cheerleading. I must’nt tar with a broad brush.A few points to make here:Liberal commentary tends to be so lopsided because conservative commentary tends to be so lopsided, and vice versa. If party A decided to unilaterally disarm, so to speak, and decided to remove hyperpartisanship from their commentary, but party B continued to spew hyperpartisan commentary, then in today's “side A says this, and side B says that” form of ‘objectivity’, party A’s candidates will on average look worse than party B’s candidates than would have otherwise been the case.Hostile commentary from the opposing side tends to make a party more defensive regarding their own. If conservatives had let up on attacking Obama, then you'd probably have seen far more liberal objection to Obama and his policies (although with nothing near the hysteria infecting their response to Trump). So pulling liberal commentary out of context is disingenuous. Likewise, if liberals were to let up on Trump, then you can bet that conservatives would tear into Trump themselves (albeit without anything close to their rabid reactions to Obama).As briefly alluded to in my first point, the decline of journalistic integrity over the past few decades has thrown the door wide open to the hyperpartisans, who saw the opportunity to turn the news into propaganda that could sway the country to the right - or to the left. Their actions aren't representative of all liberals or conservatives, and no matter how much they insist otherwise, they don't speak for all of liberalism or all of conservatism.So yes, we have deep-seated problems with politically-motivated hypocrisy, but focusing on just the liberals gives you a very inaccurate picture of what's going on, and only further fuels the problem instead of resolving it.
Will liberals give Donald Trump credit for how much better he has responded to Harvey than Obama did with Katrina?
All Trump had to do was to show up and provide comfort and hope to victims; he even managed to mess that up. He didn’t create FEMA; he didn’t organize the rescue team; he didn’t participate in any way, shape or form in the planning for the aftermath. How did you genius manage to figure out all by yourself that Donald Trump did so well?We need to talk more about that but in case the following might escape your highly intelligent mind, I need to inform you thatJust two weeks before Harvey, Donald Trump reversed regulations to protect infrastructure against flooding . JUST TWO WEEKS before Harvey!Never mind the fact that Obama was not even thinking about running for President when Katrina hit the golf states! George W. Bush was president in case you’re too busy to help Trump celebrate his Harvey’s speech victory.Never mind that you are so hateful of Obama you want everything bad to be attributed to him!Never mind that you are so gullible you want Trump to look good despite the VERY LOW BAR he has to clear!Never mind you are not smart enough to acknowledge your mistakes!Never mind all that!How did Trump' response any better?