Asylum seekers, which make up a relatively larger portion of people who are apprehended with children, aren't breaking any laws and Trump's attempt at deterrence, while not specifically geared towards asylum seekers, was definitely geared towards reducing asylum seekers from coming to the US in the administration's mind.

For reference, The New Crackdown on Migrant Families (2016).

I know I've read elsewhere some reporting about Obama's decision making on this, the basic decision being that there were humanitarian reasons why it was better to deter migrants than to incentivize them. It was an essentially paternalistic argument that the policy was the best of a set of bad options. That logic is, of course, debatable.

I think it's also true that Trump's family separation policy went beyond what Obama did and it's not just pure hypocrisy that people reacted negatively to that. It's also clear that what is motivating Stephen Miller is not the same as what was motivating Obama, and people care about that too. But it's probably also illustrative of some general tendency for us to gloss over some of these issues when the party we support is in power. Or at least it was for me, because I didn't really become aware of what was happening back in 2014 until after the reporting on family separation by the Trump admin.

TS, is it game-theory unexploitable to shoot them all at the border?

Love your quick dip into xenophobia, by the way. So should the president be "excluding" christians?

I stand corrected.

The Weeds had an episode a while back that went over the various strategies.

1. The Trump strategy seems to make it as punitive as possible to come to America while also reducing aid to the countries that are the source of the outflows. They pointed out that it's as a strategy it's kind of shooting yourself in the foot.

2. The Mexican strategy was, I guess, you could call a more liberal strategy. Which was deter immigrants at the various points of the journey while pairing it with aid to the outflowing countries. Of course, if you were a bit cynical you could see this as buying off the source countries to deter their own populations. The downside of this is that if you're a country that people are fleeing from with seemingly true asylum claims then you're probably not a country that can effectively deter your own population either through positive investment or negative means like shutting down borders. You're not a country that can do that either way.

3. Another alternative approach is a more regional approach. Instead of having immigrants come to America where they have to learn a new language it'd be better for them to stay close to where they're from so the approach would be to give aid to regional countries that take in immigrants. The culture shock wouldn't be so bad and the other countries would have better rule of law and be better able to cope with inflows.

4. Of course the fourth approach is just to let them come.

I think the best evidence of Trump's "big heart" is how quickly he gave up on all his campaign promises to deliver the best, cheapest healthcare system in the world - as soon as he realized health care is complicated.

He's in it for the grift and to enrich his family.

If you replaced TS's #1 reason that Trump has a big heart with Trump was an outsider to the Beltway and voters wanted to give control of the country to a non-politician because they no longer trust the engrained professsional elite, I would probably give a similar explanation to why Trump supporters don't care about his lies.

Well that's one way of putting it

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...pocisy/588205/

Ok - so over 2 years in now - let's list the things Trump materially has done that a beltway Republican wouldn't have:


Tax cuts for the wealthy? Nope. Both sides would have done that.

Deregulate everything and let industry run wild? Nope. Both sides there too.

Remove consumer protections set up during the Obama years? Same.

Boost military spending? (up 50% since 2015) Both sides would have done that. Dems too except maybe Bernie or Warren.


Express support for both sides a white supremacist rally? Ok yeah - that's new.

Declare a bogus national emergency at the border and massively escalate locking kids in cages? Yeah.

Repeatedly call the press the enemy of the people and erode faith in democracy? Yeah - Jeb! wouldn't be doing that.

Tariff wars? Definitely a Trump thing.


So here are my questions:

1) Trumpfans, do you dispute any of the red or green things - or am I leaving anything out?

2) Of the things that are different - which matter to you? Is tariffs really a big thing for everyone here?

So what's the rationalization for this stuff? Big heart? Beltway outsider? Obama bad so racist birtherism understandable?

I think those tweets fall under:

#4. Role of agitator and conversation maker.

Yes birtherism is definitely a conversation the country needed to have - and totally not racist.

Answer b) first

b) Trump is referring to the remarks make by the VA governor, who was discussing late term abortions and after birth abortions of babies that were non-viable or brain dead, and giving the option to mothers and doctors to have the baby born to have organs harvested since the baby is brain dead or otherwise unviable anyway. It's a nuanced position that I am not particularly against, but the governor explained this VERY poorly and it sounded like it was available to viable babies as well unless you really read through his remarks carefully.

a) Of course Trump is going to run with this. It's standard politics, and anyone else who heard the VA governor's remarks would do the same, and in particular Trump likes to exaggerate. Just like how Biden and Buttigieg are mischaracterizing Trump's somewhat clumsy remarks about Charlottesville, which per the below, you seem to believe in.


Tax cuts for the wealthy - debunked by that right-wing outlet that is the failing NY times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/b...e-tax-cut.html Truth is, most everyone got a tax cut.

Express support for both sides a white supremacist rally? - Read the transcript; that's not what he said at all - https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...sides-remarks/

""So you know what, it’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people -- and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly."

And it was clear that there were indeed people coming out in support of the statutes that were not neo-Nazis or white nationalists. Again, from the white supremacist news source that is the NY times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/u...cans-race.html

Repeatedly call the press the enemy of the people and erode faith in democracy? - That's not what he said. He said "fake news" is the enemy of the people. Given the gaslighting from media regarding Trump/Russia collusion, the "very fine people on both sides" nonsense, and other issues, he is not wrong.
Going to cite the far-right white supremacist Nazi that is Glenn Greenwald:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/20...es_462521.html

I could address the other points, but perhaps it is incumbent on you to first do some soul searching and understand why you believe the things you do first.

'Fake news', though, is conveniently whatever Trump doesn't like (and/or makes him look bad) whether true or false and real news is whatever makes him look good even when it's transparently false.

See: Larger inauguration than Obama.

saying that the middle class got a tiny bump in their returns as a defense to immense corporate welfare is pretty laughable. saying the whole idea is debunked because of that is downright stupidity.

right before your cherry picked quote he heaped blame on the left for being there without a permit. and tried to equate the two. also EVERYONE coming out to support Robert E. Lee was a white supremacist, there is no other reason to support him.

trump called everyone but state propaganda network Fox News Fake, and has repeatedly tweeted out ACTUAL FAKE NEWS breitbart.. there is no defense for that.

Glenn greenwald isnt a good source for anything, and definitely isn't a left leaning source anymore.

i love a trumper telling other people to do some soul searching..

trumpers aren't on the right side of history, but thats not surprising considering conservatives frankly never have been, so you're right there probably is a lot of soul searching that should be done..

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of the points - I'm not going to waste too much time arguing with someone who thinks a problem with the Trump government is that he's not listening enough to the person who is the furthest right and has been fighting a war against "multiculturalism" since high school - but even just this month Trump has tweeted that specifically the press is the enemy of the media. Not fake news, not even the "fake news media" as he often puts it, but the press as a whole is the enemy of the people:



Talking about the media gaslighting and then making this post is irony of the highest order.

I personally agree with Trump that the modern press is the enemy of the people. They spent two years hysterically screaming a conspiracy theory day after day that an American president was secretly in cahoots with Russia. They even knew it probably bull**** but did it for ratings:



If that isn't "the enemy of the people", what is? No one except America's enemies benefited by this hysterical delusion that had millions of people upset and afraid that their president was a traitor in cahoots with a foreign power.

Another example is the trade war with China. The mainstream left wing media cheerleaded AGAINST Trump and FOR a creepy foreign dictatorship that represents perhaps as grave a threat to future peace and freedom as Nazi Germany did in 1932 - a dictatorship which is stealing massive amounts of wealth in contravention of what they agreed to do, directly hurting Americans.

So yeah, I think there's an excellent case that the US media is acting strongly contrary to the interests of the average US citizen and deserves the title "enemy of the people" and "fake news". The fourth estate is more powerful and more dangerous than the president; why should they get a pass from scrutiny and withering criticism?

if you're trying to imply that russian interference was a conspiracy theory than you aren't arguing in good faith and maybe shouldn't be posting in the "new good faith forum".

the press has never been giving a pass, and labeling them the enemy of the people is authoritarian, incorrect, and dumb.

Project Veritas is not a legitimate source.

Bottom line is the driving force for news networks and partisan politics is an abetment for the bottom line. It's free market!

The alternative looks much worse.

Thank you well named for posting truth

I fully admit trump's policy was harsher than obama's but they both separated and put people in cages as a deterrent

Quick on the draw here I see

We aren't talking about Russian interference and you know it. We're talking about Trump as a Russian colluder. An extensive, high level investigation which targeted dozens of known Trump associates in highly intrusive and exhaustive ways found no evidence of the Russian collusion narrative the media breathlessl pushed day after day for two years. Applying your standard on "good faith" I find rather extreme bad faith in your response. Or perhaps you aren't following the discussion? I don't know. Yours is a weird response if it's genuine. We are obviously talking Trump collusion (it was said several times in my post), not Russian interference.
You can state this but there's no argument made here. I think labeling the press the enemy of the people is anti-authoritarian, correct, and smart. Now what?
Please explain? It's a video of a CNN producer discussing his network's view of the Russia hoax, damning himself and the money-grubbing-over-truth nature of his own network with his own words. It was widely reported in reliable press as truth. A video of a producer's own words widely reported in reliable sources isn't a legitimate source? I'm really confused as to how you get to that point.

Remove the bolded part and this is accurate. It was specifically the fact that the Trump policy involves separating children from their families - with little to no effort spent ensuring they could ever be reunited - that has caused the most outrage. This is not something that happened under Obama and that is why many people view it as so much worse as opposed to simply a harsher enforcement of the same principle.

I didn't say the event didn't happen, I said Project Veritas is not a legitimate source. By which I mean that there is documented evidence of them editing videos to create false impressions. If there are reports in more reliable press outlets then I think you ought to cite those instead, so others do not have to go to all the extra work of figuring out whether or not the claims are trustworthy.

I thank you for having now done so (although folks will have to fix the link since 2+2 censored it)

Actually, I notice The Hill piece does not in fact vouch for the authenticity of the video

Edit: let me note that without bothering too much about any of this my guess is that the clip is authentic. I pointed out the problem with Project Veritas more out of an interest in persuading you to use better sources. I'm not actually concerned that much with whether or not a CNN producer called their coverage mostly bull**** or whatever.

Obama tended to let families free rather than separate at times.