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Email to a friend explaining why my views on Trump diverge from the media's


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2020 Jul 8, 8:00pm   819 views  11 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

From my friend:

I am afraid I can no longer be impartial - despite being totally apolitical in my entire life until Trump got elected - I am very sick of his policies. And it is getting worse every day. I simply do not understand how some people still support him and I fail to see their point of view since what I see is incredibly disturbing.


Me:

Which Trump policy specifically are you opposed to?

I think the core issue is that millions of American workers have been unemployed or had their wages lowered because of decades of outsourcing to China and illegal immigration. Trump addresses these issues, while the Democrats generally will not.


My friend:

His healthcare, EPA and immigration policies probably top my list. In the middle of this pandemic he wants to cancel ACA and leave 23M people without insurance!

He pulled out of WHO. He pulled out of Paris Accord.


Me:

The WHO and Paris Accord pull outs fit the pattern of rejecting globalization, which is how Trump got elected to begin with. The WHO does seem to be heavily influenced by China, which would be another reason. Not saying that these are good actions, only that they are consistent with asserting American autonomy, the fundamental theme of Trump's presidency.

The Paris Accord would cause economic harm to the US coal industry, a strong source of support for Trump. So that move was entirely political, at the expense of the environment. I have hope that solar will replace coal and most fossil fuel soon. It is already cheaper to generate electricity from solar than from coal, but storage is a big problem.

The ACA is fundamentally flawed in that does nothing to limit medical expenses, which in the US are already about double the next country as a % of GDP I think. It makes citizens obligated to pay privately owned insurance corporations potentially unlimited amounts of money, which seems unconstitutional. If it's a tax, we should pay that tax to the government, and not to an oligopoly. I think there should indeed be a tax for healthcare (we already have it, called Medicare) but that it cannot possibly cover the most expensive treatments, because again, there is no upper bound. So I support Medicare for everyone, with limits to coverage.

Something like half of all US health care expenses are for the elderly in their last year of life. My own mother had a pointless brain surgery which actually made her worse off shortly before she died. It must have been tremendously expensive, but Medicare paid.

To Trump's credit, he is requiring hospitals to publish their prices, which has never been done before. It is at least a step towards containing costs. People should know the costs and make market-based decisions for non-lifesaving care. For lifesaving care, prices should be fixed by law, not infinite. Currently, health care is like the most expensive imaginable restaurant, with no prices on the menu, and you are forced to eat there.

Trump's policy of getting tough on illegal immigration is right because illegals drive down wages for the poorest American citizens. Americans would indeed do the jobs that illegals do, for maybe 2x or 3x the wages, which they could get if illegals were not here. Our fruit and vegetable prices would go up, among other things, but that is a cost we should bear not only to support our poorest citizens, but because when the poor get more money, they tend to spend it, benefiting the economy. When they rich get more money, they just throw it on the pile in the basement.

Of course Trump is doing it wrong. A 3000 mile long wall is silly because it will always be possible to get over or around it. What is really needed is mandatory prison time for all employers of illegals, with large rewards to illegals for turning in their employers. But that's probably hard to campaign on, since employers of illegals are probably often Republicans.

I totally support Trump's temporary ban on H1B visas. I think it should be permanent. 71% of Silicon Valley tech workers are H1B, and they are here only to drive down my own wages to benefit stockholders. They are not especially qualified, since most of those jobs are QA and similar. Americans could do those jobs. The program exists only out of political corruption to begin with.

Trump's attempt to ban immigration from Muslim countries plays on the fear of terrorism, so it was political opportunism. It was ridiculously inconsistent because it excluded Saudi Arabia, the source of almost all Islamic terrorism. It should have been exactly reversed, with a ban on Saudi Arabia alone, not on the other countries. But Saudi money seems to have corrupted the US at the highest levels.

But the core issue to everything, and one that is never really in the press, is that the lower half of the US has been greatly harmed by globalization because they are now forced to compete with the poor of the world. US factories have mostly moved to China, and the low-level jobs are often taken by illegals. Go to any restaurant and the kitchen and cleaning staff is very likely to be illegal. The upper half of the US is doing fine, and in fact benefits from the very same actions which harm their poorer fellow citizens.

To justify harming the lower half of the country, and to prevent political unification against the owners of capital, the idea that the lower half is "racist" is very convenient. It is much easier to harm your fellow citizens economically when you can find a reason to call them evil. But I don't believe most people in America are racist, especially not compared to some other countries I've been to. What they are is afraid of violent crime, and unfortunately black people commit violent crime at a wildly disproportionate level (minimum 10x). Nor is it entirely explained by poverty. Similarly poor white and Hispanic people do not commit crime at the same rate.

I think young black men need structure, and something to do. The military is probably a good idea, especially if it gives them training in job skills, but of course I would be called racist for even suggesting this. Or perhaps there should be some kind of caste level jobs reserved for black men, the way things work in India. This would also be called racist and against the free market, but it does seem to provide some stability in India.

Comments 1 - 11 of 11        Search these comments

1   Tenpoundbass   2020 Jul 8, 8:22pm  

You done kilt him!
2   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2020 Jul 8, 8:27pm  

You had good response. This is the kind of information main stream and liberal media really hides. They scream crazy things, they hide the good things he does. It's just like his 4th of July speech about the left when he said "every fact is distorted, every flaw is magnified". Trump speaks truth about this stuff very well.

I'm angry at all the outsourcing and illegals that corporations bring under a bullshit line of "diversity", promoting that new ideology called Intersectionalism. Utterly hate it.

Hope this helps your friend understand this man.
3   Patrick   2020 Jul 8, 8:29pm  

Tenpoundbass says
You done kilt him!


I hope not. I really like the guy. I think he's just been listening to the media too much.
4   Karloff   2020 Jul 8, 9:31pm  

You can always tell you're dealing with Critical Theory/Cultural Marxist proponents when you encounter pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook like "inter-sectionalism", "inequitable status quo", or "structural systems of inequality". Unquantifiable garbage which they present as fact and then pile false choice options and demands on top of. Their entire argument is nothing but deception, non sequitur, and other logical fallacies.
5   Patrick   2020 Jul 8, 9:46pm  

Karloff says
Unquantifiable garbage which they present as fact and then pile false choice options and demands on top of.


Good description.
6   just_passing_through   2020 Jul 8, 10:04pm  

I just gave up on my brain washed pal in SF. Things went back to normal after we quit political convos.

Today I received a Whatsapp message:

"I'm not into astrology, but I know your sign is Fagitarious"

Me:

"No, Aqueerious. February"
7   Bd6r   2020 Jul 9, 7:07am  

I have stopped communicating with two former friends of mine who support BLM racism. It is simply not worth getting annoyed...
8   clambo   2020 Jul 9, 9:08am  

I have an ultra liberal female friend who is my neighbor. This generally describes most of them in Santa Cruz.

She asked me over for a martini, as she doesn’t like to drink alone.

I’m not much of a drinker, but I agreed.

After one I was happy, two I was in the bag. But she surprised me.

She said she completely agreed with something Trump said about something, maybe Wuhan virus or the drugs or the economy.

I was practically yelling “Imagine that! You listened to him and not the media!”

Later I was home and thought martinis taste kind of lousy; why are they popular?
9   Patrick   2020 Jul 9, 10:09am  

clambo says
I was practically yelling “Imagine that! You listened to him and not the media!”

Later I was home and thought martinis taste kind of lousy; why are they popular?


Nice, I think lots of people know that Trump actually has many valid points but are afraid to admit it because that would make them a target of leftist violence, harassment, firing, etc.

Martinis are popular because of the alcohol content alone, imho. Never found them to be a pleasant drinking experience, but maybe I never had a really good one.
10   Ceffer   2020 Jul 9, 10:53am  

Brd6 says

Later I was home and thought martinis taste kind of lousy; why are they popular?


Might get you a sloppy, gargling BJ with barf all over your socks. Who can say no to that?
11   SunnyvaleCA   2020 Jul 9, 12:49pm  

The Paris Accord would cause economic harm to the US coal industry

That is one minor part of the problem with the Paris Accord.

How about:
The Paris Accord put immediate and significant restrictions on the US (including, but not limited to, the coal industry). Meanwhile, under the accord, China would continue building coal plants and only reign in carbon emissions at some nebulous time in the future. This fits perfectly with what China does in international negotiations: Agree to anything in the future for their own benefit now and when the future rolls around, ignore their obligations. Admission to WTO and Most Favored Nation status are prime examples. The situation in Hong Kong and the building of islands in the south China sea are other examples.

Sadly, few of the remaining Paris Accord participants have actually reduced carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the US has actually been reducing (and is continuing to reduce) carbon emissions. If the US hadn't had mass 3rd-world immigration and mass illegal immigration for the last 50 years, the country's population would be contracting nicely by now, making carbon emissions almost automatic. Unlike any president since Eisenhower, Trump is actually attempting to enforce immigration laws already on the books.

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