We gotta talk about Uncle Joe

[Crunch]

The bad orange man is your ultimate bogeyman.  It’s nutty.

[TheDrake]

I think you'd find that some of the rhetoric is similar. The only part that's hard to divine is intent. There is little doubt that trumps rhetoric encourages white supremacists, we have it from their own mouths.

[Crunch]

White bed sheets also encourage white supremacists. I’ll take what you say seriously when you call forthem to be removed from store shelves.

[TheDrake]

You got me there, crunch. I constantly hear white supremacists praising white bedsheets.

[Crunch]

Think it's a joke? Ask Ralph Northam.

[Aris Katsaris]

The bad orange man is your ultimate bogeyman.  It’s nutty.

Since my point is the exact opposite, that he's a *typical* and ultimately unimportant dime-a-dozen far-right demagogue, you seem to be suffering from a severe problem in reading comprehension here.

https://balkaninsight.com/2019/12/19/bosnian-serb-chief-sends-fan-letter-to-trump/
This Milorad Dodik, the person praising Trump's defense of 'patriotism' so much, is the same person that named a student dormitory in honor of Karadjic just days before Karadjic was convicted of war crimes in an International Criminal Tribunal.

[Aris Katsaris]

And as a further sidenote, I'd rather you stopped implying I have a problem with his skin color. You'll never see me mocking him as "orange".

Trump can be as orange as he likes, unlike him I don't attack people on the basis of their skin-color.

[Seriati]

Yes.  Biden literally called the ban racist for weeks

Can you give some citations here, preferably ones across a number of weeks?

Not for Biden, you can find him for a couple days, then silence on the point for 2 months, then his campaign claiming he always supported a travel ban.  For the media you can find accusations of racism and lengthy write ups on how its the wrong plan and and overaction for at least a week on heavy rotation, and periodically thereafter pretty easily for two more weeks.

Btw, the travel ban was a correct move, but as far as I can tell, it was indeed motivated by Trump's perpetual instinctive racism xenophobia and isolationism; same way that the Democrats' initial (erroneous) opposition to it (which as far as I can tell barely lasted a couple days) was motivated by their instinctive anti-racism, anti-xenophobia and anti-isolationism.

By "as far as you can tell" you mean you made it up?  Faucci and others have literally stated that Trump acted on their advice to have a travel ban promptly after they gave it.  So literally, based on science and the correct response.  It's your desire to read more into it to support  an unfounded meme that Trump is a racist that looks like the "happy coincidence."

The Democrats on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to play their race card once again.  By definition what ever Trump does is wrong and evil, therefore whatever is the most obvious vector of attack is played out.  Ban travel from a country - must be because of racism, not because of the factually evident risk of infection - or security risks in connection with the prior travel bans.

That in the case of a pandemic Trump's instinctive isolationism...

Trump doesn't have an "instinctive isolationism."  That's a false characterization.  There's no indication that he's anti-immigration, opposing illegal immigration is not a data point on that.  There's no indication he opposes international trade or travel, only that he wants the first to be on fair terms (a position you can find him commenting on for decades).

This is the soft lie of miss-characterization.  Trump's positions on those issues are rational, not the result of your delusional attribution of behind the scenes motives.

... is the correct response was a happy accident for him -- if it's supposedly just a hoax (as he claimed) or no worse than a normal flu, there'd be no reason for a travel ban, would there now? So he did accidentally the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

Then you repeated a lie.  He didn't the virus was a hoax.  That's just a lie the left repeats over and over to try and make it true.

And it's interesting you attribute "no worse than the flu" to Trump when the main stream media repeated that assertion for weeks after Trump instituted the travel ban to criticize Trump.  And it's interesting how, the MSM could hammer Trump as a racist for weeks on an issue, and now claim he's evil for not acting sooner, and you'll repeat both contradictory claims as if they were true.

Just today, the Trump campaign released an attack ad on Biden, which uses a photo of him with Gary Locke as evidence for Biden's suspicious ties with China. Gary Locke's an American citizen -- the incriminating evidence is that he's racially Asian rather than white, of course. It's hard to argue that this attack ad wasn't racist, when the only point against Gary Locke is his race.

Lucky for you they included a Chinese American in an ad demonstrating the close Biden-China connections, otherwise you might have to actually consider the main point.  Funny how pointing out Biden-China connections is somehow  "racist" rather than relevant, but pursuing a delusion that Trump was a Russian plant pursued for over 2 years based on lies  is totally different.

[Aris Katsaris]

Yes.  Biden literally called the ban racist for weeks

Can you give some citations here, preferably ones across a number of weeks?

Not for Biden, you can find him for a couple days, then silence on the point for 2 months, then his campaign claiming he always supported a travel ban.

If he changed his mind so quickly, and to the correct direction, that's a point in Biden's favour. You were then mistaken to have said that he 'literally called the ban racist for weeks'.

For the media you can find accusations of racism and lengthy write ups on how its the wrong plan and and overaction for at least a week on heavy rotation, and periodically thereafter pretty easily for two more weeks.

I agree I could find that for the "media", since they're such a diverse group -- for the 'media' in general, I could find pretty much everything I want, depending on where I choose to look.

By "as far as you can tell" you mean you made it up?

I mean that I infer it based on how it's the ONLY thing he did to combat the virus, and 'coincidentally' he's always eager to build up walls between the USA and other nations, to cut down ties, and to encourage similars breaking down of ties and closed borders elsewhere.

The pattern is always the same: He supported Brexit, he opposed NATO enlargement, he opposed Puerto Rico statehood, he built a wall with Mexico -- now he institutes travel bans, and stops the funding of WHO. Nobody can accuse Trump of not being an honest isolationist.

Faucci and others have literally stated that Trump acted on their advice to have a travel ban promptly after they gave it.

Fauci also said (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/fauci-trump-rebuffed-social-distancing-advice-coronavirus) that "he and other Trump administration officials recommended the implementation of physical distancing to combat the coronavirus in February, but were rebuffed for almost a month."

So Trump acted on one specific piece of advice (the piece that worked perfectly with Trump's isolationist politics) "promptly", but didn't act on the other pieces of advice about social distancing.

Why did he act only on the piece of advice that matched the rest of his isolationist/xenophobic politics? If not for the fact that he was motivated by his isolationism/xenophobia?

So literally, based on science and the correct response.  It's your desire to read more into it to support an unfounded meme that Trump is a racist that looks like the "happy coincidence."

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three and four times is my paranoia finding false positives in patterns, five times I'll be charitable and forgive even though I shouldn't, but >= six times a person confirming the same pattern is proof of their intention.

What you people defending Trump keep missing, is the cumulative value of ALL his behaviour having the same pattern. You excuse each single piece of evidence, and each single excuse can be seen as perhaps plausible, but when you need to repeat the same *censored*ing excuse a hundred different times for a hundred different occassion, well *censored*ing no. Individually no single piece of evidence suffices, cumulatively they're absolutely damning.

Trump doesn't have an "instinctive isolationism."  That's a false characterization.

In favour of Brexit, against NATO, in favour of tariffs, in favour of a wall with Mexico, against Puerto Rican statehood...

There's no indication that he's anti-immigration, opposing illegal immigration is not a data point on that.

As mentioned before, he's reducing legal immigration too, and he's using the fact of his political opponents being immigrants (or their parents being immigrants) as an attack vector.

There's no indication he opposes international trade or travel, only that he wants the first to be on fair terms (a position you can find him commenting on for decades).

I supported tariffs with China too, as long as China violates human rights.

But I don't have the pattern of wanting walls with every other nation in the world, nor of constantly spewing xenophobic rhetoric.

Then you repeated a lie.  He didn't the virus was a hoax.  That's just a lie the left repeats over and over to try and make it true.

So he called people the 'hype' a hoax? He called the 'hysteria' a hoax? Same difference, point remains is that he and many of his fans kept downplaying the virus and arguing that leftists want an overreaction in order to hurt Trump.

And it's interesting how, the MSM could hammer Trump as a racist for weeks on an issue, and now claim he's evil for not acting sooner, and you'll repeat both contradictory claims as if they were true.

How are they contradictory? Trump is indeed a racist, and has been a racist since ever, regardless of whether he acted fast or slow in this occassion. Trump ALSO failed to act sooner, in any way that didn't fit in with his innate xenophobia.

Just today, the Trump campaign released an attack ad on Biden, which uses a photo of him with Gary Locke as evidence for Biden's suspicious ties with China. Gary Locke's an American citizen -- the incriminating evidence is that he's racially Asian rather than white, of course. It's hard to argue that this attack ad wasn't racist, when the only point against Gary Locke is his race.

Lucky for you they included a Chinese American in an ad demonstrating the close Biden-China connections, otherwise you might have to actually consider the main point.  Funny how pointing out Biden-China connections is somehow  "racist" rather than relevant, but pursuing a delusion that Trump was a Russian plant pursued for over 2 years based on lies  is totally different.

Pointing out Biden-China political connections isn't racist, same way that pointing out Trump's political connections with Russia isn't racist.

Your focus on whether it's "based on lies" or not, is actually irrelevant on whether it's racist or not. (something slanderous needn't be racist, and something racist needn't be slanderous)

Using a photo of an American citizen as a point, just because the guy is racially Asian (or his ancestry is Chinese), would be however similar to someone wanting to build a case for Boris Johnson's connections with Russia and using the fact that his name is "Boris".

If an attack ad used BORIS Johnson's name, I'd call that attack ad racist too. Or atleast 'bigoted' if you're gonna nitpick that Russian isn't a race.

The point remains that "unluckily" for you, Trump and the Trump campaign have already consistently shown that people's ancestry (if they're not white) will be attack vectors. Implication: Politicians shouldn't be associating with Chinese Americans, therefore, since it can be used against them if they're in a photo with them.

If you don't call that racist, then nothing is.

[Crunch]

And as a further sidenote, I'd rather you stopped implying I have a problem with his skin color. You'll never see me mocking him as "orange".

Trump can be as orange as he likes, unlike him I don't attack people on the basis of their skin-color.

Let's not pretend this isn't a common reference to the phenomenon you're demonstrating. It has nothing to do with race. Not everything does, you know.

[Aris Katsaris]

Let's not pretend this isn't a common reference to the phenomenon you're demonstrating. It has nothing to do with race. Not everything does, you know.

It was mostly a joke, but it relates to the more serious point that I don't attack people on the basis of their physical appearance, same way that I don't attack them on the basis of their ancestry.

And "race" is a subcategory of "physical appearance", same way that it's a subcategory of "ancestry".

[rightleft22]

And as a further sidenote, I'd rather you stopped implying I have a problem with his skin color. You'll never see me mocking him as "orange".

Trump can be as orange as he likes, unlike him I don't attack people on the basis of their skin-color.

Let's not pretend this isn't a common reference to the phenomenon you're demonstrating. It has nothing to do with race. Not everything does, you know.

Knowing other peoples minds again... I thought you hated that presumption

[Seriati]

If he changed his mind so quickly, and to the correct direction, that's a point in Biden's favour. You were then mistaken to have said that he 'literally called the ban racist for weeks'.

That's not quick, especially not if the criticism of Trump is that he should have acted faster, the fact that Biden would have acted slower is very material.

It was sloppy drafting on Biden versus the MSM being the ones that decisively went on about it for weeks.  I can prove Biden for 3 or 4 days - in the press - but could've sworn I saw comments from a him a week to week and a half later (real time), can't find them now.  But in any event, calling the travel ban racist, staying silent for 2 months while that attack is still out there, and then claiming to have supported it all along, is total nonsense.

It's Biden trying to pretend that he backed the correct course of action when decisively he did not.

For the media you can find accusations of racism and lengthy write ups on how its the wrong plan and and overaction for at least a week on heavy rotation, and periodically thereafter pretty easily for two more weeks.

I agree I could find that for the "media", since they're such a diverse group -- for the 'media' in general, I could find pretty much everything I want, depending on where I choose to look.

That's a pretty dumb trick.  MSM media did it, not just fringe guys, both in print on television.  But please, keep giving us your re-write of history.

By "as far as you can tell" you mean you made it up?

I mean that I infer it based on how it's the ONLY thing he did to combat the virus...

Prove that its the "only thing he did".  You can't cause it's a lie.

...and 'coincidentally' he's always eager to build up walls between the USA and other nations, to cut down ties, and to encourage similars breaking down of ties and closed borders elsewhere.

Again, just a false statement about legitimate positions.  If border control was funding sufficiently that no illegal immigrant had to be release prior to completion of the deportation process I'm 100% sure he wouldn't care about a border wall.  However, that's not the world we live in, where one party deliberately undermines the rule of law it's blatantly absurd to claim the other party or it's leader is the one at fault.

The pattern is always the same: He supported Brexit, he opposed NATO enlargement, he opposed Puerto Rico statehood, he built a wall with Mexico -- now he institutes travel bans, and stops the funding of WHO. Nobody can accuse Trump of not being an honest isolationist.

Funny what you see as a pattern.  I see nothing but superficialities without any consideration of the motivations.  Every "new state" proposal supported by the left is one that they think increases DNC Senators, they don't support ones like say, splitting CA that would do the opposite.  Even though CA has more Republicans living in it that most other states, they get almost no representation.

Faucci and others have literally stated that Trump acted on their advice to have a travel ban promptly after they gave it.

Fauci also said (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/fauci-trump-rebuffed-social-distancing-advice-coronavirus) that "he and other Trump administration officials recommended the implementation of physical distancing to combat the coronavirus in February, but were rebuffed for almost a month."

Interesting change of subject.  But still a stupid point.  We have protests related to social distancing NOW, no way Trump could have "ordered" it sooner.  And in fact, Trump CAN'T order it, the states have to implement it, which every knows cause Cuomo recently reaffirmed that Trump also can't order them open.

As to government policy?  The CDC was issuing increasing strict guidance on social distance for all of March back to March 1.  On March 15 they recommended no gatherings of more than 50 (it had issued quarantine orders beginning back in January).  Meanwhile NY was banning gatherings of 500 or more and NYC was saying mass transit and schools would stay open in spite of that order.

Remind me where the worst US infections are again?  Right around NYC?

In any event, the US had gone from about 100 cases on March 1st, to about 6500 by March 15.  It's a pretty steep incline, and the CDC had been issuing guidance the whole time.

What exactly would have happened if Trump imposed martial law and shut down the Country on March 15th?  Nothing short of revolt I'd imagine.  And you'd literally on here claiming another parallel for your imagined connections to other racist dictators.

Keep in mind, we literally have records of the DNC officials around the country telling people that it's okay to congregate, to effectively ignore Trump and the CDC.  But it's Trump's fault somehow for the results in those DNC leader's communities.  It's really hard to parse how "Trump should have known" squares with it's "not the WHO's fault" for facilitating Chinese misinformation, especially when those same DNC leaders had similar information sources and were making their own decisions.

So Trump acted on one specific piece of advice (the piece that worked perfectly with Trump's isolationist politics) "promptly", but didn't act on the other pieces of advice about social distancing.

Or he literally did, but you don't understand anything about implementation and are ignoring every other decision maker to get to "blame Trump."

Why did he act only on the piece of advice that matched the rest of his isolationist/xenophobic politics? If not for the fact that he was motivated by his isolationism/xenophobia?

Why did you misrepresent everything that happened to make it fit a pre-existing notion?  Difference between our questions, is mine happened and yours didn't.

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three and four times is my paranoia finding false positives in patterns, five times I'll be charitable and forgive even though I shouldn't, but >= six times a person confirming the same pattern is proof of their intention.

Okay, I agree you've proved your intentions are to mislead about Trump.

What you people defending Trump keep missing, is the cumulative value of ALL his behaviour having the same pattern. You excuse each single piece of evidence, and each single excuse can be seen as perhaps plausible, but when you need to repeat the same *censored*ing excuse a hundred different times for a hundred different occassion, well *censored*ing no. Individually no single piece of evidence suffices, cumulatively they're absolutely damning.

What I'm seeing, is that if you can't find the reasons for any decisions, when everyone of the decisions has reasons it's not me that's creating an excuse log.  Effectively, if you take hundreds of decisions on a cumulative basis, you are ignoring thousands of reasons that Trump had for those positions, not to mention the millions of other Americans have for supporting those positions.

It's a false dichotomy that for every policy there is the DNC approach and the racist approach.  In fact, the approach of the DNC is often the more racist approach.

You spend an awful lot of time ignoring reality to reconstrue everything through a tiny little lense.

[Seriati]

Knowing other peoples minds again... I thought you hated that presumption

It's fair with Aris, his entire position is magical thinking that he knows Trump's mind therefore he can discount all of reality to label the "true" motive of racism on every action.

[Aris Katsaris]

It's fair with Aris, his entire position is magical thinking that he knows Trump's mind therefore he can discount all of reality to label the "true" motive of racism on every action.

Let me be clear on one thing: Even if Trump (and the Trump campaign) had all the best intentions in the world, the "go back to your countries" thing to the Congresswomen, and using Gary Locke's face in that ad --- these things would still be racist by account of their consequence, in how they legitimize racial discrimination, even if (somehow, bizarrely) they hadn't been racist in intent.

[Crunch]

It's racist because it's racist. Certainly can't fault that logic.

[Aris Katsaris]

It's racist because it's racist. Certainly can't fault that logic.

Yes, a slaveowner that owned black slaves, and the slave trader that traded them, were doing a racist thing, even if their motivation was just the profit, and they didn't actually care about the race of their slaves.

I'm a consequentialist, I care about the consequences of things. People's intent matters only to the extent that they help us predict people's actions and the future consequences of those actions.

Trump will keep on being a racist, in the sense that by his actions and words he'll keep promoting racial and other types of bigotry.

Perhaps you're a virtue-ethicist and care only about the innermost content of Trump's soul instead, but as I've already said, I don't give a *censored* about that, I only care about people's impact on the world.

[Crunch]

Trump never owned slaves, dude.

You seem to only care about saying Trump is a racist regardless of the evidence or the total inability to read his mind.

If that helps you sleep at night, then go for it. Hatred is such a chaotic emotion.

[Seriati]

I didn't see the ad, and without that it's hard to know the context.  And it's tough to see the ad, because the media wants to sell the controversy and bury the point of the ad.  However, you can see the picture, which has Trump and Locke on a stage with both Chinese and American flags (which seems a fitting reason to include it), and to my understanding the ad doesn't make any claim that it's Biden meeting with Chinese officials (which would mean that Locke's "inclusion" would be a mistake), that's an overlay the media adds to sell the "racist assumption" that Locke is a Chinese official.

The campaign?  They say that picture is there because it places Biden on a stage in China during his trip where he took Hunter to China.  That's exactly the kind of dig that I do expect from Trump's campaign.

So did Trump's campaign make a "racist" assumption that a Chinese American was a Chinese official?  (By the way, that's not clearly racist)  Or did they put in a direct dig at Joe Biden that worked with the theme of the ad itself, and it's the media's "racist" assumption that because Locke is Asian American the Trump campaign must have included him for that reason.

What exactly is the "racism" that you proved?

I think go back to your countries has a connotation that the liberal left/academia accepts as provenly racist, and that it slowly making it's way into being disapproved by everyone.  But it's not there yet.   And as a criticism of immigrants coming to the US and trying to institute policies that they fled from it's a fair point.  In the context of the freshman four, it's over the line.  I agree it would not have been said in a lot of contexts.  It wouldn't have been said if they were from Japan either though, largely because Japan doesn't follow the policies they endorse.  He could have just as easily told them to move to Venezuela (from which none of them originate), and if he had that would have been completely okay - yet you'd still assert it was racist. 

In this case though, those four deserve to be criticized on exactly the basis that they advocate failed policies from inferior countries, and Trump did that short hand.  The left loves short hand - Trump is a racist according to the left after all - but can't tolerate it when Trump uses effective short hand against them.

Aris, my problem with the assertions you make is that this is not a debate about whether Trump is a racist - that's a stupid debate that mostly hangs on poor reasoning.  But instead a debate where you try to pretend that the answer to every policy difference is "Trump is a racist," thereby pretending you don't have to make a real case and side tracking every defence into total nonsense or else it's "unrebutted" that racism is the reason.  It's intellectually deficient as an argument.

[Aris Katsaris]

He could have just as easily told them to move to Venezuela (from which none of them originate), and if he had that would have been completely okay - yet you'd still assert it was racist.

Highly unlikely that I would have called it racist, unless he was talking to people with Venezuelan ancestry.

In this case though, those four deserve to be criticized on exactly the basis that they advocate failed policies from inferior countries, and Trump did that short hand.

Oh *censored*ing bull*censored*. I very much doubt the person who immigrated from Somalia at the age of 12, actually advocated "Let's try this policy from my homeland in Somalia", and I very much doubt the black person who (I don't know but I expect) her ancestors were brought as slaves, actually said "Let's try this policy from the villages my ancestors were enslaved, somewhere in Africa".

Again this thing, that they advocate "failed policies from inferior countries", is something you excusers of Trump seemingly pullled out of your ass. What the Trump quote actually says, is how dare they, these people who originate from these failed nations, to dare to speak about how The Greatest Nation In The World should run. He ties their ancestral origin directly to the fact of how supposedly THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE A SAY.

Nothing about how their suggested policies being the policies of THOSE failed countries. NOTHING. The very opposite, he said that they should bring their ideas to their home nations. Because they don't have the right to speak about how America should be run.

So, frankly, to hell with your nonsense excuses. Trump said what he said, not what you would have hoped for him to have said.

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

See?

[TheDeamon]

Interesting change of subject.  But still a stupid point.  We have protests related to social distancing NOW, no way Trump could have "ordered" it sooner.  And in fact, Trump CAN'T order it, the states have to implement it, which every knows cause Cuomo recently reaffirmed that Trump also can't order them open.

I'm actually finding that exchange funny between the various sides. It seems to be that Trump, under the very overly broad interpretations of the Commerce Clause under the Constitution that have evolved over the past 70 years definitely does have the authority to shut things in certain states if he can justify it. Which an emergency/pandemic situation would provide.

The pandemic scenario also creates a civil defense need, which plays into national defense, which again would give the executive power under the Constitution.

Then of course we have statutory law on the books from the 1918 flu pandemic which explicitly grants him powers for dealing with this kind of situation as well.

If we were dealing with a Democratic President, I think the Democratic Governors would be singing a different tune about what the President can do, and even should be doing about those states with Republican Governors who aren't doing "what they should be doing."

[TheDeamon]

It's racist because it's racist. Certainly can't fault that logic.

Yes, a slaveowner that owned black slaves, and the slave trader that traded them, were doing a racist thing, even if their motivation was just the profit, and they didn't actually care about the race of their slaves.

So... Were the Romans and Vikings racist? They owned and engaged in slave trading as well. Only a lot of their slaves happened to be White and of European Descent, as well as the black and middle-eastern(well, Eastern Med) peoples that moved through their slave markets.

It's a pretty safe bet that the Greeks weren't shy about enslaving Greeks from other city-states as well, so were they racist because they owned slaves?

[NobleHunter]

So... Were the Romans and Vikings racist? They owned and engaged in slave trading as well. Only a lot of their slaves happened to be White and of European Descent, as well as the black and middle-eastern(well, Eastern Med) peoples that moved through their slave markets.

It's a pretty safe bet that the Greeks weren't shy about enslaving Greeks from other city-states as well, so were they racist because they owned slaves?

Yes, they were racist. Not racist in the same way as the modern US but still racist.

[Aris Katsaris]

So... Were the Romans and Vikings racist? They owned and engaged in slave trading as well. Only a lot of their slaves happened to be White and of European Descent, as well as the black and middle-eastern(well, Eastern Med) peoples that moved through their slave markets.

It's a pretty safe bet that the Greeks weren't shy about enslaving Greeks from other city-states as well, so were they racist because they owned slaves?

In my example I meant the slavery that was implemented in the USA (and elsewhere around that same period), which was clearly a racist version of slavery, not the non-racist versions of slavery elsewhere and else when.

The peoples you mention were probably racists in other ways, but not because of their slavery.

[yossarian22c]

...There's no indication that he's anti-immigration, opposing illegal immigration is not a data point on that.
...

Trump:

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

So he uses covid as a reason to stop legal immigration. Even though we could easily screen these people or quarantine them on entry. But that's a little like closing the barn door after the horses ran off. The virus is already here and the US is the epicenter - I have a hard time understanding how this actually benefits the health efforts against the virus.

[DonaldD]

Not to mention - all immigration is already currently on hold - the borders are closed with few exceptions (immigration not being one of them)

When the borders are planned on being reopened, it would certainly be the time to relax the restrictions in a targeted manner.  Making this announcement now, when there is no immigration anyway, based on a future that is as yet unknown, is purely politics.  But we know that Trump is not basing his actions on politics, so that can't be it...

[Aris Katsaris]

...There's no indication that he's anti-immigration, opposing illegal immigration is not a data point on that.
...

Trump:

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

So he uses covid as a reason to stop legal immigration. Even though we could easily screen these people or quarantine them on entry. But that's a little like closing the barn door after the horses ran off. The virus is already here and the US is the epicenter - I have a hard time understanding how this actually benefits the health efforts against the virus.

Trump will always find an excuse to do the isolationist xenophobe racist thing, because it appeals to the isolationist xenophobe racist segment of the population.

Who'd like to bet that he'll try to keep this 'temporary' suspension of immigration for the rest of his presidency, even if the epidemic ends? (if he gets a 2nd term.)

Okay, can the people who keep saying Trump isn't opposed to legal immigration, please PLEASE tell me what he would do if he HAD been opposed to it?

Not to mention - all immigration is already currently on hold - the borders are closed with few exceptions (immigration not being one of them)

When the borders are planned on being reopened, it would certainly be the time to relax the restrictions in a targeted manner.  Making this announcement now, when there is no immigration anyway, based on a future that is as yet unknown, is purely politics.  But we know that Trump is not basing his actions on politics, so that can't be it...

Yes, Trump wants to ban immigration *regardless of whether simple travel is banned", and he wants immigration to remain suspended indefinitely, or as much as he can get away with, even when non-immigration kinds of travel return.

That's the populist far-right xenophobe isolationist instinct I've been talking about.

[TheDrake]

Meanwhile I have three open engineering positions that I can't fill, and two of the guys quit because we couldn't get them h1b.

[Lloyd Perna]

Maybe your problem is you're not offering a wage that non h1b slaves will work for.

[TheDrake]

Ha, funny. My salary is about as high as its ever been, and I'm not an outlier and I'm natural born. We pay a competitive wage. We don't have Americans rejecting our jobs for salary, they never bother to apply. Most people who do apply have multiple offers. Everyone on my staff gets six figure salaries except for the new college grads who get about 80-90k. That should be plenty of incentive.

[TheDrake]

If this keeps up, I'll wind up having to offshore and all the money goes out of the economy here.

[ScottF]

It will pass/resolve as things loosen up. I don't think it's an opportunistic move to try and set long term policies, but admit this is a time when nefarious moves could be made.

I was one of those H1-B applicants many years ago, from Canada but working for a silicon valley co. NAFTA made the process fairly easy until 9/11, which coincidentally was the exact time I was applying for permanent residency. The entire process came to a grinding halt, and 9/11 was minuscule compared to this.

We currently have sweeping policies that shut down vast swathes of our economy. It doesn't strike me as unreasonable to slow/halt inbound foreign jobs while we try and figure out if/when we'll start allowing our own citizens to walk the streets again.

[TheDrake]

But isn't that a false dichotomy? It is unreasonable to halt foreign workers if there are no American workers to replace them. Also, as I just pointed out, the result won't be to replace a job in America filled by an Indian citizen, it will be to hire the same Indian citizen but they stay in India.

According to Pew Research Center, almost half of immigrants live in just three states - New York, Texas and California, home of Silicon Valley, where tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Cisco are based.

"Trump's immigration ban will hurt US tech companies' ability to recruit the talent necessary to remain competitive and focus on innovation," said Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group.

"Instead of staying in America and building America's tech prowess, top talent will return to their home countries and build the next round of innovation powerhouses."

[Seriati]

He could have just as easily told them to move to Venezuela (from which none of them originate), and if he had that would have been completely okay - yet you'd still assert it was racist.

Highly unlikely that I would have called it racist, unless he was talking to people with Venezuelan ancestry.

Venezuelan isn't a race.  There are indigenous people there, and others of multiple ancestries, but it's no more a race than American is the race of anyone from America.  Is it racist around the world for people of multiple countries to refer to "fat Americans" or "stupid Americans"?

It's not, whether or not, the people they refer to come from America.

Again this thing, that they advocate "failed policies from inferior countries", is something you excusers of Trump seemingly pullled out of your ass. What the Trump quote actually says, is how dare they, these people who originate from these failed nations, to dare to speak about how The Greatest Nation In The World should run. He ties their ancestral origin directly to the fact of how supposedly THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE A SAY.

Lol, again you guys hate that Trump is gifted at packing loaded concepts into shorthand statements in THE EXACT SAME WAY the media and the left pack unfair statements into the shorthand they use.  In fact, Trump is even better at it than the left and the media, or the left and the media is just more thinned skinned than the right, because the left and the media can't help themselves but to rebroadcast what he says for him.

In any event, there's zero question that policies advocated by those four are literally failed policies from inferior countries that should be opposed.  It matters little whether they themselves "grew up in the local village" if the voters in their community, who put them in office and raised them, came from those villages and installed those ideas in the four as they grew up.  It's no mistake that those four have had repeated issues with making anti-semitic statements.  They didn't learn those in US schools either, they learned them from those in their community that immigrated with those opinions and imported them into the US.

Nothing about how their suggested policies being the policies of THOSE failed countries. NOTHING. The very opposite, he said that they should bring their ideas to their home nations. Because they don't have the right to speak about how America should be run.

So, frankly, to hell with your nonsense excuses. Trump said what he said, not what you would have hoped for him to have said.

And he triggered you to the point of incoherence and his supporters took the message intended, keep socialism and third world policies out the US.  Again, the US is a Mecca for those looking for opportunity, which is the drive behind immigration, getting here and then - even in a second or third generation - advocating to undermine the very policies that caused American success in favor of policies that generated the misery from which they or their ancestors fled makes no sense.  Kind of like how we made religious freedom the first amendment in the bill of rights, after fleeing from European countries that interfered with the same.  Or how we banned grants of nobility, or guaranteed the right of the citizens to be armed.  We didn't want to repeat the failed policies of those homelands either (and for the record I have told my friends from the UK they should go back to the UK if they didn't like the right to bear arms - that wasn't racist either).

[Seriati]

The peoples you mention were probably racists in other ways, but not because of their slavery.

As a historical matter virtually all people at all times were racist.  Racism is a short hand for a survival instinct that identifies the other as potentially dangerous or exploitable.  Without effective government and the ability to communicate, that's actually a position that it's unsafe to move away from.  You can still remnants of this kind of thinking in any number of places around the world.

Of course, in the US and other modern regions we like to believe we've moved past this as a survival necessity, though anyone honest would realize we just adapted it to the modern world and may align who we see as the other differently.  Patting oneself on the back because others are "racists," which is literally just viewing them as holding irrational views based on an irrelevant characteristic, while simultaneously, holding to irrational views based on irrelevant characteristics of others oneself is a version of virtue signalling.  Either you accept that each person is an individual and needs to be evaluated on that basis or you are just as much of an "ist" as the racist you despise.

There are good people on all sides of most issues, and there are even good people with views others would deem racist or sexist.  Don't believe me?  Can easily point to multiple countries around the world where such views are the majority or even overwhelming view - are they all bad people?  Are you really as enlightened as you believe if you label them all bad people?  Are you as enlightened as you believe if you don't?

[Seriati]

...There's no indication that he's anti-immigration, opposing illegal immigration is not a data point on that.
...

Trump:

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

So he uses covid as a reason to stop legal immigration. Even though we could easily screen these people or quarantine them on entry. But that's a little like closing the barn door after the horses ran off. The virus is already here and the US is the epicenter - I have a hard time understanding how this actually benefits the health efforts against the virus.

I'll wait for the actual order, rather than the Trump tweet before I make a final decision.  But it's interesting to me, that he stated clearly the basis of his action - jobs - in light of tens of millions of Americans and even illegal immigrants already present in America being out of work - in connection with his proposed course of action.  Maybe you can walk me through why more immigration RIGHT NOW makes sense?

You went straight to the strawman of testing immigrants, which is a minor part of the concern.  We already have an unreversisble COVID foothold in the US, any infected immigrant could be quarantined, heck we could require quarantine of all immigrants whether or not texted to "stop" them from bringing in new infections, but it  wouldn't make any difference with the number of US citizens infected.  But bringing in more immigrants when existing resources are grossly strained by current job losses to compete for those resources and future jobs makes sense in what way?

And Aris if you want to be remotely persuasive how about you start by addressing the actual situation and possible explanations and not just jump to the only trick in your deck.

[Seriati]

Meanwhile I have three open engineering positions that I can't fill, and two of the guys quit because we couldn't get them h1b.

And you're exactly the reason we created that program, and that's also the reason a majority of Americans support skilled immigration.

[rightleft22]

A friend of mine immigrating from Canada and well into the process at the start of the Lock down was told that the the process was on hold for the time being
As the stopping of the immigration process was already pretty much the case, I view the tweet to stop immigration a tweet to keep the fires burning for his followers and antagonize liberal

Just another distraction

[Aris Katsaris]

Venezuelan isn't a race.

Races are a societal convention. When you use a person's ancestral group, as perceived by you, to treat them as second class citizens, you're treating it like a race, and you're being racist.

There are indigenous people there, and others of multiple ancestries, but it's no more a race than American is the race of anyone from America.  Is it racist around the world for people of multiple countries to refer to "fat Americans" or "stupid Americans"?

It's definitely a prejudice, and if by "Americans" they meant not actual Americans but rather anyone who had some American DNA somewhere in their ancestry, they'd be racists, yes.

It's not, whether or not, the people they refer to come from America.

No, if the cute little word "originally" was used, it means they wouldn't have actually come from America, their ancestors would have.

Lol, again you guys hate that Trump is gifted at packing loaded concepts into shorthand statements

We hate that he's a far-right xenophobic racist. "Gifted"? He hasn't said a single thing that a thousand other far-right xenophobic racists haven't done before. "Go back to your countries, <non-white people>", you think that's somehow unique or special, or requires some weird little interpretation? It's spoken by the exact same type of person, the world over, a thousand times in a thousand different places.

It's racist-speak, told to please a racist crowd by a racist politician, for racist reasons, the same way the same thing HAS always been spoken everywhere and always, by racist politicians to racist crowds, the last 100+ years and more.

And all you Trump supporters are so utterly parochial, and so completely ignorant of history, that you think he's saying something new or special or strange that only you special few can understand.

And he triggered you to the point of incoherence and his supporters took the message intended,

I certainly believe they took the racist message that was intended. He's pushed the Overton window back to where it's okay to bash people for their ancestry, and to treat them as second-class citizens for the color of the skin, where it's okay to say that white people have more of a right to America than people of (coincidentally) black and brown ethnicities.

Again, the US is a Mecca for those looking for opportunity, which is the drive behind immigration, getting here and then - even in a second or third generation - advocating to undermine the very policies that caused American success in favor of policies that generated the misery from which they or their ancestors fled makes no sense.

Again, Trump complained about these supposed foreigners (aka non-white people) having the audacity to dare speak at all. Nothing about their specific policies they advocated.

That's just the lie you tell to others, and perhaps to yourself.

(and for the record I have told my friends from the UK they should go back to the UK if they didn't like the right to bear arms - that wasn't racist either).

Firstly, I wonder about their self-respect, if they remained your friends after that.

Secondly, when you mean "friends from the UK", let me guess: You mean people that actually came from the UK themselves, and probably recently too (NOT in their childhood). Not people who were "originally" from the UK, because that'd actually include the Founding Fathers.

White Anglo people become Americans after a single generation, you see, it's non-WASPs who are 'originally' from somewhere else and who can always be told to go back to their countries.

In progressive circles', people criticized calling Trump 'Drumpf' (his ancestral German name) because such mockery was also xenophobic.

Instead, by your argument, we should perhaps say to Trump -- if you want to act like a racist and abolish immigration that made America great, you who were originally from Germany, then go back to Germany?

Should we lower ourselves to your racist level, and should progressives become xenophobe racists themselves, before you bloody get it? Do you feel you are safe from xenophobia? Have you established the ancestry of your family, provided enough credentials to be sure you have an equal right to speak about how the United States should be run, Seriati?

[ScottF]

A friend of mine immigrating from Canada and well into the process at the start of the Lock down was told that the the process was on hold for the time being
As the stopping of the immigration process was already pretty much the case, I view the tweet to stop immigration a tweet to keep the fires burning for his followers and antagonize liberal

Just another distraction

Dozens of countries around the world have literally closed their borders to travelers, visitors and new immigrants. But the US deciding to temporarily do the same is somehow controversial?

See if you're able to get a Canada work visa and move up there right now. Is Trudeau part of the anti-immigration movement too?

[TheDrake]

I'll wait for the actual order, rather than the Trump tweet before I make a final decision. 

Yes, we can expect that Tech will be lobbying hard to back Trump off of this. Which is why, as even Trump supporters will admit, he needs to stop announcing policy over Twitter. In the meantime, I'm going to take him at his word that he probably not only wants to stop new immigration, but also wants to stop renewing visas.

[rightleft22]

See if you're able to get a Canada work visa and move up there right now.

Did a check and from what I can tell Canada is allowing work visa's for foreign farm workers. Seems even with all the unemployment most people just don't want to do that work.
But yes your not just going to get in. 

Personally I think out of work young people should be 'asked' to take up the slack on those jobs before getting unemployment .

[DonaldD]

Dozens of countries around the world have literally closed their borders to travelers, visitors and new immigrants. But the US deciding to temporarily do the same is somehow controversial?

The borders have been closed already for weeks, including to immigration.  Guess what - nobody batted an eyelash - so, no, that's not what is controversial.  What was the point of pointing out, now, that the borders will be closed to immigration to protect  from the INVISIBLE ENEMY?  Here's a hint: Twitter: VDARE

[TheDrake]

I'll wait for the actual order, rather than the Trump tweet before I make a final decision. 

Yes, we can expect that Tech will be lobbying hard to back Trump off of this. Which is why, as even Trump supporters will admit, he needs to stop announcing policy over Twitter. In the meantime, I'm going to take him at his word that he probably not only wants to stop new immigration, but also wants to stop renewing visas.

Immigration lawyers for our company are saying it might take 4-6 months for a visa transfer now and that's prior to whatever the new executive order does. That's for people already here in the country.

[wmLambert]

Venezuelan isn't a race.

Races are a societal convention. When you use a person's ancestral group, as perceived by you, to treat them as second class citizens, you're treating it like a race, and you're being racist.

Race is not a social convention. A racist is exactly what MLK, Jr. defined: Judging by the color of a man's skin rather than the content of his character.

Lol, again you guys hate that Trump is gifted at packing loaded concepts into shorthand statements

We hate that he's a far-right xenophobic racist. "Gifted"? He hasn't said a single thing that a thousand other far-right xenophobic racists haven't done before. "Go back to your countries, <non-white people>", you think that's somehow unique or special, or requires some weird little interpretation? It's spoken by the exact same type of person, the world over, a thousand times in a thousand different places.

It's racist-speak, told to please a racist crowd by a racist politician, for racist reasons, the same way the same thing HAS always been spoken everywhere and always, by racist politicians to racist crowds, the last 100+ years and more.

And all you Trump supporters are so utterly parochial, and so completely ignorant of history, that you think he's saying something new or special or strange that only you special few can understand.

Wow. What pure projection. Everything you just accused Trump of has been the rallying points for Democrats since they fought against liberating their black slaves even before the Civil War. Trump is the guy with the Civil Rights medal, given to him next to Rosa Patks. Do not accuse Trump supporters of being "so utterly parochial, and so completely ignorant of history" when it is the Democrats who have legislated the barrios, urban plantations, and ghettos into existence to build a voter core.

Again, Trump complained about these supposed foreigners (aka non-white people) having the audacity to dare speak at all. Nothing about their specific policies they advocated.

That's an outright lie. Trump is very careful to not attack on any racial basis. Pretending is not supplying facts.

Instead, by your argument, we should perhaps say to Trump -- if you want to act like a racist and abolish immigration that made America great, you who were originally from Germany, then go back to Germany?

That is your argument based on a straw man argument that does not exist. Shame on you.

The only racist level here is not from Seriati.

[Aris Katsaris]

Race is not a social convention. A racist is exactly what MLK, Jr. defined: Judging by the color of a man's skin rather than the content of his character.

No, judging literally by the "color of a man's skin" is actually called colorism, and it's distinct from racism (though of course closely linked to it).

Wow. What pure projection. Everything you just accused Trump of has been the rallying points for Democrats since they fought against liberating their black slaves even before the Civil War.

I'm quite aware that the Democrats were the party of the racists back then. Currently however the party of the racists is the Republicans instead.

That's an outright lie. Trump is very careful to not attack on any racial basis. Pretending is not supplying facts.

Every black, Latino or Arab person in the United States can be attacked in the exact same manner as he attacked the four congresswomen, telling them that they should go back to the countries they "came from", even though they're born in America.

Instead, by your argument, we should perhaps say to Trump -- if you want to act like a racist and abolish immigration that made America great, you who were originally from Germany, then go back to Germany?

That is your argument based on a straw man argument that does not exist. Shame on you.

So, if it's supposedly not racist or otherwise bad, why shouldn't people not tell Trump to go back to Germany?

Who are these people that it's supposedly fine to tell to go back to "their countries", but Trump seemingly doesn't belong in that category?

[ScottF]

Imagine if Christine Ford’s mom had called a radio show 30 years ago and mentioned that something really bad happened to her daughter at a party. The media would treat it as conclusive proof and it would be a frontpage bombshell story.

Here's a 57sec video of that call happening. Except it's Tara Reade's mother. I'm sure this will be pursued aggressively by mainstream media /s

https://twitter.com/alexsalvinews/status/1253819567320649729

[Kasandra]

Not to be argumentative, but we don't know what her story or complaint would have been.  The evidence that Biden assaulted her is scant, and she apparently didn't report it even though she said she did.  I certainly don't know what did or didn't happen, but a number of investigations are ongoing in the press.  As far as I know, none of them has reached any strong opinion/conclusion on what might have happened.  Do you think you know?

[ScottF]

Not to be argumentative, but we don't know what her story or complaint would have been.  The evidence that Biden assaulted her is scant, and she apparently didn't report it even though she said she did.  I certainly don't know what did or didn't happen, but a number of investigations are ongoing in the press.  As far as I know, none of them has reached any strong opinion/conclusion on what might have happened.  Do you think you know?

Definitely not, the evidence is old and would appear to be difficult to corroborate. I had the exact same opinion on the Blasey-Ford accusations.

My comment is on disparity of media treatment, not the validity of the accusation.

[ScottF]

Case in point, a hard-hitting piece from the NYT on Biden. Number of times Tara Reade is mentioned? That would be, ah, zero. It seems kind of relevant to at least mention, but nothing-to-see-here is the order of the day when #metoo happens to land in the wrong place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/us/politics/joe-biden-coronavirus-quarantine.html