https://www.vox.com/policy/363146/trump-policy-war-mexico-trade-deportation-border
Trump’s extremist policy agenda is flying under the radar — and that’s a problem.
The thing about Trump's whole political career that I find most incredible is that just about any one shitty thing he ever did, in isolation, would have been absolutely career ending for anyone else, or in the very least a massive, historically significant scandal. But with him? He just keeps the hits coming, so many disasters in such quick succession that none of them really have time to sink in, there's no time to really examine them because by the time you've really called him out, there's already some other stupid shit taking up the headlines.
Obama wore a tan suit, the News cycle freaked out. Obama asked for Dijon mustard on his burger, the news says he's hopelessly out of touch with the common people. These were SCANDALS in the public eye. Trump proposes just bombing Mexico... we have to go out of our way to point out that this is actually a big deal, because next week he'll have done something else completely insane.
It's partially that he does it so often and partially that many of the claims are so outlandish that no one takes them seriously. Like saying he'll bomb Mexico. On the one hand, "he says lots of shit" and on the other "Ok, he won't REALLY bomb Mexico. He's just saying that. Someone will stop him from bombing Mexico. "
And partially that education is pretty bad in red states so when Trump says stupid shit there's a lot of people dumber than him thinking "this guy knows what he's talking about." He's the idiots idea of a genius because he's the first politician dumb enough for them to understand.
The same reason that he can say insane shit and get away with it is the same reason that there's nothing he can really say that undermines Kamala's candidacy.
The media gatekeepers responsible for applying consequences through fatal stories aren't doing it to Trump because they have a vested interest in making sure politics doesn't become boring again.
It should be. What purpose would this serve? No concern for life or process. It speaks directly to how Trump sees those he considers less than him. If he were president again, how long until he threatens to bomb an American state passing laws he doesn't like?
It's all fine and dandy when it's brown people, but what about working class people protesting for unions and workers rights? What about women standing united for the right to bodily autonomy? When the lgbtq community throws bricks again for getting arrested for existing in public? When women's suffrage is in question and people start taking hammers to windows and chaining themselves to railings?
Every single thing he says should be considered prelude to the worst impulses of an unhinged and irresponsible mad man with more power than most people on earth could possibly dream of.
Agreed. Trump, the personality, should not be "newsworthy" anymore. Trump, the character in our shit-stirring forecasting, shouldn't be "newsworthy" anymore.
Trump said a crazy thing that threatens millions of people and everyone needs to know what a threat he is? That's absolutely is still newsworthy.
Quit speculating on whether Trump is joking, if Trump believes what he says, if he'll be nicer, or whatever other tea leaves that the media keeps claiming to be able to read. Just report on what the greatest individual immediate threat to this country is saying and doing.
Don-Old Trump also suggested drinking bleach to cure Covid and using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes.
He’s so irresponsibly weird— and also clinically insane
I’d like to think that if he actually ordered the military to bomb Mexico, the upper echelon would realize this would be a war crime and they’d be tried at the next Nuremberg if they followed such an order, which might result in someone who isn’t an angsty 20 year old kid, but maybe someone who actually knows how to use a rifle, decide to be a true patriot who swore to stop threats both foreign and domestic.
I remember debating with my buddy (he's pro-Russia) about the Ruso-Ukrainian war when it broke out, and my saying how Russia invading Ukraine because of Nazi gangs is a pretty flim flam excuse for a land grab. "It would be like the US invading Mexico and seizing territory because of the drug cartels", I said. Why is my country this way.
Why is my country this way.
Wars are traditionally pitched as "defensive" from their native soil. Vietnam was justified by the Gulf of Tonkin incident. WW2 was justified by Pearl Harbor. Iraq and Afghanistan were justified by 9/11. Or Benghazi was for Libya. Etc, etc. Now Trump is arguing that cartel violence on the border justifies invading Mexico. Only a matter of time before they can point to a Missing White Woman or a drug bust or shoot out that can be used to justify moving troops over the border.
Russia isn't any less immune to this logic, and the War in the Donbas was as hot an issue to capitalize on as anything Americans experienced with Panama in the 80s or Cuba in the 60s.
Same with China and Taiwan. Or the civil wars in Sudan and Ethiopia. This isn't in any way a uniquely American problem.
Every ML and hexbear
That's not been my experience with either. Are comments like the above kids on the internet, bots, or something else? Someone please explain the contrast between my perception and the mainstream perception of this community.
An ML would believe Russia is wrong to invade because it's an imperialistic land grab. They reject NATO because it's also a tool of imperialism.
While I don't spend a lot of time on hexbear, I've enough presence to know that advocating an imperialistic land grab (be it by Russia or NATO) or for any authoritarian form of governance (be it "tankie" communism or christo-fascism) will get a user banned quickly.
While I don’t spend a lot of time on hexbear, I’ve enough presence to know that advocating an imperialistic land grab (be it by Russia or NATO) or for any authoritarian form of governance (be it “tankie” communism or christo-fascism) will get a user banned quickly.
Right, like this comment that got deleted for calling out Russian imperialism.
Wait. That's the complete opposite of what you were claiming.
Right, like this commentthat got deleted for calling out Russian imperialism.
That's a great example of exactly what I mean. I enjoyed reading the nuanced perspectives in context in the comments below. I agree with some of the points people made, disagree with others, and now have a better idea of how complex the local situation is in the past decade leading to war.
I learned that the core point in an argument for Russian invasion is that it was the majority will of the local people to defect from Ukraine to the Russian Federation, with or without sovereignty afterwards. And, I learned how to defeat that argument and its related points fairly soundly. Those couple of overly bleeding hearts were respectfully handled by the vast majority.
So, thanks for the link, I guess.
Stop acknowledging that there is any nuance whatsoever wrt the invasion of ukraine, you're scaring the libs.
edit: self determination? never heard of it. Surely it can't be that both sides suck (unequally) because neither cares what the actual inhabitants of the disputed territory want. Russia is ontologically evil so if you identify as russian you don't deserve rights.
If the dispute was reversed the libs would be cheering for the brave Ukrainian separatist fighters and the liberatory Ukrainian invasion.
I guess. He's an Anarchocapitalist on every other day of the week. I just enjoy arguing amicably with people, and he does too, so our friendship works.
Sound about right to me. Ancap is about capitalism with no limits, so it's an authoritarianism of money.
100% agreed. I'm more on the anarcho-commie/left libertarian side of things myself, so I recognize money and markets as being forces that are just as coercive and abusive as any government.
Tell me about it. Anyway, he's not under any illusions about how fucking backwards both the US and Russia's governments are, but he really believes that Russia's in the right on the matter of the war because there really are capital N Nazis that really are up to Nazi shit in Ukraine. As fucked as that genuinely is, imo I think that's just the flimsy pretense being used to justify a land grab, which is why I used the analogy of the US invading Mexico under the flimsy pretense of stopping the cartels. Well, here we fucking go, I guess.
Yeah, he actually runs a social group that managed to get a video response from Prigozhin shortly before Prigozhin's dollar store rebellion.
So he just doesn't get it at all, or doesn't think it's a big deal when Russia does it?
Does he exclusively consume zero hedge for his media? Because he sounds exactly like my frienemy. Without the amicable part.
I used to have friends like that.
Don’t count them as “friends” these people are friends until you become, gay, disabled etc. then they spit in your face.
It’s definitely a priviledge to be able to be friends with bigots.
He's gay, and he's always been there in a pinch. He's not a bigot, he's big on the Anarcho side, just wants people to not be interfered with and thinks a lot about how the government interferes with people a lot.
For context, I lived in the south when for a few years around the time Obama ran for president and met actual KKK members without their hoods. I'm white, so I did have the privilege of getting to immunize myself against their bullshit right from the source. Someone else I know came out as both trans male and an actual Nazi in almost the same blow. They claim to be an ironic Nazi, but that experience taught me that there's no such thing. I'm grateful for the encounter, as it gave me time to learn to recognize the enemy, but I don't speak with them anymore. I don't break bread with that type as a matter of policy, life is too short for that. I just learn enough to spot their shit and move on.
Yea except that one of those things has actually happened while the other one is Trump just pandering to xenophobes with no indention of actually doing shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews
A reason why some German Jews supported Hitler was that they thought that his anti-Semitism was only for "stirring up the masses".
I just want to leave a couple excerpts from they thought they were free by Milton Mayer
It’s a short read, and I highly recommend it if you’ve never had the chance to read it.
…”Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.”…
…”Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.”…
…””But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.”…
This is how fascism works. It’s an unrelenting deluge of controversies, changes, and bullshit. This deluge is what empowers the fascist. One step leads to the next, but people say it’s all just talk. The people are kept busy with things meant to look like they’re important, while the real important changes are carried out away from prying eyes. And most importantly, it’s a steady march to hell. No one thinks the dictator is actually going to do those things, until he does one. But then it was only the one thing after all.
If trump says he’s going to invade Mexico, I fully expect him to attempt it. But it’s not going to be on day one. No, it’s going to be after a year or 2 of mass deportations and ICE raids. And most people won’t say a damn thing about those. And then if news keeps saying that we tried deporting and it’s not working, well then we have to invade, I’d bet a decent amount of people will support it, probably a vocal group of Latino republicans who “did it right”.
We’re so very close to a dictatorship, all of the groundwork is already laid out, the plan is out for anyone read. I just hope people will actually resist when the changes start coming.
One of the biggest complaints about Democrat presidents is that they don't follow through on their promises. It says a lot when your biggest defense of Trump is that he won't either.
It's not a defence of Trump just analysis of reality. He said before his first term that he was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it and has done neither.
Also some people are clearly not reading the article he talks about using special forces or drones against cartels. Again I dont think hed do that either but that's not a land grab invasion that's comparable to Russia in Ukraine it's something US has already done in places in the middle east that they aren't directly at war with. They've done that sort of shit under Democratic leaders. I don't think either is a good idea but I think people losing shit over everything Trump says just adds to the polarization and is counter productive but really good for the media.
The difference between making Mexico pay for his wall and bombing Mexico is that, as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, he would have the ability to bomb Mexico.
I have no idea why you don't understand that.
I have no idea why you don't understand that.
Because Russian troll bots don't understand anything.
I understand he would have that ability I just don't think he'd actually do it. I'm sure with a conservative supreme court he could do a lot of horrible shit (they're managing to do that without a republican president already). I just don't think starting a war with Mexico would be one of those things.
Yea luckily you don't have to risk anything on me because we're just discussing an opinion piece here
He said before his first term that he was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it and has done neither.
He's spent billions on a bigger DHS, a bunch of blockades of inconsistent quality built by shady Trump-aligned contractors, and transfer of military hardware to border town police forces.
The idea that Trump hasn't militarized the border is flatly false.
They both "happened" in so far as you can point to events that justify what came next.
Trump can easily point to border violence that he can use to justify an invasion in the same way Putin used the civil war in the Donbas to justify invading Ukraine.
These aren't True/False statements, they're events used as justification for invasion. Claiming there's no violence on the border of Texas and Mexico is maybe a step shy of claiming 9/11 or Pearl Harbor were inside jobs. What's at issue isn't "Did this happen?" but "Is launching a twenty year long bloodbath a prudent response?"
How sad is it that I learned about Trump's plan to bomb Mexico not from American news media, but from alarmed Mexican friends.
Mexico is our second largest trading partner. Both Canada and Mexico are our closest allies. They provided aid to the US after 9/11 and Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey.
I'm not worried that this would start a war. I'm worried it would cause permanent tension between two friends.
Both Canada and Mexico are our closest allies. They provided aid to the US after 9/11 and Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey.
And yet, Trump routinely shits on both countries and his cultists just blindly fall in line.
I'm worried it would cause permanent tension between two friends.
Don't worry, my American friend, we have already developed quite a bit of distrust in your country since 2016, and it's not likely to be repaired signifigantly until we see if y'all are willing to collectively and loudly reject trumpism and its related bullshit.
Same sentiment from Europe. A narrow Kamala victory will be just a temporary relief.
Getting Trump elected has been a major victory for any enemies of the US, radicalizing the electorate and creating long lasting tensions and distrust,both internal and external.
Remember when Trump promised EPN that he'd help secure his reelection? And the look on EPN's face when he didn't want to say it! 😂
Sufragio efectivo, no reelección!
That's the moment I realized Trump would roll us over if he could. And now look at this news headline...
I’m worried it would cause permanent tension between two friends.
Significant tension with our Mexican neighbors is exactly what Trump, Desantis and other weirdo's rhetoric is causing. They're just trying gin up more hatred from their bizarre, poorly educated, toxic supporters and they don't get a fuck about anyone else.
Each time some GOP idiot talks about invading or bombing Mexico the news spreads like wildfire in Mexico while American news media ignores it almost completely. I repeatedly hear about bullshit the GOP freaks are spouting from my Mexican friends instead of reading about it in our own mainstream media.
Clearly history is not your strong suit, but you might look into something that happened in Poland back in 1939.
Right! I remember a group of Christian nationalists were the political party in control of some government around that time as well.
I learned history when I was at school (in Poland)... lol. You need to mention, when it's about history, because Poland is fine currently.
And 1939 wasn't the only time that Poland had bad luck. Look at its partitions.
Republicans in 2028:
"We can't have an election during a war! The election is suspended until the war with Mexico* is over."
*-technically the war is with Mexican cartels, not the Mexican government, so as long as we say at least 1 cartel still exists the war isn't over.
Trump is an idiot but I've always wondered why the u.s and mexico don't join up and use the same force on cartels that they do on middle Eastern militants. If they went after cartels the way they do jihadists across the planet, there wouldn't be cartels left
What are you talking about bub?
The approach the USA has taken to declare war on <insert anything> has been an abysmal failure. I am pretty sure every single campaign of war on x has ended with x being now even more prominent than before.
Sure but the I'm not expecting the u.s to change. I'm just saying why go across the planet to fight criminals instead of the ones on your continent, but I know the answer is oil. They fucked to my country for nothing but a foothold in the region, at least go fuck some cartel people
They'll also fuck Mexico up while unsuccessfully fighting the cartels which is why the US military isn't welcomed there. America's invasion back in 1846 is still very much in the public's consciousness there as well.
Not really. Just as killing a person doesn't kill an ideology, killing a person also doesn't kill the profit motives for cartels.
If anything it makes the problem worse. Because you've suddenly freed up territory in a very lucrative black market.
The solution to the drug problem is to instead kill the motivations people have for doing the drugs in the first place:
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction
This means fixing the housing crisis, guaranteeing people jobs, food, water, shelter, and medical support. It means embracing harm reduction policy. It means ending the war on drugs.
Drug use is a symptom of an unhealthy society. Fix the health of society and the symptoms will disappear, and with it the cartels as well.
It's not a meaningless war. It's war for natural resources to allow CEOs pad their bank accounts with sweet, sweet government contracts to rebuilding this war torn nation. Also for oil.
Or we need to show another country how big our dick is by picking a fight with them.
Profits are always a risk-reward balance. If the risk goes up (druglords are more likely to be killed) but the price doesn't, then the market goes away.
Most likely they would just up the prices and use the new profits to buy weapons to defend themselves though.
When a rival cartel gets weakened, there is less supply with the same demand. So another cartel will always use that to raise their prices. So the market never goes away.
There's too much money in the drug trade. Violence is a cost of doing business. Thier children grow up safe in the United States, living in luxury from the poison we buy from them. They literally have lobbyists working against drug legalization because it would destroy their captive market.
Marijuana is still illegal federally and way past Hearst's hemp boycot to save his newspaper business, hint: it's the cartels working against legalization via lobbying.
It’s easier to fight a gang than an ideology.
When Bush first went into Iraq, he described it as a Crusade. For some crazy reason, people in the Arab world weren't thrilled with this language.
Create a problem and claim yourself to be the best solution. "Drugs are bad. Give us more power to combat it!"
Point the finger at 5 immigrants every day and ask the power over 300 million people to fix it.
We've lent Mexico military assistance before. The issue is that the cartels spring from a fundamental lack of control and governance in the areas in question, which means that foreign military means simply can't fix the problem. At best, it can suppress open symptoms for a few years.
The truth is we're winning against the cartels the same way we should have fought Al Qaeda, in the shadows. And by actually helping Mexico become less corrupt and more functional.
Sending the 101st in may be cathartic but it's not the right move. If things go badly then we can always default to a military occupation. But it really shouldn't be our first option. Or our second, or our tenth.
Notice how all the Middle East militants are gone after 20 years of American occupation? That's why we don't do that.
Tinfoil hat time: Also, significant forces on both sides of the border have a motive to keep the cartels running. Cartels spread money and influence around in politics, and they are black hole than has been used in the past to launder money and do other illegal shit for politicians. Not to mention, a (policy) restrictive border makes their business running drugs and people across the line more profitable and in-demand. Worst thing for the cartels would be open borders and an end to the war on drugs.
Yeah, if we couldn't exterminate the Taliban, it stands to reason we wouldn't be able the exterminate the cartels.
That's not why the u.s won't do it. I'm not saying it works but Americans aren't gonna stop just picking a new target every decade or two, may as well go for cartels
They have to get far enough away from the western journalists so their massive volume of atrocities isn’t in the public consciousness.
The oligarchy profits off the drug trade. They also profit off the wars. If it's happening, it's being ALLOWED to happen, by the oligarchy, because it benefits them.
It's quite amazing how the right adapted anti-war talking points, while they themselves are also warhawks.
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Ok, so now that they realize it what will they do?
Trump asked for plans to invade Mexico:
Here's the best I could find- Trump's former Defense Secretary Mark Esper claimed in his book "A Sacred Oath" that Trump raised the idea of launching missiles into Mexico to combat drug cartels and proposed doing it covertly to avoid blame. Trump, when asked about this, did not deny the claim but instead chose to say "No comment" - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-esper-bomb-mexico-drug-labs-deny-b2074547.html
Trump's former Defense Secretary Mark Esper claimed in his book...
Once again these ghouls say nothing at the time and wait until they have a book to sell you.
If he bomb mexico, I believe mexico will flood US market with cheap meth and fentanyl as answer even more.
If Mexico puts sanctions on the US to limit taco seasoning in response, I'm going to be quite put out against the felon. If you deny us our tacos and tamales there's going to hell to pay. I want a taco truck on every corner and anything that gets in the way of that dream is not cool.
I think you're trolling by stating something that's already happening, but people thought you meant it ironically and up voted you.
I hope narcos begin to target republican politicians. It's as easy as sending a well-dressed and mannered kid to enter the country as a tourist or whatever, give him a gun and let him pop the head of one of these demons while they're eating in peace with their family at some fancy restaurant. Nobody will ever capture the kid because he will just run away, americans carrying guns won't be enough