russ_watters said:
Probably. First I want to reiterate that I won't vote for him because I don't think he's a real person. But that said, I think if people actually look at his positions on issues (with the caveat that because he isn't real, they may not be either), they will be hard pressed to find any that fit with their apocalyptic vision of where Trump might take us. My perception is that both the love and hate for Trump are similarly void of content: both are based on emotional reactions to his circus act of provocative statements.
For example, people seethed at his "...blood coming out of her whatevrer" comment, but how does that actually translate into a bad action as President?
As with the anti-Bush and pro-Obama passions, I find a disappointing lack of rationality in peoples' judgement of Trump. Yes, I know both examples are (my perception of) Democrats' irrational passions. But the Democratic party is, historically, the passion party. Maybe the fact that that shoe is on the other foot for once may wake them up to the reality that while effective at getting votes, passion is a poor basis for picking a President. That could be a silver lining.
[edit]
Maybe we should have a companion thread to the "Why is Trump Popular" thread, where the challenge is to find rational reasons for disliking him?
The problem with trying to assess Trump's positions on the issues is that at no point has he or his campaign been at all clear what his actual positions are on any issues -- from what I can see, his entire campaign consist of his circus act of provocative statements (precisely because, as you said yourself, because he's not a "real person" or a "serious person"). The few positions that he has been consistent on throughout the campaign are as follows (and which I've also touched on in the other thread on "Why is Trump Popular"):
1. Build a giant wall on the US/Mexico border, and have Mexico pay for it.
2. Abolish birth-right citizenship.
3. Deport all illegal migrants
and their US-born children (note: these US-born children are US citizens, by the principle of
juris sanguinis)
4. Ban all Muslims from entering the country or immigrating to the country.
Please note that all 4 positions above are direct statements coming from Trump. I can provide references for them in a separate post.
I think the 4 above positions are ample justification to provide rational reasons to dislike him.
On Position #1: (1) Building such a wall is a tremendous waste of resources, (2) There is no realistic way that the US can force or make Mexico pay for any of it, (3) The number of illegal immigrants has levelled off, with a fall in the number of Mexicans coming into the US (please see the following link from the Pew Research Centre:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/)
On Position #2: This is a non-starter, since birth-right citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Anyone seriously proposing to abolish this is, in my books, un-American (thus making Trump un-American).
On Position #3: As appealing as "kick out all illegals" may be, trying to find and deport all such illegals is simply too costly. As for deporting the children of such immigrants, see my response to Position #2.
On Position #4: This position flies smack in the face of the view of the Founding Fathers that there is to be no religious test to determine who is allowed into the US, or can become citizens to the US.
