I feel pretty dumb just for saying that he was the better candidate. Still, I think his election moved the ball down the field at least somewhat. You have an establishment stalwart like Rubio denying visas outright to 75 countries ,except India of course.
I had hoped that Trump's deportations would pave the way for the same thing happening here (of a lot of legal immigrants and their descendants), but his presidency is turning out to be such a trainwreck that now I'm just hoping that it won't damage other movements.
For American elections? Maybe, but even there I wouldn't fully agree.
Europe isn't causing massive havoc for Israel. So their verbal support for Israel bothers me less. And we don't have much of a choice. I can't just wish non-pro-Israel populist right into existence, so I'm going to back the one that exists in the hope that things can get somewhat better for people here.
For the 2016 election, many White Nationalists and even full on self-identified Nazis talked themselves into support Trump despite of his support for Israel. How did that work out?
I can make a case that it worked out well for them, but not intentionally on Trump's part.
If Trump had lost, they'd have blamed his anti-immigration stance and moved in the opposite direction. Now they're at least rhetorically supporting it. White nationalism now is far more mainstreamed than it was in 2015. Would this have happened with a Trump loss that would have been blamed on them? Possibly, but I don't think so.
And even Israel criticism on the right is far more mainstreamed now. You could say it's because of Gaza, but for the right, I think it's the mainstreaming of populism. (Also, Trump's Israel support is so over-the-top that it is counterproductive.)
A lot of politics is just the art of the possible and bringing the ball further down the field. It's not as if Obama ran on "elect me so that BLM can burn down cities". But his election helped move that forward.
I feel pretty dumb just for saying that he was the better candidate. Still, I think his election moved the ball down the field at least somewhat. You have an establishment stalwart like Rubio denying visas outright to 75 countries ,except India of course.
I had hoped that Trump's deportations would pave the way for the same thing happening here (of a lot of legal immigrants and their descendants), but his presidency is turning out to be such a trainwreck that now I'm just hoping that it won't damage other movements.
This election should have taught you that Zionism is a deal breaker.
For American elections? Maybe, but even there I wouldn't fully agree.
Europe isn't causing massive havoc for Israel. So their verbal support for Israel bothers me less. And we don't have much of a choice. I can't just wish non-pro-Israel populist right into existence, so I'm going to back the one that exists in the hope that things can get somewhat better for people here.
For the 2016 election, many White Nationalists and even full on self-identified Nazis talked themselves into support Trump despite of his support for Israel. How did that work out?
I can make a case that it worked out well for them, but not intentionally on Trump's part.
If Trump had lost, they'd have blamed his anti-immigration stance and moved in the opposite direction. Now they're at least rhetorically supporting it. White nationalism now is far more mainstreamed than it was in 2015. Would this have happened with a Trump loss that would have been blamed on them? Possibly, but I don't think so.
And even Israel criticism on the right is far more mainstreamed now. You could say it's because of Gaza, but for the right, I think it's the mainstreaming of populism. (Also, Trump's Israel support is so over-the-top that it is counterproductive.)
A lot of politics is just the art of the possible and bringing the ball further down the field. It's not as if Obama ran on "elect me so that BLM can burn down cities". But his election helped move that forward.