Do you think Donald Trump is racist?

I agree with you, @JLeslie – I don’t think he’s racist.

I think he’s bombastic, stupid, obtuse, and loves attention – very narcissistic. But I doubt he is racist in the racial superiority sense of the word.

@elbanditoroso You are spot on with your description of The Donald. I also suspect that he thrives on controversy, so where none exists, he finds a way to create it.

Even NASCAR is shying away from the Donald now. Motherfucking NASCAR. You might have said some racist shit when even the good ‘ole boys in NASCAR want nothing to do with you anymore.

In thinking about this further, does he ever think about what he is going to say before he says it? I have yet to see any evidence that he does.

Also, now that he has succeeded in offending every Mexican-American and the nation of Mexico in his speech announcing his candidacy for the Presidency, I have to wonder. If he should (somehow) get elected as President, how many other nations would he upset in his Inaugural Address?

Is he a racist? No. Is he a bigot? Clearly, yes. Is he arrogant? Absolutely.

More to the point: is he psychologically fit to be President? Absolutely NOT.

@sahID I know a whole lot of people who aren’t racist, who are in favor of tightening up the border, who are sick of gangs in their neighborhoods, some of which are Latin American gangs, and want the criminal behavior stopped, and the people who aren’t citizens causing the crime deported. I myself want those people deported. We don’t have to house non citizens in our jails. Send then the hell back. At the same time I am in favor of easier paths to be legal
in America.

My SIL (born and raised in MX) was in favor of the AZ laws to allow local police to perform INS/ICE like arrests. Although, she is disgusted by what Trump says.

One thing that really bothers my Inlaws is when people say Mexicans to include everyone crossing the southern border. Sometimes my relatives extrapolate the wrong thing I think, because sometimes what is being discussed is our border with MX and not Mexicans specifically, but often people do say Mexicans to mean anyone south if the border and it just sounds stupid. I don’t know what Trump meant. I can’t imagine someone with so much money, travel, and education would call a Venezuelan a Mexican. You never know though. I would guess he was talking about Mexicans specifically.

From what I know about his public proclamations, I’d say he’s more of a self-deluded xenophobe than a racist.

He’s an attention whore.

I don’t think he’s a classic racist, just a megalomaniac whose insensitive stream-of-conscious ranting will continue to delight some and offend many until he decides to quit a race he can never win. If you haven’t seen John Stewart’s latest takedown of The Donald, DO!

Trump is not a politician and therefore is prone to saying things in a politically incorrect way. Actually I find it a bit refreshing. The people coming across the border illegally are not the best and brightest. That’s true of Mexico and the rest of central and south America. He didn’t condemn everyone crossing the border but he certainly made his point. Liberals will always frame it as offensively as possible and that is what’s happening. If you want pure politicians in office, people that won’t say shit if they have a mouthful, I can see where Trump would be a problem for you.

@Jaxk puhleez. The so-called ‘liberals’ didn’t say the asinine things, Trump did himself.

It’s a bit disingenuous of you to blame ‘liberals’ for paying attention to the very words that Trump spoke in a public forum. Sort of like blaming the victim, deflecting from the real problem.

I came up with the perfect running mate for him, though. Kim Kardashian.

No, I agree that racism is by no means the headliner in the catalog of warts.

I saw Ann Coulter on Bill Maher, and she was saying some of the same things about immigrants. To @Jaxk‘s point the liberals on the show wouldn’t shut the hell up and let her speak. Bill got annoyed with them talking over Ann, but didn’t shut it down well enough to give her a chance to explain better, and then time was up. I’m not sure what her full point was. I don’t doubt she would pick and choose and twist statistics, but I still wanted to hear them and her arguments. I began to wonder if Trump read Coulter’s book or if the same people in either circle are talking to each other.

No, he’s not racist in the traditional sense that we understand that word because he related very well to the black people who were on his Apprentice show (both the regular versions as well as the Celebrity version. And it was genuine. You can’t really fake that when you’ve got the TV lens on you that constantly.

However, he is definitely a CLASSIST. The black folks to whom he related well and admired were all either well-educated or hard working celebrities or entrepreneurs. (Janet Jackson or Lil John spring immediately to mind but there were others.)

It’s easy for him to focus upon the criminal element sneaking through our borders because they make the news. Meanwhile he ignores the countless unfamous immigrants who work killer hours doing back breaking scutwork (that most Americans refuse to do) for horribly low wages and sending the money back to their families in Mexico so that they can have a better life.

And I’m sure that there are far MANY MORE of those than there are criminals.

But Trump maintains a voluntary ignorance of their existence. If he were to tale the time to really study the entire problem with the thoroughness it deserves, he would have a proper understanding of exactly how hard these folks work.

(I once heard Anthony Bourdain opine that if you suddenly took all the Hispanic workers out of New York kitchens, most restaurants wouid have to shut down.) Hispanic workers are the backbone and lifeblood of the NY restaurant scene. Not only are they hard working but they’re damn good cooks. This was in an episode of his old show where he accompanied his head chef on a visit to his little hometown because he wanted to see firsthand how Mexico keeps turning out these really good cooks. It was a very enlightening episode.

If Trump could spend some time with Bourdain he might come away with a different viewpoint on these humble hardworking Mexicans who want nothing more than a fair shot to provide for their families (and they cannot find that in Mexico). The wages they receive in the US may be shit compared to what Americans receive, but compared to Mexico, it’s a jackpot.

So, Trump isn’t a racist in the classic sense because he’s truly befriended and respected people of color (as long as they’re not poor and relatively unschooled) because fame or business acumen puts them in a class to which he can relate.

He would fit in just fine in India and its rigid Caste system. But he’s here and wishing the US had more of a caste system so he can keep out the “undesirables”.

So even tho not a classic racist, he’s still a despicable boor. No surprise many business enterprises are severing ties with him.

Well, you have to have a brain to be a racist, I would guess. He hasn’t proven ever that he has a brain. I think he’s just a bozo. He’s got the hair for it.

@elbanditoroso – You need to listen to what he actually said rather than the liberal rants about what he said. Tactful it wasn’t but neither was it racist or bigoted. He said Rapists and murders are coming across the southern border. Without putting percentages on it you can’t say it isn’t true. Hell we just had a woman killed in San Francisco by a 7 time felon that had been sent back 5 times. Yet here he was and committed murder. According to Fusion (the source Trump was using) 80% of the women being smuggled into the US have been raped along the way, presumably by their smugglers or fellow migrants. You may not consider this a problem or may actually believe that Trump is the bigger problem but it seems like a problem to me.

@Buttonstc Classist sounds more correct. I think most people make some assumptions about class. I don’t think Trump thinks everyone in a certain class is a criminal though. I’m sure he interacts with, and employs, many people who are lower or middle class and he respects the hard work they do and think if them as having high integrity.

Making assumptions based on class is a huge huge taboo in American culture, although the real ideal in America was supposed to be that you were not limited or confined to a lower class if born into it. Denying there aren’t differences in psychographics depending on socioeconomic level is to ignore reality. Not to say the differences are good or bad, just different. In fact, when people make negative stereotypes about minorities, and if there is a grain of truth in the stats, usually people who are appalled by those assumptions regarding race or ethnicity point out socioeconomics as a reason for why it is important to change those economic conditions and are sure to point out it has nothing to do with race, but rather circumstance.

@Jaxk

I did read the article and I did read what Trump said.

Firstly, Mexico is not sending these people as he states. This is NOT the Mariel Boatlift for crying out loud. In that case, Cuba (Castro) definitely was opening the prisons and mental hospitals and using the boatlift to get rid of undesirables. And he wanted there to be a backlash against Cubans in America so that less would want to leave in the future.

But Trump is making it sound as if Mexico (as a govt. entity) is, in some official capacity, doing the same thing as Castro trying to drum up the same xenophobia as in the aftermath of Mariel.

Mexico is not doing the sending. Period. These people are coming by their own decisions. And, while they are coming THROUGH Mexico to get to the US, many are from South American countries as well.

So, Mexico is not in some kind of conspiracy to send us their rapists, as he’s trying to imply.

It isn’t ONLY fellow immagrants doing the raping. It could be gang members controlling the border or even government officials, so many of the rapists are staying put right where they are. They aren’t coming into the US.

Yes, the border problem is serious for many reasons and BOTH political parties have been unwilling to risk losing votes to get something, anything done. Dubya and congress did nothing as well as the Obama Administration. Trump knows this; there is enough blame to go around.

And the whole thing of “not their brightest and best” fails to mention that, altho likely uneducated, some of the hardest working people on the planet (not ONLY rapists and druggies) are among those entering illegally.

He’s purposely slanting things with loaded language and images and THAT IS why people are reacting to it. There is no balance in his diatribe and people recognize that.

Mexico is not Cuba. Nobody is cherry picking out the rapists and druggies (except Trump) to send them to the US. They are sneaking in alongside the others. Nobody is purposely ” “SENDING” them.

The entire immigration problem is multifaceted and needs an intelligent cooperative solution, not loaded diatribe.

If there were no Hispanics in the US willing to work for pennies, agriculture and the kitchens of many restaurants would grind to a standstill.

I’m guessing you never saw Morgan Spurlock or Steven Colbert’s “Day in the Fields” where he attempted to do a migrant worker’s job for a day.

Colbert’s treatment was more humorous but it still drove the point home.

Would any sane American (much less thousands of them) be willing to do that kind of work for essentially slave wages to replace the migrants currently doing it ?

I think the answer is obvious.

So, no matter how secure a wall you put up, the solution needs to include far more than just that. That should be obvious but Trump talks as if that’s the full solution right there.

He needs to go behind the scenes at some of the expensive restaurants in which he lavishly dines and take a good look at the staff who prepares that food on a daily basis. BIG SHOCK. if they can’t get over that wall and there is no guest worker program in addition, where will he then go to done ?? You need FAR FAR more than just a wall.

I don’t have any hard statistics to back this up but common sense tells me that for every illegal druggie or criminal that came over the border there were at least 10 honest hardworking fathers willing to do backbreaking labor to provide for their families.

Granted those numbers are a guess but I have a hunch I’m not that far off the mark.

Trump is a blowhard unwilling to educate himself on the complexities of the entire immigration mess or the people whom it will impact (himself included). That’s what I’m reacting to. I listened to his words. And I was unimpressed with his bloviating (to borrow O’Reilly’s favorite word.)

Trump very loudly trumpeted his hatred for Mexicans. He didn’t specify anything about immigration status. It’s not about “illegal” immigration.

Trump is a bigot, as are people defending him.

I’m glad he’s saying it out loud and people can see the values admired by conservatives.

@Buttonstc – You don’t need to tell me what it’s like to do a migrant workers job, I’ve done it. I didn’t last long, only a couple of days and that was when I was young. It really doesn’t change anything though. The problem is, we’ve already tried amnesty. It didn’t work. Without the border security, it only creates a larger flood of illegal immigration. We already allow a million immigrants into the country annually. More than any country in the world by a large margin. I understand you want more than just securing the border but we need to do that first. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why liberals don’t want to know or control who comes into the country. The guy that murdered the woman in SF was deported and returned 5 times. Crossing the border is way too easy and when it’s that easy, you never know who’s coming. It’s not about Mexicans but it is about the Mexican border and Mexico isn’t helping to curtail the flow.

@Jaxk I’ll never understand why liberals don’t want to know or control who comes into the country.
This particular Liberal does, and doesn’t understand why it is so hard because this Liberal has lived and worked years abroad and has seen how other countries do it.

I also want to know who comes over our border. You don’t have to convince me of that.

But I don’t care how good a wall builder Trump is. Much more is needed.

@Jaxk

Since you have actually done migrant labor then you, more than anyone, should know that there are no thousands of Americans willing (or able) to replace the Hispanic migrant workers.

There has to be some type of program in place (not necessarily amnesty) to allow the honest hardworking ones into the country, perhaps on a temporary basis.

I certainly don’t have all the answers but it’s obvious that Trump is largely talking out of his ass.

And tho I have no love for Dumb Dubya, so far his brother Jeb at least seems to have done some serious thinking about immigrarion how to control our borders (altho so far he’s skimpy on details.)

All that Trump knows to do is to jig up xenophobia and brag about how good he is at building walls. Color me unimpressed.

@cazzie How do other countries do it?

I think part of the problem is America purposely turned a blind eye towards illegal immigrant workers. Although, America does have the problem of a large land border, and we also have the problem, or most especially had the problem, of not being able to track people. Once they were in they stayed, even if they came in on temporary visas.

I don’t think Trump is a racist. His statement on the other hand is clearly racist. But worse than that, it’s tasteless, stupid and just plain untrue.

@JLeslie New Zealand was in a unique situation, being an island, so documenting everyone’s comings and goings hasn’t been as difficult. They, too, have an ‘overstayer’ problem. People coming over on vistors visas and then trying to find jobs, sometimes working on the black market. It also involves a certain amount of ‘migrant’ workers only they come over on freight ships from India. We had a lady client who had a farm and she had an entire field full of workers from India and only one of them had a valid tax number, so that one was paid and they, presumably, paid his comrades. Everyone knew about this. She affectionately referred to them as ‘her Indians’. But, they came, they worked and they had to leave or government officials would arrest them charge them a HUGE fine and they would be deported. They’d rather not overstay and lose the money they earned, (albeit illegally). I’m sure there were some that took the chance, but in the off season, there wouldn’t be any work for them and working on the black market in other sectors is not as easy. The other group of overstayers were Islanders trying to apply for permanent residency visas to join family members who were already living legally in NZ. Their application would be rejected for some reason, and they would just refuse to leave. They were often on the news, where reporters would video and report just what a dawn raid looks like when several members of a family are arrested and deported. It wasn’t pretty.

In Norway, they make it culturally difficult to stay. Whether you are here legally or not, if you are a foreigner, your chances of getting a permanent job is extremely low. They accept a certain amount of asylum seekers, but they don’t process the paperwork very fast. There have been families from Afganistan, Somalia, etc… living here for 9 years. They have children here and Norway is all they know. Then, the letter comes. Their application has been denied and there are no more alternative routes to appeal. They are put on a flight back to the last port from whence they came. Even the children. It doesn’t matter that they were born here and barely speak their parent’s language. They are not Norwegians because their parents weren’t. The current government is considered ‘conservative’ and has been making very large sweeps and tossing out record numbers of people living in Norway illegally.

Both countries have mandatory registrations. It is much more difficult to ‘get lost’. New Zealand has a ‘tattle tale’ line. http://www.dol.govt.nz/immigration/knowledgebase/item/1117

@cazzie I think America needs to serious look at changing their jus soli policy and go more the route of many European countries.

It’s a difficult topic for me, because I want people on bad situations in their country to be able to get out, and to me America has historically been that place, and specifically it was for my family. Ideally, my unrealistic fantasy, is the world gets better, and people don’t have the need to flee in desperation.

@Buttonstc – So we’re back to the ‘jobs Americans won’t do’. You started with restaurant jobs but now have moved on to migrant farm workers. What good is a guest worker program when the border is wide open. Close the border first. Every time we try to do more than that you all focus on the amnesty, guest workers, bringing families, and so on and forget about closing the border. Your guy in the white house is a perfect example. We’ve been trying to close the border for his entire term but he won’t do it. Instead he is focusing on making the illegals legal, stopping deportations even when they are convicted felons, and bringing all their relatives here. When the boat is sinking focus on stopping the leak.

@Jaxk

What’s it like to live in a world where your perceptions just don’t match reality?

If there is one thing that drives me crazy it is the the phrase “jobs that Americans won’t do”. There is no such thing as a job Americans won’t do. And this is why @Jaxk ‘s argument, valid as it obviously is, goes nowhere AND WILL NEVER GO ANYWHERE. The ONLY reason our Southern border is allowed to be “overwhelmed” with desperate immigrants is because these people effectively DEPRESS WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES, fulfilling the great dictum that THE RICH GET RICHER. People in this discussion should not be permitted to get away with the phrase “jobs that Americans won’t do”. There are jobs that Americans won’t do for 3 dollars an hour, and 3 dollar an hour jobs can ONLY exist if the border is “porous”

@Jaxk Once again, you miss the point in blaming Obama for the deluge permitted at our Southern border. And to prove my point, I defy you to name a single President in your lifetime who has managed to “control” the influx from the South. Despite any rhetoric to the contrary, there is no desire on the part of the people who own this country and its government to shut down our leaky border. That border is a VERY efficient mechanism for transferring wealth from people who work to the people with portfolios.

A couple of points. When I did that work, it was not an hourly wage. It was piece work, I got paid for how many baskets I filled. Some of the workers did fairly well, others not so much. I was paid in cash and there was no application or W-9 form required. I assume it is the same today.

It is the Democrats that seem to want to focus on everything except border security, not the very wealthy. I have no doubt that some employers may benefit from low wages to illegal immigrants but certainly not the those at the very top. Maybe a meat packing plant or some other such thing but Trump doesn’t fit that profile.

I would agree that the flood of low education, low wage immigrants depresses the wages in the US, especially low end wages. If you want the minimum higher, the best way to do that is to close the damned border. The only reason you can’t find a president that has succeeded in closing the border is because the Democrats keep fighting it tooth and nail, all the while complaining that Republicans want the cheap labor. We don’t, we want the border secured.

You just keep thinking that this is a matter of liberal vs. conservative values. Unless you are prepared to accept the truth that conservative values are indeed predicated on the the prime commandment that the rich get richer, you’re making a mistake. Even if you DID accept my explanation, you would STILL be mistaken in believing the democratic party to represent liberal values. The border is open because the rich, democrat, republican, communist, independent, whig, torry, it does’n’t matter, THE RICH REQUIRE IT. If you are in the House or the Senate or if you are the President, you can choose whether or not you are going to leave office a rich man, or a man with a future resembling yours or mine. The border is open because ALL of those in positions to close it are PAID to keep it open. The sham that conservatives are fighting to secure the border serves their base, just as the sham that democrats ache over the plight of destitute immigrants plays to their constituency. And the big reality rema WHERE ELSE HAVE THE VOTERS TO GO?

I still insist if that ever some hotshot economist were to demonstrate that a single undocumented alien depressed the Dow Jones a single point, the border would be sealed tighter than a drum overnight.

Well, I’m conservative and my values are not predicated on ’ prime commandment that the rich get richer’. Closing the border will not raise or lower the DOW because the DOW is not based on illegal immigrant labor. You’re fixated on hating the rich and dreaming up ways to justify that hate. I don’t see much point in taking this any further since there is simply no common ground for discussion.

I hate neither the rich nor conservatives. I don’t hate republicans or democrats, and I wish you would eliminate that word from this and all other discussions. For the years that we’ve had these back and forths, I’ve yet to accuse you of hating anything. And once again, you’re not thinking this through. I KNOW that the DOW is not based on immigrant labor which is why the sentence mentioning it begins with IF. I make a great deal of effort to avoid slurring you or bothering to point out what I might perceive to be defects in your personality specifically, because the first one to descend to this, LOSES by default. If your argument is that the rich aren’t getting richer no matter what, I would expect a better rebuttal than “Stan hates the rich.” Even YOU can do better. Before you leave, consider this. If there is any truth to my simple argument that the rich as a class ALWAYS grow richer, REGARDLESS of which party is in power, whether the economy goes up or down, WHAT POSSIBLE DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE WHICH POLITICAL AFFILIATION YOU CHOOSE. For some unfathomable reason it matters to me that you understand my argument, and it is this. The entire show may seem a life and death effort to control the levers of power in the country, and you and I are allowed as voters to play a marginal (very marginal role in this). The truth is that AT BEST electoral decisions are no longer about whether or not the country follows the prime directive. We’re way past that. Politics is now only about accelerating the process and the best you and I can hope for is to merely slow the RATE of acceleration

And last but not least, please think about this. Which class is it that REALLY benefits from illegal immigration? Is it really the consumer who can now get bargains at Walmart, but can no longer afford to shop elsewhere? Is it the small businessman who can no longer afford to hire people who were born and reared here? If what I claim is true, does illegal immigration retard or advance the pime directive. And at the expense of which class?

OK. I won’t say you hate anyone. The problem is that the argument you use is one that frames the upper class as an entity who’s sole purpose in life is to oppress the poor. That makes any argument futile since your opinion doesn’t need logic or fact. There are a few points you should think about as well. The wealth gap is growing but it’s not because the rich are getting richer (they are) it’s because the poor and middle class have stagnated. That stagnation is a direct result of the policies of this administration. I tend to agree that we are racing towards a day of reckoning much like Greece. I don’t think it’s too late to change directions and save ourselves but we need to do it soon. the immigration issue is part of the problem and if we continue to ship jobs south while uneducated low wage labor continue to flood in we have little chance to recover.

BTW, Walmart doesn’t use illegal immigrant labor and if they did they would be paid the same as everyone else they hire. Securing the border won’t affect Walmart’s costs at all. I suppose illegal immigration may provide a few more customers but even that wouldn’t be significant. As for small business, I doubt that many really use that pool of labor. I assume some might but it is illegal to hire them and the business owner faces much more severe penalties than the immigrants if caught. Farm labor is the one place where there seems to be significant use of illegals. They pay in cash, mostly piece work, and little documentation. But the top echelon, the 1% are not farmers. Illegal immigrants get jobs by producing fraudulent documents and when they do that they are paid the same as everyone else.
The idea that the top 1% are hiring illegal immigrants below minimum wage and paying them cash, just to pad their enormous bank accounts is ridiculous on it’s face. Even you must be able to see that..

I’m not saying that Walmart is hiring illegal immigrants. What I am saying is illegal immigrants drive down wages so that everyone earns a Walmart salary. Further, I am not saying that the rich are out to get the poor. The reason it is pointless to hate or resent the rich is simply because the rich are acting exactly like the rest of us. They are simply looking out for their own interests. It isn’t that they are out to loot the poor and the rest of us. It is simply that they MUST get richer, and if the economy is such that growth is sluggish or stagnant, things are arranged such that the burden falls on the un rich and particularly on those least able to defend themselves. And I am not stating that small businesses are hiring illegal immigrants. What I am saying is that virtually any job category in this country defined as basic labor is now dominated by those not born here. Entire industries in the country have seen their work forces transformed in front of us as wages stagnate and fall. It is pointless to deny that our border situation has nothing to do with this, and it is both heartless and stupid to hold those desperately heading North responsible for it. What I’m asking you is which class BENEFITS from stagnant and falling wages? And once again, it isn’t that the rich are out to get us. It’s simply that if the choice is between falling wages and the rich getting richer, the rich will get richer and the border will REMAIN porous.

The reason that I am almost desperate to have you understand my take on this is because you are conservative. I am liberal, and while you might prefer to view my take on this as far left exaggeration, it is good for both of us if you can pick holes in my argument. And my argument is that things DO NOT work the way we’ve been told.

OK, fair enough. I think we agree on at least a couple of points. Cheap labor does indeed drive down wages on the low end. I would disagree that it drives down skilled labor costs. I would also agree that things do not work the way we’ve been told. There is a lot more to the issue than immigration but let me give this a try.

You seem to be putting all your eggs in one basket. The cost of labor as the driving force for the wage stagnation. It’s more complex than that. For instance, one of the critical measures I see is that new business start-ups are lower than business failures. More businesses are dying that are being born for the first time in our history. You would think that cheap labor would have the opposite effect. Start-ups are the engine for job creation, the pool of management talent and the source of jobs for new college grads. We’ve lost this source of employment while creating the cheapest labor we’ve had in years. Why do you suppose that happened? I view this situation as representative of the deteriorating relationship between government and business. Closing the border won’t change much since there are already 15–20 million illegals in the country and until that pool is used up, there’s not much hope for change.

I’ll ask another question of you. Who benefits from an ever increasing tide of low wage, low information, Immigrants. Education expands to handle it, welfare expands, basically all government services expand. If you want a larger government keep the border porous and promise more and more benefits. We are doing that and government is growing while business is shrinking. Who do you fear?

“All criminals of any race, ethnicity, gender, ..... including the ones who buy (create the demand)”. Is that racist? No. Is it Trump who said that? No.

Adding to correct the above: ”... including the ones who buy (create the demand) all kinds of drugs, and rape etc.”

Now he’s just insulted Jeb Bush and his wife . If he’s not racist, why does this keep coming up as an issue for him?

@keobook Oy. He really is unbelievable.

@Jaxk YES! That business start up/failure statistic is particularly telling. Let me try to state this another way. What we are witnessing is this. It is no longer necessary to have employees to amass great wealth. The welfare roles ARE indeed growing because any and all growth in the economy GOES TO THE TOP. The reason I keep grinding away at this is because once you appreciate this, everything else makes sense. The expanding welfare roles and debt DO facilitate this and are very necessary for it to proceed at such a spectacular rate. In effect the government is FINANCING the entire thing. It’s a simple matter of watching where the money winds up. Why trouble with productive enterprises which generate jobs (and troublesome expensive employees) when the setup is in place where the money is going to come to you anyway. The poor and jobless are mere way stations for government money on its way to the top. And the evidence for this is overwhelming. The federal government pumps billions into bailing out the banks with the hope that the banks will loan out the money and stimulate the economy. But was this in fact the result? Small businesses are failing because consumers have no money. Wages are stagnant, and job creation is anemic, If the one sector of the population WITH the money is allowed to amass that money WITHOUT investing in productive job producing enterprises, the current situation makes perfect sense. As to who benefits from low wage workers, just look to the Walmart heirs. As I said before, our situation is best described as one in which profits are privatized while debt is socialized. And it truly is absolute socialism in reverse.

@JLeslie Your point in this thread (your OP) that you don’t think he’s racist. Look at your last post.

Trump should be sent back in time about 600 years, to help nip ‘our’ immigration ‘problems’ in the bud. ;-)

@flo I don’t know why I have so much trouble understanding you. What about my last post? He is unbelievable, he puts his foot in his mouth over and over again. Do I think he is racist? No. I don’t think he believes people are born inferior. I don’t think he hates people based on ethnicity or color or religion.

Now he is confident that he can win the Latino vote. Racist or not, he sure is batshit crazy.

@JLeslie Look at my first post

!)The one who create the demand.

I heard some interesting statistics today that shed some light on this whole issue. if we eliminate the immigration offenses, Illegal immigrants account for 13.6% of all federal convictions while only 3.5% of our population. “Broken down by some of the primary offenses, illegal immigrants represented 16.8 percent of drug trafficking cases, 20.0 percent of kidnapping/hostage taking, 74.1 percent of drug possession, 12.3 percent of money laundering, and 12.0 percent of murder convictions”.

No matter how you slice it, the illegal immigrants are perpetrating an inordinate share of the crime.

@keobooks You got that right. Lol.

Those conviction statistics should be viewed with suspicion, particularly when drugs are the issue. The same can be said for the matter of who it is who is arrested and particularly who goes to jail. It’s pretty much agreed that black folks and Hispanics are hugely over represented in crime statistics because they are clearly targeted and dealt with differently than their white counterparts. The overwhelming truth of this is instantly apparent with a cursory look at the prison populations. To this day, it still isn’t appreciated that it isn’t blacks or Hispanics who dominate the sale or consumption of illegal drugs here. They ARE the populations who do the time. The BIG drug epidemic in this country is about speed, a segment of the drug business until recently the near exclusive domain of white folks, though you’d never guess it from conviction or incarceration statistics.

@stanleybmanly – I don’t want to put words in your mouth but I would like to understand your argument. The stats I quoted were for convictions in 2013 and were only federal charges. That means that you want us to believe that Obama’s Justice Department was targeting blacks and Hispanics above all others. That seems hard to believe. Also that the Mexican drug cartels were not using Hispanics to smuggle or traffic their drugs but, I guess, white guys. Is that really your argument?

Of course there’s still the issue of murder, kidnapping and money laundering but hell who’s counting.

@Jaxk If there is no buyer of drugs there’s no seller of drugs.

It’s funny, @Jaxk Your argument looked more like a ‘change drug laws’ problem than an illegal immigration problem.

I suppose that is one way to stop crimes, just make the crimes legal.

@Jaxk And of course the obverse is also true. Crime increases when EVERYTHING is illegal.

By now It should be plainly obvious to any rational adult that prohibition laws don’t work and only create more problems. With drugs we’ve been trying the same strategy for nearly a century with no progress. At what point do we start to consider a different approach?

When such measures stop being profitable to the prison industrial complex, and when police departments are no longer required to depend on confiscated property for funding.

Wow. I’m so glad I was able to derail this thread. It was getting boring. ;)