On Trump, History and Carter

Personally I think Donald Trump went too far--or better yet, spoke wrongly about what his plans are for Muslims entering the US. I'm a strong advocate of stopping all immigration for a period of 3-6 months except those cases that are pending for people emigrating from friendly nations. I mean cut it off until we have a detailed investigation into how the system works and fix the parts that don't.

Trump went full bellicose in saying he'd ban all Muslims all his staff didn't help the situation when she said that he meant even Americans--which he did not. He's doubled down on this several times.

So, of course the media is going out of their collective minds reporting it and thinking that this is the one thing that will sink Trump...finally. Alleged media icon and good liberal Tom Brokaw went so far as to go full Nazi:

He went on to cite historical evidence of the human costs of allowing fear and prejudice to dictate policy, while images of the events he described appeared on screen. His examples included the “herding” of Japanese-Americans into internment camps, the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II and its consequences for Germany, the "anti-communist witch hunt" instigated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) in the early 1950s and the persistence of institutionalized discrimination against African Americans through the 1960s.

Okay, so he cited the "herding of Japanese-Americans" into camps (authorized by a Democrat and liberal icon FDR), Nazi genocide (perpetrated by national socialists) and McCarthyism--the go-to example of oppression but they always leave out the fact that McCarthy was right, the government was riddled with communists as the Venona Cables showed. So, in essence, every example Brokaw cited was either by a socialist or was proven, in fact, to be true; but liberals live in their own little cocoon where FDR was a god, Hitler a right winger and McCarthy destroyed people with no facts.

But back to Trump. He's getting excoriated because he is recommending checking immigration and stopping those we are at war with from entering the US. This is madness they say, he's a racist and a xenophobe, etc. But wait, there's precedent that the good Mr. Brokaw neglected to mention in the piece linked above:

Fourth, the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.

That is President Jimmy Carter discussing banning Muslims we should have been at war with--but Carter didn't have the balls to declare it--from Iran. And to top it off,  Trump is well within US law to propose and enact such a ban. Hell, Carter used the law to ban Iranians.

So, do I agree with Trump on this? Partially. As noted above, a halt to all immigration is not a horrible idea. But Europe has been extremely open with their immigration policies and we have to ensure they do some work on this as well. Nearly all of the attackers in Paris were Belgian, French or other European.

Trump is a showman and he's feeling his oats. He's saying outrageous shit and his polls keep going up. Yet, eventually, people are not going to want to see Trump the circus barker but Trump the statesman. He has to start toning it down and present real policies and vision.