Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Yes, we discuss that phrase, but no, we don’t say the word. Instead, we do a deep dive on immigration with two of the sharpest minds on the issue: the Center for Immigration Studies’s Mark Krikorian and our good pal Mickey Kaus. Dig in.
Music from this week’s podcast: Dreamer by Super Tramp
Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
I would say that Trump’s poll numbers are in the commode on account of an unrelenting press that has yammered on for over a year about collusion that never occurred. The man can’t sneeze without someone in the press stating that the President has been infected with ebola and he will infect us and we are all going to die. I was channel surfing one day, and someone on the Money Channel stated this as fact: “Trump is literally Hitler.” So either the cloning specialists are far more advanced than they have let on, or that yet again, another Talking Head is a total ignoramus.
The Republican Party is in danger of losing the elections due to the fact that they cannot wrap their heads around the new reality: American voters loyal to Republicans make up less than 30% of all Americans. That has been a fact since 2008. The only upside for the “R”‘s on this is that loyal Democrats number around the same percentage factor. So that leaves the majority of American voters in the category of “You better give us someone who is libertarian on many issues and who understands that immigration (or Latino Culture Uber Alles) needs to be reigned in, or you will find people either staying at home or voting for their cat.”
Greg Gutfeld’s take on this is awesome.
https://youtu.be/Z6RFXHbaY8g
I’m sorry, I just can’t buy this. Sure, much of the media out to get Trump. It is right to say that the man can’t sneeze without a negative story being written about him. But I’ve conceded that. Many times. And you are saying that this is the whole of it. The poll numbers are bad because of his bad press? Nevermind the fact that we are also told that a large number of people don’t believe what the press is saying. But, when it comes to Trump, people believe the media? And it has nothing to do with his fighting with Gold Star Families? Nothing to do with his attacks on own Attorney General? Nothing to do with vulgar language? With his Tweets? Or with his going in front of the boy scouts and putting on a vulgar display of self-congratulations? These things are televised. People don’t need the filter of the press to tell them what this man is like. We have eyes. The man is a vulgarian. This is why his poll numbers are in the tank.
Yes, discussions on this subject are pretty much at a dead end. No real attempts at persuasion are occurring, just lobbing plague-infected bodies over each others’ walls.
Yes, we have a slob as President. Some people think it is unacceptable, others think it is irrelevant. The discussion is pretty much over.
And, yes, another group denies he is a slob, but a visionary truth-teller.
And never the twain shall meet!
On the other hand, the NFIB Index of Small Business Optimism is at an all-time high. This is significant because small business owners and entrepreneurs risk their own money. I think that they are also the kind of people who are more inclined to vote. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame claims that this is a much more reliable indicator of the president’s popularity, and I am inclined to agree with him.
Well, gotta have a hobby. ?
So Trump doesn’t bow to the demands of the PC harpy squad. Has it made you and I more free to speak our minds? Have Google, Twitter, and Facebook stopped with their censorship or have they stepped it up?
Trump’s blunt-force PC-busting hasn’t made questioning the orthodoxy a respectable position: anyone who calls shenanigans on the left’s absurdities is Just Like Trump rather than Having A Point.
Look what they’re doing to Margaret Atwood! Trump is making the right people crazy, but we don’t need the crazies to get crazier! We need them to knock it off!
Trump’s crudeness is not pushing us toward that goal.
But, haven’t Mexicans been crossing the US border in that region for much longer than the last 40 some years? Also, while this is a logical hypothesis, how does it actually bare out? How many decades did it take for previous immigrants to assimilate? Have we really gone over that time period? Are third generation Mexicans in the US less assimilated than 3rd generation Italians were?
I don’t think Trump nominated anyone. He doesn’t know enough to nominate anyone. He outsourced everything to Pence because he is smart enough to know he doesn’t know anything angd that is the only thing I will give him credit for. Pence or someone like Pence told Trump who to appoint and thank God he listened. The deregulation is good but once again Trump doesn’t even know how to go about it. He has people telling him how to do it. The only good is that Trump realizes he is clueless so he listens to wiser heads – most of the time. Again, thank God. But that doesn’t make Trump himself into a good President. He just doesn’t know how.
But he has to listen to those people. He doesn’t understand the issues. He cannot speak coherently about the issues. He needs those people. Trump had no choice but to appoint those people because without them all you have is babbling. I am grateful he did and I agree we have to put up with him. But I refuse to give him any credit for tax cuts, judges, deregulation or anything else because he doesn’t understand any of it and he never will. Yes it is way better than Hillary but we could have had a thinking, intelligent President and I will never forgive Trump for taking that away from us to serve his stupendous ego.
Trump is too stupid to be a fascist. He doesn’t even know what a fascist is. He’s just a babbling fool in way over his head.
Seems to me that you are defining how. You listen to experts in areas where they know more and you delegate, because a President cannot do everything in a 4,000,000+ person organization.
Stages? So you think he is playing 3D chess? Yeah right. You are definitely looking through the offal for a grain of wheat.
Julia, Sweetie, bless your heart, I think you may not be qualified to evaluate the man’s intelligence, what he knows, and what he doesn’t know. A lot of people, even in the Republican Party said the same things about Ronald Reagan. He’s just a dumb actor. He’s senile. He doesn’t know what’s going on. Other people are running things. I remember hearing that for eight years.
Now, DJT has never been as classy, as suave, or as eloquent as RWR. I’ll give you and everyone else that. On the other hand, I look around me, and all I see is the 1980’s all over again but multiplied by a million in the media. They were harsh with Reagan and they made up stuff, but they have gone to Ludicrous Speed with Trump. And people like you are swallowing the Flavor-Aid.
I want to address both of these quotes.
I do think a lot of the discussion has reached a dead-end. Most people here have made up their minds. But, speaking for myself, I am trying to persuade. I always give concrete reasons for my thinking, and always try to say that, yes, the President has done good things in terms of policy, but that the Presidency is about more than just policy. The trouble comes when my antagonists do not want to come to grips with the fact that, when we have our minds focused on just policy, we will come to rue the day.
As far as Trump being neither as bad as I think, not as good as his defenders think: Being good conjures in the mind a moral thing. Is he a good person? I cannot judge his heart; only God can do that. I do say that the way he expresses himself does not compute with deep thoughts. Nor kind thoughts. And that leads to ineffectiveness, in terms of conveying what good has been done, and what you hope to accomplish. This is the simple thing I wish to get across. To me it is simple: In the deepest recesses of your soul, you may be a good person; but, if you come across as a clown, you are undoing any good that you wish to accomplish.
But he doesn’t have to, Julia. I understand your bitterness, and I share much of it. But, for the sake of the country, and yourself, we have to move beyond it. Trump could have stuck with the crazy things he said in the campaign, but he didn’t. I am not smart enough, not can I intuit, why he changed, but he did. Again, for our country’s sake, we need to be grateful for the growth, for whatever reason, that this man/child has achieved.
Charlie, I really am shocked. You are much smarter than this. Yes, Julia is too bitter. But to blame this all on the media? Come on?!! There is no excuse for much of the media. But Trump does give them ammunition. And (I know I say this a lot), to be fair, many in the media do give him credit, at times, such as that cabinet meeting he had a week or so ago. As far as Reagan being classier? Of course he was. But, c’mon, man, it was more than that. Reagan was Governor of California; he was a union president; he wrote radio speeches; he was plenty smart, not just suave and eloquent. I will accept that is unfair to say that someone isn’t bright, because we don’t know. On the other hand, both of us know that no one who is truly bright would go around telling us how bright he is.
How is Trump a man child and not Bill Clinton?
It is amazing to me all this noise over what Trump Maynor may not have said in a private mee.
At the end of the day, the people upset, want to be upset with Trump. They are looking to be upset. They want to be unhappy. They need to be unhappy with Trump.
As he might say: sad.
Moderator Note:
By all means feel free to disagree with Bryan's assessment, but please try to take it a little less personally. Thank you.I really resent this, Bryan. I do not wish to be to be unhappy! This is disgusting. Don’t do this again. I have been fair with you. I love my country, deeply, and everything I write is because of that.
And Clinton is a man/child. Very much so. What does this have to do with Trump? Talk about a non-sequitur!!
Taking it from the bottom:
I don’t think calling Trump a “man/child” is fair or reasonable. That term, in recent years, has been used for young men unable to succeed. Trump is a success. And it does matter that Clinton is one, because the rules for Trump now appear totally different than for the previous men. Trump’s less than stellar character appears to wax more important than anything else for people all over the nation now. It is very odd none of this came up with previous occupants.
I was on my tablet so both quotes I tried to put in there did not work. It is 100% clear to me that for some conservatives, there is nothing Trump can do to make them happy. They are determined to give Trump no credit for anything, and they are going to be unhappy with Trump no matter what. JB appears to be doing just this. So, this part was actually meant to be supportive towards your argument, not at you per say, and due to the limitations of my interface, I botched it.
I don’t question your love of country.
Moderator Note:
Please see mod note on comment #111.Thank you for that. But you directed your comments to me, by referring to what I had written. and, I repeat, your saying that I wish to be unhappy is disgusting. I have never, despite how much I disagree with you, imputed feelings to you that you may not may not have. I know you won’t do this. but you owe me an apology. If I don’t get it, I am done with you.
Yah we call them progressives. Hi o…
Frankly I’m skeptical of the the claims of unassimilation. America has always had strong ethnic enclaves. The American system is designed with such groupings in mind, back when people made far greater deal of the distinctions between the various British peoples of different faiths. The principles still apply though to modern times. The culture is crafted by human interaction. Distinctly American is easy, how can it be anything else. Only we have this unique melange of peoples living under our Constitution. I think a lot of cultural angst comes from having a fix vision of the cultural end product. This though I think is a mistaken way to look at culture.
It would actually be good to look at statistics about that — and I haven’t done so. What are second and third generation immigrants doing, compared to those of the previous century? In terms of language acquisition, civic participation, work participation, naturalization — how have these patterns changed? Or have they?
I’ll look into it.
I explained the botched post and what I had meant to do. I suppose that was insufficient. Sorry. I’ll do better in the future and not attempt complex posts off the keyboard.
If you want to be done with me that is OK too.
I’d like a historian to compare assimilation of immigrant groups now vs. in the past. There may be some special circumstances now, such as the left using ethnic identity to purposefully prevent assimilation.
Moderator Note:
Again, please see mod note on comment #111.Complex posts? It is never you fault, is it? The more I read you, the more I understand how you can be such a devoted fan of our president. Good Luck to the both of you.
Good bye, Bryan.
You misunderstood. I am not blaming it “all” on the media. Reagan did a few things that handed them ammo, too. Reagan might hand them a few rounds of .22 long rifle, and the press would fire those and add in a maelstrom of larger ammunition that Reagan weathered fairly well.
Now, Trump may give the media a variety of pistol and rifle ammunition, but the press are replying by nuking him and the American people every chance they get. Unfortunately, Trump is like the lizards that begin the Godzilla films. You make him radioactive, and he just gets bigger and gains new powers to destroy. Returning fire or setting one’s hair on fire is not the way to deal with Trump. Just ask those other sixteen candidates what happened in 2016.