(split from another thread/topic)

I wouldn't say I outright hate him but I feel like I can answer this.

Donald Trump hasn't yet had a chance to affect the country as a leader, so comparing him to the Clintons is apples and oranges.  In 2020 this will be a much more interesting question but for the moment I suspect that people are more afraid of what's to come than upset with anything he's done thus far.

That said, what he's done thus far is all we have and so the proof of "anything important" is, for me anyway, more about the experience of his candidacy and time as president-elect and what we learned about him, his supporters, and our country as a whole.

The most frustrating thing for me is that his rhetoric has normalized anti-American values and even twisted them to be some kind of standard for patriotism.  This might not seem "important" compared to what his actual administration can/might do but it's significant because it colors the political climate of the country.  That in turn will affect regional/senatorial/congressional elections, which will very much directly affect actual legislation.

I would love to be proved wrong and I hope I am, but his stint as president-elect didn't inspire much hope that he would tone down the nonsense after having won the election.  It's more than "immature passing comments", and in fact the trivialization of his words is part of what makes him so worrying.

Consider how we talk about terrorism.  "Muslim" is a bad word these days, the latest boogeymen in a long and dark history our country has with demonizing perceived threats due to the actions of a minority group.  These people are not seen as "True Americans".  You don't have to search very hard to find supposed patriots who are lapping up the hate-mongering that Trump is feeding them.  Here's a particularly sad example:

http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2014/ … _flag.html

Here is a Muslim-American who has been flying a flag to express his religion for years, and is only just now being seen as a threat.  The complexity and nuance of our world has been subverted by a simplified "us vs them" mentality in which if you're not a "model" American, you're suspect.  If you exercise your *right* to express your religion and that religion is Islam instead of say, Christianity, you are literally seen as the enemy.  This isn't an exaggeration, look at the comments:

* "ISIS flag seen in New Jersey" (posted by Glenn Beck, consider that he has a platform of people who trust him)
* "Scary! Seen this morning [...] #ISIS #Turkey #Terrorism #Jihad @DHSgov @FBI"
* "Jihadists are now in Garwood"

Again, this is an American citizen expressing his faith.  It's not an "ISIS flag".  The fact that many people can't tell the difference shows you how far we already are in terms of seeing the world through a lense of mass ignorance.

As a result, we are literally treating our own citizens as enemies despite our supposed sacred value of religious freedom.  The worst part of this story to me is that he took the flag down.  It is now a fact that a citizen of our country has decided against an expression of their religion out of concerns for their safety.  It's worth re-reading that last sentence for emphasis.  We experienced some of this post-9/11 as well and it wasn't something to be proud of.  I am not looking forward to regressing to that mindset as a country.

So what's that have to do with Donald Trump?  This goes back to his "immature" comments.  His comments are not without purpose, and Donald Trump is skillful in pandering to this mindset.  There is no shortage of examples of him using fear as a motivator and it's concerning because people will vote with their emotions, as they clearly already have.

Of course, Trump isn't the first to fear-monger.  We did have Bush Jr. after all.  What's particularly concerning here however is his almost prideful ignorance of both domestic and international politics.  An "outsider" isn't as good as it sounds when you need somebody to understand how the world operates in order to solve our many problems domestically, let alone keep us safe from external threats.  "But he's a savvy businessman!" doesn't cut it.  Put it this way: I don't care how good a dermatologist might be, I don't want them performing my heart surgery.

The reality is this: our new president's first day on the job is also his first day holding any form of public office.  Combine this with his largely unqualified cabinet picks (a whole topic of its own) and you have a situation that is embarrassing if not outright alarming.

My main source of solace is in our constitution.  Despite all this he is not a dictator.  That said, his power is not only limited the function of his administration.  He also directly influences how many of our citizens see the world and each-other, and already has proven effective at doing so.  This is a form of power not to be ignored.

I understand your response, and as I say I am not American so cannot see things first hand there.  However, I am used to the media being driven entirely by political agenda and bias, and expect it to be so, as anyone who claims to be without bias is not an honest individual.

However, that said, I don't understand the following: he's presented as racist, and yet he seems to have only said he wants to put America first and secure your borders - in the world we currently live in, and seeing countries I have family in throughout Europe over the last 18 months due to our complete lack of border controls being overrun by unvetted, often violent migrants, this is a legitimate concern.  Understand, we're now told in some areas not to be out after dark due to roving gangs of people who are in these countries illegally.  Violent crimes, particularly against women, have increased by orders of magnitude in these areas.  If you think this is something isolated or not as big a problem as some make it out to be, you haven't travelled much!

I have good friends who are Muslim, and they share this concern.  They moved to Europe to escape what they perceived to be the normalizing of violent, extremist behaviour in the mainstream of their countries.  They fear this particularly strongly as due to their dislike of some of the less tolerant verses of the Qu'ran, they are considered essentially Apostate by the newer arrivals.  Interestingly, they voted for what are considered far-right parties in recent elections here precisely due to these concerns.

Yes, it is sad that people feel afraid to show their faith, but it has been the same for many Christians in your country.  Do you remember the extreme harassment a pizza shop faced there for saying they were not comfortable catering a same-sex marriage due to their Christian beliefs?

In regards the lack of experience, I do not see how this is a bad thing?  Limited terms of power are supposed to prevent career politicians, and now many seem to desire them?

And in regards to threats and fear mongering - Bush started your country in several very prolonged wars, and Obama has entered your country in to many more wars, bringing the west closer to war with Russia than it has been in a long time.  Trump seems to want to de-escalate these situations.

I for one am very glad to see America has a president who seems to genuinely be interested in your internal situation, and is not flying the flag of globalism.  We will not know anything of how able a politician he is until he has held office for some time, but I hope for everyone there in the USA he turns out to be the best you have ever had

I don't agree with this but I can understand how people feel this way.  Politics is a depressing arena.  I am optimistic though because of where we are as a world in terms of communication and technology.  Word leaders today are facing pressure and accountability in a way never before seen.

Things won't fix themselves overnight, but it's a reassuring form of decentralized power if we can figure out how to properly weild it.

I agree, and one thing I absolutely give Trump credit for is delegitimizing the media on our left.  We've all known for quite some time that Fox News is a crock of shit, but it's good to see the same criticism levied across the table at networks that are equally shady but better at hiding it.

Unfortunately, Trump is at the same time embracing Brietbart, which is obscenely hypocrtical and only turns the tables instead of actually promoting objective journalism.

That's where he's a natural politician: news that he agrees with is legitimate and news that he doesn't agree with is "Fake News".  He is very quickly undoing any progress he made on this front, even before having taken office.

It's the details that matter.  Wanting to secure borders doesn't inherently make one racist.  In fact, Bill Clinton did a fair amount of work there (something Trump conveniently ignores) and nobody seems to call him a racist.

What's different about Trump though is how he discusses other races and religions.  His comments about of Judge Curiel come to mind.  He painted Curiel as untrustworthy because he is "A Mexican" who would be biased against him in the Trump University lawsuit due to Trump's stance on the border wall.  He has never had any evidence of this.  His only argument is that this Federal Judge, despite his credentials, experience, and authority, is unfit to do his job because of his ethnic roots.  Judge Curiel is a born and raised American from Indiana.

How anybody sees that as not racist is incredible.

A less obviously but equally disturbing example is when he tweeted false 2015 crime statistics that purport, among other false stats, that "WHITES KILLED BY BLACKS -- 81%".

It's been thoroughly debunked, but it doesn't matter.  His message has reached his audience.

Trump may very well believe what he tweets, and I don't think he actually sees himself as a racist.  Unfortunately that doesn't excuse him or justify perpetuating a racist narrative.

I sympathize with the concern and hope it gets better for your family.  For us however, this has never been the situation despite Trump's false assertions that our borders are insecure.  It's a tool used to fear-monger.  I'm incredibly thankful that our country is as safe as it is, which makes it all the more frustrating when Trump tells us how bad things are.

This is doubly frustrating for me because I'm of Mexican descent.  Seeding distrust based on ethnicity isn't doing me any favors, and if a Federal Judge can be distrusted by the president because of his ethnicity, what does that mean for me personally as a non-white citizen?  I wonder, how do my white neighbors perceive me?

This strikes a personal chord with me because this is already a problem pre-Trump.  I once had a fellow citizen call me a "sand-nigger", which isn't even the right ethnic slur because they apparently mistook me for middle eastern.  I guess being brown is close enough for some people.

Donald Trump's way of communication is why people call him a racist, not his position on national security.

I wish more people talked about this.  The issue here has more to do with regional issues than religious issues.  Our conversations are too often dumbed down to appreciate the distinction.  Unfortunately, America's particular blend of ethnocentrism and nationalism makes it difficult to have a conversation with other citizens about something this complex.  There's a significant amount of our population that sees it as simply "muslim = untrustworthy".  Trump is not helping.

This is also unfortunate, but to say it has been "the same" for them is a false equivalence.  No person should ever be discriminated against because of their faith, but Christians here enjoy a "default" status that permeates our culture.  It's easy to see: consider that in our courts people swear on bibles despite our supposed religious neutrality.  Even yesterday's Inauguration speech displays the elevated status of Christianity in our country:

This is fantastic if you're a Christian.  If you're not?  Not so much.  Personally, I don't want religion in my government at all, Christianity or otherwise.

We are fortunate enough to enjoy religious freedom in practice, which is why stories about people like the Muslim flag bearer or the Christian restaurant owners are so disheartening.  We should be doing everything we can to embrace religious inclusivity, and Trump is doing the exact opposite.

It's a matter of balance.  I have nothing against Trump's presidency as a result of our democracy.  He is now my president.  The people who say otherwise are just as idiotic as the people who said the same about Obama.

That said, I do not enjoy having an amateur in office, which is objectively true.  I don't so much desire a career politician as I would prefer somebody who isn't so far on the other end of the spectrum as to be an entirely untrained diplomat.  Unfortunately for us we didn't have the best options available, which I hope teaches us a larger lesson about our public officials in general.

I do agree that despite everything else we are long overdue for a change in how we handle foreign affairs.  I just hope that Trump can actually manage this effectively.  The optimist in me sees this as the singular redeeming quality of a Trump presidency: getting our hands out of other countries.

Same here.  I am continually rooting for him despite my strong dislike for him because I would love to be proven wrong.  I hope in 4 years I look back and say that my concerns were valid but misguided.  Time will tell.