I’m going to take a break from the science of government to write a little bit about politics – something this blog really isn’t really about. But things are crazy right now in America, and I already wrote most of this article in rants to unnamed Facebook-friends of mine. I’ll try to keep it short.

As a libertarian who grew up democrat, the best way I have read to understand republicans is that they think more.. well.. conservatively, meaning that they’re less likely to trust or investigate outside viewpoints. Some have described republicans as, on average, more focused on fear and anxiety. The “fear” part of the equation simply manifests from a skepticism of change. While liberals tend to act out on their hopes and dreams for a different, better future, conservatives act out on their hopes for a known, familiar, and secure future. It seems that liberals and conservatives might have significantly different brain patterns. A liberal is more likely to want to use the government to bring about change, while a conservative is more likely to want to use the government to protect the lifestyles they’re comfortable with. For example, the justification for the conflict in Batman vs Superman might make more sense to a conservative than to a liberal.

And yet the GOP might be going the way of the dinosaurs as a Trump-takeover weighs heavy on the minds of many republicans. Trump’s rhetoric all plays to the psychology of fear and security. While Trump’s campaign often seems like an elaborate joke, he seems perfectly geared to say exactly what the most conservative conservatives want to hear. And this may split the party apart by strongly appealing to only half, while strongly repelling the other half. If only the Dems had a more likable candidate themselves..

Trump supporters, in fact, have many of the same frustrations as Bernie supporters. They’ve seen how traditional candidates have let the status quo more-or-less continue unimpeded. They’ve seen the opportunities available to the common people dwindle as the rich continue to get richer. They’ve seen horror story after horror story on the news of misused government, killings, and people ruined by healthcare costs.

Many people have seen a refreshingly different candidate in both Trump and Bernie. Both are willing to go against the norms of the political establishment. Both have publicly shunned donations from billionaires. Both drew unexpectedly large crowds.

And yet, I think many Trump supporters are only hearing what they want to hear. In fact, many Trump supports don’t believe he’ll follow through on his promises, but don’t care. When asked why they support Drumpf, they’re answer usually boils down to “why not?” They ask “what’s so bad about Trump?” Well…

Trump has been outright racist for decades and has called for racially directed policies, like putting all Muslims on a watch-list, even though such things would clearly violate the constitution. He’s encouraged civic violence at his rallies. He has refused to pay hundreds of people that he’s done business with. He said he hopes Russia hacks the DNC. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s gotten endorsements from both Russian oligarch Valdimir Putin and North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, and has proudly admired not only Putin and Kim Jong Un, but Saddam Hussein, China’s killings in the Tienanmen Square massacre, and Hilter as well – no joke. He has ties to the mafia. Three rape cases have been made against Trump, the most recent of which is child-rape and is still pending resolution, and the other two were settled out of court. And if somehow none of that bothers you, let’s not forget Trump wants to sleep with his daughter.

Most Trump supporters I’ve talked to even agree that he’s highly sleazy and constantly lies and flip flops. Again, that seems not to bother them. Trump supporters seem to care more about the way he says things than what he says.

But Trump has posted a plan. Or at least, a “plan”. And without further ado, I’m going to summarize Trump’s official positions for you here:

1. Mexico and the Wall

Trump plans to bully Mexico into paying for a border wall by using trade sanctions, making it illegal for banks to do business with undocumented persons, and harassing people who have and want visas.

2. China

He also plans to bully China into “fairer” trade by using more trade sanctions, banning the sale of government debt to China, changing *Chinese* subsidy-, labor-, and trade- laws (not exactly in the US president’s jurisdiction), prosecuting China as currency manipulator, increasing our military presence in the vicinity of China, and (surprise surprise) lowering corporate taxes.

The fact that China owns some US debt gives them all of zero leverage over us. They can’t just decide to call in their loans – that’s not how bonds work. So that isn’t going to help anything. Most of these actions, along with the similar actions he plans against Mexico, would sour any positive international relations we have with those countries, and could very well set the stage for war.

3. Immigration

Trump’s immigration reform is essentially less immigration and mandatory deportation for people here illegally. Not to mention ending federal refugee programs.

He reiterates building the wall and blames mexico for unemployment, crime, and poverty in the US. He plans to triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, remove federal funding from cities that disagree with federal policies, implement criminal penalties for those that overstay their visa, end birthright citizenship, and require immigrants to certify that they can pay for housing, health care, and “other needs” before allowing them entry.

He plans on making using e-verify services mandatory for businesses, artificially increasing how much employees on H-1B visas much be paid to limit their employment, requiring companies to go through a process with the unemployment office before being allowed to hiring people on H-1B visas, and terminating the J-1 program for foreign youth.

His immigration policy is weirdly speckled with unrelated domestic policy too. He proposes creating a resume bank for “inner city youth” and vaguely talks about finding safer homes for orphans and improving safety in high crime neighborhoods.

But immigrants help this country’s economy and are far less likely to commit crimes while here than natural-born citizens:

His immigration policy would be bad for Americans, bad for our neighbors, and bad for our relations with other countries.

4. Health Care

His health reform stuff seems somewhat reasonable but is still incredibly disingenuous. The main item (other than repealing Obamacare) is allow sale of insurance “across state lines” – which means that an insurance company would only have to follow the laws of its resident state, not the laws of states where they sell the insurance. As far as republican ideals, this clearly violates some core tenants of states rights, but its also a terrible idea that would mean states couldn’t enact insurance-related protections for their people.

All these “policies” are just cobbled together republican talking points aimed at energizing people rather than being good plans or even feasible plans.

5. Taxes

His tax plan mentions lowering taxes across the board, simplifying the tax code, vague mentions of “adding jobs”, eliminating the inheritance tax, ending deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad, and reducing loopholes, all while not adding to the national debt.

This plan is demonstrably infeasible. He continues to lie about his tax plan being revenue neutral. The plan itself says it would cut “over 50%” of households from paying taxes. It would reduce the federal budget by a about 1/3 and yet he wants to reduce the deficit too. There is 0 possibility he could achieve this even if he were president for 50 years. He wants to eliminate inheritance taxes, meaning that children of billionaires wouldn’t have to pay taxes on gifts from their relatives and we’d see aristocracy soar to even higher levels.

While I can certainly agree that simplifying the would be great, he provides no insight on how he plans to accomplish that.

6. Veteran’s Administration Reforms

Trump’s plan for the VA is to allow veterans to go to any doctor that accepts medicare, increase funding for treatment of PTSD, treatment of brain trauma, suicide prevention services, and job training services, and staff VAs with OBGYN doctors and facilities. He also plans to fire the entirety of the VA’s leadership, “clean up the VA’s finances”, make it easier to make appointments and communicate with doctors using modern technology, hire more veterans at VA clinics, and create satellite VA clinics in under-served areas.

In stark contrast with the rest of his policy, these seem like almost entirely reasonable and positive ideas.

7. Second Amendment Rights

In his “protecting our second-amendment” policy, he advocates no limits on the type of weapons or ammunition people could buy, mandatory federal 5 year sentences for any crime committed using a gun, expanding mental health programs, a national right to carry a concealed weapon, and removing the ban on military carrying firearms in civilian areas.

He claims Obama’s record on violent crime is “abysmal”. Except its not. He deliberately makes no stance on background checks even tho he dedicates a whole section to meaningless rhetoric – and this isn’t the only place he does this by any means. This would have been the perfect place to address the problem of gun violence, including the epidemic of killings by police and of police, but he’s silent about that here and when he has mentioned it, he simply blames activists for decrying police shootings of unarmed people.

Conclusions

Trump’s policies are riddled with the kind of us-vs-them thinking that has so often lead to war throughout history. Almost every one of his policies vilify immigrants in some way. With the exception of his VA policy, this is by and large a set of policies that would be pretty obviously harmful if implemented. It makes one wonder: is Donald Trump is a fascist?

Its painfully obvious that Trump isn’t a writer and didn’t write any of these proposals himself. Trying to find him talking about these proposals even at the minimal level of detail written on his website is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I would be surprised if the needle was even there.