There is a small group of humanity with no empathy, no self reflection, no thinking unless something in the environment forces them to think and reflect.
With the election months away, and most "good people" avoiding topics like religion, politics, and sex in polite conversation since people have natural difference on opinions on these subjects...this perfect storm causes a substantial amount of the population, less than 1/5th of the voting public but a higher amount of republicans to not think outside of their bubble, and actually contemplate a jackass as president who is unhinged.
The whole point of demagoguery is it feels right on an emotional level, on an instinctual level, it takes our rational brain a few seconds to think it through and see other perspectives. Well some people are so hyper focused on things, or honestly do not know anything about political issues that they do not consider shit like.
What would 1/4 of the world population (1.6 billion people) think of a president who says if you are a US citizen and you are muslim and you leave the US temporarily you are not allowed back in. These same 1.6 billion people believe it is one of their tenets of faith to visit the holy land in Mecca once in their lifetime as a pilgrimage if their financial resources allow. So people who are born in Texas or Main if they leave the US to go to Europe, Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, or Mecca are suddenly disbarred from entering.
And we are supposed to have alliances with these nations of 1.6 billion people when you have a lunatic say shit.
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You are from south africa, most of your population is good people just like most of the people in the US are good people. Yet there is a small population some good people that are no filter and do not think what they say out loud, and some really nasty bigoted people involving things perceived as foreign and not "them" and when they get stressed such as terrorism, a down economy, or you just getting older and not understanding things like internet and how the world has changed.
Well these less than 1 in 5 people of society support crazy people for president.
I have almost forgotten about him, but in France the 2nd place winner but still the loser of the 2002 election was the extreme racist Jean-Marie Le Pen. (He has said many wonderful loving things about groups he hates, but probably the most outlandish is saying the gas chambers is just a minor detail of World War II and people focus way too much on it and forget about for the most part the Nazis treated the french population mostly humanely)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen#Controversial_statements
Well this scumbag made the 2nd round of French Voting for they have a group vote with you pick your favorite presidential candidate with dozens of choices and then the highest 2 have a run off 2 weeks later. During the run off this scumbag got 17% of the french vote in 2002.
Let that sink in for a second...sigh...whatever most of the world is good and while there are setbacks the world is getting better and more humane each day due to the good people instead of the bad people who via greed and self centeredness drag us down.
Okay, the whole "empty vessels make the most noise" thing. I suppose he's covered so ardently because of his radical views. As a person who lives in South Africa I've got to say that we are exposed mainly to Trump and Clinton in our local news, but I also read CNN, BBC, Sky News and Fox News - and they're all pretty much the same. The other candidates barely feature. I've also watched the Republican debates on Youtube and Trump is hugely overbearing and dominant compared to the others. It feels like 'everyone' vs Trump. I met some people who work at our American Embassy the other day and they both said the election is a circus and that Trump will never win in a million years, which is sort of what you said.
I do find it strange that your Republican candidates put such emphasis on religious liberty - it's obviously essential to people there. People here never talk about religion, and that's my experience in Europe too. It seems like religion is basically all that drives men like Santorum, Huckabee and Cruz - their other far more important agendas seem to be of little consequence to even them. My personal favourite candidate is Rubio, but I'm by no means an expert on American politics.
I'm pretty sure you're exposed to our radical politicians the most e.g. Julius Malema. They're minority parties but the vitriol they spew is like gold to the media. Our President is also a completely corrupt criminal who is long past his sell by date. Luckily when you're heading towards a one party state, the politicians don't care much about public opinion and there's a good side to that too. It seems like you guys are going to have to vote for Vader or Palpatine and you know that one of them has to win. At least we know that we have Vader and there's not much we can do about it. There's a certain peace about it.
Fan of Lanfear