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> Failing that it is possible Trump might do it as a sign of pragmaticism. He's the only one who could sell it to his supporters, the same might be true of Obam
by mikeyouse 10y ago
> Failing that it is possible Trump might do it as a sign of pragmaticism. He's the only one who could sell it to his supporters, the same might be true of Obama for his people.
Donald Trump would literally hang Snowden:
“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country — you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” Trump said, Politico reported.
- mtgx 10y agoDonald Trump says a lot of things on which he doesn't follow through.
- CamperBob2 10y agoThroughout history, it's really surprising how many of the great conspiracies and atrocities have been telegraphed clearly -- if not published openly -- by their perpetrators, far in advance of the actual deeds. No one who read Mein Kampf could have expressed surprise at Hitler's subsequent actions, for instance, and the same is true for other documents up to and including the neoconservatives' PNAC Manifesto. So don't say you weren't warned if Trump actually does follow through on some of this stuff. There's no real downside to taking him at his word.
- mikeyouse 10y agoI'm sure that's reassuring to those who he's promised to kill.. It wasn't a one-off comment though, he reiterated his Snowden beliefs a few months ago: “When you just asked the question about Snowden, I will tell you right from the beginning, I said he was a spy and we should get him back,” Trump said. “And if Russia respected our country, they would have sent him back immediately, but he was a spy. It didn't take me a long time to figure that one out.” Trump thinks he's a Russian spy who should be hanged for treason.
- o0-0o 10y agoYou think he's not a spy?
- CameronBanga 10y agoSerious question. Why do you think he is one? What that he's done is in anyway consistent with the work of a spy?
- anonbanker 10y agoIf you look up Snowden's history, you'll see that before he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton, he was a CIA asset. He was literally a spy before going into the private sector. So, if you're a CIA asset, and then you leak NSA data from the private sector, are you still a CIA asset, or are you a defector and "former spy"?
- curt15 10y agoHis opinion on Snowden is entirely consistent with his authoritarian tendencies though.
- mwfunk 10y agoI must confess that I don't follow this line of reasoning. You're saying that even though Trump said he wants to execute Snowden, Snowden should come back to a Trump-led US anyway because Trump doesn't follow through on a lot of the things he says? Does this really sound like a compelling argument to you?
- internaut 10y agoThat is also possible. Trump frequently changes his mind though. That's what I was getting at. When he does this his supporters praise him as pragmatic. You have got to remember that: He isn't really a typical diehard conservative. It isn't about the specifics of what he says. It's about him feeling he's doing right by America, that is what his supporters are keying into that allows him to circumvent contradictions that would sink another candidate. Of course you could be right. But if he is all about Make America Great Again it's hard to see how he accomplishes this objective economically without Silicon Valley's backing. SV won't support a president that kills Snowden. Not under any circumstances. He has to know this because he's making a kind of bet against globalization in favour of technology. That falls apart without SV. On the other hand he could juxtapose SV with the lack of jobs in manufacturing. In that scenario of protectionism and anti technology animus things will get very bad for everybody high and low.