10 ms·

“I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally. And so when they hear things like the Muslim comment or the wall comment

by danhak 10y ago

“I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally. And so when they hear things like the Muslim comment or the wall comment or things like that, the question is not ‘Are you going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China?’ or, you know, ‘How exactly are you going to enforce these tests?’ What they hear is ‘We’re going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy.’" -Peter Thiel, 2016 I guess to Thiel, a saner, more sensible immigration policy involves invoking 9/11 to ban people from 7 countries not involved in that attack from the U.S, including permanent residents on a legal path to citizenship and holders of valid visas. All done with zero warning via executive order and without conferring with DHS or DOJ.

cookiecaper 10y ago
* The ban is a temporary measure and has nothing to do with religion. President Obama signed a list of countries into law for enhanced visa scrutiny and President Trump used that exact list without modification, directly referencing the statute in which it was codified. They'd already been identified as terrorism hotspots that warranted additional scrutiny from immigration officials by the Obama administration. Trump just took it a step further and temporarily halted immigration from these nations while his administration reviews the policies to ensure they're sufficient. * Alien permanent residents from the affected countries are not currently banned. They never were. Neither are dual citizens. * It is true that non-diplomatic visas have been temporary suspended (not canceled), but this applies at border crossings only; persons currently in the country on those visas do not have to leave. * There has been 18 months of warning in the form of the Presidential campaign. Trump promised something like this up and down. He was taken seriously, not literally, and he seriously implemented a 90-day stay on the travel of foreign nationals from areas with high terrorist activity, using the exact list that President Obama signed into law. He did not literally implement a ban on Muslims, or indeed, any other religious group, despite the literal meaning of his prior comments that did explicitly mention Muslims. Likewise, his statements about "the wall" seem to be flexible to the point of something more like multiple layers of well-patrolled fencing. To me, "seriously but not literally" appears to be holding up really well. Trump is not betraying the intent of the voters who elected him, but he is also consulting with his advisors and legal experts and implementing things that accomplish the intention within the constraints of practicality and legality.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- disantlor 10y ago
  any what exactly does this EO accomplish? just because Obama identified countries as a potential threat doesn't necessitate that we be recklessly suspicious of anyone who comes from them. it's disingenuous to say it's just a"step forward" by permanent residents i assume you mean green card holders in which case they 100% were affected unless you believe the white house spin.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    >any what exactly does this EO accomplish? I mean, is there some mystery to this? The EO explicitly states its purpose in its text. It gives the Trump administration time to evaluate the procedures used to vet nationals from these hotbeds of terrorist activity. Are you concerned that it doesn't do this, or do you simply not agree that this is a worthwhile thing to do? >by permanent residents i assume you mean green card holders in which case they 100% were affected unless you believe the white house spin. It's not White House spin. Green card holders were never banned. The media falsely reported a statement from a DHS spokesperson, literally not even quoting a full sentence, to try to cause a panic (and they obviously succeeded). After a few hours, they were forced to fix their erroneous reporting when the White House began issuing corrections (that wouldn't have been needed if the media hadn't intentionally misconstrued the story in the first place).
    - davidw 10y ago
      Those people are already being vetted. A lot. Do you think no one before Trump realized that there are some bad people in those countries?
      - cookiecaper 10y ago
        You're moving the goal posts. I have no position on whether this was good or not. The parent asked what this EO accomplishes. It accomplishes what it says it accomplishes; it gives the Trump admin time to review the policies. Is that a smart thing to do or not? I don't know. Does my opinion on whether or not it's smart have anything to do with whether its sufficiently illegal to have the acting AG openly refuse to allow the DoJ to develop arguments in its favor? I don't think so.
aub3bhat 10y ago
Peter Thiel will go down in history as Trump/Bannon's useful idiot. He might have come up in short term betting correctly on Trump but he is down on long. If he thinks that he is going to get a piece of the pie after Kushner/Tillerson/Preibus(establishment) have had their take, then he is in for a cake.
- workerIbe 10y ago
  What I think alot of Trump supporters are taking seriously is the phenomena that is the left feeding off It's own hyperbole, it's pretty disturbing.
  - throwaway5752 10y ago
    And a lot of us on both sides of the former partisan political spectrum are wonder what - if any - boundaries Trump supporters have past which they would not defend the actions of this administration.
    - pm90 10y ago
      There aren't any, and I'm serious about it. Unless Trump does something that is totally and obviously anti-populist, like raise taxes for everyone by 20% or send in the National Guard into a city. It took me a while to understand why but you kinda have to see where Trump supporters get their worldview. Unfortunately, they use Facebook/Twitter a lot, and have been bombarded for years and years by outrageous fake news. When they try to debate some of this fake news, they are immediately dismissed by the reasonable sort who know fake news is fake news. They see shares/feeds from their friends about mostly the same thing. End result: an unreasonable hatred of the left and democrats. And an acceptance of Trump: just because he ain't a "damn liberal".
      - zigzigzag 10y ago
        I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years, when it was supporting the Democrat world view. For instance, just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. The Russian army is huge and what's left of the Ukrainian army is made of fresh conscripts. If those events had actually happened then the Russian flag would have been waving over buildings in Kiev within 24 hours, there would have been videos of it all over the world. You can't hide an invasion of an entire country, that's not what the word means. Yet these conquered cities are mysteriously missing. What actually happened is a civil war in Ukraine with two opposing sides from the same country who hate each other, one side trying to break away by force. The west supports west Ukraine with materials and training, Russia probably supports east Ukraine/Donbass in a similar way, although the west admitted they were doing it and Russia never did. But let's put that to one side and assume both were at it. That's not an invasion, that is at most a proxy war. And what happened in Crimea was even simpler, they had a vote and voted to join Russia just like they did twice in the 1990's (but were ignored). Western/Ukrainian polling and journalists have visited since and didn't find any evidence that the vote was not representative of what people there actually think. Yet fake news stories that talk of invasion, literally fake as in "reporting on things that never happened", goes largely unremarked, especially by the kinds of people who hate Trump. They usually aren't even aware how thoroughly they've been fooled. If you want an example of how people are manipulated through missing news rather than fake news, the recent Greenwald article on a SEAL Team raid in Yemen and how CNN reported it is a good one. So "fake news" is the kind of thing that both sides can levy at the other, with some justification, but trying to claim one side or another is smarter than the rest is not going to work. People will just tune it out, exactly as you report.
danso 10y ago
I think Thiel overall was right, in that Trump would still be liked by his base even if he didn't build a literal wall. By talking about the wall, Trump was signaling his priorities, and his base were just happy to have someone who they felt had the right priorities, whether or not a literal wall would get built. I think Thiel just didn't think Trump would go through with it after winning, because he thinks Trump would see that the costs of the actual wall would outweigh the disapproval of voters, and that he could pursue a hard-line against immigration in less costly ways.
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  I think Thiel was right too, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing and that real people are not harmed.
- avn2109 10y ago
  The thing about the Mexican border wall is that it already exists. It's hundreds of miles long. National Geographic shot some panoramas [0] but otherwise you don't hear too much about it in the news. I guess "lengthening a wall" doesn't fire up the base as much as "building a wall." [0] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/what-the-us-mexico-border-actually-looks-like/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/what-the-us-mexic...
- grey-area 10y ago
  I thought Thiel had cut to the heart of the matter with that statement before the election, but now think he is wrong, for exactly the reasons you state. His statement implies that we should not worry about Trump's crazier ideas, because he'll be tempered by advisors and feedback. The assumption there is that he listens and acts on advice, and that he chooses the right advisors. The evidence so far points to this not being the case. Trump's statements past and present should be taken literally, at face value. What he says and has said is what you will get, and he is making a strenuous effort to deliver on every single one of his promises (even crazy ones), because he believes them to be correct. After this week I now firmly believe if he could ban all muslims tomorrow, he would do so, and damn the consequences. Rescinding green cards en-masse is incredibly destructive to the reputation of America, it is really quite reckless as well as cruel. So it turns out Thiel was wrong - Trump has been and will continue to go through with his promises to the letter in many important areas. There are some areas (like healthcare or prosecuting Hilary Clinton) where Thiel was probably right in that he won't really bother with them, but only because Trump really doesn't care about them.
tzs 10y ago
Matt Levine commented on how Thiel's observation has worked out so far [1]: > And what has happened so far? Immigration bans (with more to come), abandoned trade agreements, "alternative facts," unprompted promises to bring back torture. And what has not happened so far? Tax policy is a complete mystery, with an unclear and walked-back promise to impose a border tax. Health-care policy is even more mysterious. Trump has made vague promises to cut regulations by 75 percent, but his specific regulatory focus seems to be on increasing penalties on companies that move operations abroad. Everything Trump literally said is coming literally true; everything the serious people heard remains an unserious hope. Businesses may eventually get the tax and regulatory reform they wanted, but it's not a priority. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-30/immigration-orders-and-odd-tenders https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-30/immigrati...
redler 10y ago
This glib literally/seriously trope will not be judged kindly by history.

by danhak 10y ago

cookiecaper 10y ago

* The ban is a temporary measure and has nothing to do with religion. President Obama signed a list of countries into law for enhanced visa scrutiny and President Trump used that exact list without modification, directly referencing the statute in which it was codified. They'd already been identified as terrorism hotspots that warranted additional scrutiny from immigration officials by the Obama administration. Trump just took it a step further and temporarily halted immigration from these nations while his administration reviews the policies to ensure they're sufficient. * Alien permanent residents from the affected countries are not currently banned. They never were. Neither are dual citizens. * It is true that non-diplomatic visas have been temporary suspended (not canceled), but this applies at border crossings only; persons currently in the country on those visas do not have to leave. * There has been 18 months of warning in the form of the Presidential campaign. Trump promised something like this up and down. He was taken seriously, not literally, and he seriously implemented a 90-day stay on the travel of foreign nationals from areas with high terrorist activity, using the exact list that President Obama signed into law. He did not literally implement a ban on Muslims, or indeed, any other religious group, despite the literal meaning of his prior comments that did explicitly mention Muslims. Likewise, his statements about "the wall" seem to be flexible to the point of something more like multiple layers of well-patrolled fencing. To me, "seriously but not literally" appears to be holding up really well. Trump is not betraying the intent of the voters who elected him, but he is also consulting with his advisors and legal experts and implementing things that accomplish the intention within the constraints of practicality and legality.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
disantlor 10y ago
any what exactly does this EO accomplish? just because Obama identified countries as a potential threat doesn't necessitate that we be recklessly suspicious of anyone who comes from them. it's disingenuous to say it's just a"step forward" by permanent residents i assume you mean green card holders in which case they 100% were affected unless you believe the white house spin.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  >any what exactly does this EO accomplish? I mean, is there some mystery to this? The EO explicitly states its purpose in its text. It gives the Trump administration time to evaluate the procedures used to vet nationals from these hotbeds of terrorist activity. Are you concerned that it doesn't do this, or do you simply not agree that this is a worthwhile thing to do? >by permanent residents i assume you mean green card holders in which case they 100% were affected unless you believe the white house spin. It's not White House spin. Green card holders were never banned. The media falsely reported a statement from a DHS spokesperson, literally not even quoting a full sentence, to try to cause a panic (and they obviously succeeded). After a few hours, they were forced to fix their erroneous reporting when the White House began issuing corrections (that wouldn't have been needed if the media hadn't intentionally misconstrued the story in the first place).
  - davidw 10y ago
    Those people are already being vetted. A lot. Do you think no one before Trump realized that there are some bad people in those countries?
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      You're moving the goal posts. I have no position on whether this was good or not. The parent asked what this EO accomplishes. It accomplishes what it says it accomplishes; it gives the Trump admin time to review the policies. Is that a smart thing to do or not? I don't know. Does my opinion on whether or not it's smart have anything to do with whether its sufficiently illegal to have the acting AG openly refuse to allow the DoJ to develop arguments in its favor? I don't think so.

aub3bhat 10y ago

Peter Thiel will go down in history as Trump/Bannon's useful idiot. He might have come up in short term betting correctly on Trump but he is down on long. If he thinks that he is going to get a piece of the pie after Kushner/Tillerson/Preibus(establishment) have had their take, then he is in for a cake.

workerIbe 10y ago
What I think alot of Trump supporters are taking seriously is the phenomena that is the left feeding off It's own hyperbole, it's pretty disturbing.
- throwaway5752 10y ago
  And a lot of us on both sides of the former partisan political spectrum are wonder what - if any - boundaries Trump supporters have past which they would not defend the actions of this administration.
  - pm90 10y ago
    There aren't any, and I'm serious about it. Unless Trump does something that is totally and obviously anti-populist, like raise taxes for everyone by 20% or send in the National Guard into a city. It took me a while to understand why but you kinda have to see where Trump supporters get their worldview. Unfortunately, they use Facebook/Twitter a lot, and have been bombarded for years and years by outrageous fake news. When they try to debate some of this fake news, they are immediately dismissed by the reasonable sort who know fake news is fake news. They see shares/feeds from their friends about mostly the same thing. End result: an unreasonable hatred of the left and democrats. And an acceptance of Trump: just because he ain't a "damn liberal".
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years, when it was supporting the Democrat world view. For instance, just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. The Russian army is huge and what's left of the Ukrainian army is made of fresh conscripts. If those events had actually happened then the Russian flag would have been waving over buildings in Kiev within 24 hours, there would have been videos of it all over the world. You can't hide an invasion of an entire country, that's not what the word means. Yet these conquered cities are mysteriously missing. What actually happened is a civil war in Ukraine with two opposing sides from the same country who hate each other, one side trying to break away by force. The west supports west Ukraine with materials and training, Russia probably supports east Ukraine/Donbass in a similar way, although the west admitted they were doing it and Russia never did. But let's put that to one side and assume both were at it. That's not an invasion, that is at most a proxy war. And what happened in Crimea was even simpler, they had a vote and voted to join Russia just like they did twice in the 1990's (but were ignored). Western/Ukrainian polling and journalists have visited since and didn't find any evidence that the vote was not representative of what people there actually think. Yet fake news stories that talk of invasion, literally fake as in "reporting on things that never happened", goes largely unremarked, especially by the kinds of people who hate Trump. They usually aren't even aware how thoroughly they've been fooled. If you want an example of how people are manipulated through missing news rather than fake news, the recent Greenwald article on a SEAL Team raid in Yemen and how CNN reported it is a good one. So "fake news" is the kind of thing that both sides can levy at the other, with some justification, but trying to claim one side or another is smarter than the rest is not going to work. People will just tune it out, exactly as you report.

danso 10y ago

I think Thiel overall was right, in that Trump would still be liked by his base even if he didn't build a literal wall. By talking about the wall, Trump was signaling his priorities, and his base were just happy to have someone who they felt had the right priorities, whether or not a literal wall would get built. I think Thiel just didn't think Trump would go through with it after winning, because he thinks Trump would see that the costs of the actual wall would outweigh the disapproval of voters, and that he could pursue a hard-line against immigration in less costly ways.

kelukelugames 10y ago
I think Thiel was right too, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing and that real people are not harmed.
avn2109 10y ago
The thing about the Mexican border wall is that it already exists. It's hundreds of miles long. National Geographic shot some panoramas [0] but otherwise you don't hear too much about it in the news. I guess "lengthening a wall" doesn't fire up the base as much as "building a wall." [0] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/what-the-us-mexico-border-actually-looks-like/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/what-the-us-mexic...
grey-area 10y ago
I thought Thiel had cut to the heart of the matter with that statement before the election, but now think he is wrong, for exactly the reasons you state. His statement implies that we should not worry about Trump's crazier ideas, because he'll be tempered by advisors and feedback. The assumption there is that he listens and acts on advice, and that he chooses the right advisors. The evidence so far points to this not being the case. Trump's statements past and present should be taken literally, at face value. What he says and has said is what you will get, and he is making a strenuous effort to deliver on every single one of his promises (even crazy ones), because he believes them to be correct. After this week I now firmly believe if he could ban all muslims tomorrow, he would do so, and damn the consequences. Rescinding green cards en-masse is incredibly destructive to the reputation of America, it is really quite reckless as well as cruel. So it turns out Thiel was wrong - Trump has been and will continue to go through with his promises to the letter in many important areas. There are some areas (like healthcare or prosecuting Hilary Clinton) where Thiel was probably right in that he won't really bother with them, but only because Trump really doesn't care about them.

tzs 10y ago

Matt Levine commented on how Thiel's observation has worked out so far [1]: > And what has happened so far? Immigration bans (with more to come), abandoned trade agreements, "alternative facts," unprompted promises to bring back torture. And what has not happened so far? Tax policy is a complete mystery, with an unclear and walked-back promise to impose a border tax. Health-care policy is even more mysterious. Trump has made vague promises to cut regulations by 75 percent, but his specific regulatory focus seems to be on increasing penalties on companies that move operations abroad. Everything Trump literally said is coming literally true; everything the serious people heard remains an unserious hope. Businesses may eventually get the tax and regulatory reform they wanted, but it's not a priority. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-30/immigration-orders-and-odd-tenders https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-30/immigrati...

redler 10y ago

This glib literally/seriously trope will not be judged kindly by history.