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I wasn't defending Trump, just explaining why he has so much support.

> The answer is to continue to encourage progress but increase redistribution efforts to help the people who are left behind.

This is the Bernie Sanders answer to the same question. For Sanders to get as close as he did to nomination would have been as utterly unthinkable even 4-8 years ago as Trump's nomination would have been. Sanders rode the same wave, offering a left-wing reaction to the decline of the American interior vs. Trump's right-wing reaction.

While I personally can't stand Trump, I'm actually a bit concerned that if he loses to Clinton we'll be facing a real full-blown gloves-off fascist in 4-8 years. The kind of systematic decline I described in my OP is historically the precondition of fascism. I have a friend who's been predicting this for years, calling this "Weimar America."

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I agree that what is behind a lot of Trump support and Sanders support are the same motivating factors. The biggest difference is that Trump joins it with bigotry and anti-immigration rhetoric while Sanders joins it with the rhetoric of class warfare. Both focus on harnessing the anger we talked about, but I think one of them is clearly more dangerous than the other.

It is also worth noting that the plan I mentioned isn't one Sanders supports. He agrees with the social safety net aspects, but he still wants to halt progress on globalization and trade. He might be even more isolationist in that regard than Trump. Sadly there was no candidate in the presidential race that joined both the support for globalization with an understanding that increased social programs are a requirement in a new and more globalized economy.

>racism/bigotry >bigotry and anti-immigration

I hear this a lot. I've then gone back and listened to the exact words he's said. I think it's a very hard case for people to say there's anything he has said that's actually racist. Mexico isn't a race, and even if it were, he's simply correctly pointed out that illegal immigrants are not the best people the country has.

Trump hasn't said anything anti-immigration. Only anti-illegal immigration. Much of it is focused on Mexico, and opponents yell about how terrible this is. Yet Mexico is hypocritical. I'm in Guatemala, and friends that have simply had a layover in Mexico require a visa and go through harassment.

On top of that, I've been threatened deportation from the US during a border crossing (I'm Canadian). My wife lived as an illegal immigrant in the US (visa overstay while we tried to adjust status). My daughter was indirectly killed due to us having to leave the US and return to a bad country with junk healthcare.

Despite that, I realise mass migration won't help. Hint: Most of Latam has it not-so-good. Probably a majority would jump at the chance to get US residency. But how is that a solution? Not to mention the current status quo mostly benefits Mexico. Guatemalans face a hard time just getting through Mexico - Mexico has harsh immigration against them and won't hesitate to deport.

Trump's opponents refuse to address this. Instead they just scream racist/bigot/immigrant-hater, while waving Mexican flags. More and more people are realising these are empty insults and non-sequiturs.

> Donald Trump called Monday for barring all Muslims from entering the United States.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-b...

>Mr. Trump, who said last week that a Mexican-American judge in a case involving Trump University was biased against him because of his heritage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us/politics/paul-ryan-dona...

Trump wants to stop Muslim from immigrating to or even visiting this country. He also believe the qualifications of an American born US citizen can be put into question if that person's parents are from another country. I'm not sure how comments like that can be classified as anything besides xenophobic, bigoted, and racist.

>Muslim ban

This is an anti-ideological stance. It's not racist, and it's not anti-immigration as a whole. When hundreds of millions of people in a group agree that leaving the group should result in the death penalty[1], I think it's fine for a country to want to put a hold on things for a bit while better selection processes are put in place?

>Mexican-American judge Who is part of a "La Raza Lawyers" group which seems to stand for the opposite of everything Trump is. (Not to mention if a white guy joined a group called "The Race"...) That aside, ask yourself: Would this judge get some raised eyebrows among friends and family if he ruled in favour of Trump? It's not unreasonable to assume so.

If a judge declared himself Irish-American and proud of Ireland, maybe they wouldn't be the best judge to rule on the Microsoft Ireland data retention/access case. Maybe. Not agreeing with Trump, just pointing out that it's possibly plausible scenario and not a completely illegitimate comment.

At any rate, Mexican is not a race, so it's still not a racist comment.

Anyways this is getting into kill-area for HN, but I'd be happy to discuss over email/Skype if it's interesting.

1: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...

Do you want to get banned? Because this is how you get banned.

Racist.

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