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Comment by williamle8300 | Hacker News Reader

How is Trump an immediate threat? I'm really curious. All of his policies are about protecting American interests, and rebuilding America's manufacturing complex.

If you're referring to the Immigration EO... please read it first. It's a really well-written bill. For those curious about whether it was a religious discrimination see this pie chart of the Muslims that are excluded[1]. The goal of the EO is to mitigate the influx of refugees from states that foment anti-Western ideals. It just happens to be this group are radicalized, and violent Islamic people.

[1] https://i.redditmedia.com/09_97z77yJ2MRBOVMVYvkcVEi66uJI5KSw...

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> The goal of the EO is to mitigate the influx of refugees from states that foment anti-Western ideals. It just happens to be this group are radicalized, and violent Islamic people.

I don't understand this reasoning. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to take only two examples, are also places where a lot anti-Western activity comes from, both in ideology (via jihadist religious schools), and logistic support. If what you say is true, they should have been included in the ban.

Equally illogical is Trump's argument [1] that they couldn't take the time to consult the relevant parties from Justice, State, and Congress because that would have meant "the "bad" would rush into our country" before the EO's enactment. How does that not apply to the Muslim countries left out, like the two mentioned above, whose citizens have been the source of documented attacks on U.S. interests multiple times in the past (as opposed to the 7 countries included in the order)?

[1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/82606014382566605...

Trump is a more long term threat due to the long term fallout and international perception of the United States as a result of his actions.

Yes, his Immigration related EO does not affect nearly as many people as the rhetoric would indicate -- but what it does do is prevent travel to the United States for some 22,000 persons (and counting) at the very least while, by consensus, not really being likely to prevent entry to actual terrorists. It is not that the bill is truly discriminatory, just that it is likely to be ineffective in its aims while damaging international credibility of America as a land of inclusion (or, to rely on imagery from the plaque of the Statue of Liberty, a golden door, to accept your tempest-tossed refuse).

Second, while his threat of 20% tariffs on importation from Mexico may seem like it originally promotes "buying local", there are several long term ramifications. First, construction materials and machinery [1] for American factories will ultimately increase the price of American produced goods as a result of this measure. Second, this bill will, directly and immediately, grant China greater bargaining power--with the United States. Thirdly, it causes Mexico to negotiate more aggressively with its local neighbors and with overseas partners, potentially closing trade avenues altogether with America.

Ultimately, it boils down to one thing: Trump's measures appear to be reactionary, with little view for long term fallout, international reputation, and future trade relations with partners that are not directly related to his current target (eg: trade relations with Mexico deteriorating, giving China greater negotiating power).

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-does-the-u-s-import-from-me...

> Yes, his Immigration related EO does not affect nearly as many people as the rhetoric would indicate

It potentially affects, well, everyone, really: while much focus has been on the effect of the refugee ban and the 90-day shutdown from named countries, the order directs certain executive officers to determine information that foreign countries (all countries, not just the specific ones addressed by the 90 say ban) must share with the US regarding potential immigrants and orders that those officers provide recommendations of countries that should be added to an immigration ban list because they do not share the required information.

So it impacts all potential immigrants to the United States, and all third parties (including US citizens about whom a foreign government has information) about whom (because of direct or indirect relationship ship to a potential immigrant) the US might demand information from a foreign government as a condition of allowing immigration from that country.

No, you're wrong. You can preempt intentions of a bill. A bill is a bill. If Trump wants to overreach he'll have to introduce another bill. This bill is specifically to curb nations that have been havens for radical Islamic people.

The E.O. is not a bill, and no new bill would be required to implement the parts of it that I related. (Well, it might be legally required just as new legislation might be legally required to do what is called for in the 90-day ban, which is being challenged as a violation of existing law; but that's an after-the-fact constraint that doesn't prevent overreach, it just potentially provides a basis for responding to it, provided the courts are doing their job more faithfully than the President is doing his.)

There's always going to be some unwanted effects of any kind of legislation. I agree that those are bad side effects... but you have to look at the general thrust of the legislation: curbing unwanted immigrants to America. There's no deterministic way to discover whether someone has terrorist sentiments... so a blanket statement is used. It's sloppy but accomplishes the goal, no?

Reactionary? Yes, I agree. Trump's most shining quality is that he acts quickly. Obama didn't accomplishing this much in his 8 years, as Trump has in 2 weeks... I would anticipate he has a very lean and agile approach to legislation and everything is subject to iteration.

Obama's inability to get much done can be, objectively, attributed largely to an obstructionist Congress. While not wholly to blame, it certainly both slowed his agenda, and often caused him to gut key provisions from legislation in order to get it ultimately passed. Looking at initial drafts of the Affordable Care Act early in its history versus what ultimately passed Congress is a depressing reminder of how willing Democratic partisans are willing to compromise their values in terms of playing ball with an enemy team whose explicit, stated, and recorded goal was paraphrased to "Take the other side's ball and go home."

While many bills have unintended consequences and side effects, these are often not recognized at the time. Pointing out the negative consequences for people who have already passed American vetting procedures, preventing access to persons already in flight when it passed, detaining persons in airports immediately, and the failure of the bill to provide any tangible benefits as far as anti-terrorism measures are concerned were hardly unforeseen. These were immediately pointed out by security professionals.

I am still of the hopeful and optimistic opinion that Trump does not use his "very lean and agile approach" to unilaterally void NAFTA and impose a 20% fee on Mexican imports, as just the foreseeable consequences of that action are far reaching, negative, and highly deleterious to the United States' reputation internationally. The unforeseen consequences? The economic fallout that we cannot immediately predict? If they are mere extensions of what we already can see, I am afraid.

"Looking at initial drafts of the Affordable Care Act early in its history versus what ultimately passed Congress is a depressing reminder of how willing Democratic partisans are willing to compromise their values in terms of playing ball with an enemy team..."

They made no attempt to compromise on the ACA. They didn't need to -- they passed it with zero GOP votes in the House and almost zero in the Senate. They didn't even let Reps or Senators see the bill before the vote!

The ACA itself was just one big compromise, since it was basically the Republicans' own plan from the 90s.

>Obama didn't accomplishing this much in his 8 years, as Trump has in 2 weeks

This may be an accomplishment for people who wants immigrants out, but not for America or everyone. Also, what i hated most about that particular EO is that, it also bans people with Green cards and student visa's. There are numerous students who were stopped and detained which doesn't make any sense, but again this is what you get when you want to act fast without thinking through.

I say time will tell how this step affects things in general.

I would point out, 9/11 hijackers were all here on legal visas[0] - so using that thinking is faulty. Our visa process seems to have faults, and I think this EO is a stop-gap to try to amend the issue. I don't particularly agree with ever choosing "religion" or "race" as a litmus test (which, as I have seen seems to be the underlying motivation, right from the horses mouth), but you have to agree there is justification at closer scrutiny of some sort for visitors coming from known hot-bed countries.

I think from certain angles, you could argue Trumps response hasn't been strong enough (why wasn't SA included in that list; everybody tends to agree that is completely absurd)?

[0] http://www.factcheck.org/2013/05/911-hijackers-and-student-v...

I'm reminded of the old proverb: "Do not remove a fly from your friend's head with a hatchet". Banning thousands of people who haven't done anything and may actually help our cause, just to prevent a few dozen people who may be able to find other means to get in the country if they had to anyways, is not a smart policy.

There hasn't been anything like another 9/11 attack since and we've had 16 years, so maybe two Presidents and all of our allied governments with the same policy know more about what to do to keep the country safe than a two week old presidency.

No, at least three were in the USA illegally on 9/11.[0] It's another example of Factcheck.org's unreliability.

[0] http://www.fairus.org/issue/identity-and-immigration-status-...

I don't think that contradicts the other comment. They said that the hijackers all entered legally. You're saying that some didn't have legal status on the day of the attack. Both are true. That some of them overstayed or didn't meet the terms of their visas after arrival is interesting, but not very actionable unless you want to set up an internal passport system or something.

  I don't think that contradicts the other comment.

Sure it does; "were all here on legal visas" is false.

  That some of them overstayed or didn't meet the terms of their visas

Even those that did have legal paperwork all obtained it via fraudulent means by lying on their applications as to purpose of visit; technically speaking, none was here legally.

The point was that ignoring people with visas would not be compatible with a goal of keeping terrorists out. I (and I think the other commenter) don't think it's a good idea or worthwhile, but it does fit the stated goal.

Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, who are not subject to the travel ban.

>Obama didn't accomplishing this much in his 8 years, as Trump has in 2 weeks

Err, no.

He has put out some Executive Orders, and done some hiring and firing. Even that has been enough to massively damage his Administration, such is the level of decision-making that we've seen so far.

I seem to recall Obama passing a rather major health care reform. Trump hasn't done anything nearly that big yet.

What you describe as a "lean and agile approach to legislation" appears to be not bothering with legislation at all. Has there been any legislation passed during the Trump administration yet? I certainly haven't heard of anything big.

The waiver for Secretary Mattis, a couple of bills that appear to be quite minor (I only skimmed them for a second):

https://www.congress.gov/public-laws/115th-congress

Thanks. I didn't realize it was so easy to look up. Obvious in retrospect.

My secret agenda was a PSA that they do a pretty good job publishing that stuff.

It worked!

I read the EO first. It pretty clearly excludes people who should have the right to be here, including people on work and student visas, and permanent American residents. The White House has since walked that back a little bit, no doubt due to the massive backlash, but the order itself is clear enough, and the order continues to block people who should be allowed to come here.

I don't know what "well-written" would mean here, but it's not a good order by any means.

The threat posed by Trump goes far beyond this, though. Right now, my hope is simply that we're all still alive to vote again in 2020. I'm quite serious about that. Trump has shown himself over and over to be highly insecure, obsessed with revenge, and unable to let any slight slide without a response. Put such a person in charge of the world's most powerful military and there's a good chance of a catastrophe.

Ignoring the threat of nuclear annihilation, there's also the threat to the foundations of our democracy. He constantly attacked our electoral system and refused to commit to accepting the outcome of the election. We didn't find out how he would have handled losing in 2016, but how would he handle losing in 2020, or hitting the 22nd Amendment in 2024? I wouldn't be at all surprised if he refuses to leave and precipitates a crisis.

There's plenty more, for example his offhand desire to strip American citizenship as punishment for flag burning, but those are the two main ones that concern me.

> The goal of the EO is to mitigate the influx of refugees

Yet it blocked MIT professors with work visas (initially even green cards until they backpedaled) just because they were born in Iran/etc.

The EO is ridiculously hamfisted.

Though if you read Art of the Deal or have studied how Trump operates, his initial position on anything is always more than he wants. So they "backpedaled" on green cards and legal visas and still have what they really wanted.

Yes I know about "talk past the deal".

But that's not how democratic leaders are meant to act, that's how dictators act.

I feel like America is selling its birthright - a democratic republic - for the illusion of security. It's been happening ever since 9/11 but now it's even worse.

No, that's not how dictators act. How dictators act is they do what they want and if you resisted, they put you in jail or kill you. Dictators don't need negotiating tactics because negotiation is part of democratic process which requires consensus. Dictators don't negotiate, they dictate.

Consensus ... crowd pleasing ... dictators can do that. The hallmark of the dictator is their disrespect for individual rights, but you can totally please a crowd while stepping on individual rights, see Chavez:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/...

Consensus and crowd pleasing is not the same. And dictators aren't usually as good at pleasing the crowds as they think they are, otherwise there would be no need to suppress freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of elections, etc. which dictators (including Chavez, of course) routinely do.

Every time this book is mentioned, I feel obliged to add the caveat that it was ghostwritten (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-g...)

And if anyone running things in the Trump administration actually knew the law, or history, they'd understand that treating people equally no matter what country they came from is not negotiable. You can't run a government like a business deal.

I disagree with the EO, and reading it fully I think the green card issue was more of a lack of experience on how to govern. It was clearly rushed out with little planning.

The reason I bring this up, is that Trump has plethora of issues that do not need embellishment. Hyperbole will do nothing but make Trump supporters dig further in and reaffirm their beliefs. A woman on my FB feed the other day said that as a woman, she was likely to have her right to vote taken away by the next election. That type of comment does nothing but make people think 'crazy liberal'.

Maybe I'm overreacting but as a green card holder myself, the cavalier attitude this administration has to people's lives fucking terrifies me.

I don't want to go on vacation and then find I can't get back into America (where I have a job, a mortgage, a spouse, a social network and have lived for the past 9 years) because Trump suddenly took a dislike to my country of origin.

I'm not even from a Muslim country, but we have some Muslims, and plenty of non-white people, so given that Bannon was partly behind the EO and is openly white nationalist, who knows?

You are not overreacting. It's unnerving that a two-week old administration isn't willing to listen to anyone in their own government, or in our allies, and just thinks they know best. If they had people with experience, they'd understand just how much this policy messes with people's lives, and for no real benefit.

I don't know the future, but it is important to remember that the list of countries came from a failed nation list made by congress and the Obama administration (they also included Iran) [1]. Trump did not just pull it out of the air.

Green cards are also permanent residences so legally that is much harder to stop than not extending or granting new visas.

With that said, I'm against it and think it is bad policy on many fronts.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/29/politics/how-the-trump-adminis...

It was not lack of experience, it was deliberate, and only rolled back due to protests. After the order was put out, DHS decided that it didn't apply to green card holders. The administration then clarified that it did, and that's when SHTF as it were:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-travel-b...

His stated goal is protecting American interests.

It's not at all clear that his policies do anything to accomplish that goal. His executive order on immigration was quite likely counterproductive to American interests. Sure, it disrupted travel for a large number of people that had already been through a thorough vetting process (the claims that doing this made us safer are weak, the existing vetting process was effective, people who went through it had killed 0 people in the US), but it also made the US look foolish and capricious.

What worries me about the EO is how incompetent it was, and his running excuse that terrorists would just jump into planes to fly to the US if they heard about it first! That's nuts and it's the beggining of an excuse for him to do this over and over again, eroding the ability of Congress to vet his actions. "There's no time" does anyone actually believe that?

I am not blind to Trump's virtues. Economically he has a lot of good ideas. I agree that PC was going too far! But he's a lying son of a gun who's trying to screw us all.

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