Many Americans are strongly partisan and have a strong fealty to one party or another. This means that most criticism of Trump is largely partisan talking points being repeated somewhat thoughtlessly as an act of loyalty.
In reality most Americans do not really care about the issues you mention. In most cases Trump's style is very different from that of Obama, but the meat of the policy decisions is very much the same.
There is not much enlightenment to be found in America's two parties. Both are forces of conservatism and protection of incumbent interest.
Trump's antics benefit him by distracting everyone. If he wants the media to get up in arms he says something rude, this distracts from the actual polices he's undertaking, which are typically fairly widely agreed upon by both parties.
For instance, congress granted the president the power to unilaterally define a "national security threat" that requires changes to immigration permission. Congress could easily undo this permission and make it harder for Trump to strike out at immigrants, but since both parties largely support the general policy, this won't happen.
If you look at a county by county map of the US election 2016 results, the vast majority of places in the US favored Trump. Why? Because fearmongering and blaming of minority groups and foreign countries for problems works very well politically. The US has had an anti-brown-people crusade going with renewed fervor since 9/11, and most of the foreign policy the US engages in promotes an agenda of American exceptionalism.
No, America's soldiers are not more brave than other soldiers, our politicians are not less corrupt, our people are not less greedy, etc. But Americans of all stripes will strongly disagree with those statements because they buy into the religion of American exceptionalism.
So to answer your question, Trump is horrible, but is more of a symptom of a longer-term process than a new phenomenon. I'm surprised that more Americans were not revolted by his rhetoric about immigrants during the campaign, but we are a mediocre, bloodthirsty people.
The worst part of it is that those who want to keep out immigrants are the ones seeking handouts from government in the form of cushy, protected jobs. They fear change and they fear competition. It's embarrassing to me that such cowardice is on full display for the world to see. Oh well.
That's true, but it's also by design. If winning five counties would be enough to win the election, then it would very much change politics and the kinds of issues we find in presidential politics (Iowa, etc.) would disappear. It's not perfect but it's very much preferable to a popular vote system, even though sometimes a candidate wins who we don't like.
"In most cases Trump's style is very different from that of Obama, but the meat of the policy decisions is very much the same."
" Congress could easily undo this permission and make it harder for Trump to strike out at immigrants, but since both parties largely support the general policy, this won't happen"
This is wrong - only one party is in power in congress
I could list a bunch of policies where Trump is continuing in the sprit of Obama and Bush, but I won't do that unless you really want me to.
With respect to one party being in control, my point is that if it is indeed Trump who is the one advocating abhorrent policies, then why would it come down to a few votes in congress?
If in fact it is a broadly GOP-supported policy change, then it's hard to argue it is being driven by Trump and is not something that supposedly more reasonable candidates like Jeb, McCain, or Romney would have also done.
In reality most Americans do not really care about the issues you mention. In most cases Trump's style is very different from that of Obama, but the meat of the policy decisions is very much the same.
There is not much enlightenment to be found in America's two parties. Both are forces of conservatism and protection of incumbent interest.
Trump's antics benefit him by distracting everyone. If he wants the media to get up in arms he says something rude, this distracts from the actual polices he's undertaking, which are typically fairly widely agreed upon by both parties.
For instance, congress granted the president the power to unilaterally define a "national security threat" that requires changes to immigration permission. Congress could easily undo this permission and make it harder for Trump to strike out at immigrants, but since both parties largely support the general policy, this won't happen.
If you look at a county by county map of the US election 2016 results, the vast majority of places in the US favored Trump. Why? Because fearmongering and blaming of minority groups and foreign countries for problems works very well politically. The US has had an anti-brown-people crusade going with renewed fervor since 9/11, and most of the foreign policy the US engages in promotes an agenda of American exceptionalism.
No, America's soldiers are not more brave than other soldiers, our politicians are not less corrupt, our people are not less greedy, etc. But Americans of all stripes will strongly disagree with those statements because they buy into the religion of American exceptionalism.
So to answer your question, Trump is horrible, but is more of a symptom of a longer-term process than a new phenomenon. I'm surprised that more Americans were not revolted by his rhetoric about immigrants during the campaign, but we are a mediocre, bloodthirsty people.
The worst part of it is that those who want to keep out immigrants are the ones seeking handouts from government in the form of cushy, protected jobs. They fear change and they fear competition. It's embarrassing to me that such cowardice is on full display for the world to see. Oh well.