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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy the Economic Agenda of the Six Top GOP Candidates Is Truly Frightening
Why the Economic Agenda of the Six Top GOP Candidates Is Truly Frightening
The six top Republican candidates take economic policy into the wilderness.
By Nomi Prins / Tom Dispatch
November 29, 2015
Here is whats grimly fascinating in this years dystopian carnival of a Republican presidential primary. When it comes to what can be said in America, all bets are off. These days, the concept of beyond the pale couldnt look more wan. All of a sudden, theres nothing, no matter how jingoistic or xenophobic, extreme or warlike that cant be expressed in public and with pride by a Republican presidential candidate. You want torture back in the American playbook? Youve got it! Just elect Donald Trump or Ben Carson -- and our future torturers dont even need to justify its use in terms of getting crucial information from terror suspects. Employing good old American-style enhanced interrogation techniques to inflict pain on them is fine and dandy in itself.
When it comes to refugees from the grim war zones we had such a hand in creating in the Greater Middle East, if you want the Statue of Liberty to hold a Christians only sign, welcome to the worlds of Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz. Should you prefer a registry for either Syrian refugees or American Muslims and mosque closings aplenty, youve got it from Donald Trump (and the closing of any facility where radicals are being inspired from Marco Rubio) -- and no matter how much politically correct liberals may complain, Trumps not walking either of those proposals back far. (Where, by the way, are all those religious freedom types now that mosques are at stake? Can you imagine the uproar in this country if Bernie Sanders were to call for the shutting down of a few right-wing Christian churches?)
If you have the urge to compare Syrian Muslim refugees to rabid dogs and thought you had to keep your mouth shut about it, step into the universe of Ben Carson and speak out! Should you want to claim that, on September 11, 2001, crowds of thousands of Muslims cheered and tailgated in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers, and that it was all recorded on video that only Donald Trump and maybe Ben Carson saw, then youre in just the right exceptional nation at just the right moment. I could go on, but why bother?
In 2016 there is evidently no longer anything, no matter how extreme or offensive, that Donald Trump and the rest of the crew can say to the Republican base that will affect their popularity negatively. Quite the opposite, such statements, along with the promise to be tough on the Islamic State, are now the equivalent of popularity meters. In a country where public opinion not so long ago seemed down on more boots-on-the-ground interventions in the Greater Middle East, you cant threaten to send in too many boots and planes these days. The attacks in Paris and threats of them elsewhere are clearly Gods gift to Republican extremity. And right now, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his caliphate pals seem to control the electoral fate of politicians in both the United States and Europe.
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