Trump is not a joke - any more than Huey Long was -

[hedgehog]

Trump has come up with some Progressive statements that might attract voters -

- denouncing corporations that lay off Americans for cheaper foreign workers

-calling for taxes on foreign goods entering the US to compensate for lower manufacturing costs elsewhere

- saying tax codes need to be changed because hedge fund managers are getting away with murder

- supporting women's health issues

[HFRN]

1. Ironically, Trump and Sanders are the only ones talking about H-1b visas

Trump is like a Mario, knowing where to bump for political coins - you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what neoliberal issues the average person is ticked off about, and faces a wall of $ilence from the establishment candidates and media - all he has to do, is claim those issues, because they're completely up for grabs (with the exception of Sanders). I'm not implying in any way that he's sincere, but he is a skilled opportunist

[leftofcool]

2. Sounds a little "progressive" to me

[HFRN]

3. no, just a populist opportunist

see my post above

[LanternWaste]

4. Buffoons are rarely jokes...

Buffoons are rarely jokes... yet still humorous, still obvious, and as likely to win as Gracie Allen's Surprise Party in 1940.

Yeah... he's a joke. Take him seriously-- it's your time, not mine.

Pretend he has a chance-- it's your prophecies, not mine.

[world wide wally]

5. But Trump's idea of dealing with "cheaper foreign workers" is to lower wages here

[hedgehog]

6. The problem is that low information voters won't hear that part

of his agenda.

[Orsino]

7. Trump is a joke.

That he's said some nice things by accident doesn't change anything. If he stays in the race long enough, he'll contradict them all.

[LibertyLover]

8. I wonder if he'll end up like

Huey did eventually.

[closeupready]

9. What concerns me about this talk is that it's popular and legitimate.

It may end up siphoning away independent support for Sanders.

The day when Hillary or any other Establishment candidate talks like that will be the day a snowball lives in hell.

[KamaAina]

11. I'm having a hard time picturing someone undecided between Bernie and tRump.

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

[pampango]

10. He's certainly no joke to the white supremacists. He's their man.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked a number of other white nationalists who have been throwing their support behind The Donald. They include:

Gregory Hood, a writer who penned an essay in support of Trump for the white nationalist blog Radix. Hood wrote:

Trump is worth supporting. He is worth supporting because we need a troll. We need someone who can expose the system that rules us as the malevolent and worthless entity it is.

Brad Griffin, founder of the Occidental Dissent, a website that describes itself as "Pro-White, Pro-South, Pro-Indepdence." On Trump, Griffin recently wrote:

Donald Trump isn’t a conservative or a racialist by any stretch of the imagination, but he is a tornado that can inflict a lot of damage upon the two-party system.

Jared Taylor, considered one of the leading intellectual voices of the white nationalist movement, praised Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants in a video posted on the website of his American Renaissance journal:

Americans, real Americans have been dreaming of a candidate who says the obvious, that illegal immigrants from Mexico are a low-rent bunch that includes rapists and murders.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-21/trump-condemns-attack-homeless-man-supporters-theyre-not-his-only-questionable

[hedgehog]

12. Theere has always been a stream of racism in the Populist movement -

not that all Populists are racists, but that some racists are also Populists. I think anti-immigration has been another unacknowledged aspect as well.

[pampango]

13. That's why RW populists are more dangerous than LW populists with whom what you see if what you get.

The RW version tends to identify 'enemies' based on color, religion or nationality. Though some of their policies have a 'progressive' ring to them, it is the way they define their 'enemies' that makes them dangerous.

Our LW version focus our ire on class and corporate interests.

[hedgehog]

14. Good analysis! I was thinking last night of "Reagen Democrats."