Trump will "get rid of ISIS big league"; "wipe them out."

[0rganism]

11. looks like a decent play by Orange Foolius

this is actually winning rhetoric. when people vote for a president, they're voting top-level priorities.

policy detail is secondary, arguably for good reasons: situations change, congress gets hold of it, etc. when a president goes to the trouble of laying out detailed policies, it rarely turns out as promised. so voters are okay with a candidate who's willing to say "i'll demand this and that" and let it roll from there. vagueness is not necessarily a deal-killer.

so when Trump says "i'm going to kill them all" it doesn't matter that he won't say how he'll do it, or how he'll avoid civilian casualties, or how he'll handle whatever ugly phoenix rises from their ashes in 3 years. no, that doesn't make a lot of difference in this context. what he's doing is stating clearly a priority that a lot of voters find agreeable: destroy ISIS. this is one of the less controversial things he's done, and it's got Manafort written all over it: "Just talk about killing our enemies, Donald, and for fuck's sake stay on script."

Hillary's going to snow him on policy anyway, she is the ultimate policy wonk. but on issues of national security people vote for the appearance of strong leadership, not ultimate wonkiness, so that's where Trump can make a play based on attitude and flim flam.