How does someone this fucked up get elected? I thought the US had it bad with Trump.
The people are tired of the status quo and voted in a hardliner in hopes to change things. When Duterte was mayor of Davao City, he transformed the city into one of the safest in the world:
http://touristspotsfinder.com/2015/05/davao-city-safest-city...
http://www.numbeo.com/crime/city_result.jsp?country=Philippi...
Considering he's doing exactly what he said he'd do, I'd say the people got what they asked for.
The policy I find even more interesting is where he tells the populace to take matters into their own hands and do the killings themselves. I think he said he'd pardon anyone that kills a drug dealer.
Not just with the political situation in the US, but in other maligned places like China (which has recently had conflicts with the Philippines over parts of the South China Sea) and Russia, which is blamed for every single societal ill these days it seems (Hillary seems to think Putin is the head of the 'alt-right' movement).
http://blog.adl.org/extremism/american-white-supremacists-at...
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/putin-follower-appear-us-white-supr...
https://antifascistnews.net/2015/12/21/racists-today-why-is-...
Putin uses his propaganda machine to support whatever he thinks serves his interests at that time. This year it's a soft-on-Russia Trump. A few years before, it was the soft-on-Russia Democrats. I promise it'll never be Mitt Romney or John McCain though.
And in general, it's a little amusing seeing the American Left suddenly discover this year that they are anti-Russian cold-warriors, after decades of being the exact opposite.
Having seen/read a bunch of RT, I don't think that's true. It's propaganda, but it's whatever suits the Kremlin at the time, usually framing issues in ways that favor them. Certainly, favoring Russia's invasion of Ukraine or Assad is not "left-wing propaganda", as easy examples.
Didn't you hear? Putin invaded the Ukraine because he wanted to setup a bunch organic grocery stores and yoga studios? He's really a left-wing kinda guy! /s
Russia essentially is, in many respects, what European and American far right desires to be (which is why they generally tend to have a positive opinion of it). Its propaganda, both inside and outside, is clearly reminiscent of that - for example, the usual topics of "Western decadence" are brought up a lot, with the implication that Russia has nothing to worry in that regard. Naturally, these kinds of opinions lend to political alliances with far-right Western parties that share a lot of the same worries.
That's got to be music to Putin's ears. All Clinton had to do was assert that yes, the US would honor military alliances that it actively belongs to, and she instantly became the more hawkish one where Russia is concerned. What a crazy freaking world we live in, and not in a good way sometimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-f...
Instead you choose to highlight parties that Putin doesn't support, and US parties that aren't actually part of the 'alt-right'.
All it shows is that you bought into Hillary's propaganda.
A guy like Trump, who shoots from the hip and cannot take advice is easily manipulated by somebody like Putin or any number of others who has a better grasp of the subtleties of power. The impact of that when you're talking about the United States is scary.
Trump is a street fighter. He could be a good governor by using the bully pulpit to whip local people into line, and develop a cadre of .gov people with a clue. But the presidency is over his head, and his trusted advisors who were running construction projects and golf courses will drown in the federal bureaucracy.
I don't see this at all, other than things Russia does (in Ukraine, Syria, Georgia, and DNC computers).
As for Syria, I don't see what you could possibly blame Russia for there, except preventing a genocide of the few Christians and non-Sunni Muslims that are left there.
Concerning the DNC 'hack', most of the new evidence points to it being a leak, not a hack. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/julian-assange-more-cl...
But yes, blame Russia for everything.
PS. Have you seen Victor Yushchenko's face lately? He's looking pretty good.
For anyone not familiar with it, the above repeats Russian propaganda like it's straight out of the manual (though I hadn't heard the DNC hack one before, but that's a pretty new topic). Unfortunately, the facts don't cooperate.
Russia does pay teams of astroturfers; perhaps I've met one! What's it like to work there? HN readers would be very curious to know.
It's ok, you probably don't follow world news beyond the occasional CNN sound bite.
Its pretty damn amazing how few people remember the colour revolutions of a few years ago, or the many other times the US has overthrown foreign governments.
This is the same mentality of germans who elected Hitler and Americans who are voting for Trump. "You should be afraid of X, I'm going to bring physical harm to X, I'm your savior." Many people respond positively to this in a primal way, because it simplifies/validates their feelings.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
You already have it bad, regardless of who you elect this time.
There was a time when a scandal like Watergate would bring down a President. Nowadays, authorising the extrajudicial execution of an American citizen seems acceptable.
When you want to stay clean, you have others do the dirty work.
The ones that volunteer for the dirty work are usually regarded as equally disposable as those getting "cleaned."
Those calling for volunteers view this as a transitional period, from which they will emerge, unscathed. Unscathed, why? Madness is not to be ruled out. Nor hubris.
One is promoting it directly: by inciting the citizenry to murder.
The other is promoting it indirectly: by shamelessly engaging in it himself.
Yes, the former is worse. But they're both evil, and both are social poison.