Luton Outlaws - Independent Message Board for Luton Town FC

I think Trump is someone who has been able to exploit public sentiment to get into power in the first place. Something the Democrats failed to address.

I think Trump is challenging the established world order. Which is dangerous on the one hand because of unforeseen consequences but possibly good in some ways too.

I think all human systems are inherently imperfect and they always will be. So from that starting point I think the best system is the least worst. I have only ever experienced democracy and the rule of law under a nation state and a mixed economy. Is it perfect? No. Is there a better system? Possibly. Do I know what that might be? I think something that addresses wealth inequality and creates a meritocracy of sorts whereby decent behaviour is rewarded. What constitutes decent behaviour? Too complicated to explain in this post but basically prioritising the rights of nice people! Would that leave us as a nation state vulnerable to other countries both economically and politically? Almost certainly unfortunately.

So back to answering your question, I see Islamism as a method of gaining control and then maintaining that control brutally if necessary against any other way of life, because that is what Islamists themselves say. To their credit at least they are transparent about that. So I think long-term wherever they gain a foothold it then becomes difficult to change. Iran is a good example.

Trump on the other hand seems to be about getting things on his terms and using the might of the US to achieve that in foreign policy. I don't know a huge amount of what is going on domestically in the US but I don't like a lot of the bits I do see. I don't like the wealth disparity, I don't like the fractious race relations, I don't like the gun culture, I don't like the apparent low standard of state education, I don't like the lack of NHS style health provision, I don't like the dominance of the car culture which seems to have taken priority over town/city planning, I don't like the soulless architecture in most places, the drug culture/health epidemic. So I guess I don't really think very highly of the US in general but I do like the religious freedoms at least in law if not always in practice, and the same again for the rule of law. Is Trump going to push that way of life elsewhere? Well yes to a certain extent. We've been heavily influenced by US culture and business in the UK since the first world war and especially so since the late fifties early sixties. But it has it's limitations and can only get so far in a lot of other places.

Can I ask what concerns you most about Trump and what you think might happen around the world because of him?