How is Trump going to make America great again?

Well, he says that he will by reinvigorating the economy and increasing jobs.

How will he do that? Well, he says he will do the following:

1) Reduce the corporate tax rate (just about the highest in the world) and see about $21 trillion return our shores.
2) Renegotiate Free Trade Deals that have resulted in American jobs being moved to China, Mexico, India et al (Sound like Bernie, and now Clinton?)

He says he will rebuild and modernize our military, and restore our allies confidence and our enemies fear

I'm not one of his devotees so I can't recite all the ways he says he will make America great again, but I'm sure I could find more if I did a little research --- just like you could, if your question was sincere.

It's ironic, to say the least, to listen to liberals now turn on a dime and call America the greatest nation in the world because it suits their political message, when not that long ago, their standard bearer and hero, President Obama was telling us all that there's not much at all that is exceptional about the US.

Michelle Obama who for the first time in her entire life was proud of her country because it elected her husband, is on a stage in Philadelphia telling us America is Great, and be damned those who say otherwise!

If you do come this way, please contact me. I'll be more than happy to show you around.

WOW...HEY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN A TIME SHARE IN Fallujah?

Amen to that...!

Donald Trump's plans for making America Great is to cut taxes for the wealthy while keeping minimum wages low. I guess Donald Trump is right. His plans would make America great (For Rich People Like Himself)

San Francisco has the right idea; their minimum wage is much higher than the state's regulation:
on May 1, 2015, the minimum wage would increase to $12.25 per hour; on July 1, 2016, the minimum wage would increase to $13 per hour; on July 1, 2017, the minimum wage would increase to $14 per hour; on July 1, 2018, the minimum wage would increase to $15 per hour; and.
City of San Francisco Minimum Wage Increase Referred Measure ...
https://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Minimum_Wage_Increase_Re...Ballotpedia

It's a good thing Trump lives in NYC and not San Francisco.

Another ridiculous distortion.

He says (whether or not he will do it is something else) he wants to reduce taxes. He hasn't said he wants to reduce the taxes of the wealthy. In fact he's been criticized by some on the right for saying the wealthy can and should pay more taxes.

As for the minimum wage, in this respect, Trump is only being realistic.

Job have flowed in a torrent to China and India because of the cost of labor.

If you want to bring these jobs back to the US you can't make the competitive disadvantage even worse by raising minimum wages to ridiculous levels. No one will buy our products, including Americans.

Are you suggesting a Soviet model where citizens are forced to buy American products regardless of quality or price?

American made is a competitive advantage but price is the most influential for 99% of the world.

Right now, Americans of all political persuasions could buy only American made products.

Why aren't they doing so?

Do you?

Who shops at Walmart's?

Certainly not the political elite and wealthy fat cats. It's the core constituencies of the Democratic Party.

We can't have manufacturing jobs in this country that pay wages that are 500% or more higher than those in China. At least not for more than a few years.

I agree with Trump that our trade deals have been pathetically negotiated but I disagree that we are ever going to be a manufacturing nation again until China and the Third World rises up to our economic status.

Not everyone can or should aspire to a "professional" career. There remains in this country a huge market for hand crafted products, and the servicing of complex technological systems. These are good and honorable jobs. And the dirty, labor intensive ones? They are honorable too. All labor is honorable.

(I for one value the skills of an artisan knife-maker well beyond those of an assistant professor of gender studies in some liberal arts college, or 90% of the lawyers I have dealt with in my career)

Everyone needs a valuable skill. College doesn't guarantee such a thing, nor is it required to obtain one.

We need to expand our view of worth and at the same time return to a time when people with skills of the hand as well as the brain are valued.

That is not even true Foofie. This is New York.

There is nothing more ridiculous than a Jewish-American who is against multi-culturalism. This requires an astounding level of ignorance about one's own history and the American experience, and an apathy to all of the struggles of Jewish-Americans to become accepted in American society.

You obviously don't understand the concept of "multi-culturalism" if you argue that any groups struggle to be accepted by the dominant culture is indicative of it.

People in my family celebrate Jewish Holidays. They send their kids to Hebrew school. They have Bar and Bat Mitzvah. One keeps a kosher kitchen. In a city near where I live (Brookline) they have an "Eruv" supported by the community, this is a ritual enclosure that allows religious Jews to do certain things on the Sabbath, which is strictly kept in these communities.

Are these examples of multi-culturalism? Are they part of being American?

I would say they are both.

It's fantastic, but it's not an example of "multi-culturalism."

The concept of "multi-culturalism" is antithetical to the American notion of a cultural melting pot.

It means that a State can have a quilt of distinct cultures that remain entirely separate of one another with little to no assimilation into a larger national culture.

The Jews in your family want to practice the traditions of their heritage within the larger sphere of a tolerant, but defined American culture. That is wonderful. I love our ethnic diversity and would be very sad to see it disappear, however, while I can't say for sure, I doubt very much that the Jewish members of your family want to establish religious courts that supercede the laws of this country.

You obviously want to defend a liberal icon (multi-culturalism) without understanding what it actually means.

The Sharia Law thing is a red herring (and I think you know it).

First of all, Jewish communities have run religious courts in the US for more than a century. They are called Beth Din. Americans courts have deferred to them in cases involving family law when judges decide that it is best for the parties involved.

You haven't heard about these courts because you aren't afraid of Jewish culture in the US.

You are supporting Monoculturism... somehow these religious Jewish courts made it into your monoculture.

There is zero threat of religious law superceding American law in the US. Christians are trying to make this happen, and even they are failing.

How are the Jews in my family practicing the traditions and language of their heritage within the larger sphere of a (not always) tolerant American culture any different than Latin-Americans doing the same?

You accept Jewish culture now because somewhere around the 1960s we decided that Jews were White... and at that point Jewish culture became part of the monoculture even though they still maintained religious, cultural and language ties to their own unique culture.

Fifty years ago, Trump supporters would likely have the same attitude about Jews that they now have about Mexicans and Muslims (and some of them apparently still do).

The Sharia Law "thing" is not a red herring in the West.

It's not the issue in the US that it is in Europe because, thus far, we have not fully embraced multi-culturalism, and, for the most part, American-Muslims have been encouraged to and find benefit in assimilation.

It's difficult to find non-controversial polling of American Muslims as respects Sharia Law. The Center for Security Policy conducted a much cited poll that they say indicates 51% of American Muslims would like to see Sharia Law replace the Constitution. I'm not persuaded by the equally ideological Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of the CSP as a hate group, but I'm very dubious about this poll.

I don't think American-Muslims, as a group, present a threat to the US. Obviously, individuals within this group do, and certain American Mosques have been found to preach violent jihad, but I'm not willing to condemn any group for the excesses of a few of their members. So to the extent there are individuals or groups trying to stir up fear of American-Muslims and Sharia Law, it is worse than a red herring.

However, I think that government policies that, in effect, discourage assimilation, and encourage withdrawal into ethnic, cultural and religious enclaves are foolish and ultimately dangerous.

Thanks for that information on Beth Din. I was not aware of it and while I am not happy with the operation of any religious courts in the US, it appears that these are more alternative-dispute resolution vehicles rather that courts. If US judges defer to them, it means the cases have been brought to a US court, and if the deference is based on the judgement of the judge that the result/ruling is best for the parties involved (rather than any notion that Beth Din has any legal, judicial standing), I'm OK with it. If Sharia Law courts operated in this way, it wouldn't be any different.

I try to never say never about anything, but I agree that the likelihood of religious law superceding American law is, for the foreseeable future, just about nil, but this is based on the fact, again, that we have failed to fully embrace multi-culturalism.



You make much of opposing bigotry, but you continuously slip into bigoted tropes about Christians. Christians are not trying anything because they are not united politically. I'm sure there are Muslims who want Sharia Law to be supreme and may even try to have it enacted in local communities, but you would go wild about the statement: "Muslims are trying to impose Sharia Law on their communities"

I support an American culture that is influenced and enriched by the cultural traditions and values of the people who make up it's members, but maintains and overall umbrella based on values enshrined in our Constitution and accepted and agreed upon by the polity over years of historical development.

They've passed through the assimilation process. The government didn't make it overly easy for them to get by in America if they could only speak Yiddish or Russian or whatever their native tongue might have been.

Overwhelmingly, Mexican and Latin American immigrants that have come here legally have also passed through the assimilation process. Precisely because illegal immigrants are here illegally they are inclined to remain in insular enclaves. It is no great boon to allow these people to remain on the fringe because they can't speak English but find signs in a train station that are in Spanish.

We are a nation founded on the Rule of Law and we, like every other sane nation in the world, have immigration laws. Millions of people have come to our country illegally...they have broken our laws. I don't think we should hunt them down and jail or kill them and I don't think we should allow them to bleed to death in a hospital parking lot because they have broken our laws, but I don't want my government to ignore our laws and make it easier for people who have arrived here illegally to remain here. This has nothing to do with race, religion or ethnicity. I would feel the same if they came from anywhere in the world.

An Irish student who overstays his Visa doesn't get to break our laws because he's Irish, white and speaks English. He should be found and, at least, fined and forced to move through the legal process in a set time period. If he doesn't pay the fine or eventually make it through the legal process, he should be immediately deported. The same thing should happen to all who have come here illegally, and the only reason I'm for this somewhat subdued response to breaking our law is because we've made such a mess of this matter that we have millions of law-breakers living here for years.

If we had enforced our laws all along and secured our borders all along, we would be able to deport illegal aliens of all races, ethnicities, and religions, as happens in most of the countries from which they come.

In Europe, services of the Beth Dn include: Supervision of Jewish Religious Divorce, Dispute Arbitration Mediation, Supervision of Adoptions & Conversions, Communal Dispute Resolution.

The Ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic and various Evangelical/Protestant churches decide similar features. (In German speaking countries, many professors of law got the degree doctor iuris utriusque [Dr. iur. utr.] = doctor of both laws)

like the Ordnung among the Amish. They all submit to our legal systems on matters of criminal charges. Thats where Sharia is different

He's going to tweet America until it's great.

Well, regarding heritage and divorces for instance, Sharia is used in Germany courts as well ... in cases of private international law (conflict of laws).

But different to the USA, churches or religious institutions haven't the right to marry someone legally - thus, you first have to be married before you can get a marriage in a church, temple or whatever.