The Trump dissent is relevant because of our close ties with the USA. The relevance is not for Trump, it's for 'Kill, kill, kill' Turnbull. Who can forget the Iraq 2 debacle? Billions of dollars down the toilet, the world a far more dangerous place, and defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in Afghanistan. The more dissent against Trump is more dissent against any war he might try to involve us in.

Anti-Colonial. From what I can see of it the most prolific of the anti-Trump rhetoric is from people who in one way or another supported Clinton for the presidency.

Clinton who according to John Pilger was supported by 9 out of the worlds top 10 arms manufacturers. Clinton who appeared to be talking up an air war with Russia over Syria and who the US greens candidate was giving 6 months to start a nuclear war. Clinton who was instrumental in the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya (https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/23898) and the corresponding enormous mess that left.

I'm not generally a fan of Pilger, far to left leaning for me but that also gives him a degree of credibility when he is calling out the record of "left leaning" politicians. http://johnpilger.com/articles/silencing-america-as-it-prepares-for-war

It is hard to tell which way Trump will go in regards to new or extended wars or getting out of the ones they are in now but a significant proportion of his support is the so called alt-right and one of the common factors for much of that broad grouping is a desire to see an end to unnecessary wars.

No guarantees that Trump will stick with that but I was much more concerned about the US establishments taste for foreign intervention and regime change than I am by Trump.

Jill Stein's comments as a Greens candidate and normally somewhat aligned with the US Democrats are worth a read "I sure won't sleep well at night if Donald Trump is elected, but I sure won't sleep well at night if Hillary Clinton elected." http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/10/12/jill_stein_hillary_clintons_declared_syria_policy_could_start_a_nuclear_war.html (I think that's a transcript of this https://youtu.be/x6M1v_pqSvE)

R0bert

R0bert

'No guarantees that Trump will stick with that but I was much more concerned about the US establishments taste for foreign intervention and regime change than I am by Trump.'

Me too. And also, the non-mainstream Left have adopted much the same attitude to Trump as the alt-Right. Both alt-Right and alt-Left are in a de facto alignment on his anti-globalisation stance as well. They look to Trump as someone who might, just might, go some way towards overturning almost 40 years of destructive foreign and domestic neo-liberal policies. Like him or loathe him, Trump is much more in tune with the winds of change than Clinton, who was totally clueless.

As a Leftie, I'm much more concerned about his intention to cut taxes for the rich and to ramp up the privatisation of government services than I am about Mexican walls, curbing Muslim immigration and grabbing pussies. I'm also nervous about the team he has appointed, who seem to be a rogue's gallery of neo-cons. I'm also very disappointed that he accepted Michael Flynn's resignation - the only decent guy among them - when it really wasn't all that necessary.

I'd much rather be living in a world with Bernie Sanders as POTUS, but spilt milk and all that.

Killarney, nothing neat in any of it. As someone with largely right leaning views I think I'd have preferred Sanders as well.

R0bert

R0bert

Clinton is not the president. If you want to discuss the history of recent US foreign policy feel free to start another discussion.

Any president that ups defence spending by 9% and slashes foreign aid at the same time concerns me. As the last thing that such actions suggest is that the president is a statesman. Add to that we have Turnbull sounding as gung-ho as Abbott. I'm sure you agree that the last thing we want is Trump and Turnbull leading us into another catastrophe as we had with Bush and Howard.

Ttbn says the fools gave WA a huge majority. I presume the fools are the voters.. Is it stupid to ask which side of the fence that being is on.