Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Donald Trump

  • How America Earned Donald Trump

    From Coney Island apartment tower lord to Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump has come a long way. But nobody should assume the man has remade America: rather, his success is not in changing Americans but following the most profitable trends.

    His real estate empire was built upon a New York City ready to renew itself at nearly any cost: his real estate deals capitalized on the frantic rebuilding of much of the city’s decayed infrastructure in the 1980s and 1990s. He set up casinos in New Jersey; he made himself into a reality TV star. He didn’t create such conditions but rather exploited them.

    And this tendency explains virtually all his successes. Trump is not a man who invents trends: he exploits them. Now he is exploiting the Republican Party and the American electorate and Americans have no one but themselves to blame. (more…)

  • How to Have a Geopolitical Conversation with a Nativist

    It’s not such a big deal that Donald Trump has called to ban all Muslims from entering the United States: it’s a big deal that there are people who support him.

    This anti-refugee nativism is found worldwide, but is, right now, especially powerful — and dangerous — in the West. It manifests itself as Trump and his wing in the Republican Party in the United States, as the English Defense League and the and UKIP in the United Kingdom and as the National Front in France. To varying degrees, each seeks to wall off their nations from the outside world — and each is dead wrong for seeking that.

    Thankfully, each of these nation states is democratic and these views can be fought with conversation and facts. Here now is how to have a geopolitical conversation with a nativist. (more…)