Discussion: London Mayor Rejects Trump's Muslim Ban Exemption: It's Not 'Just About Me'

Trump: I am a deal maker. I say all Muslims convert to Christianity and I will lift the ban. It will take me few years before I ban non-white Christians.

When I was a kid years ago I used to travel a lot, and whenever you saw Canadians you knew where they were from because they had big red maple leaves plastered over all their luggage. Didn’t want to be mistaken for Americans, see. That was in the Eighties and Nineties. I can only imagine how much worse things are now but I can tell you I have a relative in the State Department and he says everywhere he goes, people ask about this Trump guy. It’s just humiliating. I think maybe sensible, halfway sophisticated Americans need some sort of program to remind the world we exist.

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So the Right Wing Mafia gets their panties and pearls all twisted when the POTUS says he will selectively enforce our immigration laws but…ah nevermind

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Huh. Just as I finished posting this on another thread:

It looks like Mayor Khan did, in fact, find a more diplomatic (i.e. without saying fuck) way to say the same thing.

Kudos, Mayor.

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Or maybe we need a program to remind the rest of Americans that the world exists, and bases its relations with us on what we do and say.

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Matt, you want to let the rest of the world know you are a rational person from North America? Put big red maple leaves all over your clothes and luggage. Still the best way.

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Soon to be overheard in a European hotel lobby:

Q: I see you have red maple leaves on your luggage. Are you Canadian?

A: No, American. I just didn’t want anyone confusing me with a Republican.

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I’d hate to be unmasked as an impostor and attacked by a Canadian lynch mob. Second-best option is to learn and use some survival phrases, at least, in the local language. Nobody expects Americans to do that. And it takes you about 80 percent of the way to being thought OK. : )

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ā€œThis isn’t just about meā€¦ā€

I’m sorry Mr. Mayor - that statement is incomprehensible to Trump. He has no frame of reference for something not being all about him.

Proof positive of the depth of depravity that drumpfie. What an ignorant and spoiled little ugly wanker he is.

He insulted 1.4 Billion people and thinks a ā€˜exception’ to his addled cruel unfounded remarks will work…

Disgusting trash…It is all about donnie boy…NOT!!!

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Canadian lynch mob = oxymoron

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So the mayor of London has a thousand times more class and perspective than the male bimbo GOP presidential candidate. Unsurprising. I hope to see much more of this in the next six months.

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Everybody and their mothers have more class than Trump because he has none,zippo, nada. It is mind boggling to think so many people supports him. The man is just repugnant.

I flew to Europe from Indiana in Spring, 1969 on the way to hitchhike across Asia to Kathmandu, like many of us hippies on the path to Enlightenment. Most of my road mates, like me, had sewn Canadian flags onto our backpacks to avoid being the target of hatred for Americans, mostly in France in those days, in my experience. The only time I suffered any physical repercussions from being an American is when I mentioned it to a barber in Nice, France, my first haircut in months (long hair is easily ignored because it looks the same forever). I wasn’t really paying attention but talking to the barber. At the end, he had essentially given me a Marine Corps burr cut, no hair but fuzz on my scalp. I was incensed but then realized how important that Canadian flag could be in my survival from those who hate America. That was because of Viet Nam mostly, seemed to all of us out there walking around in Europe and Asia. France hated Americans because of America’s invasion of Viet Nam. I know that worldwide hatred much have increased a million fold since then. Try hitchhiking across Asia now - you won’t make it. We could do it then, with Canadian flags. I’m not sure even Canadian flags would protect you at this point - I wouldn’t try it again.

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Same sort of thing during the Reagan years when I was traveling Europe in my college days.

I am really bummed. I live in Germany and have enjoyed an ā€œexplanationā€ hiatus of nearly 8 years after Obama was elected. I had gotten pretty damned tired of trying to explain Dubya – especially for the last four years after he was re-elected. I would start conversations with new acquaintances or business contacts with ā€œI am not to blame, I voted for the other guyā€¦ā€

Now I try to duck out the door every time I hear Trump’s name floating in the air.

Because, whaddya gonna say? Really??

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Well, I guess we know what kind of a President Donny would make–An Ex-ceptional one.

How often do you hear whether in your circle, or in your everyday travels people there talking about this election. And other than the obvious ā€œTrumpā€ talk, what else are you hearing if anything, about the whole election process?

The Germans, indeed the Europeans, are following everything very closely. The election is in the news here nightly, newspapers are covering very extensively – primary results, who has dropped out, when and where the conventions will be. They are amazingly well informed about the whole thing, actually. Possibly /probably as well or better informed than many Americans at this point. Lots of chat around the water cooler and at coffee breaks, colleagues stopping by to ask questions. Fuzzy on some of the fine points and really, really, really not getting some of the mentality behind the GOP mess, but also aware of some of a corresponding rise of rightwingers in their own countries (like recent elections in Austria and the LePens in France, as well as a surge in rightwing stuff in eastern Germany where a small extremist party reached the 5% needed to get a couple of seats in the state parliament).

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