I think we're the only nation founded on ideas rather than ethnicity or the happenstance of geography. There's no major-nation counterpart to the U.S. being defined by the Declaration of Independence. Maybe I'm having a brain fart, but I can't think of one. We truly are unique.
Anyway, can you recall Trump ever talking about those founding principles? I seriously mean ever. What I recall from him is a whole lot of stuff he wants to do about the mechanics of the country -- better trade deals, more jobs, tighter borders, etc.. But those ideas...maybe @Mesaclone or someone can find a clip of him talking about that stuff to make me feel better, and I do mean Trump speaking about it off the cuff -- not links to his website where others ghost-write for him.
But this clip from Trump, and what else he's been doing during the campaign, just strike me as so incredibly odd because there doesn't appear to be a philosophy or principles underlying any of it. I don't think I've ever seen a campaign like this, because Presidential candidates always talk about the big picture stuff to at least some extent. So not hearing about it at all from a candidate is really a strange thing.
This is what makes Trump so dangerous to the American Ideal. He doesn't believe America is a ideal at all, but an ethnicity. One is 'born' American. You inherit your American identity from your parents, i.e. it is passed by blood (Jus sanguinis).
But American has never been an ethnic state, but a country based on a notion, a thought, a belief that all men are created equal. No matter where a person is from, if they come to America and believe in the same, they are American as you or I. Their children, if born here, are also just as American (jus soli).
Trump would destroy that.
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You see this in his attacks on the judge. You see this in his call to end birthright citizenship. You see this in is statements about Muslims.
That's why I say he's probably the greatest threat to the ideal of America that our nation has ever faced. Hillary is bad but survivable, with the core concept of America still intact. But Trump will kill America as an ideal.