Half-Assed Equivalency of Carter And Trump

(Still another installment in Buster's ongoing bullshit correction service, providing help to friends and associates who've been exposed to crapola.)
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I have a highly impressionable friend who claims to be politically independent.  But he just can't resist sharing any damn conservative thing he encounters on Facebook.  He's a repeat offender, and in his latest dubious share he has slapped up a webpage which asks us to remember "Jimmy Carter Banned All Iranians From Entering the U.S."  It's an attempt to justify Trump's anti-Muslim bile.  His post said he had to "go back and look this up."

A far-right website -- PoorRichardsNews.com -- is a strange place to "look things up."  But hey, whatever floats your boat, dude.

In a slight improvement on his track record, his current FB post has elements of truthiness.  It is true that in 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis, President Carter did indeed issue sanctions against Iran.  Most were economic, but they also included the cancellation of visas for some Iranian citizens in the U.S. and a moratorium on new visas, with exceptions for political asylum seekers and humanitarian reasons.

His order did not ban "all" Iranians from entering.  When the Shah was deposed in 1979, many thousands of his former supporters fled to the U.S., and this continued into 1980 and beyond.  There are currently perhaps as many as a million Iranian-Americans and Iranian expatriates in this country, most having arrived in the 1979-1981 period.  Obviously, there were plenty of political and humanitarian exceptions.

Context matters!  Carter's action was just not the same thing as Trump's knee-jerk "complete and total shutdown" ban on all Muslims, even Muslim-Americans currently abroad.  Sanctions are targeted and specific in their aim to compel a particular result, i.e. release of hostages.  Carter's sanctions were directed at one nation.  Trump's blanket "policy" is widely aimed at an entire worldwide religion -- all of 'em -- for reasons of . . . what?  Anti-terrorism?  Security?  Whipping up unreasoning fear and resentment amongst the White Right?  (Yeah, that's the ticket!)

People who shared the PoorRichardsNews piece are obviously fans of Trump.  Obviously!  Why else would you share it?

My friend should come out of the "independent" closet and admit he's really just a typical good ol' Republican conservative.  Walks like duck, quacks like a duck . . .  It's OK -- somebody has to be a Republican.

As for Donald Trump, he's no Republican, he's a fucking fascist.  I have no use for genuine Trump supporters.  And those who would conceal their Trump-love for fear of disapproval, or would pretend to support him, are not much better.