Why I am #NeverTrump: The List

This is a list of factual quotes and statements about Donald Trump, built on this blog post by Scott Aaronson. I consider each of the below to be individually disqualifying. It was originally posted on June 26, 2016 and last updated on August 11, 2016.

I would encourage folks on all sides to reach out to people you don't agree with and engage with each other. If we don't talk with each other and listen to each other, our political ecosystem will continue to get worse.

1. He’s advocated ordering the military to murder the families of terrorists - an ineffective war crime.
2. He says that the national debt could be “paid back at a discount”—implicitly treating the US government like a failed casino project, and reneging on Alexander Hamilton’s principle (which has stood since the Revolutionary War, and helps maintain the world’s economic stability) that US credit is ironclad. He's advocated for trade wars.
3. He’s said peaceful protestors at his rallies should be “roughed up” and “carried away on stretchers” among other quotes supporting violence. He said he wanted to hit some of the speakers at the democratic convention, one "so hard his head would spin."
4. He’s said “libel laws should be opened up” to let him sue journalists who criticize him and blacklists press organizations from his events because he doesn’t like their coverage. 
5. He’s repeatedly expressed admiration for autocrats, including Vladimir Putin, as well as for the Chinese government’s decision to suppress the Tiananmen Square protests by arresting and killing thousands of people. He parrots Russian talking points (video) about their invasion and rigged plebiscite in Crimea. 
6. He’s proposed a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the US, preying on fears of Syrian refugees fleeing war. His idea is impossible and unconstitutional to implement. The few Muslims who have done violence in the US recently were/are American citizens. He recently said the ban would be country specific.
7. He said that he would walk away from the Paris accords (while lying about them) and that the entire concept of global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese (see 50 more tweets here).
8. His real estate management corporation had to settle a case about discrimination against against blacks, Puerto Ricans and other minorities where the government alleged it was “quoting different rental terms and conditions to blacks and whites and lying to blacks that apartments were not available.” He was quoted as saying about blacks and jews, “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” (More along these lines here)
9. He lies about the US to undermine American morale and routinely makes up numbers in his speeches. A recent speech four days ago required a 1641 word fact check from the Associated Press because his statements had "only passing acquaintance with reality." In reality, America is generally doing well compared to recent decades.
10. He embraced and supported baseless conspiracy theories that Obama was born in Kenya (lying about doing any investigation) and repeatedly suggested Obama is secretly Muslim. The day after his RNC acceptance speech, he repeated a debunked rumor that Ted Cruz's dad was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald. He demonstrated a history of this in a 2007 deposition that called him on his lies. 
11. He put his name on schemes that defrauded Americans, such as through Trump University, which scammed people through “bait and switch” tactics under Donald’s personal marketing. When a judge ruled against him, he said the judge (a Hoosier from Indiana) was biased because his parents came from Mexico.
12. He has threatened blackmail against people who spend against him, threatens defeating politicians who criticize him, and groundlessly sues people who criticize him. His team strong-armed GOP delegates who wanted a roll call vote at the convention. He intends to fund Super PACs specifically to defeat people who chose not to toe the line and endorse him in their future races.
13. He’s shown contempt for an independent judiciary and the separation of powers foundational to American government. He's shown contempt for the public by lying about his record and doubling down when confronted.
14. He can't seem to take criticism without petty sniping at people. When it was noted he had golfed with Mike Bloomberg, he said "I hit the ball a lot longer, and a lot better." When a Marine general criticized him, he said "You know who he is? He’s a failed general" referencing a role the general had after retirement from a successful career in the military.
15. He said "The beauty of me is that I'm very rich." He’s bragged about affairs with married women and publicly cheated on his first wife, though recently claimed to be a born-again Christian and has said he favorite book is the Bible.
16. He’s gullible and prone to repeat baseless claims; for example, he said “the President of Mexico is purposefully sending criminals to cross into the United States” because a border guard told him so. He said he saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating on 9/11. He thinks the European Union (founded to prevent another devastating war) was actually created to "beat the United States."
17. He has absolutely no experience in public office and refuses to release his tax returns so we can actually examine his business record (though he first promised he would release them). His policy positions (such as support for immigration reform, abortion, and gun control) were reversed in the campaign without reason or deliberation.
18. His foreign policy statements have needlessly alarmed our allies. For example, he’s proposed walking away from the US’s defense alliances, which would probably force Japan, South Korea, and other countries to develop their own nuclear arsenals and set off a new round of nuclear proliferation.  He's said he will not honor our treaty obligations to defend NATO allies and will abandon eastern Europe to Putin.
19. He thinks he can solve a long-running and deadly conflict between the Turkish government and Kurdish people with "meetings" (no further details) and says the US should not advocate for civil liberties internationally. Generally, he promises outcomes without any offering any strategies to accomplish those outcomes.
20. When a gold star family who lost a son in Iraq criticized him via a speech by the father, Trump's response was that the father was "very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.” She did not speak because discussing the matter is so painful for her.
21. He said, on ineffective waterboarding torture, "I like it a lot. I don't believe its tough enough." He has said even “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us.”  He is ignorant that torture puts our own troops at risk and betrays our fundamental values when we catch and torture the wrong person. 

I don't plan to post much more on this blog or other social media about the election - my job occupies a lot of time, and I don't want to distract from that work. You can see other articles I'm reading in this custom blog/feed that excerpts posts I find worth checking out (though I often don't endorse them). I do plan to get out of the online echo chamber and volunteer on my personal time (though I won't help do anything involving fundraising). This election is more important than a tweet or a blog post - go talk to some people.