by Sylwia Heller

On the 8th October 2016 there will be elections of a new president in the US. So, political debates and promises are a subject of focus in the US media, and in the world. It is especially interesting as a controversial businessman Donald Trump is one of the candidates with the high public support.

Since May 2015 Republican Donald Trump gets slightly stronger support than Democrat Hillary Clinton. However, his unusual views result in oncoming elections causing a lot of tensions between supporters and opponents of Trump. Cumulating of those strains resulted in a clash between the two groups in San Diego, California.

It was an unlawful gathering and serious clashes caused that police had to intervene. 35 people have been arrested for violent behaviour. The cause of this is that protesters threw water bottles at police officers and refused to disperse.

Trump was in that city at the time near the Mexican border in relation to illegal immigration and to hold another rally as he has strong views on the matter. He decided to have the demonstration in San Diego as it is a specific city with one-third of its population being Latino. Besides, hundreds of thousands of people cross the border with Mexico legally. Because of such high number of Latinos many feel offended by the words of Donald Trump accusing him of racism and intolerance.

Nevertheless, Trump claims that many Mexicans coming to the US are criminals. He accused them of being drug dealers and rapists. However, illegal immigration from Mexico is an ongoing problem and a difficult one to solve. His proposition is to build a “great wall” between the two countries with the aim to stop immigration from Mexico AND from Syria.

Trump also argues that there should be mass deportation of Syrian illegal immigrants who currently live in the US. This is due to an enormous number of 11 million Syrian immigrants, which makes this idea very costly to realise at the same time. Trump’s solution has been seen, to some extent, as xenophobic. Nevertheless, he argued against “birth right citizenship” which allows children of illegal immigrants to become legal citizens of the US if they are born on the very soil.

Donald Trump gets the most attention from the media because of his radical ideas concerning reduction of immigration. Furthermore another of his ideas is that the USA should fight terrorism by surveillance on mosques and by keeping database on all American Muslims. He also supports torturing of the Islamic States’ members if necessary.

Mr Trump also offers more promising proposals such as reduction and simplification of taxes. According to his intentions those who earn less than $25,000 would not pay income tax and businesses would pay lower taxes at 15%.

Besides, in his opinion the US should invest in mental health treatment to reduce gun violence. It is his solution to the amount of shootings in the US, which are difficult to prevent. Stricter gun control is not, in his view, the right thing to do because citizens should retain their right to choose the gun they want. It seems a good solution to many because overall limiting the amount of guns in use would not be possible in the states. Besides, the public would not support the idea of any harsh restrictions.

Donald Trump also considered a possibility of implementation of punishment on doctors for abortions if they were to become illegal.

The man has a lot of radical ideas about the most difficult problems in the US. However, he is often seen as a controversial figure on the political field. Nevertheless, it will be clear in October whether he gets into power to implement his plans.

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