On Fox News, Trump said that regarding Muslims in the US, he would do "unthinkable" things, "and certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country". He also said it's impossible to tell with absolute certainty whether a Syrian was Christian or Muslim, so he'd have to assume they're all Muslims. This suggests that telling US officials that I'm a LW transhumanist might not convince them that I have no connection with ISIS. I'm not from Syria, but I have an Arabic name and my family is Muslim.

I've read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, and this might be a generalization from fictional evidence, but I can't help asking: As a foreign student in the US, how likely is Trump to have me tortured for no reason? Should I drop everything and make a break for it before it's too late? Initially, many Germans didn't take Hitler's extremist rhetoric seriously either, right? (If I get deported in a civilized manner, well, no harm done to me as far as I'm concerned.)

I normally assume, as a rule of thumb, that politicians intend to fulfill all their promises. If a politician says he wants to invade Mars, that could be pure rhetoric, but I'd typically assume that he might try it in the worst case scenario. I have observed it is often the case that when we think other people are joking, they are in fact exaggerating their true desires and presenting them in an ironic/humorous light.