2016 American Presidential Campaign

[GenericMind]

I more agreed with his take one Bernie. Trying to entice detractors to the other side, man.

Trump is literally the Hitler of this election. Everything he says is no different than what Hitler said about the Jews, expect he's talking about Mexicans.

Hitler didn't rise to power saying he planned to kill Jews. He rose to power blaming the shitty German economy on them. Kind of like how Trump is scapegoating Latinos and Muslims.

Donald Trump is a lot smarter than to believe the things he says. He just knows how racist and ignorant a decent portion of this country is and he's saying whatever he has to in order to gain their support. He probably never expected how militant his followers could become. That's why he's cancelled like 5 rallies in the past 2 days. I think even he's shocked at the support he's gotten on this election and I think he's wayyy over his head now.

 

[Noodle]

Thank GOD?

 

[sigmond]

Hillary clinton's brother has been working there as a "Disaster Capitalist" and is benefiting from that family connection.

fyp

 

[jammin83]

Alright floridians and everyone else that has primaries tomorrow...time to show up.

Ill be very surprised if FL doesn't go to hillary but who knows?

 

[alasdairm]

North Carolina Officials Considering Criminal Charges Against Trump

Trump says he isn’t responsible for the violence at his campaign events.

A North Carolina sheriff isn’t so sure.

At a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina last Wednesday, a 78-year-old man named John McGraw sucker punched a non-violent protester, 26-year-old Rakeem Jones, in the face.

The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office released a statement Monday saying they were investigating the possibility of charging Trump or his campaign with “inciting a riot.”

"Our investigation is not complete as [to] the incidents of Wednesday, March 10, 2016. We are continuing to look at the totality of these circumstances, including any additional charges against Mr. McGraw, including the potential of whether there was conduct on the part of Mr. Trump or the Trump campaign which rose to the level of inciting a riot, and including the actions or inactions of our deputies."

i doubt anything will come of it but these are 'just' scuffles at a rally. what the hell happens if he's allowed to bring this level of cynical escalation to the office of the president?

alasdair

 

[tokezu]

Donald Trump is a lot smarter than to believe the things he says.

You think? With most politicians I have a pretty sure feeling about whether they actually believe what they say or they are just playing a role, but with Trump I really don't have the slightest clue.

This seems to be a very weird election, even by american standards. I really don't presume to understand much of it... It is entertaining though, I'll give you that.

 

[Droppersneck]

North Carolina Officials Considering Criminal Charges Against Trumpi doubt anything will come of it but these are 'just' scuffles at a rally. what the hell happens if he's allowed to bring this level of cynical escalation to the office of the president?

alasdair

These people are coming looking to get in altercations. Let people have their free speech rather than trying to suppress it b/c you do not agree. Not condoning the action of one idiot, but this is what the media wants and I can tell you it is only making people angrier and wanting to support him more imo

 

[alasdairm]

These people are coming looking to get in altercations.

some of them are. sure. but not all of them are.

Let people have their free speech rather than trying to suppress it b/c you do not agree.

but only trump is allowed free speech, right? people who disagree with him, not so much?

what about the kids in valdosta? they were, by eye-witness accounts, sitting silently far back in the bleachers not suppressing anything.

what about that kid in fayetteville who went along out of curiosity and was kicked out just for being black and for being there? he was attacked by a guy who spat the words "fuck you. fuck you. fuck you. " is his face before hitting him and went on to say later "I can’t believe I did that. It was me, but I’m not a hateful man. I just got caught up. When I saw the video all over the news of me doing that to that young man, I was just disgusted with myself." (my emphasis)

these people are being whipped up and it's disgraceful.

alasdair

 

[babyangel_]

hiii aihfl, can you or someone else expalin what happened then i was too little at that time to know what happend

Well hell just froze over. Ted Cruz said something sensible that I agree with when in reference to Trump, he asked "Who do you want with your finger on the button?"

Here's to hoping the same thing happens to Trump that happened to Howard Dean when he was the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2003-2004.

 

[sigmond]

^^^

NSFW:

 

[mal3volent]

Funny thats all it used to take to derail a campaign. Ah, the good ole days.

 

[sigmond]

what about that kid in fayetteville who went along out of curiosity and was kicked out just for being black and for being there? he was attacked by a guy who spat the words "fuck you. fuck you. fuck you. " is his face before hitting him and went on to say later "I can’t believe I did that. It was me, but I’m not a hateful man. I just got caught up. When I saw the video all over the news of me doing that to that young man, I was just disgusted with myself." (my emphasis)

these people are being whipped up and it's disgraceful.

alasdair

Seems that guy was a victim of what Huxley referred to as herd-poison." Like alcohol, herd-poison is an active, extraverted drug. The crowd-intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility, intelligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness."

I don't usually pay much attention to politics but I find the appeal of Trump so baffling I thought I would try to make some sense of it. The reason I find it so baffling is not only because of what he is saying- which is absurd, delusional, offensive, and at times utter bs, but how he is speaking isn't that impressive either. Unlike someone like Hitler or Malcolm X, Trump isn't a great orator. Nevertheless it seems he managed to exploit the fears, hopes, cravings, anxieties and frustrations of a large section of the American population.

Supposedly people like how he is direct, anti-establishment, and not accepting corporate donations - all things that won't be that important if somehow he did get elected. I mean he admitted his source of information in regards to foreign policy was cable news.
I dunno, I was convinced it was a big joke until recently...very odd.

-end ramble-

 

[mal3volent]

I've always had a pretty firm stance against voting in anything other than local elections. I don't want to participate in or help validate a rigged, corrupt system. Voting for corporate republican A or corporate democrat B, in our impotent two party system where winning the popular vote doesn't even guarantee you the victory. If candidates aren't already bought and paid for well before they decide to run, they are soon after by the people and institutions I despise. I always thought I'd never vote, because any candidate I would support would never be accepted into either one of the two major parties.

But for the first time today, I voted for a man I truly believe has the best interest of the common people in his heart. Who wants to fundamentally change the system. Who wants to empower citizens and encourage true democratic activism.

Even though he will probably not win North Carolina, I will know I did my part in supporting the bravest and most principled candidate for president we will see in our lifetimes.

 

[Droppersneck]

Yep I threw my vote alway voting for Gary Johnson in 12. This time voting for trump is the first time I will vote for a person that could win since 04. A true outsider candidate. I think anyone that thinks trump paying of politicians living in nyc is inherently wrong and corrupt operates in a realm outside of reality. i can understand/appreciate being idealistic and acting like you would not so do same for the purpose of a drug message board political argument though.

 

[Phil.McKeer]

But for the first time today, I voted for a man I truly believe has the best interest of the common people in his heart. Who wants to fundamentally change the system. Who wants to empower citizens and encourage true democratic activism.

Same here. Emma Goldman once said "if voting changed anything they'd make it illegal."

This is the first time ever I've felt as if my vote can actually make a difference (I was not fooled by Obama in '08, I knew he was a corporate shill despite his populist "hope and change" message).

 

[nuttynutskin]

Really wish Rand Paul would've stood a chance. Still I may vote for Bernie for the sole reason of keeping Clitorally and Chump out.

 

[alasdairm]

from the american president, written in 1995:

I've known Bob Rumson for years. And I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only -- making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.

(my emphasis).

alasdair

 

[jpgrdnr]

Wow, Florida!

 

[nuttynutskin]

Trump Is Gaslighting America

This is an intervention. America, you have a Trump problem.

By Nicole Hemmer March 15, 2016, at 12:00 p.m.

Dear America,

This is an intervention.

You have a problem.

Donald Trump.

He’s gaslighting you.

It’s a technique abusers use: Through manipulation and outright lies, they so disorient their target that the person (or in this case, the country) is left defenseless.

Trump is a toxic blend of Barnum and bully. If you’re a good mark, he’s your best friend. But if you catch on to the con, then he starts to gaslight. Ask him a question and he’ll lie without batting an eye. Call him a liar and he’ll declare himself “truthful to a fault.” Confront him with contradictory evidence and he’ll shrug and repeat the fib. Maybe he’ll change the subject. But he’ll never change the lie.

Evidence? He says he never settles lawsuits. He says he’s polling better than Clinton in New York. He says he never encourages violence at his rallies. He says he’s winning Latinos. He says he’s the first candidate to mention immigration. He says, he says, he says.

But forget all that, because evidence is for losers.

Political journalists have been repeatedly criticized for not confronting Trump on his lies. But of course they have. For political journalists, a politician caught in a lie is chum in the water. But when they confront Trump with his lies, he doesn’t behave like most people. He doesn’t blush or equivocate or argue. He steamrolls. He bullies. He lies some more. And the journalists don’t know what to do. They brought facts to an ego fight, and found them to be worthless weapons.

If it’s hard to wrap your mind around the gaslighting of a nation, just watch the dynamics at work on a single person: Michelle Fields. While covering a Trump rally last Tuesday, Fields was grabbed and pulled toward the ground. Ben Terris of the Washington Post reports seeing Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski do it. Fields has bruises on her forearm and there was audio of the event. Lewandowski himself reportedly told a Breitbart editor he grabbed Fields.

So what happened next?

Lewandowski said Fields was crazy. “Totally delusional,” he tweeted. Trump suggested she made the whole thing up. As my colleague Robert Schlesinger put it, “the Trump campaign pulled straight from the attack-the-victim playbook typically deployed against those who raise accusations of sexual assault – she's delusional, she's making things up, why didn't she tell the police, she has a history of this kind of behavior.”

In other words: gaslighting.

And what does this look like as he does it to an entire nation? Let’s go to Chicago, where Trump cancelled a planned appearance, resulting in a series of scuffles between outraged Trump supporters and cheering protestors.

Appearing on Sean Hannity’s show that night, Trump said law enforcement had advised him to cancel the rally out of safety concerns.

The Chicago Police Department says it never advised Trump to cancel.

Trump said, “I don't want anybody to be hurt. We want this to be a nonviolent situation.”

For more than a month Trump has been encouraging his supporters to get violent, not only spurring them to rough up protestors but offering to pay their legal fees if they are arrested for assault.

Trump said his supporters only fight back in self-defense – just three days after a Trump supporter was caught on tape sucker-punching a protester who was being led out of a rally.

Hannity – who has been gaslighting America a lot longer than Trump, but less effectively – said, “When did we start blaming victims of violence instead of the perpetrators of violence?”

Ask Corey Lewandowski.

The best way to end gaslighting is to sever ties with the abuser. Some Republicans are trying to do this, but it seems like the GOP is stuck with Trump, at least through July, probably until November.

But America, you can still resist. Trump will keep saying he loves you, but that’s the con. Like any abusive relationship, love is the misdirect. Power is the goal. The big test facing you now is preventing Donald Trump from getting any.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...donald-trump-is-conning-america-with-his-lies

 

[effingcustie]

Damn, rough night for Bernie. It's not over though - this is the widest margin Clinton will lead by, it's just a question of if Bernie can close the gap or not. It will be tough, but it's possible. The rest of the primaries will be more favorable to Sanders geographically, especially the next few weeks. I think this could end up working especially well for him as one of his appealing qualities is the underdog narrative, and I think he is likely to win most of the next several primaries after taking a big hit tonight. The momentum has been with Sanders this whole campaign, it's just a race against the clock. But he's made it through the toughest part and and has the wind at his feed now. He'll have a big advantage with fund-raising as well. To keep up Clinton will likely have to court corporate donors which she would probably then face scrutiny for.