2016 American Presidential Campaign

[neversickanymore]

Happy Bday GM

 

[GenericMind]

Thanks mang!

 

[Noodle]

Happy Birthday you rascal.

On Topic: Trump is an opportunistic piece of human filth, just like his supporters.

 

[SKL]

I am not liberal but

A Liberal Case for Donald Trump

I think he's the lesser of four evils, tbh.

 

[manboychef]

Honestly, I am hoping that trump gets the nomination. It will show just how backwards the GOP is, and hopefully make a lot of people quit the GOP.

 

[socko]

The Democrat and Republican policies of the last 40 years (virtually all of them far right leaning and neoconservative) have destroyed the Amerian middle class. The republican leadership itslef has stolen the future of its traditional supporters, white under-educated middle/working class. Trump is speaking to them.
Also, Trump points out that the Republican Party is not the "Conservative" party. His ideas and views of social issues, although often poorly articulated, appear much more liberal than those of the socially conservative Evangelicals who have infiltrated the Republican party over the last 40 years. So, even to informed Democrats, it is unclear who is the lessor of two evils.
Even better, Trump opposes scum like Paul Ryan and the others who helped create this mess.

I am not liberal but

A Liberal Case for Donald Trump

I think he's the lesser of four evils, tbh.

From Salon's a liberal case for Trump
1.) He’ll Change the Conversation
"Trump has spent much of his time lately, railing against free trade and NAFTA, as well as the gross inequality in our system. Trump often talks about raising taxes on “hedge fund guys,” and he has acknowledged that the primary process is skewed in favor of the establishment."
2.) That said, most of his policies are DOA

Third and most important of all: I do not need to trust Donald Trump in the same way I would have to trust Hillary Clinton were she elected. The reason for this is very simple: Trump represents the GOP brand, and Clinton claims the mantle of progressive. If Trump fails to accomplish anything in office, or if he manages to do whatever damage he can do, he will represent the Republicans. Moreover, rightly or wrongly, he represents America’s crypto-fascist element. The best way to discredit both of these groups is to let them fail on their own.

3.) 2020 election looms

Summary: Trump won't be so bad. In fact, he is probably more liberal than the Clinton for the reasons I bolded.

 

[GenericMind]

Happy Birthday you rascal.

On Topic: Trump is an opportunistic piece of human filth, just like his supporters.

Thanks homie!

On the topic of Trump:


Here's something I've been wondering...

I see a lot of people talking about how we all have to do everything in our power to make sure Donald Trump doesn't win because of how dangerous he is to America. This confuses me.

Donald Trump is a buffoon. He's always been a buffoon. He's made his career by being a blustery showman who says outrageous things to get media attention. The more outrageous his statement, the more media attention he gets. This has been true long before his run for president and as far as I can tell he's just been doing the same thing during his campaign. Do I really think he wants to deport all Muslims? No. Do I think he really wants to build a giant wall between us and Mexico? No. But saying those things got him millions of dollars of free advertising in the media and also drummed up support from all the Xenophobes and Racists in this country. So much in fact that he actually won the Republican nomination. His strategy worked perfectly. He's a master of playing the media and the population and used that to win the nomination without having to spend barely any money.

But if he wins nobody is going to hold him to his campaign promises. Nobody is going to be surprised if he just changes his positions on anything. It's Donald Trump. Nobody will ever confuse him as someone who will always do what he says or even mean half the things he says. And more importantly, nobody cares. If he decides not to build his wall, his supporters aren't going to care. If he decides not to deport Muslims, his supporters aren't going to hold him accountable for going back on his word. Because everyone knows his word is shit. All he would do as president is try to run it like a corporate CEO and most of his actions as president would be with taxes, the budget, trade, etc. He's never been an actual politician before and his association with the political 'elite' has always been relegated to rubbing elbows with them at events as friends because of his immense wealth.

Now let's look at his opponent. Hillary Clinton has been in politics for decades, long before she even married Bill Clinton. Her family's influence in politics was large and after she was first lady, much larger. The Clintons are considered one of the most powerful families in the world and are as connected and involved everywhere as the Bush's are. They control A LOT of power in American politics and other countries as well. She's been involved in over 20 scandals during her political career, some minor and some not so minor. Regardless of her policies on anything else, we know that she has been involved in most of wars and military actions of the past decade. Her actions as a Senator and then as Secretary of State are mostly a matter of public record, so we know a lot of the things she's had a hand in. We know that she voted for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that have resulted in thousands of U.S. soldiers' lives and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in those countries. We know that as Secretary of State she was the key American figure involved in the Honduras coup that put a criminal in charge of the country and completely destabilized the region, but America wanted that leader because it would benefit us monetarily. Murders went up 50% in Honduras after that and the drug cartels now control the region.

We know she was the driving force in a similar situation in Haiti, where America threatened trade sanctions unless they chose a leader that would benefit us, even though it destabilized the country. We know from Obama's own mouth that he was hesitant to get involved in the Syrian and Libyan civil wars, and that it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that persuaded him to send weapons and arm rebels in those countries. This caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of more people and completely destabilized the region. ISIS formed there in the aftermath and the power vacuum that was caused by us helping overthrow the governments there. Once the governments weren't there to control things, radical Islamic terrorists took over. ISIS wouldn't exist if we hadn't done that. And the millions upon millions of dollars of weapons we sent there(which made a nice profit for American weapons manufacturers) are now all the weapons that ISIS took control of. We literally armed our enemies.

We know that as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received donations to her personal charity fund from over a dozen of the most dangerous countries around the world, and then shortly after those countries got massive multi-million dollar weapons deals with the United States. I'm not talking about pistols and machine guns, I'm talking about real instruments of war. We gave them Missiles, tanks, fighter planes, bombs, etc.

ALL of these things she's done have either monetarily benefitted her, her political allies, or the defense contractor companies she's associated with. She's literally sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, women, children, U.S. soldiers, for profits and power without blinking an eye.

So that's why I'm confused when people tell me how dangerous Trump is and how we must stop him before he starts World War 3. We're talking about some idiot CEO whose only business dealings have involved real estate, casinos, food & beverage, and tourism. A man who has never been involved with any sort of weapons or defense companies, any wars or regime changes, coups or military intervention. A man who doesn't even know how to go to war. A man that only knows how to run a business, even if he's crappy at it.

And on the other side of the ballot, you have a woman who has arguably paved the way for World War 3 on a road of dead men, women, and children. Hundreds of thousands of them over the past 15 years. A woman who has been instrumental in all of these wars-for-profit, not only leading to the deaths of all those civilians but also sending our sons and daughters to war, without hesitation, for what I can only surmise as a grab for money and power. A woman that will undoubtedly continue to thrust us into more wars to line the pockets of America's weapons manufacturers regardless of the cost of human life.

So please, someone explain to me why the hell I should fear Donald Trump and not Hillary. Because to my eyes, it's like talking about whether a Guinea Pig or a rabid Wolf is more dangerous, and Trump is definitely not the Wolf.

 

[alasdairm]

^ i think you're guilty of posing a false dilemma.

alasdair

 

[noone1]

The constitution is not a living breathing document. Those on the far left believe it is and would like to change it suite their political ideologies. As far as I am concerned the document is perfect in its current form and must be protected from activist judges aiming to destroy this nation and its core beliefs.

I love people that say this because it's obvious they've never read the constitution. It says in the document itself you can change and edit it. The founding fathers changed and edited it to suite their needs during their own lifetimes.

 

[SKL]

^ great post ( [MENTION=74887]GenericMind[/MENTION] )

Trump not being a politician (and especially not being involved in the usual sources of money for politics) is probably the best thing about him.

Do I admire him for his stand on the National Question? Yes. Do I think he'll actually go through with it? No, I think as you say it is mostly about getting attention and votes. If he is at all going to preach and practice "America First," he's miles ahead of Hilary. We could run down his flip flops on various positions, but it's not the important thing.

To me the most exciting thing about Donald Trump is that he awakened the left-behind white working class, those of us* described in Murray's Coming Apart, more than any candidate recently. Reagen, and to a considerably lesser extent Bill Clinton, could connect to this group at times, and won elections thereby, but they're very politically disengaged and apathetic. If they (we) can get excited about Trump hopefully we can retain this excitement and get involved politically more to defend our interests; Trump's inveterate "political incorrectness" is in itself a "dog whistle" not for racism or sexism or xenophobia per se, but something more fundamental. It is reaching out and touching those of us who are tired of "political correctness" (a silly term as it is used today, to be honest) or "Cultural Marxism" or whatever you would like to call it. That's what I see, and what excites and stirs me, about the Trump movement.




* Demographically, I would no longer be considered part of this group, but it is my cultural and geographic origin, and I strongly identify with it. I'm a Manhattanite and a working professional, but suffer from what Neal Gabler calls the secret shame of financial precariousness or even impotence, despite appearances, my professional position, salary, etc. It is only by the grace of God that I've risen above the (at least proverbial) trailer park. There are many of us and we are angry, this anger has often been misdirected: outwardly to pointless wars, inwardly to petty racism, but is starting to boil over and target the truer culprits. Trump is not the leader that will lead this movement, he is a step along the way, but he's overturned some stones that will not go back into place.

 

[GenericMind]

^ i think you're guilty of posing a false dilemma.

alasdair

I didn't create the false dilemma, the media has. And because they have the discussion all over social media is about how we need to unite behind Hillary to stop Trump. My post is a response to that claim.

 

[Noodle]

My feeling: We are fucked, as a nation! and the decline has been in progress for about 70/80 years.

 

[cj]

I live in the deep south and have been listening to the local political call in shows recently on my morning drive. People down here honestly believe that the democratic party is an enemy of the United States. They think Hillary Clinton is a traitor and that Obama is at best a Marxist Muslim and at worst the anti-Christ. I just don't see how a democracy can function in the long term with so much hostility between the two political parties. When did we stop being able to compromise? This country was built on compromise!

I am scared about the future. I really wish I had Canadian or Swedish citizenship.

 

[socko]

I didn't create the false dilemma, the media has. And because they have the discussion all over social media is about how we need to unite behind Hillary to stop Trump. My post is a response to that claim.

I agree. And, FYI, big media has been publishing articles like this supporting the Clintons' campaign as partial payment for their de-regulattion of the media industry in the 1990s. This is litteraly why we only hear two viewpoints - corporatist republican versus corporatist democrat.

What happens to a country that no longer has a middle class and is ruled by the wealthy few?

 

[MrRoot]

cj, I feel for you. I sometimes listen to deep south political podcasts just for the laughs.

If you want I'll ask some of my relatives in Sweden if they would like to marry you.

We really need to get "Adopt an American" thing going on here in Scandinavia.

 

[manboychef]

The presidential election does not matter near as much as state and local elections. Due to voter apathy we allowed the republicans to get the majority in house and senate... They have become obstructive to anything Obama wanted to do. They also shut the government down at a massive cost to the taxpayer. They turned the affordable care act into a joke (I mean it is a good start but a long way from single payer). Just look at north carolina. They are losing quit a few corporations and many people are moving out of state due the governors stance on LGBT bathroom issues. If that does not show that these republicans do not care for their constituents than I don't know what will.

Please vote in the presidential election, but for the love of humanity vote in your state and locals!!! We need your vote to keep people like Rick Scott as far away from policy as possible.

 

[SKL]

I live in the deep south and have been listening to the local political call in shows recently on my morning drive. People down here honestly believe that the democratic party is an enemy of the United States. They think Hillary Clinton is a traitor and that Obama is at best a Marxist Muslim and at worst the anti-Christ.

However crazily some of this is expressed (and there is plenty of crazy on the Left too), do you consider the fact that a lot of the resentment is grounded in the fact that values utterly alien to the values of this population have been forcibly imposed upon them going back 150 years?

We really need to get "Adopt an American" thing going on here in Scandinavia.

I think a great many Scandanavians are more than fed up with the "adoption" that is already going on

 

[cj]

However crazily some of this is expressed (and there is plenty of crazy on the Left too), do you consider the fact that a lot of the resentment is grounded in the fact that values utterly alien to the values of this population have been forcibly imposed upon them going back 150 years?

Values like racial equality, womens suffrage, and gay rights? If it weren't for the darn federal government they could have continued that wonderful way of life. s/

 

[SKL]

I'm not casting judgment on any of these issues, I'm just saying that looking at the cultural divide in this country, this particular population's ancestors, within only perhaps two generations of living memory, were subject to an almost unbelievably bloody invasion by the North with atrocities committed on both sides, and ever since have been subject to federal diktat on any number of things. Why would it shock anybody that such a people hold strong resentments?

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

Maybe not so United then...