It was the Christian right movement in the 80s that cemented them all under one banner, before that people would be more likely to mock the other sects.
Yes. He wants to appeal to the evangelical christians so he can win some early delegates and hope he gets some momentum in the other states to get a nomination. It's his only play. But like Huckabee and Santorum and some others it won't lead to a nomination.
He doesn't want to win the nomination, he just wants to sell books and get paid for speeches.
Not sure what Trump's angle is exactly but I don't really think he actually wants to win either. He's more interested in building his brand.
Modern US politics is basically a reality television show at this point.
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Thank God Trump ran, lest we miss moments like this
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As Donald Trump took the stage in a community college theater on Thursday night, something was off.
The usually punctual executive was nearly 40 minutes late. His voice was hoarse, his hair mussed, his tone defensive. He promised to take questions from the audience but instead launched into a 95-minute-long rant that at times sounded like the monologue of a man grappling with why he is running for president — and if it's really worth it or not. Even for a candidate full of surprises, the speech was surprising.
He scoffed at those who have accused him of not understanding foreign policy, saying he knows more about Islamic State terrorists "than the generals do." He took credit for predicting the threat of Osama bin Laden and being right on the "anchor baby situation," a position he says "these great geniuses from Harvard Law School" now back. He uttered the word "crap" at least three times, and promised to "bomb the s---" out of oil fields benefiting terrorists. He signed a book for a guy in the audience and then tossed it back at him with a flip: "Here you go, baby. I love you."
Trump called Republican rival Carly Fiorina "Carly whatever-the-hell-her-name-is," accused Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton of playing the "woman's card" and said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is "weak like a baby." He then devoted more than 10 minutes angrily attacking his chief rival, Ben Carson, saying the retired doctor has a "pathological disease" with no cure, similar to being a child molester.
"If I did the stuff he said he did, I wouldn't be here right now. It would have been over. It would have been over. It would have been totally over," Trump said. "And that's who's in second place. And I don't get it."
As bad as Trump is, the worst part is there are millions of people who agree with him in America. That's scary.
It is scary, but honestly based on my facebook the last 6 months there are a fair chunk misogynistic, xenophobic, racist folks in Canada as well.
But these things are inflamed even more in the States given the systemic racism and what not present in the courts, how the churches run their doctrine and poorly educated populations (which are poorly educated because schools get punished financially if students don't show up so that schools in "bad" areas get worse and worse exasperating the issue). Geez, in this day and age a fairly major church comes out and says they won't recognize children who have a gay parent (Mormon) and they did that just the other day. They also had hundreds of church resignations because of it so maybe their is some light at the end of the tunnel.
Quite frankly, Bernie Sanders is just as big a crackpot as most of the guys on the GOP side, or near-to. Free public post-secondary for all is basically just as ridiculous as a 10% flat income tax in terms of budgetary discipline. Calling wall street a fundamentally fraudulent enterprise is pretty damned extreme. I agree with certain things he supports, but there's just so much crazy there.
Martin O'Malley came across quite well as things went along, he settled into a groove. A lot of really good answers, politically, and some common sense stuff in there too. I'm not sure why he's there, since he's the very definition of an also-ran, but he certainly emphasizes the relative reasonableness of the Dem "also-rans" compared to, oh, I dunno, let's say Mike Huckabee.
Hillary is still Hillary and is pretty obviously going to be elected next year.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Quite frankly, Bernie Sanders is just as big a crackpot as most of the guys on the GOP side, or near-to. Free public post-secondary for all is basically just as ridiculous as a 10% flat income tax in terms of budgetary discipline[/B]. Calling wall street a fundamentally fraudulent enterprise is pretty damned extreme. I agree with certain things he supports, but there's just so much crazy there.
That depends on if you can stomach taking funds away from other things like oooohhh I dunno.... national defense maybe? They could easily provide post-secondary for their citizens.
And while fraudulent may be an extreme term, there are certainly parts of the finance industry that are less than beneficial.
Less than beneficial is the basis for a reasonable argument between people with different views on how the securities markets should operate. Basically out and out calling the finance sector a bunch of greedy dishonest pirates is not.
As for national defense funding, it's not a tap you can just turn off. It's a large, cumbersome behemoth that if you want to make that kind of funding transition would take probably a couple of decades. The alternative plan for post-secondary in re: expanding Pell grants and capping interest rates on student debt and doing other things that ease the burden on students is actually practical - though the standard "more taxes for the wealthy and close corporate loopholes" funding strategy remains, as ever, a bunch of BS. But implementing "FREE FOR EVERYBODY" college would be an utter disaster in the USA. Hell, for one thing, there's a pretty good case that more people go to post-secondary already than probably should simply because it's regarded as "what one does", not for any discernible purpose.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Quite frankly, Bernie Sanders is just as big a crackpot as most of the guys on the GOP side, or near-to. Free public post-secondary for all is basically just as ridiculous as a 10% flat income tax in terms of budgetary discipline. Calling wall street a fundamentally fraudulent enterprise is pretty damned extreme. I agree with certain things he supports, but there's just so much crazy there.
Why is it so ridiculous? You can get virtually free post-secondary education in a first-world country like Germany. There are no tuition fees, and you pay about 500 bucks for administration costs per year....and last time I checked, Germany was still the economic engine of Europe. It's cheap in Sweden and France too.
I'm not saying it should be free, but having an educated populace is probably the most important thing a country can do to ensure it's success. Educated people tend to be more self-sufficient in the long term, can afford to live healthier lives, and in the end pay their government back with their increased tax contributions.
Education and Health Care. Two things that should be as cheap as possible for everyone.
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Because saying something exists in another country does not make it reasonable to say "let's just do that here"?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Because saying something exists in another country does not make it reasonable to say "let's just do that here"?
The fact that other countries with comparable world status, do it makes it unreasonable to call it "ridiculous".
The only way it's "ridiculous" is that a large section of the the US population views it as communism, even they are (for the most part) the people who would benefit from it the most. And so, to think the US might vote in someone with that idea, is ridiculous yes. The act of doing it, however, is not.
The fact that other countries with comparable world status, do it makes it unreasonable to call it "ridiculous".
No. This is nonsense. America has a particular budget structure that involves annual expenditures of about 4 trillion dollars. It is gargantuan. You can't just overhaul it. It is not a matter of saying "this other country which operates completely differently politically, economically, budgetarily and a dozen other things has X, so we can have X. Git 'er done". This betrays a complete lack of understanding of how a change like this could be implemented and funded, particularly given the involvement of the states themselves. It is a total pipe dream.
You literally might as well suggest that Canada's parliamentary democracy works better than the US political system, so they should just scrap congress and the US senate and the executive and become like us.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Right. So they could do it. They just don't want to.
I thought I was being clear - no. He could not do it even if elected. And if he could, as per what I said initially, it would be just as batcrap crazy as a 10% flat income tax. You couldn't pull that one off either, and if you could it would be a budgetary nightmare to try to make it functional.
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That's kind of the whole point. 4 trillion dollars and they can't pay for education for its citizens? Who am I kidding, they don't even care about getting their population a base-level education, much less a post-secondary one.
This is a silly comment that does not suggest to me that you're really dealing with this stuff seriously, so maybe we're talking past each other.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I thought I was being clear - no. He could not do it even if elected. And if he could, as per what I said initially, it would be just as batcrap crazy as a 10% flat income tax. You couldn't pull that one off either, and if you could it would be a budgetary nightmare to try to make it functional.
No, what you're saying is that it would be very difficult, even a nightmare, to do within their system. Translating in my mind to "too hard, so no." Which is never an excuse I find acceptable personally. "pipedream" "can't just overhaul it" yes it is a pipedream, but yes they CAN just overhaul it (this is a democracy right?) and yes it IS possible. They can allocate funding to different things than they currently do.
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This is a silly comment that does not suggest to me that you're really dealing with this stuff seriously, so maybe we're talking past each other.
Comment is snarky, but it's true. The public school system in the US is an embarrassment when compared to it's world status.
