The New American Politics thread

[nik-]

One thing for the conspiracy theorists, no one is talking about Melania's speech anymore after Cruz.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by nik-

One thing for the conspiracy theorists, no one is talking about Melania's speech anymore after Cruz.

Right, but wasn't the conspiracy theory also that the Melania plagiarism thing was also a deliberate distraction from the party steamrolling the motion from the floor from anti-Trumpers?

[Mister Yamoto]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

He has not presented one single key idea that I'm aware of. He stands for nothing, has no ideas and is utterly empty of any vision.

Uhm .......really?

I get it that you despise him (understandable) but find it hard to believe that you have been following this circus for thirteen months and haven't heard anything about

- the wall, that Mexico will pay for
- reform health care, trade and taxes
- more support for veterans
- tougher immigration policies

There. Now you can be aware of some key ideas he has presented. I know, they range from vague to ridiculous but what does Hillary stand for? Nobody knows or cares about that either.

FWIW I an not a Trump supporter, but I do go back and fourth on who the worst candidate is.

[White Out 403]

god, i made the mistake of watching bill o reilly and theres a segment thats truly unbearable called waters world. the dude goes around asking liberals crap and tries to make them look ridiculous. one of them was protesting in favour of socialism, and waters asks "where has socialism ever worked"

i mean, ok, if you want to be an oreilly and conservative schill, fine... but jesus. really? socialism, never worked anywhere. lol. ugh. to quote MMF, christ, give me strength.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Mister Yamoto

FWIW I an not a Trump supporter, but I do go back and fourth on who the worst candidate is.

No what you go back and forth between is which candidate you like less. Trump is the worst candidate ever put forth by a major party in terms of understanding of the job, understanding of the complexities of geopolitics, temperament, and mental fitness. He has the worst run campaign any of us have ever seen by a pretty wide margin, it's dysfunctional, not on the same page, disorganized, poorly run, prone to massive gaffes. He sucks at virtually every measurable aspect of what a candidate should be. If you don't like either, say Gary Johnson is the better candidate. But Trump is the worst major party candidate ever, without question. You can dislike Hillary and clearly see that, I hope.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by octothorp

It's bizarre to hear that Cruz advised Trump a couple days ago that he wouldn't be endorsing, and they decided to let him go on anyway, and worse, Trump came into the arena just in time to be there for some awful reaction photos.

Completely staged. The Republican party is insane, but they aren't stupid. They understand the concepts of crafting a narrative to the highest level and they are doing just that. In their twisted minds they will believe that the reaction to Cruz's non-endorsement displayed unity behind Trump. The entrance of Trump at the exact moment Cruz was at his worst, allowing the glare-down, was perfect production. This will show that Trump can stare down his opponents and that he is a strong leader. The only thing missing was Vince McMahon and a few meatheads rushing on stage to engage in a donnybrook. This was WWE production at its finest, You have to remember that the people they are trying to sway have the intelligence and attention span of a 10 year old. You need these types of moments to make traction with them. Frank Luntz and his crew of pollsters will need new knobs on their twistometers this morning. The production values there sent reactions through the roof!

[GGG]

Trump is a populist. In a lot of ways Bernie is too. Populism is quite a dangerous in democracy as reason goes out the window.

- say what people want to here
- find someone to blame
- entirely based on truthiness

So instead of presenting ideas and vision of what you would do you run on personalities and dog whistles while blaming the Other. It's straight out of almost a every dictators rise.

And since your popularity is based on personality and peoples falsely ingrained beliefs it becomes difficult to sway people once brainwashed as they are a misinformed voter instead of an uninformed voter. So any contrary evidence causes people's heals to dig in further.

[GirlySports]

of course it's a rebellion. how many votes did Trump get in the primaries? 20 million?

yes populism can be quite dangerous but if the status quo (republicans and democrats alike) are deemed by the majority to be failing, it's their own fault they're losing to populism.

People just can't continue to call the rebellers stupid. If Hilary doesn't inspire people like Trump is and get out the vote she'll lose. Look how that worked out in the UK.

[Senator Clay Davis]

This isn't Brexit, a straight up and down vote. He has to win the electoral college and I posted it a ways back now, but if he loses Florida it's basically over. Relying on crazy ass Florida to avoid Trump isn't ideal, but he probably won't win it given the demos are pretty favorable to Hillary. And even if he does flip it, he still needs to flip Ohio and Pennsylvania, which won't be easy either. On top of that because he's so insane, he's bringing traditionally safe GOP states into play, so he'll have to play a lot more defense than a traditional GOP candidate. And his Pence pick was partially (or maybe mostly) inspired to get on that Koch brothers tit, and apparently that hasn't worked either. Of course he could win, but he's needed everything to go right from about the convention onward. A disastrous, embarrassing convention is a pretty dreadful start.

[SeeGeeWhy]

What do people think Peter Thiel is going to talk about in his speech tonight? I have no idea how the man can endorse trump

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

This isn't Brexit, a straight up and down vote. He has to win the electoral college and I posted it a ways back now, but if he loses Florida it's basically over. Relying on crazy ass Florida to avoid Trump isn't ideal, but he probably won't win it given the demos are pretty favorable to Hillary. And even if he does flip it, he still needs to flip Ohio and Pennsylvania, which won't be easy either. On top of that because he's so insane, he's bringing traditionally safe GOP states into play, so he'll have to play a lot more defense than a traditional GOP candidate. And his Pence pick was partially (or maybe mostly) inspired to get on that Koch brothers tit, and apparently that hasn't worked either. Of course he could win, but he's needed everything to go right from about the convention onward. A disastrous, embarrassing convention is a pretty dreadful start.

Or despite all that pre convention polling right now shows he has about the same chance of winning as Bush did against Kerry at this point. Based on this convention it looks like the strategy isn't selling trump it's getting more people to vote third party because they hate Hillary.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

of course it's a rebellion. how many votes did Trump get in the primaries? 20 million?

yes populism can be quite dangerous but if the status quo (republicans and democrats alike) are deemed by the majority to be failing, it's their own fault they're losing to populism.

People just can't continue to call the rebellers stupid. If Hilary doesn't inspire people like Trump is and get out the vote she'll lose. Look how that worked out in the UK.

Yeah, and almost all of Britain woke up the next day after the vote and pulled one of these:



It's might be cool to be a rebel these days. One only has to look at the type of Bernie supporter to understand that it's not cool to stick to a traditional candidate. But sometimes rebellion simply for the sake of upsetting the status quo without a clear agenda in mind creates anarchy. The U.S. is going to have one of the worst periods in it's history if Trump is actually elected. This is a country that's suffered through civil wars, massive depressions, a couple world wars, and several unsuccessful wars for poor political reasons. I have no doubt in my mind that electing Trump would be the worst thing this country could ever do.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

This isn't Brexit, a straight up and down vote. He has to win the electoral college and I posted it a ways back now, but if he loses Florida it's basically over. Relying on crazy ass Florida to avoid Trump isn't ideal, but he probably won't win it given the demos are pretty favorable to Hillary. And even if he does flip it, he still needs to flip Ohio and Pennsylvania, which won't be easy either. On top of that because he's so insane, he's bringing traditionally safe GOP states into play, so he'll have to play a lot more defense than a traditional GOP candidate. And his Pence pick was partially (or maybe mostly) inspired to get on that Koch brothers tit, and apparently that hasn't worked either. Of course he could win, but he's needed everything to go right from about the convention onward. A disastrous, embarrassing convention is a pretty dreadful start.

It's a different format but campaigning is the same everywhere. Get your message out there! An embarrassing convention doesn't seem to matter. Hillary has to get her people excited.

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Yeah, and almost all of Britain woke up the next day after the vote and pulled one of these:

It's might be cool to be a rebel these days. One only has to look at the type of Bernie supporter to understand that it's not cool to stick to a traditional candidate. But sometimes rebellion simply for the sake of upsetting the status quo without a clear agenda in mind creates anarchy. The U.S. is going to have one of the worst periods in it's history if Trump is actually elected. This is a country that's suffered through civil wars, massive depressions, a couple world wars, and several unsuccessful wars for poor political reasons. I have no doubt in my mind that electing Trump would be the worst thing this country could ever do.

I don't know. Britain seems to be ok after the initial bloodbath. The Leave politicians falling on their sword was pretty funny though.

I also can't see a successful Trump presidency but who knows.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I don't know. Britain seems to be ok after the initial bloodbath. The Leave politicians falling on their sword was pretty funny though.

I also can't see a successful Trump presidency but who knows.

Is it though? I know the world markets recovered quite nicely, but the pound is still way down. It will take a while to see what the effect is on the British economy.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

of course it's a rebellion. how many votes did Trump get in the primaries? 20 million?

14 million.

Clinton got 17 million, and turnout was generally higher in the democratic primaries. Is that also a rebellion?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

It's a different format but campaigning is the same everywhere. Get your message out there! An embarrassing convention doesn't seem to matter. Hillary has to get her people excited.

Right, and Trump has not expanded his message past he doesn't like Mexicans, Muslims and Hillary Clinton. He's not winning an election on an approach thinner than his skin. His hope, without a doubt, is for about a dozen more terrorist attacks between now and November. What a sad campaign that that is literally their game plan, their best hope of winning. Every time Trump speaks he seems to make himself look more unhinged, which to be fair is actually kind of impressive.

And this convention has actually probably done a phenomenal job of exciting Democrats and others to vote against Trump. Add in a big time lineup of non-insane people at the DNC next week, and that might be that. I'm very much of the opinion we don't see Trump in 3 debates, he likely gets policy wonked to death in the first one, claims its unfair because he can't just insult her, and drops out of the other two. Also seeing that the ratings for the RNC have been pretty weak, same as McCain and Romney. Sad!

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Mister Yamoto

Uhm .......really?

I get it that you despise him (understandable) but find it hard to believe that you have been following this circus for thirteen months and haven't heard anything about

- the wall, that Mexico will pay for
- reform health care, trade and taxes
- more support for veterans
- tougher immigration policies

There. Now you can be aware of some key ideas he has presented. I know, they range from vague to ridiculous but what does Hillary stand for? Nobody knows or cares about that either.

FWIW I an not a Trump supporter, but I do go back and fourth on who the worst candidate is.

I think you just made my point.

Build a wall between Mexico and the US? This idea is so laughably stupid that even his own supporters don't believe he will do it. Moreover, it will cost orders of magnitude more than he thinks and is likely outside the president's jurisdiction.

"Reform" health care is about as meaty as "Make America Great Again." That's not an idea, it's a slogan.

"More support for veterans"? Huh? First, when has he said this, and second, what does that even mean?

"Tougher immigration policies" is just the wall again, by another name.

His big idea is "build a wall and be angry about everything." This isn't a platform, it's a letter to the editor from an angry old man.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Right, and Trump has not expanded his message past he doesn't like Mexicans, Muslims and Hillary Clinton. He's not winning an election on an approach thinner than his skin. His hope, without a doubt, is for about a dozen more terrorist attacks between now and November. What a sad campaign that that is literally their game plan, their best hope of winning. Every time Trump speaks he seems to make himself look more unhinged, which to be fair is actually kind of impressive.

And this convention has actually probably done a phenomenal job of exciting Democrats and others to vote against Trump. Add in a big time lineup of non-insane people at the DNC next week, and that might be that. I'm very much of the opinion we don't see Trump in 3 debates, he likely gets policy wonked to death in the first one, claims its unfair because he can't just insult her, and drops out of the other two. Also seeing that the ratings for the RNC have been pretty weak, same as McCain and Romney. Sad!

yup totally agree. But if Hillary can't beat this, what does that say?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

yup totally agree. But if Hillary can't beat this, what does that say?

Nothing that we don't already know: Americans love ####ing themselves over at the ballot box. This would just be the most extreme example of it.

[troutman]

SNL Weekend Update: RNC edition

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watc...n-729190979517

"White Rio"

SNL plays 'Trumpémon Go' at the RNC

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-quick-cut...c-729247299725