The New American Politics thread

[troutman]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

While I don't disagree with your sentiment could someone legally be disallowed from running for a political office or the office of President if they had a mental disorder or condition? I would assume no because that would be discrimination.

MSNBC had a segment on Trump's mental fitness last night, and it was pointed out that a personality disorder is not the same as mental illness. In fact, the narcissistic disorder is likely quite common among politicians and CEOs.

http://reflectd.co/2013/04/17/person...cal-syndromes/

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-trump/480771/

Congresswoman: GOP should require Trump to get tested for mental fitness

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...ness/88002108/

[Donald Trump is dangerous for our country. His impulsiveness and lack of control over his own emotions are of concern. It is our patriotic duty to raise the question of his mental stability to be the commander in chief and leader of the free world. Mr. Trump appears to exhibit all the symptoms of the mental disorder Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Mental health professionals need to come forward and urge the Republican party to insist that their nominee has an evaluation to determine his mental fitness for the job. It is entirely possible that some individuals with NPD can successfully function in many careers, but not the Presidency of the United States. We deserve to have the greatest understanding of Mr. Trump's mental health status before we head to the polls on November 4th, 2016. #DiagnoseTrump]

[afc wimbledon]

I still think Trump is working to get Clinton elected, I'll bet he calls Bill every evening and they joke about the dumb rubes he's screwing with.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I still think Trump is working to get Clinton elected, I'll bet he calls Bill every evening and they joke about the dumb rubes he's screwing with.

Is there any other reasonable explanation?

Read the articles from Trump's ghost writer, former lawyers, etc. This is who Trump is. It's not an act. He's not smart enough to do that

[Senator Clay Davis]

Speaking of Trump and nukes, here was his answer in a Washington Post interview (I thought he banned them?). Whole interview is predictably rambling insanity, but this is too good



https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...856_story.html

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Haha that's fake (if you search the link you posted that text doesn't appear in it) but it's still hilarious.

"My national defense strategy? Goku, obviously. You can always count on Goku."

[AltaGuy]

Wasted my time looking up Spirit Bombs too, damn it!

Thanks Corsi.

[calumniate]

Spirit bear!

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Haha that's fake (if you search the link you posted that text doesn't appear in it) but it's still hilarious.

"My national defense strategy? Goku, obviously. You can always count on Goku."

It doesn't sound fake does it? Which I suppose is the new measure of the Trump campaign: What could they say that you wouldn't believe?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

It doesn't sound fake does it? Which I suppose is the new measure of the Trump campaign: What could they say that you wouldn't believe?

Reminds me of John Oliver on Sunday.

Originally Posted by John Oliver

Just this week, Trump declined yet again to release his tax returns, lied about getting a letter from the NFL agreeing with him that the debates shouldn't clash with football games, called Angela Merkel a moron, implied that Brazil brought the Zika virus on themselves, and encouraged a foreign power's hack of his political rival.

Now, two of those didn't happen, but you're not sure which two, and that's kind of the point, isn't it? Trump hasn't said one crazy thing; he's said thousands of crazy things, each of which blunts the effect of the others.

[peter12]

I believe the answers are Merkal is moron and Brazilians deserve Zika?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Yep!

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by New Era

Trump’s sanity is finally being question, on both sides of the political divide.

I have been calling Trump a sociopath for months now and finally the media is catching up and questioning his sanity. To me, there has never been a question about Trump’s narcissism, but his sociopathy has been a point of debate. It seems that the debate is now going to come to a head. Yahoo had a good write up on this. Here's the highlights.

Something none of those links touch on is that he's got an addictive personality (he has the family history for it), and for him it's dopamine-fueled addiction that requires short-term gratification in the form of twitter interactions, increasing risk-taking, increasing stakes, obsession with personal accolades, etc. Just imagine the worst Internet troll you know, and then imagine that person not making those interactions on the Internet, but instead in a media and money saturated personal existence; one in which other people are as far away from him as other on the internet are from the troll's existence. Once it occurred to me that this is what was going on, I found a few articles that had arrived at a similar conclusion:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/donal...eNoSplash=true

I can't speak to the authority of it, except that it essentially back up the conclusions I had arrived at myself; and since starting to look at him through that perspective, everything I've seen from him fits those symptoms perfectly.

[calgarygeologist]

I just saw a headline on CNN that I got really excited about: "Prence breaks with Trump" but unfortunately I didn't read the whole thing and it was in reference to Prence endorsing Ryan. I got excited at the thought that Prence was dumping Trump.

[photon]

Spirit Bomb!

[Street Pharmacist]

An interesting possibility:


What kind of bump would a new candidate get? Let's say somehow they get Trump to drop out. There's no way this was planned as too much was unpredictable, but it's not unlike a rapid rebuild of a hockey team. There's likable candidates on the Republican side, but the primaries bring out the worst. This could be a rapid rebranding and a new one might have a better chance than Hillary

[GGG]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...voter-id-laws/

Interesting article on the effects of voter suspression laws. Requiring photo Id decreases turnout by 2% overall and increase disparity in white vs minority turnout from 2% to 5%

The good news is that it might be able to prevent 31 fraudulent ballots from being cast out of billions that have been cast.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by GGG

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...voter-id-laws/

Interesting article on the effects of voter suspression laws. Requiring photo Id decreases turnout by 2% overall and increase disparity in white vs minority turnout from 2% to 5%

The good news is that it might be able to prevent 31 fraudulent ballots from being cast out of billions that have been cast.

Uh well I'm pretty sure they aren't suppressing anything because HELLO Obummer won TWICE.

Also racism is over.

[peter12]

Requiring photo id seems like pretty basic criteria for allowing someone to cast a vote.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by peter12

Requiring photo id seems like pretty basic criteria for allowing someone to cast a vote.

Intuitively, it does. In reality, the benefits of doing so seem to be massively outweighed by the drawbacks. But because it seems basic, the GOP can pursue it based on the "it's just common sense" argument, when in reality it's clearly a cynical attempt to give them an edge at the expense of the legitimate voting rights of a decent chunk of the population.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by peter12

Requiring photo id seems like pretty basic criteria for allowing someone to cast a vote.

Why?