The New American Politics thread

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by 2Stonedbirds

At a time when relations with Russia are at such a low mark, NATO moved their Aegis missle system into Romania, a violation of a 1987 treaty, mothered their missle defense system smack dab on Russia's border, Russia is deploying mobile ICBM systems onto their side of the border and running drills, never mind the hundred of tanks, helicopters and large numbers of troops deployed to their western border, ex Russian foreign minister is saying they will strike first, ex NATO senior general says a nuclear war is coming in 2017...

...and Trump is gonna square things up? Doubtful. Hell Clinton isn't either.

Russia may be inconsistent in policy and rhetoric, but one thing they are consistent on through their entire history is protecting the mother land.

Last thing we need is Trump making smart ass comments across the table from Putin. May have worked with former NY mayors, it ain't gonna jive with Ivan.

Naw, Putin is Trump's friend and Trump will give away the store, while Putin strokes his ego, to remain friends.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Exactly. He's not a supervillain. He's not a moustache twirling evil genius who's subtly tricking everyone with his bumbling moron act. He's just not particularly engaged and doesn't think about what will happen when he does this stuff.

The problems that New Era highlighted are absolutely consequences that can occur when politicians talk this way, but all of that flies over his head, because he doesn't particularly care about any of it. That's irresponsible and dangerous, and wilfully so, so he's obviously blameworthy. But this "master manipulator" stuff is, indeed, giving a guy who's got some talent for conning average people, and no real intellect, far more credit than he deserves.

But Scott Adams said he's "brilliant". I think the guy who writes Dilbert knows a thing or two about politics.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Hah! Your insights and comments continue to provide great value to the thread.

[Swift]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

In 2007, Trump admits to lying 30 times. Great read.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...on/trump-lies/

I liked this part -

The most striking example was a question at the very heart of the legal case: What was Trump’s actual net worth?
Trump had told O’Brien he was worth up to $6 billion. But the lawyers confronted him with other documents — from Trump’s accountants and from outside banks — that seemed to show the real figure was far lower.
“Have you ever not been truthful” about your net worth, the lawyers asked?
Trump’s answer here was that the truth about his wealth was — in essence — up to him to decide.
“My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings,” Trump said. “But I try.”

If only all of our net worth's could go up based on our feelings.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Do you think anyone in that hall took that as a joke? Almost certainly not.

I'm sure almost everyone in that hall took it as dark humour.

But of course you're right in the sense that there's really no such thing as "just a joke", and that it was targeted for that specific audience, and that it's a reckless joke to tell.

Trump told a typical ingroup/outgroup joke. The point of such jokes is to strengthen the feeling of shared emotions in the ingroup, mark yourself as part of the ingroup and mark the boundary between the ingroup (those who like the joke) and the outgroup (those who don't).

I don't think Trump thought of even the possibility that someone actually might take the joke literally. Which is why telling that joke shows terrible lack of judgment.

Oh, and I also don't think the most common image that Trumps extremely vague 2nd amendment reference brought up in that crowd was that of assassinating the president. Armed resistance against the federal government is what I'd guess they were thinking.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Hah! Your insights and comments continue to provide great value to the thread.

Gotta do what I can to keep up with your blistering posting pace.

[afc wimbledon]

Trump is Andrew Dice Clay of politicians, he's found a sizeable stupid portion of the population that likes his shtick and he's riding it for all its worth, he doesn't mean a thing that comes out of his mouth it's just all shtick.

'I got ya second amendment right here b****' grabs crotch

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Umm. Ok. Have you read any transcript of any of his rallies? They're mumbling nonsense the quarters of the time.

You're giving him waaaaaaaaaayyyyy too much credit here.

An intelligent person would've changed these career suicidal tactics by now. He simply can't help himself in front of a crowd

Yet he continues to tap into the deepest and darkest fears of his constituents using this rambling and almost incoherent speech. People that know Trump know him to be bright and a very good communicator. I don't think you are giving him enough credit. I think his message is foolish, but he is attempting to lure foolish people to vote for him. The more outrage on the left he creates, the better it is for him. The thing that is concerning is his disregard for the fine line between appealing to his constituents fears and alienating the remainder of the electorate. The only thing that can stop him is if the Republican Party steps in and removes him from the ticket.

I do have to laugh at certain people that are discounting Trump and saying he has no real intellect. A guy that has worked the system as well as Trump, and has built a global brand, regardless of what you think of it, is not a mindless idiot lacking intellect.

[Flame19,289]

Originally Posted by Itse

Oh, and I also don't think the most common image that Trumps extremely vague 2nd amendment reference brought up in that crowd was that of assassinating the president. Armed resistance against the federal government is what I'd guess they were thinking.

I certainly took that 2nd Amendment reference to be a veiled reference to assassination of either Clinton or any SCOTUS nominee that she might appoint. Why else would he follow up with a very tongue-in-cheek "that will be a horrible day."

It was a disgusting statement and further example of why this buffoon is totally unfit to be president.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by New Era

Yet he continues to tap into the deepest and darkest fears of his constituents using this rambling and almost incoherent speech. People that know Trump know him to be bright and a very good communicator. I don't think you are giving him enough credit. I think his message is foolish, but he is attempting to lure foolish people to vote for him. The more outrage on the left he creates, the better it is for him. The thing that is concerning is his disregard for the fine line between appealing to his constituents fears and alienating the remainder of the electorate. The only thing that can stop him is if the Republican Party steps in and removes him from the ticket.

I do have to laugh at certain people that are discounting Trump and saying he has no real intellect. A guy that has worked the system as well as Trump, and has built a global brand, regardless of what you think of it, is not a mindless idiot lacking intellect.

Anecdotally, a friend of mine actually met Trump and his family during a walk in Central Park. He was apparently a consummate gentleman, introduced him to Melania, and their son, and spent about 20 minutes chatting.

So yes, you are right. He is most likely quite intelligent, and some of this is certainly purposeful.

However, this is off-set by his apparent impulsiveness, which has damaged his campaign. I mean, this thing should be a knock-out win for the Republicans, and it is a very close race.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by New Era

Yet he continues to tap into the deepest and darkest fears of his constituents using this rambling and almost incoherent speech. People that know Trump know him to be bright and a very good communicator. I don't think you are giving him enough credit. I think his message is foolish, but he is attempting to lure foolish people to vote for him. The more outrage on the left he creates, the better it is for him. The thing that is concerning is his disregard for the fine line between appealing to his constituents fears and alienating the remainder of the electorate. The only thing that can stop him is if the Republican Party steps in and removes him from the ticket.

I do have to laugh at certain people that are discounting Trump and saying he has no real intellect. A guy that has worked the system as well as Trump, and has built a global brand, regardless of what you think of it, is not a mindless idiot lacking intellect.

Woah, when did I start agreeing with you on stuff?

You may want to disavow my support quickly. People don't like it if you wait five minutes to disavow.

Anyway. I am not convinced (at all) that Trump actually communicates like he's speaking to toddlers all the time. I'm not certain he would be an enjoyable person to converse with over a leisurely brunch, but I think he would turn "normal".

I saw an interesting analysis of his speech patterns recently. He tends to stick to one syllable words much more than normal speech requires. When he uses a two syllable word or more, it's by necessity. And he has a very obvious "choking" when it comes to three syllable words to deliberately de-emphasize them. He then uses key words and just repeats them over and over like "best" or "great" or whatever.

His speech is deliberately NOT speech.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by New Era

I do have to laugh at certain people that are discounting Trump and saying he has no real intellect. A guy that has worked the system as well as Trump, and has built a global brand, regardless of what you think of it, is not a mindless idiot lacking intellect.

He inherited wealth and used that leverage to game the system by being a dishonest and shameless self-promoter. That isn't intellect.

You might say he is savvy at exploiting others. That's fair. "Intellect" implies he's a deep thinker, though. He's definitely not that. He's an average mind that has boundless self-confidence in his own imaginary genius.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by jammies

He inherited wealth and used that leverage to game the system by being a dishonest and shameless self-promoter. That isn't intellect.

You might say he is savvy at exploiting others. That's fair. "Intellect" implies he's a deep thinker, though. He's definitely not that. He's an average mind that has boundless self-confidence in his own imaginary genius.

Probably has above-average intelligence. You just can't get that far being average. In terms of raw intelligence, he is probably not on the same playing field as both Clintons or Obama.

[wittynickname]

Getting away from the Presidential election for a moment, an interesting piece about the North Carolina GOP, and how their unending defense of bad laws is costing the state millions of dollars. Sure, Republicans are the fiscally responsible party.


http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/...e94475972.html

The bills from private lawyers hired to defend bad laws, such as the amendment banning same-sex marriage and voter suppression legislation, amount to $9 million and counting, WRAL reports.

HB2 carries a double tab for the public. There’s the money spent defending a law that is almost certain to be declared unconstitutional because it sanctions discrimination, and then there are the losses of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars because businesses will not come to North Carolina because of HB2.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Getting away from the Presidential election for a moment, an interesting piece about the North Carolina GOP, and how their unending defense of bad laws is costing the state millions of dollars. Sure, Republicans are the fiscally responsible party.


http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/...e94475972.html

This was something I pointed out about the Harper government up here (and which has been hilarious to watch the cognitive dissonance from CPC supporters in their criticism of the AB NDP, but I digress). There were a number of pieces of legislation that the CPC passed that were clear violations of the Charter and then had to spend countless dollars on court cases and appeals when they were clearly in the wrong. I think I remember reading that the Harper Conservatives had more SCC decisions go against them than any other federal government in the Charter era but I'm far too lazy dig that up, so don't take it as gospel. It's amazing how much money so-called fiscal conservatives will waste when social ideology comes up against constitutional law.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Buster

Woah, when did I start agreeing with you on stuff?

You may want to disavow my support quickly. People don't like it if you wait five minutes to disavow.

Anyway. I am not convinced (at all) that Trump actually communicates like he's speaking to toddlers all the time. I'm not certain he would be an enjoyable person to converse with over a leisurely brunch, but I think he would turn "normal".

I saw an interesting analysis of his speech patterns recently. He tends to stick to one syllable words much more than normal speech requires. When he uses a two syllable word or more, it's by necessity. And he has a very obvious "choking" when it comes to three syllable words to deliberately de-emphasize them. He then uses key words and just repeats them over and over like "best" or "great" or whatever.

His speech is deliberately NOT speech.

I strongly disagree this is an intentional behaviour. I think the guy who ghost wrote the art of the deals piece about trump is very informative to dispelling this myth that trump is an evil genius. This is the real trump. That isn't to say he doesn't do the things you describe, he does, and what is key has no control over them.

The idea that he is intentionally playing people as rubes is flawed because otherwise his convention would have looked much better then what it was. His message would have pivoted slightly, he wouldn't have challenged the Khans. There is no method, just all trump all the time.

The important difference is if you believe it's a show you could make the arguememt (and I was on this side earlier in the primary) that when real Trump comes out he would be an effective president. This is dangerous and faulty thinkingZ. Their is no evidence that the Trump we see isn't the real Trump.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

This was something I pointed out about the Harper government up here (and which has been hilarious to watch the cognitive dissonance from CPC supporters in their criticism of the AB NDP, but I digress). There were a number of pieces of legislation that the CPC passed that were clear violations of the Charter and then had to spend countless dollars on court cases and appeals when they were clearly in the wrong.

Interestingly though, as a general principle, I'm not opposed to spending government money on SCC reference cases. If there's an issue of public importance that we could use some guidance on and can't wait for the right fact scenario to emerge and then for ten years for it to make it all the way up the chain to the Supremes, it's absolutely worth doing.

Even if the outcome is obvious, sure it's generally pointless, but even then there may be a good reason to do it - there's a point of law that just hasn't been well expressed in a long time or is in need of updating and refining. And reference cases themselves are less expensive than normal litigation, I have to think.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by peter12

Anecdotally, a friend of mine actually met Trump and his family during a walk in Central Park. He was apparently a consummate gentleman, introduced him to Melania, and their son, and spent about 20 minutes chatting.

So yes, you are right. He is most likely quite intelligent, and some of this is certainly purposeful.

However, this is off-set by his apparent impulsiveness, which has damaged his campaign. I mean, this thing should be a knock-out win for the Republicans, and it is a very close race.

It doesn't look remotely close at this point, Clinton's a mortal lock.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Interestingly though, as a general principle, I'm not opposed to spending government money on SCC reference cases. If there's an issue of public importance that we could use some guidance on and can't wait for the right fact scenario to emerge and then for ten years for it to make it all the way up the chain to the Supremes, it's absolutely worth doing.

Even if the outcome is obvious, sure it's generally pointless, but even then there may be a good reason to do it - there's a point of law that just hasn't been well expressed in a long time or is in need of updating and refining. And reference cases themselves are less expensive than normal litigation, I have to think.

Yeah, except with the CPC it was less reference cases and more ramming through legislation and then having to deal with actual court challenges and appealing the decisions (case in point the whole niqab business).

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Yeah I wasn't suggesting that their particular track record was any good.