Is Trump’s refusal to say he’d accept the results of the election the only thing that happened on earth today?
The MSM frame is that Trump has “contempt for democracy.” Not to nitpick, but if Trump really thinks that the election is rigged, his refusal to accept its results would show respect for democracy.
Just sayin’.
As you well know, I’m no Trump fan. And as my post on the debate indicates, that statement of Trump’s is one of the few that immediately caught my attention. I called it “pretty astounding” (and I didn’t mean that in a good way). “Pretty astounding, but not really surprising.”
Trump being Trump. It’s what his admirers admire him for, and what everyone else (the majority, as it turns out) despises him for.
You know what else that’s not surprising? That the press and the Democrats have fastened on that statement of Trump’s to the exclusion of just about anything else that occurred during the debate, including how awful Hillary was. Not that Trump took anywhere near full advantage of that fact, either. Trump is the gift that keeps on giving to Hillary.
I have long noticed that debates have become exchanges where each side is looking for the “gotcha” moment, the gaffe or the gesture or the statement that will nail the opposition. Everything else that occurs during a debate seems to fall by the wayside. Last night was no different.
It’s one of the reasons I detest debates.
Of course, Trump’s response about the election was more substantive than some of those other things in the past that were more gaffe-like (Bush Sr. looking at his watch in 1992, for example). Why did Trump say it? Stubbornness, playing to his base, not liking to be pushed to respond a certain way, not wanting to concede—plus, on some level I think he realizes he will lose, and he plans to take his followers down the long and merry road of saying that it was only because he and they were tricked and disenfranchised. It’s a dangerous game he’s playing.
It’s simple. The real question was:
“Are you going to play by the rules we set for you?”
Trump instinctively declined, Trump plays by Trump’s rules.
McCain played by the media and the establishment’s rules.
Romney played by the media and the establishment’s rules.
That’s why the media & establishment hold them up as examples of ‘good’ Republicans (no matter how much they were vilified during the races), because they played by the rules, and lost.
I think it was a smart move, even if he doesn’t win.
Also, see: Al Gore.
West:
Smart move, if he doesn’t win?
That encapsulates some of the counter-productive mindset of the most fervent Trump supporters. It’s all about the rebellion, you see. It’s all about the big FU.
And no, this wasn’t about the MSM’s rules or the “establishment’s” rules. It’s about a tradition in the US that’s been set for its entire existence as a republic. An important distinction from so many other countries.
And no, Gore didn’t violate it. His was an exceedingly special and unusual situation, basically a tie, and he was right to challenge it—after the fact.
Trumpkins have so worked themselves up into a lather with their rhetoric that when Trump loses, they might do something violent. That of course will be used as a pretext for a crackdown.
People will as dodos, twilighters, or irredeemables vote Pro-Choice, selective and opportunistic, unprincipled and unpredictable. Class diversity (e.g. racism, sexism) creates democratic leverage. Congruence (“=”) or selective exclusion is useful to exploit it. The baby trials and hunts will continue!
The furor gives much credence to the arguments about persuasion (by the DNC-MSM media complex) that Scott Adams has been writing about.
Art of the Deal – you never cede a point of negotiation until you have to.
“As you well know, I’m no Trump fan. And . . .” [Neo}
I do this too
What is it about the narrative at play (in general, and specifically at this site) that requires anyone to qualify a defense of Trump by saying “As you know . . . .”?
Regardless of what Trump is, or is not. There are certain things in his favor, certain things not in his favor and certain things that work against him. When he is wronged (and yes, that does happen) he is wronged and there is no shame in pointing that out regardless of the vitriolic narrative-inspired responses.
IMO it indicates that we are subconsciously buying into the validity of the Trump is evil/Trump is Hitler/Trump is a predator narrative that has been set up by the left, propogated by the MSM and adopted by the #NeverTrump right.
. . . and we wonder with our sanctimonious historical perspective how the German people could have condoned the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews in the 1930s and 40s.
T:
Trump sold me on that he is unsuitable back in the primary. He’s been reinforcing that with each over the top response to his being “unfairly” treated.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october-web-only/speak-truth-to-trump.html
Neo, you are begging the question that the circumstances will be different this time. What if they are exactly the same as in 2000, with a narrow margin in one state determining the outcome of the election. Would it then have been smart for Trump to have previously agreed to not challenge the results, exactly the way Al Gore did?
No, it would not. And my saying that it was a smart move is in no way invalidated by the possibility that he may lose, which, should that come to pass, will be the result of a multitude of factors, blaming a loss on this one statement is childishly simplistic.
I expect better analysis that that from you. If that offends you, maybe you could consider casting someone who thinks differently about some things than you do as holding the “counter-productive mindset of the most fervent Trump supporters”
I don’t think Trump’s remark is all that astounding. I mean, it’s not as if there isn’t good reason to believe that the election might be rigged.
West is right, if the election turns out to be close, then Trump shouldn’t automatically accept an unfavorable result–it’s not as if Democratic voter fraud doesn’t exist.
I support Trump’s position. We’ve had 7.5 years where the Obama Administration has not only refused to prosecute voter fraud, they instead have sued states repeatedly over voter ID laws which provides the best way to prevent voter fraud. Recent incidents of voter fraud (VF):
– VF Investigations in TX, IN, and other states
– the VA student caught registering dead voters
– the OH electrician’s finding 10 boxes of ballots already marked for Hillary in warehouse
– the second Project Veritas video where the Dem activists discuss different modes of VF they undertake
– the Obama Administration’s refusal to represent states trying to prevent VF in court (ref recent KS case)
– WikiLeaks disclosure of e-mail where Podesta said illegals can vote if they have driver’s license
Do I not recall correctly that we endured 8 years of “elected, not selected” from the Democrats, illegitimatizing (well, in their minds) and stigmatizing and its adoption into their doctrine as basis for questioning every aspect of the hapless Bush presidency?
And that from the outset of the foo-fraw, the Dem’s used every tactical ploy and questionable legal tactic (and does anyone not recall the dissent from the otherwise execrable Florida state Supremes), until the US Supremes had simply had enough? (To which the Dems used that decision to stigmatize the US Supremes?)
But the one thing (as I recall) was that NO ONE initially questioned that they had the right to pursue to a point legal recourse of what they considered a flawed vote-count.
Why in the world would Trump deny his campaign legal recourse, given that precedent alone?
So Trump gets in a solidly provocative hit with a thoroughly enjoyable twip after a question that seems an obvious set up …and our appreciation for the irony in that just flies out the window?
Gawd I’ll be soo glad when this is over.
But I’ll miss the off-the-cuff, irreverent, actually humorous bon mots and the tweaking of the media.
A lot.
Because Obama’s examples are universally nasty (and boorish).
And Hillary wouldn’t know repartee if it bit her in the arse.
…btw, he’s still pulling their chain today, with his clarification that “Of course I’ll accept the results if I win“.
What I thought was LOL funny.
Jeez Louise. Can we just enjoy that loaded repartee “shot across the bow” for what it was?
(Granted Gore’s take-back [early] concession call to Bush was tacky, at least his eventual concession speech was one of the better ones of his entire career. Would that he and the Dems had left it at that.)
How dangerous to point out an observable fact that voter fraud exists.
If, in fact, there are sufficient anomalies in states with close votes, I would expect Trump to challenge the results. It’s not that we don’t know fraud exists, it’s just how it subtly plays out.
Extra votes don’t need to appear when the election isn’t in doubt. But in a close election, a few ballots here, a few ballots there magically appear that tip the results.
On a recount, a few more ballots magically are found.
In the case of the Florida 2000 election, the SC stopped the nonsense. The real problem here is that this election there is no SC to stop the fraud.
In Washington State we are well aware of how the democrats steal elections. In 2004, ballots mysteriously appeared that gave the democrat governor a 129 vote win. The Republican candidate finally conceded after it became obvious that the Washington Supreme Court would give the election to the democrat.
How about this NY Post article from 2012:
“The vote of one idiot can cancel out the vote of a single genius – such is the glory of our one-man, one-vote system. But what about the vote of an illegal alien? The deceased? Or a convicted felon? Should they be allowed to spoil the electoral process – and perhaps change history?
And why – in the name of “civil rights” – is Attorney General Eric Holder using the power of the Justice Department to hamstring states trying to put a stop to voter fraud by requiring a secure ID in order to vote?
The answer is clear: In an election that promises to be every bit as close as Bush v. Gore in 2000, each side is going to need every vote it can get. And one way, historically, that Democrats have been able to swing close elections is through fraud. Consider:
* In the 2004 Washington state governor’s race, the Republican’s early lead was overcome by the miraculous discovery of previously uncounted ballots squirreled away in the Democratic stronghold of Seattle, handing the election to the Democrat.
* In the close governor’s race in Connecticut in 2010, a mysterious shortage of ballots in Bridgeport kept the polls open an extra two hours as allegedly blank ballots were photocopied and handed out in the heavily Democratic city. Dannel Malloy defeated Republican Tom Foley by nearly 7,000 votes statewide – but by almost 14,000 votes in Bridgeport.
* Now a new book – “Who’s Counting?” by John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky – charges that Al Franken’s 2008 defeat of incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman may be directly attributable to felons voting illegally.
Coleman led on election night, but a series of recounts lasting eight months eventually gave the seat to the former Saturday Night Live star.
Later, a conservative watchdog group matched criminal records with the voting rolls and discovered that 1,099 felons had illegally cast ballots. State law mandates prosecutions in such cases; 177 have been convicted so far, with 66 more awaiting trial.
Franken’s eventual margin of “victory”? A mere 312 votes…”
The democrats have had four more years to perfect their rigging of the system.
Look folks. Time to wake up. Trump was right to put the left on notice that he won’t roll over. But as I said earlier, there is no Supreme Court to stop the democrat fraud.
Even if Trump loses by several percentage points in states he was competitive in he should fight it. Something needs to rouse the voters and do something to secure honest elections. And that can only happen if Trump wins and there is a conservative Supreme Court that cares about integrity.
The Project Veritas video, the unusual registration situation in Indiana, the IRS efforts against True the Vote, and other such issues are indicative of voter fraud being carried out on a rather routine basis.
The interview on the Project Veritas video (Not the one West linked, by the way) talked about bussing people across state lines in swing states and having them vote in precincts where the outcome may be close. The operator also indicated that they also rented cars to transport voters when the bus operation had been outed.
People say that in an election where 130 million people vote that fraud does no good. But with a few states that are closely contested and the Electoral College tally very dependent on those swing state numbers, it provides a target for those who are willing and able to commit fraud.
We know that the election of 1960 between JFK and Nixon was very, very close and that there was substantial evidence of voter fraud in Illinois, Texas, Virginia, and a couple of other states. Nixon was encouraged to challenge the result, but chose to concede because he felt the country needed a sure result what with the Cold War being in full swing. That was an honorable thing to do, but it also gave the Democrats encouragement that they could win by fraud.
The Washington State Governor’s race in 2004 was won by the Democrat candidate, Christine Gregoire, over the Reublican, Dino Rossi, by 130 votes. There were three recounts. The Democrats lost the first two. Then a third recount was undertaken where 570 “new” ballots were included in the count. Gregoire won by 130 votes out of over 1 million cast. After the election was certified and the results cast in stone, a conservative talk show host did an investigation that found there were 50 ballots that showed the exact same address indicating that fraud was a part of the election. It was not a clean election and the Democrats once again were able to win using fraud.
That is why voter ID and constant updating/purging of registration rolls is necessary. Guess who is against that?
Trump is correct that the system is rigged against a Republican. The MSM is an arm of the Democrat Party. We are now dead certain of that since the WikiLeaks e-mails have come out. There are Democrat associated organizations that instigated violence at Trump rallies. Now we have video showing Democrat operatives admitting to moving fraudulent voters into targeted precincts in swing states.
We need to wake up and smell the coffee. If you are a Republican and have a polling place near you, volunteer to be a poll watcher. Every state has different rules and procedures for voting. Get involved in your state to try to true the vote to the greatest extent possible.
As to whether Trump should accept the outcome, I would say that it depends. If he’s beaten soundly then he concedes gracefully. If it si close, as the Nixon JFK election was, I think he should at least demand a recount in those areas that look like there may have been some fraud. Fraud and rigging the vote is not out of the question and should be challenged if possible.
“Even if Trump loses by several percentage points in states he was competitive in he should fight it.”
Where does it stop, does his loss have to be above 10% , 15%, 20% ? And if he looses in the recount or the courts do you all plan to take up civil disobedience? Or just go to the burn-it-all-down all bets are off? Get a grip.
Good leaders choose their words carefully and deliberately. They can think quickly because they have fully thought out their positions. Lincoln and Washington are among the best a this. Trump really has not thought out why he wants to be president or even if he ever really wanted to. I think his hardcore followers will be more like Ron Paul’s. the rest will be disappointed in him
West:
I don’t automatically say anything of the sort about those who disagree with me. And if you follow this blog, you know that.
I characterized your comment that way because it fit.
There were a thousand ways for Trump to have responded that paid respect to the American tradition of peaceful transition and yet stated exceptions for a Gore – like situation (extremely rare and unlikely to repeat itself) which was not a case of failure to accept results, but a case of legally challenging ambiguous and shifting results and then accepting the Court’s clarifying decision about what the will of the American people was.
Trump lacks the spirit, the wisdom, and above all the political savvy to do that.
Too many italics in my comment right above this. I’m on my cell phone right now and can’t correct it.
“Even if Trump loses by several percentage points in states he was competitive in he should fight it.”- Brian E
“Where does it stop, does his loss have to be above 10% , 15%, 20% ? And if he looses in the recount or the courts do you all plan to take up civil disobedience? Or just go to the burn-it-all-down all bets are off? Get a grip.”- OM
I don’t know who “you all” are, since I supported Kasich in my primary. I was disappointed when he failed to show up at the convention in his state. I liked Cruz, but didn’t think he had a chance to win.
I might have engaged in a bit of hyperbole, as states have a threshold to trigger a recount and I’m pretty sure it is less than “several”. He could pay for a recount, but though Trump suggests he will have put $100 million of his own money into this election, I doubt he’ll waste more money when it doesn’t have a chance of affecting the outcome.
Given the level of narrative here about Trump’s supporters, it will be interesting to see how they react if Trump loses, especially if it is close. I guess that would vindicate Neo’s view of them if they react badly.
But my larger point that Trump should not roll over if there is significant evidence of fraud. As I said previously, democrat fraud usually is evident when a minimal amount of ballots are needed to tip an election. I’m sure there are strategically placed trunks with ballots ready to be used if needed.
I missed the debate but obviously Trump won hands down.
Why else would the media be focusing their attacks on something so stupidly trivial and hypocritical?
The lack of ‘Hillary Wins Debate’ headlines is deafening.
Oh, and where are the sanctimonious media sermons about decorum and positivity and sticking to the issues?
Neo,
You just shifted the question from whether Trumps position was smart or not (it was, as I pointed out but you won’t acknowledge that) to deciding you didn’t like the tone. When you run for president, you can couch your responses in a way that pleases you.
You also continue to beg the question of the circumstances of the future election completely ruling a out a principled challenge to the results.
Trump is ineloquent, boorish and blunt (he’s a lot like Johnson in some ways), but his instincts are pretty good, and he’s a fast learner. If all you have against him on this issue is a poor choice of words, that’s a pretty thin portfolio compared to the mountain of lies that Hillary Clinton has been proven to speak – among them, that SHE would abide by the results of the election. If anyone is so foolish as to think that the Democrats would not contest the election if they lose by a thin margin, they are contradicted both by the nature of the Democratic party (It’s not over until we win!”) and recent history, as recounted by other commenters above. And, once again, Al Gore.
OM,
It stops when voter fraud is finally taken seriously in this country. The Project Veritas videos provide us with very strong evidence to the effect that voter fraud is real.
Neo,
It’s not reasonable to expect Trump (or any other candidate) to be relied upon to give the appropriately nuanced response to such an odd question. However, he was right to say that his acceptance of the results would not be automatic. If she was forced to answer the question and not dodge it, I have little doubt that HRC would say much the same.
Re “crisis = danger + opportunity “:
The pretend media has bestowed an opportunity for exacting focus on everything from Creamer vote fraud to Mediagate collusion with Dems. If Trump campaign has an ounce of remaining intellectual spunk, they will seize this gift and run with it. It is their best chance, and is a free gift from an overreacting pretend media.
Stan,
That’s because her clumsy attempt to blame her scandals on Russia/Putin looked silly, and her suggestion that her dream of “open trade and open borders” (per WikiLeaks) only applied to the free flow of energy (as if there doesn’t already exist a functioning global market for energy) wasn’t believable.
I’ve said I’d respond to DNW’s “positive case” for trump.
http://neoneocon.com/2016/09/29/gary-johnson-gets-an-endorsement/#comment-1719171
Apologies if this is tangential to the current topic, but rather than posting it way back where, to be lost, thought it better to be in current discussion.
Here is Part I (Part II follows, and more might come, if time permits)…
.
1) trump’s Believability
The most important point is that DNW’s entire case is premised on the assumption that trump can be trusted.
The problem is threefold for this assumption:
.
a) Inconsistency With trump’s Past
trump’s past positions (that are easily googled, btw) indicate he has had very different view from what he has now. AND, he provides no plausible explanation for such a huge change – this should be troubling (and is for many), but evidently not for DNW.
Just one example… universal healthcare… he even admits he has a liberal position
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-supports-national-health-care-2011-4
And another… since it is a key part of his platform – immigration – he described Romney’s policy as “crazy” and “maniacal” wrt illegal immigrants … what a change in four years!…
https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Donald-Trump-Ronald-Kessler/2012/11/26/id/465363/
There is plenty more if one cares to review his entire history, and not look merely at his most recent statements, which brings us to…
.
b) Inconsistencies During trump’s Campaign
His current positions are full of contradictions or lack clarity to know just what he plans to do.
One can, again, google to find the many contradictions in what he says wrt his “policy”. Often he is vague enough to give space for the audience to “hear” what they want to “hear” (i.e. he consistently lacks details for the “how”).
Some have done this research already, and point back to trump’s own words to make the case…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/17/20-times-donald-trump-has-changed-his-mind-since-june/
(note that this is already by June 2015 – over a year ago)
And more recently…
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-donald-trump-s-rapidly-changing-policy-positions-n547801
We don’t have to take it all as gospel, and can expect some spinning by the media, but it is pretty d*mning when all they need to do is point to trump’s own words.
.
c) No Basis for Belief
trump’s believability on any of his stances is up for debate – and that hits at the core of the “positive case” for trump.
And, it’s not as if there wasn’t a discussion (several) here on this point… one direct to this point example…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/05/05/trump-its-all-mutable/
This begs the question, “On what basis is trump to be believed?” – Take his word for it? Which word(s)?
We never really get a good answer on this from DNW, nor other trump supporters.
.
Part II follows….
Wallace’s question either
1 contained an invalid premise: “voter fraud is not widespread enough to tip an election”,
or
2 was an assertion that Americans ought accept injustice.
In my fantasy, Trump would have quoted Amos 5:
“Let justice roll down like a mighty river, and righteousness like a never ending stream”
gcotharn,
He’s bringing it up constantly, especially as it fits so well with his campaign narrative that HRC is “crooked” and the election might be “rigged.” O’Keefe was one of his special guests at last night’s debate (along with Malik Obama and Pat Smith).
“Trump is ineloquent, boorish and blunt (he’s a lot like Johnson in some ways), but his instincts are pretty good, and he’s a fast learner. “
Evidence, please.
Here’s my take, for what it’s worth. Voter fraud is very, very bad and we should fight for systems that prevent that. I’m in IT and my biggest fear is people hacking electronic voting machines. I’ve actually been concerned about Russia jacking with our election where they can. I hope that’s not the case. I hope our government is smarter than that but on that my confidence is pretty low.
All that being said, yes, Trump should have answered better and he should have known he was going to be asked the question. A patriot doesn’t want to burn down the country or sow doubt about its institutions. He could have said any number of things that would have been better than the idiotic “suspense” comment and I believe even Trump is capable of memorizing a gracious sentence or two:
“If the vote is close we’re definitely going to want to look at it, but my intent is to abide by the results of a free and fair election. I have concerns about voter fraud, as do many people in our country right and left, and feel that the best thing for our country and the credibility of our institutions is to fight hard against anything that could call our elections into question.”
He then could have launched into a discussion of some of the troubling recent cases that have been mentioned above, candidly but without his normal fact-free conspiracy-based reasoning.
My expectation (not prediction) is that it won’t be a close election. If it’s not close and he still won’t accept the results, he’s at best an awful whiner of a loser and at worst he’s going to inject more violence and vitriol into an already unstable situation this year.
“And no, this wasn’t about the MSM’s rules or the “establishment’s” rules. It’s about a tradition in the US that’s been set for its entire existence as a republic.
accepting the Court’s clarifying decision about what the will of the American people was.” neo
Clearly, you’re laboring under the belief that the tradition you cite still exists on both sides. It only exists on the right, which means… it no longer exists.
The rule of law either applies to both sides… or it doesn’t exist. Only the pretense that it exists remains and, then only if the losing side cooperates in that pretense, preferring pretense over confrontation.
As for this court offering an honest and clarifying decision… if the election is very close and challenged, the 4 liberal/leftists on the court will never agree to an honest ruling that results in Trump’s election.
The democrat party and their propaganda organ the MSM and the dems big donors are all co-conspirators in a criminal enterprise. Dedicated to America’s fundamental transformation into a society that denies individual liberty, using whatever means are required.
He’s doing his best to undermine any belief at all in our political system among folks who, for one reason or another, are susceptible to that message. What a horrible man.
gcotharn,
The main problem with Wallace’s question is that it concerns an event that has yet to fully transpire. The initial outcome of the election, and whatever circumstances that come with it, is not yet known. In the event Trump were to lose the election as a result of losing some battleground state by a sufficiently small margin (whatever that is) then he would be a fool not to make sure as best he could that voter fraud is not what made HRC the winner in that state.
Ann,
Trump is right to question the fairness of our process seeing as how the Project Veritas sting videos give us very good reason to believe that widespread voter fraud is actually happening. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that this sort of thing cannot possibly be happening.
Hopefully this will be a moot point and the election won’t be close.
Trump lacks the spirit, the wisdom, and above all the political savvy to do that. — neo
For me, that’s the point.
Trump managed a decent, even strong debate but threw in “rigged elections” and that’s all that’s in the news.
It may not be fair, but it was completely predictable and is the cherry on the top of Trump’s defeat.
This was Trump’s last chance to persuade voters that he could be a serious guy to sit in the Big Chair and he threw in this chunk of red meat, which the base might like but the MSM would like better as proof that Trump is a wacko.
Just as predictably Trump supporters rushed into siupport this stupid move.
So how does Trump win now? This was his last chance to strongly move the needle in his favor. Now there is nothing left to do but hope that a vein in Hillary’s head explodes or the Muslims nuke Manhattan.
All hail President Hillary Clinton. Thank you, Donald Trump and everyone who enabled him.
Interesting perspective, Ann. In my lifetime, cheating in the election process has been presumed since JFK’s election. I’m from Chicago…point taken. Your comment indicates that we should all just live in denial and believe that everything is copacetic. Dealing with reality is the only way one can problem solve. Reality is coming home to roost on this big delusion.
GB,
Just a fantasy thought. It would be a fitting end to this contentious and unkind election if it somehow did wind up at SCOTUS. No matter the outcome there would be a great nationwide loss of support in our current government.
Imagine the scenarios (regardless of the reason it reaches SCOTUS):
The full complement of 8 Justices:
Ginsberg recuses herself because of her earlier public comments about Trump and seven justices:
T says–
Just a fantasy…
More fantasy. Riots break out when Trump is declared the winner in scenario 3 and Obama declares martial law and invoking Lincoln’s memory declares the results null and void and continues in office, promising a full and fair election at some time in the future.
West:
No, my answer was not about tone.
It was about content as well as tone. Both are part of a message or communication of any sort, and a smart and savvy politician knows that.
Trump was deficient and vulnerable on both scores. You (and many if not most Trump supporters) ignore that at your peril. But both are among the reasons Trump is losing.
Those words of his were music to the ears of his supporters. Trouble is, he doesn’t have enough supporters to win. Those words turned off and frightened those he needs to persuade to get on board, and he’s fast running out of chances to change that.
He throws you and others a fish, and most of those people would already walk on broken glass to vote for him. Everyone else goes, “Ugh!!” Meanwhile , the MS and the Democrats celebrate, because they know Trump just handed them another gift.
Okay, but very same criticism can also be level against HRC. It’s not as if she has the “spirit,” “wisdom,” and “political savvy” needed to be a good president in these difficult times. She was a disaster as Obama’s SOS in supporting regime change in Libya/Syria and bears responsibility for the ongoing refugee crisis, unaccomplished as a New York Senator, and otherwise wholly unremarkable apart from her unsavory personal character and willingness to stay married to a sexual predator for a husband (who also happens to be quite politically talented).
Huxley,
This was Trump’s last chance to persuade voters that he could be a serious guy to sit in the Big Chair and he threw in this chunk of red meat, which the base might like but the MSM would like better as proof that Trump is a wacko.
I just finished listening to Law Professor Richard Epstein at Ricochet’s “The Libertarian” Podcast. Professor Epstein mentioned that a friend of his described this election as between the criminal (Hillary Clinton) and the mad man (Donald Trump).
Epstein said that some people wonder if Trump could be so unstable as to launch a nuclear war and says, “If you lose on the nuclear issue, it doesn’t matter if you win on the issue of welfare reform.”
West:
Also, your very first comment on this thread made it clear that a Trump win is less important to YOU than that he make an accusation of this sort. That sentiment that you stated belies the oft-repeated argument that defeating Hillary is the top priority of Trump supporters. For some, having him shoot from the hip and mouth off is apparently more important.
Spiral:
Epstein correctly stated the sad sad truth.
Even if voter fraud wasn’t an issue, our current system is already in a bad state as the national media have almost completely abandoned their responsibility to inform the public and have chosen instead to emotionally manipulate as many people as they can to vote for the D candidate (whoever that is) by demonizing the R candidate (whoever that is) via a now predictable stream of Hitler comparisons, sex scandals, accusations of racism, etc. That they were successful in doing this to squeaky clean Romney proves they can do this to just about anyone.
Okay, but very same criticism can also be level against HRC.
Meh: But this is not about fairness in some ideal world. It is about facts on the ground and winning an election in reality.
The facts are (1) non-base voters rightly view Trump as a marginal wacko candidate and (2) the MSM is backing Hillary to the hilt and will highlight any wacko comment Trump makes to scare people away from Trump, who is plenty scary without the MSM’s help.
Neo,
That is even doubtful, as the one candidate who has a proven track record of being a warmonger is HRC. Her desire to arm the rebels in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere while serving as Obama’s SOS was disastrous and led to the current refugee crisis. This is also the same candidate who casually jokes about whether we can “just drone” Assange. I don’t remember Trump casually joking about killing people he didn’t like. But maybe you have a different idea as to what a peaceful person who doesn’t recklessly resort to violence looks like.
Epstein said that some people wonder if Trump could be so unstable as to launch a nuclear war and says, “If you lose on the nuclear issue, it doesn’t matter if you win on the issue of welfare reform.”
Spirial: Exactly. Trump supporters pooh-pooh this at their peril.
I think Hillary is entirely diabolical in her leftie way. But I also can imagine Trump going into some stupid hissy fit and punching nuclear buttons and I don’t believe Hillary would.
Trump has nuked his campaign twice now with stupid emotional attacks. Why not the world? Does anything exist to Donald Trump besides Donald Trump?
” We’ve had 7.5 years where the Obama Administration has not only refused to prosecute voter fraud…
— VF Investigations in TX, IN, and other states
— the OH electrician’s finding 10 boxes of ballots already marked for Hillary in warehouse…” – bitterman
IIRC, the man finding those boxes was a photoshopped image, a hoax.
Quite frankly, isn’t it each state that runs the voting process?
Shouldn’t they be investigating too?
TX and IN have GOP Governors!
Why is it they won’t investigate? Or, if they did, why is it they don’t seem to get a conviction over something so “obvious” and with such an “impact”?
I’m for voter id, and cleaned up voter rolls (no serious excuse to be way out of date nowadays), etc. However, anecdotal evidence here and there do not make a vast organized effort.
Things I worry about more is, as Bill outlines, foreign interference. That can be in many forms: hacking voter rolls or voting booths (to disrupt), hacking emails (to cast FUD over their least favored candidate, or to insert disinformation), surreptitiously funding their favored candidate (or even purposefully getting caught doing so – more FUD).
This last point in 2012 didn’t get enough coverage, afaic, and is more real / has much larger impact than most of the cases of VF people here are complaining about…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/24/obama-campaigns-illegal-foreign-donations/
FUD = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
Maybe so. But I submit that Trump’s refusal to automatically accept the initial outcome of the election was by no means a “wacko comment.” Again, it’s not as if we live in a country in which widespread voter fraud could not possibly take place (if you don’t believe me, then watch the Project Veritas videos).
“… comment Trump makes to scare people away from Trump, who is plenty scary without the MSM’s help.” – huxley
Saying that he would wait and see the results before accepting the results isn’t “wacko.”
You know what’s scary. The idea of 4 years of Obama’s third term.
“much larger potential impact”
We don’t know how “legit” funds raised through that website were, given the rules in place, and inability to audit.
Maybe so.
Meh: Not maybe so. Absolutely so.
Do you want to win this election or be right about voter fraud?
There is a time and place for discussing voter fraud. Donald Trump only does it when he is losing and most people, with good reason, just see cynical partisan manipulation by Trump.
I cannot. I very much doubt that Trump could have been any kind of success in the business world if he had the emotional maturity of a little child and was prone to “hissy fits.” On the other hand, I cannot imagine a time when HRC was held accountable for anything she did. At this point she probably feels entitled to play God with anyone’s life and that scares me (so long as we’re going to stay in the realm of feels).
You know what’s scary. The idea of 4 years of Obama’s third term.
Yep and that’s why I have opposed Trump from the beginning.
It’s a shame that Trump supporters can’t see they have insured four more years of Obama.
Thanks, Trump supporters! Hope the catharsis was worth it.
NPR is reporting the Veritas video.
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/19/498587397/sting-video-purports-to-show-democrats-describing-how-to-commit-voter-fraud
Any bets that there is nobody on the GOP side is doing / talking similar?
“Trump has nuked his campaign twice now with stupid emotional attacks. Why not the world? Does anything exist to Donald Trump besides Donald Trump?”-huxley
Remember Bush Derangement Syndrome? This is a good example of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.
The chosen terminology, “nuked his campaign”. The hyperbole, “Why not the world?”
In light of this reality-based comment, “…as the one candidate who has a proven track record of being a warmonger is HRC. Her desire to arm the rebels in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere while serving as Obama’s SOS was disastrous and led to the current refugee crisis. This is also the same candidate who casually jokes about whether we can “just drone” Assange. I don’t remember Trump casually joking about killing people he didn’t like.” (Meh),
what a wild departure from reasoned discourse.
Honestly, it makes sense for Trump to talk about the risk of voter fraud. This makes the Project Veritas sting videos (which are O’Keefe’s October surprise for HRC) an object of public discussion and not something to be ignored. Moreover, Trump’s concern about voter fraud fits his campaign narrative that HRC is “crooked,” etc. His spox can also point out that any outrage from left-wing partisans is utterly hypocritical given the insistence among HRC and others that Bush was “selected not elected,” etc. The whole subject is in Trump’s wheelhouse.
“Does anything exist to Donald Trump besides Donald Trump?” – huxley
One word:
IVANKA!
You already know what he says of her.
whoops forgot /s
All this talk of voter fraud.
Yet, it doesn’t explain the polling that trump once pointed to as proof of how great he was, but now says are rigged.
Very much doubt the average of polls are rigged.
I could be wrong about this but I am for the moment convinced that any other R candidate would have been dead and buried by now. It’s an easy thing for the media to manufacture a bunch of phony sex scandals and obsess over a less than perfect response. All this could have just as easily been done to Cruz, Rubio, Jeb, etc. Moreover, unlike Trump, the other R candidates tacitly accept the completely unfair double-standard that they would be held to and wouldn’t resist it to the degree Trump is doing.
Voter fraud and polling are two different subjects. Let’s not confuse them, please.
You know what’s scary. The idea of 4 years of Obama’s third term.- Me
“Yep and that’s why I have opposed Trump from the beginning.
It’s a shame that Trump supporters can’t see they have insured four more years of Obama.
Thanks, Trump supporters! Hope the catharsis was worth it.”- huxley
I would suggest you save the retribution for after the election and in the short term, vote for Trump.
Exactly! People around here shouldn’t let themselves be emotionally manipulated by the media. They create a false impression of what all the right people think, and too many go along with it out of a (probably unconscious) desire to conform to where they think the group is heading.
It amazes me the inside knowledge so many have about Trump’s reasons for doing x,y and z. I don’t know his motives, any more than I know the motives for Jeb! pursuing the office of President. I’ll judge the actions. And yes, Trump’s actions were enough to keep me and about 65% of other Republican primary voters from supporting him, (based on an analysis Levin did after his nomination). So now I must vote based on what I know to be true (Hillary’s laundry list of public office malfeasance is myriad) and what I surmise Trump may do in office. But, importantly, this is not monolithic. Each candidate represents a platform and direction. Hillary is supported by George Soros and is a proven Leftist who will continue to undermine the Republic in every fundamental way. Trump may be a lot of things, but he does have the support of conservative voices and has proffered pro-life judges on his nomination list. I’m not going to join my arch-enemies politically, trumpeting (excuse this attempt at humor) their talking points in order to place another Leftist Emperor on the throne.
Spiral Says:
“If you lose on the nuclear issue, it doesn’t matter if you win on the issue of welfare reform.”
I tried in vain to make this argument to Trump supporters in the earliest days: it didn’t matter if Trump sealed the border if he exploded the economy.
They didn’t seem to care about anything else, and now I think it was because they never really cared about the issues: Trump was their method of revenge.
His nomination was more about emotional catharsis than serious policy reform. It would’ve been cheaper for them to just enter therapy.
This is similar to how I see things as well. Again, all this hyperventilating about what kind of politician Trump might become is hard for me to understand (apart from media driven emotional manipulation, of course) given that we know for a fact the awful sort of politician that HRC has already let herself become.
Sharon W,
It’s not difficult to conclude that Trump is a Leftist pretending to be a Republican.
Trump donated to Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid.
Trump supported the assault weapons ban, single payer socialized medicine, partial birth abortion and President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan.
Sure, people can change their minds on political issues. But even during this current election cycle, Trump praised socialized medicine during the 1st 2015 Republican presidential debate.
So, if one views the Trump versus Clinton contest as a choice between two New York Leftist Democrats, Trump being the borderline crazy and Clinton being very calculating, one can justifiably refuse to vote for either.
Brian E Says:
I would suggest you save the retribution for after the election and in the short term, vote for Trump.
Nope. The time to punish the people who did this to us (Trump supporters) is now. They strapped us all to this suicide train, and they need to pay for it.
I do not negotiate with terrorists.
“West:
Also, your very first comment on this thread made it clear that a Trump win is less important to YOU than that he make an accusation of this sort. That sentiment that you stated belies the oft-repeated argument that defeating Hillary is the top priority of Trump supporters. For some, having him shoot from the hip and mouth off is apparently more important.”
You first sentence is absolutely not true. I said Trump may lose, but I did not assert that this item will be a causative factor – and it won’t be, he only people who have their panties in a twist over this are one who cannot get their minds out of the rut that the media/establishment have plowed for them. What is happening here is my analysis differs from yours, and you characterize that as proof:
1. That I am a rabid Trump supporter (hardly, I am just rabidly anti-Hillary).
2. That I don’t care who wins, I just want to score emotional points.
The very clear point of my first post was that playing by the rules (the media/establishment rules, not the rule of law) is a losing strategy, therefore not playing by the rules is a potentially winning one. Not guaranteed, but better strategy than that of McCain & Romney. How you translate that into I don’t care who wins is a f-in mystery.
You can honestly disagree with my analysis, but you didn’t do that, you cast aspersions at my motives.
That’s why I came back at you and tried to clarify, and then you changed the subject. one more go around about what he said and how he said it, and you come back to your first conclusion, without ever addressing even one single one of the points I made.
Enough beating this to death, though, it’s a non-issue.
I just was disappointed that you jumped right into psychoanalysis of me instead or arguing my point, and I guess I’ll just have to stay disappointed.
Spiral–I can’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good (or in this case, maybe just “hopefully better” would have to suffice). There is hope with Trump, even if infinitesimal; there is CERTAINTY of serious damage with Hillary. (Forgive the caps; I do not know how to italicize or bold in a comment.)
Did you forget what kind of warmonger HRC was as Obama’s SOS in advocating for regime change in Libya/Syria, which gave rise to the current refugee crisis? Or her causal joking that maybe we can “just drone” Assange (someone she happens to not like very much right now)? Or her campaign’s financing of political black ops designed to incite violence at Trump rallies (per the Project Veritas sting videos)? Given all this, is there any good reason to think that Trump is really the one most likely to blow up the world?
Also, this election won’t be close. Democrat fraud AT THE POLLS won’t be necessary. They did all their fraud much earlier.
Meh,
I very much doubt that Trump could have been any kind of success in the business world if he had the emotional maturity of a little child and was prone to “hissy fits.”
It’s hard to beat Trump’s business model: inheriting a fortune from ones father.
Trump has not been any more of a success in business than Paris Hilton.
Lol! Do you really think that those who supported Trump in the primary are terrorists. That’s ridiculous.
That’s not being fair. Yes, he had access to some money early on, but he’s had enough ups and downs since then that you can’t reasonably attribute whatever success he’s had to being a rich man’s son. He had to have a little bit more going for him than Paris Hilton (personally speaking) to survive the downs that come with being in business and get to where he is today.
“I tried in vain to make this argument to Trump supporters in the earliest days: it didn’t matter if Trump sealed the border if he exploded the economy.
They didn’t seem to care about anything else, and now I think it was because they never really cared about the issues: Trump was their method of revenge.” – Matt Se
That’s the “F U” wing of the trumpistan party.
http://neoneocon.com/2016/10/18/trump-on-the-ropes/#comment-1794880
Spiral–With all due respect, that is insulting to Trump, and unnecessary. Read The Millionaire Next Door, and you will find that your statement is actually false. The majority of people who inherit wealth, squander it or never make any more of it other than what was given. There is plenty to have issues with, without joining our Leftist opponents and repeating nonsense meant to sabotage our “side”. When it comes to criticism, I try to apply what I think would be fairly said if “said person” was my son or daughter. If my son inherited a fortune and made more of it (lawfully), I would be proud, and if people maligned him for his opportunity, I would judge that person as contemptuous or jealous.
I don’t think wallowing in intramural ridicule is the right thing to be doing at this point (if it ever is).
Thank you! People who have the emotional maturity of a little child and are prone to “hissy fits” are not exactly the sort of people who manage to retain their wealth.
Meh,
I don’t think wallowing in intramural ridicule is the right thing to be doing at this point (if it ever is).
When a Leftist New York Democrat wins the Republican presidential nomination, intramural ridicule is entirely appropriate.
In 2020, I hope Republican primary voters nominate a Republican. A moderate Republican, a conservative Republican. But a Republican.
They should not nominate someone who is/was a donor to Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid.
They should also avoid nominating someone who says that socialized medicine works “incredibly well.”
While they are at it, maybe Republican primary voters should refuse to nominate someone who thinks Rafael Cruz was involved in the JFK assassination because he read about it in the National Enquirer.
I don’t think these “standards” I am applying are unrealistic.
Meh,
So, if I were to inherit a fortune of 200 million dollars and yet I am still inclined to run scams on middle class people like Trump University, this makes me a successful businessman?
West:
I did not say you said that comment of his would CAUSE his loss.
I said exactly what I meant, and it was not that.
You had written it was a smart move of his even if he didn’t win. That indicates more interest in his saying this than in winning, because what many other people have been saying is that this statement of his could and probably will hurt his chances of winning.
“Apart from responding to another country’s first use, the scenarios under which a US president would consider authorizing the use of these weapons are so limited as to be almost inconceivable.”
From:
http://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/102feiv.pdf
Nuclear weapons are defensive in nature. Our official policy is that use of them would be in reaction to a strike by another nuclear armed nation. Such a strike against us would not be successful because we have at all times enough nukes ready to go to obliterate any of our nuclear enemies. Thus, nuclear war is made unthinkable…….except to religious fanatics who yearn for martyrdom and believe that using a nuke on Israel or the U.S. would bring about an apocalyptic return of the Seventh Mahdi.
The nuclear “football” is only made operational when NORAD has positively identified an incoming strike from Russia, China, or at some future date, Iran or North Korea. At that time the President has the authority to authorize a return strike by punching in the correct codes. But even that is subject to verification. The checks and counter checks are designed to make a nuclear accident as close to impossible as is humanly possible.
To talk about the President, no matter who he/she is, suddenly deciding to nuke some enemy is just wishful thinking.
Meh:
The point is that most voters perceive Trump as a near-crazy loose cannon, and he periodically feeds into that. Hillary is perceived as more steady.
All Trump had to do was appear steady. He couldn’t do it.
Elections are very much a game of voters’ perceptions.
The latest: Jim Murphy, the Trump campaign’s national political director, has decided to “take a step back from the campaign”. For personal reasons, of course.
How do we even know that Donald Trump is even slightly to the right of Hillary Clinton?
Given that Trump has donated money to the campaigns of Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, given that Trump has expressed support for socialized medicine, the assault weapons ban, partial birth abortion and President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan, why does anyone think that Trump would be even a tiny bit less of a Leftist, once elected president, than Hillary Clinton?
Just because during the last 18 months Trump has decided to talk like a conservative on some issues?
Are we conservatives that gullible?
Matt_SE Says:
October 20th, 2016 at 5:31 pm
Brian E Says:
I would suggest you save the retribution for after the election and in the short term, vote for Trump.
Nope. The time to punish the people who did this to us (Trump supporters) is now. They strapped us all to this suicide train, and they need to pay for it.
I do not negotiate with terrorists.
&&&
It was the MEDIA and the Clinton Machine that elevated Trump and drowned Cruz in silence.
Cruz won the Iowa caucus — and in a normal season would’ve had a decent showing in New Hampshire.
The MSM went into hyper drive to boost all non-Cruz candidates.
From the first to the last, Cruz was the fella they feared the most.
For he was on target.
&&&&
Folks, we’re facing a political firestorm.
It’s immoral to stand with your hands in your pockets and let a gal with proven criminality — and a HOT temper — sit in the big chair.
You may not like his style. He’s FAR from my ideal.
But he’s not a proven war monger.
She OWNS Libya. She twisted Barry’s arm darn near clean off.
She’s hopelessly emotionally involved with Huma — who is a conduit to the MB and the other Salafists.
She’s pitched policy options that would guarantee war with Russia — and that the opinion of our top generals — not just me.
Putin is racing his fleets to the Med to get ahead of Hillary.
Yes, it’s THAT intense.
Putin honestly figures that she’s THAT bold. On her track record — he’s right.
&&&
There is simply no way that the tabulation will NOT be hacked.
You’re certain to have Google, Apple and MSFT hacking for Hillary.
One can only hope that Russia counter hacks for Trump.
In such a contest, the odds wildly favor the American trio.
The tabulation in most areas runs on Windows XP operating systems. YES.
And it has more back doors than a bordello.
Each and every one of these machines is hackable by way of a memory stick — in the style of Stuxnet. The hack would be totally robotic, totally digital.
Modern black hats have code that cleans up after itself, so that subsequent digital audits can ne’re tell it was ever there. ( It writes back over itself as its last act then flushes itself from RAM. )
So to thwart such a penetration, EVERY single system needs to be freshly mounted — from scratch — with no connection possible to the outside — no USB ports in particular.
For obvious reasons of economy and practice, this is not currently done.
The folks are that over confident about their digital security.
The Iranians felt the same way for months even as their machines kept blowing up. They had to told by outsiders. (Russian hackers, IIRC.)
Spiral:
One-third of them were.
And apparently that was enough.
The majority of people who inherit wealth, squander it or never make any more of it other than what was given. T
Given how many bankruptcies Trum has had, including the multi Billion Atlantic casino ones, he has wasted plenty, probably more than he ever inherited. But he had good accountants and lawyers, so he wasn’t entirely destroyed.
Many people at his level, just won’t bother with a narcissistic throw back to alpha gorilla dominance, and Trum made good use of that. They didn’t help him out, except his New York allies, but they didn’t directly attack him either, because they knew Trum would attack back fiercer.
It’s an insult to our intelligence to think that Trum got into the red by several BILLIONS in the Atlantic casino lol Fail, and it’s ok because he inherited even more billions to begin with. I don’t think so.
I’m beginning to notice some statistical inferences. Namely that Sharon and others for Trum, believe the elections are rigged for Democrats.
It’s part of that “Doomsday prophecy” thing people would have liked to make fun of in 2007, except I hadn’t made any prophecies in 2007 yet. The recent Doomsday prophecies, aka CW2 in the US, was of recent manufacture, notably after the Tea Party’s fall due to Leftist sabotage and treason after 2012. Happened before 2012, but the American people were so CLUELESS, they didn’t figure it out until later.
So basically, for those that can no longer underestimate the power of the Leftist alliance, they become desperate and thus under the power of Trum.
Those who are neutral like me, or those who refuse to believe in American problems like evil or election fraud, are more anti Trum, and only anti Clinton in the sense that Clinton is a crim or bad, not because of the power of the Leftist alliance.
But, of course, election fraud and Leftist evil to me justifies war, it doesn’t justify Voting Harder For your Elections. It’s technically their elections not yours any more.
neo-neocon Says:
October 20th, 2016 at 6:18 pm
Meh:
The point is that most voters perceive Trump as a near-crazy loose cannon, and he periodically feeds into that. Hillary is perceived as more steady.
All Trump had to do was appear steady. He couldn’t do it.
Elections are very much a game of voters’ perceptions.
&&
Yes, yes.
This is PURE Cialdini.
His tactics are immune to IQ, education, and written analysis.
Privileged Moments
The Importance of Attention
What’s Focus is Causal
Commanders of Attention 1: The Attractors
Commanders of Attention 2: The Magnetizers
You’ll note that Hillary’s “That’s OUTRAGEOUS!” used every point of this tick list; each a chapter in Pre-Suasion.
The seconds after Trump spoke was a privileged moment. Hillary had been trained by Cialdini to recognize such events — and to keep her response ultra short… MSM sound bite worthy.
The result was ATTENTION across the Leftist Media — like an earthquake.
Then everyone FOCUSED on Trump’s remark.
“If people see themselves giving special attention to some factor, they become more likely to think of it as a cause.”
In this case, a cause to reject Trump. Whereas, logically, nothing Trump said is at all in variance with prior political norms. Yet, Hillary flamed his position as outrageous… and it’s sticking — for many.
Logical counter-argument is for naught in such cases, BTW.
The human mind is not wired that way. It just thinks it is.
&&&
I repeat, Pre-Suasion is MUST reading.
It has application wherever, whenever you must deal with people.
It works non-verbally. IQ and logical analysis is NO DEFENSE.
In software lingo, it operates on our root human thinking machine. It actually transcends time and culture.
The gambits he spells out — harken directly back to Dr Goebbels — who plainly knew this material — but never published it.
A diabolical soul so armed is a universal threat to the Republic.
See: Hillary Clinton, Cialdini’s patron.
Neo,
The media was able to convince a large share of the electorate that Bush was a warmonger a la Hitler when no such thing was the case, and don’t get me started on how the media successfully manipulated so many people into thinking that squeaky clean Romney was a xenophobic racist antifeminist Mormon extremist weirdo. Our predicament is that no matter who survives the primary process, the media will make them an object of hatred and scorn in the eyes of many. Does it make more sense to find the perfect candidate whom the media cannot possibly demonize? Or find a candidate who is not willing to accept the double-standard and fight back?
“How do we even know that Donald Trump is even slightly to the right of Hillary Clinton?
Given that Trump has donated money to the campaigns of Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, given that Trump has expressed support for socialized medicine, the assault weapons ban, partial birth abortion and President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan, why does anyone think that Trump would be even a tiny bit less of a Leftist, once elected president, than Hillary Clinton?”-Spiral
I have no problem believing that Trump opened his eyes and realized that the Republic is in danger, when before he merely did what was accepted as “business-politics as usual”. A lot has changed under this administration, especially in the last 4 years. Unable-to-be-properly vetted Muslim immigration alone changes everything when we’re witnessing an increase in attacks, even in our own country. Trump’s eyes were opened, while many remain in the Leftist SJW fog. Most of us wanted, _____________(fill in the blank), but we have Trump and at least his SC judge list offers hope, whereas there is less than none with Leftist, Soros-supported Hillary. So, are we now going to castigate and disparage every liberal attempting to make his way from the swamp of destructive policies? At what point are the bona fides acceptable? Frankly there are MANY Republicans I have MANY issues with as well. We have to work with what is the present reality. That is what I believe Giuliani (Catholic & pro-abortion), et al believe as well.
Sharon W,
Or the Trump who donated all that money to all those Democrats, the Trump who endorsed all those Leftist policies is the real Trump and the Trump who has spoken a few conservative lines during the past 18 months is a fake.
I’m betting that the real Trump is the one who endorsed Obama’s economic stimulus plan in 2009, donated to Harry Reid in 2010 and said, during the 1st Republican presidential debate in 2015, Socialized medicine works “incredibly well.”
Electing a Leftist New York Democrat in order to prevent another Leftist New York Democrat from winning the white house accomplishes nothing at all.
Meh
“The media was able to convince a large share of the electorate that Bush was a warmonger a la Hitler when no such thing was the case”
It may be just a minor note of contention to the case you’re making, but Bush won two elections and served the max time allowable as President.
The press is powerful. They aren’t all-powerful. And there are plenty of influential and widely disseminated “conservative” (I have to use scare quotes now) news and opinion sources. Tons of them.
The descent of the Republican party into fear, victimhood, and wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing is one reason I’m not a Republican anymore. I’m still a conservative, but not wearing the team jersey. Just sitting here with no shirt on anymore and people in the stands hurling beer cans at me. A man without a party.
We know from emails that Clinton colluded with the DNC to do everything possible to fix the primary. She was afraid of a repeat of 2008 where she thought she had it in the bag and lost to a nobody. As it was, Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere and made a decent run against her. Do you really think that the Democrats aren’t trying to fix the general election? Trump was clumsy but he’s correct.
Ann Says at 4:09 pm
“He’s doing his best to undermine any belief at all in our political system among folks who, for one reason or another, are susceptible to that message. What a horrible man.”
How can Trump undermine belief in a political system which has already been destroyed by the other side?
“Do you really think that the Democrats aren’t trying to fix the general election?”
I would imagine they are trying to do everything they can to win, whether ethical/legal or not. Yes.
“Trump was clumsy but he’s correct.”
It depends. Election shenanigans can’t be blamed if he loses by 70 electoral votes. But I expect him to blame them anyway, regardless of the consequences.
If the Republicans are this concerned, I hope they are hiring poll watchers, cyber security experts, legal help, etc.
And they have congress, and they had the Presidency and congress for awhile there. Pass laws requiring non-electronic voting in all federal elections, with a security regime around those and stiff penalties for people breaking the law, and with bipartisan involvement. Fight for that – enough people in this country are concerned about election-fixing that even Obama (and soon probably Hillary) might be coerced into signing. If not, use it as an election issue (after doing your first order of business, which is nominating someone who is actually a conservative and has a grasp of the issues and who ISN’T a clumsy speaker).
Here’s what’s not working: whining about it and playing the victim. People might sympathize, but they won’t respect. If there is illegality, fight hard to put people in jail. Quit whining when the FBI director doesn’t do what you want. Nominate someone who can win and then you can install your own FBI director. Make people who break the law feel pain.
Outwit. Outrun. Out-strategize. Out-plan. Be smart. Be bold. Above all, don’t be a victim. Grow a spine.
These are reasons why the party apparatchiks, guys like Reince, need to be gone. And Trump – who wouldn’t know a winning strategy if it sallied up and invited him to grab it by the [blank] – needs to go too.
“If you lose on the nuclear issue, it doesn’t matter if you win on the issue of welfare reform.” Law Professor Richard Epstein
Well that’s true. So the good professor’s alternative is the continuance of the Left’s march to the collective. Since it’s either Trump or Hillary and, the professor warns against Trump, Hillary is his de facto choice.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
“I also can imagine Trump going into some stupid hissy fit and punching nuclear buttons and I don’t believe Hillary would.” huxley
I disagree with the implied probability, while agreeing that it’s a distant possibility. I do agree that Hillary won’t, she’ll just continue our march toward nuclear terrorism.
“I tried in vain to make this argument to Trump supporters in the earliest days” Matt_SE
Stupid, stupid, stupid people, unwilling to agree with the obvious…
“In 2020, I hope Republican primary voters nominate a Republican.” Spiral
Oh, they will. It simply won’t mean anything. 25 million new, “undocumented” democrats will ensure it.
All the fear of Trump’s potential ‘instability’ ignores the certainty that Hillary’s path leads to; the end of the Republic. And a future where “the consent of the governed” is a distant memory of the old, disbelieved by the young who never learned of it in ‘school’.
“If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln
What Are The NAFTA and TPP Trump and Clinton Fought About in the Debate?
In the presidential debates, Trump and Clinton referenced the NAFTA and TPP trade deals. What are they and are they good, or bad, for America?
And no, Gore didn’t violate it…and he was right to challenge it
Neo, I agree with most of what you say (which is why, even though I’ve been a reader here for over eight years now, I rarely comment), but this is wrong.
Al Gore knew he lost the Florida election and thus the presidency. He was trying to steal it. His comments about trying to “make sure every vote is counted” were self-serving twaddle.
Anyone who understands statistical sampling understands exactly what he was trying to do.
Were his intentions honorable, he would have pressed for a full statewide recount, not a series of limited local ones.
Sharon W,
There is hope with Trump, even if infinitesimal; there is CERTAINTY of serious damage with Hillary.
You’ve said this here many times, but I think you’re engaging in short-term thinking, never looking past this one election. You’re not alone in this.
If Trump wins, he and his alt-right minions will control the Republican party as thoroughly as the Clintons controlled the Democratic party after 1992. His vindictiveness will force him to root Tea Party conservatives out of the party and replace them with alt-right (i.e. nationalistic leftist) sycophants.
For six years now Tea Party conservatives have been joining the Republican party at the grass-roots level and working their way up to local and state committeemen, precinct captains, and other such positions. They are now finally beginning to have some effect on the party and its platform. It is from among these people that convention delegates are chosen, for example, and probably why the party has had so much success in state elections.
These people backed Cruz in the primaries and caucuses and would have switched their votes to him on the second ballot at the national convention if a second ballot had been held. Don’t think for a moment that Trump and his people have forgotten that. If he wins the presidency, those people are gone, and the Republican party becomes an alt-right party, i.e. national socialist. There will be no one left to oppose the leftward march, and the government and the country will collapse into a black hole of socialism.
That is far too high a price to pay for an infinitesimally — your word — better president.
GB:
“All the fear of Trump’s potential ‘instability’ ignores the certainty that Hillary’s path leads to; the end of the Republic.”
That’s not funny given who is in contention in a half a**ed way with the Shrew Queen, Satan-in-a-pants-suit. Donald the liberal democrat, but he’s YOUR liberal democrat. Thanks Trumpers for four years of SQ, SIAPS.
MKent:
Good points well stated.
mkent Says:
October 20th, 2016 at 8:52 pm
The alt-right is simply NOT that numerous.
Period.
Indeed, they are Y E A R S behind the Conservatives.
Trump’s new voters are ex-Democrats.
The pitifully few alt-right blogs are conflated with some mass rising.
It’s not happening.
For every alt-right activist you’re looking at 15 hyper-active Leftists.
They are strictly bush league… and are destined to remain so.
Just on demographics.
We have the reality of the Clinton Machine.
We have the conjured up terrors of a Trump presidency — where the man goes entirely off the rails — something never seen in his previous adult life.
His style is TYPICAL of real estate developers.
For some reason that does not SINK IN.
He is NOT going to brow beat foreign leaders. Indeed, I’d expect Trump to be an amazingly ‘domestic’ president — which is where his heart lies.
He will prove wholly unable to unwind most of the rotten deals that Barry has stuck us with. There’s that much inertia in foreign affairs. And corruption, too.
%%%
TTP is designed as an economic weapon against Red China. Pure and simple. It was cobbled together by the American corporatist state once it realized that it had ENTIRELY lost the upper hand with Beijing in all economic dealings.
This was something not imagined when the waltz started under President Bush 41. Brainiacs /s
Because it’s a flaming economic gambit against Beijing — its details are required to be kept secret — lest the Commies promptly retaliate. This secrecy is to be maintained YEARS after the deal is sealed. (!!!!!!)
Think about that.
In the grand scheme, America pivots AWAY from Red China and ramps up Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia… et. al.
The elephant is missing from the room.
%%%
After 25,000,000 new voters pop up in 49 months — the national election will be a simulacrum… form utterly without substance.
And those well principled, high minded, folks tutting us today — will be weeping, wailing and slashing their wrists, a common occurrence when a dynasty has passed.
We still call it China, but the Ming are gone.
Yes, Rome lost its Republic, too.
Constitutional government is always at hazard.
The polity always has to get down and muddy to defend it.
On the question of rigged polls:
Here’s Reuters. It’s a farce.
https://i.sli.mg/t6Tpus.png
Some of us honestly believe that this is the last opportunity to turn this country around; that if we fail to stop the establishment elite this election we won’t get another chance until some apocalypse (war, revolution, social and/or financial collapse) occurs.
We believe, rightly or wrongly, the forces destroying the socials covenant that made our country possible will become unstoppable. It’s possible we’re wrong but it’s our considered opinion we aren’t. You may not agree but you would be wrong to question our sincerity or intelligence.
Trump is a seriously flawed vessel but he’s the only one still afloat. It’s get onboard him or go down with the ship while waiting for a less flawed one.
mkent,
I’m one of those ‘others’ and, though IMO its only a possibility, you may be right about the alt-right’s dominance of the GOP if Trump wins. But if so, your assertion that the country will turn inescapably leftward… is also an assertion that under either Trump or Hillary… our nation’s fate is sealed. Because under Hillary, America’s path to the left is a near certainty.
OM,
Trying to be funny never entered my mind. Just the opposite in fact.
He’s not MY liberal democrat. He’s all that stands between Hillary and the WH. That’s not an indication of approval, simply an assertion of fact.
Nor have I ever been a ‘Trumper’, just someone who accepts reality as I see it.
blert,
The alt-r may not be numerous now but BLM, black denial of any responsibility for their own lives and, leftist promotion of white privilege, as proof of inherent racism are creating an upswell in the tribalism that is the alt-r.
I’m not convinced that the primary rationale for TPP is as an economic weapon against China. I mainly see it as a way for the Left to end-run around the Constitution and national sovereignty.
GB…
It does BOTH.
In many ways it’s an attempt to replicate the command economy of Beijing… to fight Beijing.
No-one is safe.
Reuters is now oversampling Democrats in their polls by an absurd 18 points.
Heck, no wonder Trump is fading in the polls.
The same oversampling occurred two-years ago.
Then the Senate was lost.
“The majority of people who inherit wealth, squander it or never make any more of it other than what was given. T” [Ymarsaker @ 6:34]
Ymarsaker,
That is not something I wrote. Source?
Monkeying with the polls is PURE Cialdini.
It’s nothing more, nothing less, than perceptions management.
1) It induces crowd behavior — especially in young women.
This tick is built in mating programming.
With family, women re-assess just about everything.
2) It’s a blind for eventual theft of the tabulation. The fake polls make an absurd tabulation seem within the bounds of expectation.
Shaping expectation is PURE Cialdini.
He shapes the psychic landscape BEFORE even presenting the first words.
3) It demoralizes the opponent. This includes fund raising and door to door canvassing. No wonder faking the polls is worthwhile.
Hillary’s already been caught owning NBC//WSJ polls. That dude is in her hip pocket. She’s not the only one able to sell her soul.
When you kick out these absurd polls — Trump is either ahead, way ahead or at least tied.
No wonder he’s pretty up beat at the podium.
The pollsters, themselves, are HIGHLY skewed to the Democrat party. So when they induce bias into their polling — they literally can’t see it, smell it or taste it.
And every fella in the organization has that same bias.
They are ALL political activists first. They just fell into polling.
It soon proved to be a much more reliable and lucrative gig.
But their hearts are with the activists — their ideological kin.
Look at David Brooks.
He changed teams — to make even more money, that’s why.
His ethics soon followed suit.
Eric K: “In the presidential debates, Trump and Clinton referenced the NAFTA and TPP trade deals. What are they and are they good, or bad, for America?”
TPP is not in effect yet and is mostly secret as blert mentioned above.
NAFTA has been in force since the Clinton years.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the world’s largest free trade area. It links 450 million people, and its member economies generate $20.8 trillion. It’s also highly controversial.
Why is it bad for this country? Because both Canada and Mexico have VATs, which have to be added to the cost of our goods when imported into those countries for sale. We have very low or no tariffs on goods imported into this country from Canada and Mexico for sale domestically. Thus, manufacturers can build things in Mexico (low labor costs and minimal environmental regulations) and sell them at a greater profit in this country. That led to the loss of 500,000-750,000 jobs in the United States. Most were manufacturing employment in California, New York, Michigan and Texas. The primary industries were motor vehicles, textiles, computers, and electrical appliances.
Consumer goods (Refrigerators, TVs, cook stoves, dish washers, etc.) bought in this country in a place like Laredo, Texas are cheaper than they are in Mexico because of the VAT and tariff that Mexico charges on imported consumer goods. It’s not generally publicized, but there is a lot of smuggling of U.S. bought consumer goods across the border into Mexico. The smugglers can re-sell them cheaper than prevailing prices in Mexico because of the VAT and tariffs of 10-15%. Drugs come north, consumer goods go south.
There is no smuggling across the Canadian border (except drugs – mostly weed) because Canada does not charge a tariff on consumer goods for personal use that are made in the U.S., or Mexico. Canadian citizens who live close to the border (which is about 75% of the population) can drive to the U.S and do their shopping and save a lot of money, both on consumer goods and gasoline because we have no VAT. I live close to the border and see many, many Canadians in our Costco and other stores in our area. British Columbia license plates almost equal WA tags on some days.
Labor costs and taxes are just as high or higher in Canada as they are in the U.S. So not many companies move there to do manufacturing.
We could keep or attract more manufacturing companies by lowering Federal corporate taxes, and cutting regulations.
But NAFTA needs to be renegotiated to account for the protective tariffs and lower environmental protections in Mexico. No trade agreement will ever be perfect, but you can keep working toward that end. Free trade is good but it also has to be fair and balanced.
blert,
That’s why I stressed the qualifier “primary”. Certainly there can and often are multiple goals and levels to a move in the geopolitical arena.
About Rueters oversampling democrats vs republicans in their sampling. I can easily accept that but if so, they all have to be doing it with the exceptions of Rasmussen, the LA Times “Daybreak” poll and the IBD/TIPP poll… otherwise Rueters would stand out and lose its plausible deniability. If Trump wins, new legislation needs to be passed allowing these pollsters to be sued.
J.J.,
Excellent synopsis. I would only add that Senators Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz are against it because of its end run around the Constitution and erosion of national sovereignty. While Obama strongly supports it. That’s more than sufficient for me.
Is winning even a priority for Trump? Nagging suspicion we’re being played. Notice Trump’s body language and demeanor immediately after the debate?
Meh:
This post answers the question you asked at 6:46.
…been said before.
…yeah, it’s kind of trite.
Nonetheless, pretty Solomon-ish.
You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.
That CW appears to get lost in the noise on occasion.
Trump is what we, #neverHillarys, have.
So …he has to do. FTW. Oorah.
Aand …that’s all I got left. Tomorrow my wife and I mail our ballots.
JIC: Said this before:
…am an unabashed, rational reasons, let it burn’er
…Scott first choice: never made it to first base
…went to Cruz: no juice there either
…didn’t mind Trump: even admired him a bit for deciding to run his life through the grinder (couldn’t even imagine doing that, and throw in his wealth and position? – no effin’ way)
…fully acknowledge his myriad faults
…but proud to have seen and lived in an American election where a business guy, a non-politician, a non-technocrat, stepped up.
I think and have always thought it’s sophomoric to invite comparison of Trump to Hillary. She doesn’t reach the height of his hanging shoe strings.
Along with the vast majority of politicians, whom I hold as a class in utter contempt (even when I’ve voted for them). Scum.
The political class are the moneychangers at the gates of the American Temple – with few exceptions, and most of those ex-military – bereft of class, courage, and any skill except graft and lies.
Dishonest worshippers of Mammon all, who have no ability to accrue wealth other than to take it from others.
I lost my faith in the “ability” of the politico-technocrats (pah: what an oxymoron) long ago.
After a lifetime of paying attention I think saying at least he’s not a politician is a positive that outweighs a host of negatives.
So.
Done and done.
Outta here.
mkent:
No, no one knew who won Florida. It was a tie.
He was right to challenge it. And what’s more, I contend that every single person here criticizing him for doing so would have cheered him had Gore been a Republican.
Please refresh your memory. The presidency that night would be decided by one state, Florida, and the vote was so tremendously close there that an automatic recount was triggered. The dispute that ensued was over the details of that recount, as well as other anomalies.
Meh, Sharon W, Spiral, Ymarsakar:
Are you familiar with a number of articles such as this one, which compare Trump’s return on his investments unfavorably with the returns he could have gotten with things like index funds over the same period of time?
He is not a competent politician, that much is established. Other characteristics are open questions to some.
Meh:
The “F.U. wing of the Republican Party” may not be such an insult, based on this description (by a Trump supporter):
I must be in a worm hole. Trump’s comment was a typical trumpism. It is meaningless. I do not see it as more outrageous or disconcerting that numreous other blabberings from this weird man. Besides, if you look at the number of times leftist’s have whined about rigged elections, economies, outcomes, etc. djt is on par with his leftist cohorts. MSM mumbo jumbo.
Parker:
Is that’s the problem, you aren’t one of the coastal elites? 🙂
OM,
Just an aging Iowa farm boy grandpa, trying to survive a bit longer and never surrender my principles. Grow food, preserve it, hunt and eat what you hunt. Keep it simple, teach your children well. In flyover country it is expected that it will be a beautiful day; even tornadoes, droughts, and floods possess beauty. Life as long as it lasts, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Keep it simple.
http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/
Neo…
This is the very first time I’ve seen you miss a beat.
Ordinarily you’re a cross between Einstein and Newton.
Deal with that.
But.
The tally you linked is wholly bogus.
1) Taxes are not in the equation
2) Leverage is not in the equation
3) Trump’s astounding CASH extractions through time are not in those calculations.
So.
It BLOWS UP.
MANY, many, many, years — due to leverage and a one-way market in Manhattan real estate… Trump was EXPLODING his net worth.
Then…
He had astounding reverses.
The amazing thing is that … EVEN when bankrupt … he talked his way out of it.
Barrons reported that he was given ~ $750,000 PER MONTH by his bankers during his nadir — when he was in flaming default — so that he could keep his boat and crew afloat — and everyone else.
THAT’S a MASTER negotiator.
He was underwater by billions at the time.
That’s the impact of leverage.
Within almost no time, Trump flipped out of deficit — and the bankers LOVED him.
1) No-one lost their career.
2) Everyone involved made a pile of money.
3) Mr. Loser went straight to the TOP of the banker’s favorites.
You wonder why ?
Heh.
It’s the above reality as to why Trump is so astoundingly arrogant.
I can tell you, the VAST bulk of real estate barrons would’ve been DONE IN.
He ain’t my buddy, but I recognize talent — especially persuasion talent.
His politics are NOT mine. I’m a Ted Cruz kind of guy.
But, neither Ted nor I is perfect.
In many, many ways Ted is RIGHT.
BUT.
That total jerk, Donald Trump, makes the sale.
I gag, because I’m so much like Ted — and have had to watch Donalds march to the top of the sales roster.
ALL of this makes vastly more sense IF — only if — you read Cialdini — the MASTER that is actually running Hillary’s psy ops.
WHEN you put down his tome, you’ll gasp.
For the techniques, the manipulations, are straight out of Dr. Goebbels — and the Hollocaust.
It’s brutally true. The average German citizen WAS duped.
And they didn’t know WHY.
I hate the Nazis.
They damn near killed my Uncle.
They damn near killed my Father.
The gal running the Dr. Goebbels script is HILLARY — not Donald.
ONCE you read Pre-Suasion — you’ll absolutely freak out.
( I did. )
Trump’s a return to Jackson, Teddy and FDR — at the WORST.
( You would NOT believe the awful quotes that could be retrieved from this trio. )
Trump does NOT need the money. He wants to be written on Mt Rushmore.
HIllary is ALREADY in history.
Her health is lousy. She is a money PIG.
She makes Boss Tweed look like an altar boy.
And, I’d say that she’s replicating Argentine politics.
What could POSSIBLY be worse.
As for Trump, I’m FORCED to crawl over broken glass and while chewing my belt — pull the lever.
This fella was NOT chosen by me.
I had Walker, Cruz, Fiorina, — all on my list — the latter two would’ve been Reaganesque — IMHO.
Absolutely outstanding presidents.
I didn’t get a chance to vote for either in my primary — which is in a one-party state.
As for the other posters.
They live in a dreamland where four years from now America will still be a viable, functioning, responsive to the voters, Republic.
Having spent a lifetime in one-party states — the record is clear.
After this vote, after the polity is so diluted with non-American voters — you are DONE.
WE are DONE.
Yes, we’ll yap away — it’ll take a while to realize that the elections have been reduced to a simulacrum.
https://heartiste.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/tribalelectorate.jpeg?w=706&h=607
THIS is what a monolithic ethnic bloc vote results in.
Ugh.
Republican Democracy then dies.
I’ll let Caesar explain it to you.
Eric K:
In the presidential debates, Trump and Clinton referenced the NAFTA and TPP trade deals. What are they and are they good, or bad, for America?
I am a stanch opponent of import tariffs, since import tariffs are simply a tax on the American people.
When Trump says he supports “renegotiating” NAFTA and when Trump says he opposes TPP he provides me another reason to vote against him.
Say what you want about Bill and Hillary Clinton, at least they are intelligent enough to support NAFTA and TPP, even if they say otherwise to their Bernie Sanders socialist base.
Trump’s opposition to these trade agreements is just more evidence that Trump is a socialist, not a conservative.
blert:
You may notice that all I did was ask Meh, Sharon W, Spiral, and Ymarsakar if they were familiar with the linked article (the one you’re criticizing).
I purposely didn’t say that I thought the article was brilliant, or even correct, and there’s a reason for that—I don’t have the financial knowledge to say. I know there were quite a few articles agreeing with it, in financial periodicals in particular, so I’m assuming the articles have at least some validity, although I’m also aware that financial periodicals most definitely have their biases, too.
Nor do I know whether you’re correct in debunking them. I simply don’t have the knowledge to say.
From your friendly blogger, Newstein—or is it Einton? 🙂 .
mkent-I said “even if infinitesimal”, I hold out higher hopes (much higher compared to Hillary) than that. I don’t care what he’s done before, there is an “R” after his name and the MSM and Dems will act accordingly. I don’t spend a lot of time (hardly any) but the true believers that make up the 50%+ approval rating for Obama still blame Bush for every negative issue up to the present. Stunning idiocy.
Neo-Yes I looked at the article (and prior heard other charges along the same line). I read an AP article about a Republican candidate with a large shaker of salt. I do not have the financial acumen to be able to have an OPINION on this matter. There are so many variables over a long period of time and I have to believe that even for those with financial knowledge there would be a number of important FACTS that would not be known. More importantly, what Trump did with his money created jobs, while investment as cited in the article would likely support the corporations and banks that the Left are constantly telling us are evil (while they are in bed with them 100%)! And these are people that believe it is the government’s job to CREATE JOBS. A view I do not share. I will do my best to not repeat the charges of my political adversaries. When Trump is a jerk (going after Cruz), I say so. But about this, it would be like my 6 year old granddaughter who told me on Monday that “Trump is a bad man.” She heard it on the playground, so it’s gospel truth.
Neo:
Good try with posting a “counterfactual” to the dogma that Trump is the financial “Einstein or Newton” of the last 60 years.
This “counterfactual” was heretical to a few (not all). Well, scourge yourself, repent, and ask for forgiveness from those who have true knowledge of the wondrous Trump. /jk 🙂
Sharon,
Well, he is a bad man. He’s bad in almost every measurement. Unfaithful. Trsparently dishonest. A sexual predator. Adulterous. A braggart. He brags about his own sins Even his supporters tout one of his greatest skills is as a persuader/salesman – getting people to buy cr@p. He’s a swindler (Trump U). He is cruel. He’s a bully. One way he “debunked” the sexual assault stories was by claiming they couldn’t be true because the women who came forward aren’t pretty enough for him.
I don’t know if he’s a racist but he did stack the deck against black people who wanted to rent from him in the 70s and did say he liked Jewish accountants more than black accountants. He has certainly pandered to the white supremacists alt-right brownshirts.
He’s a narcissist. He has made ridiculous claims. He’s being audited by the IRS because he’s such a good Christian. No one reads the Bible as much as him. No one respects women as much as him.
Would you allow him to babysit your grandkids?
He’s not a good man. He’s a bad man. Doesn’t mean you can’t vote for him but your grandaughter is absolutely correct. Bad men get elected to things all the time
Sometimes they are even good at their jobs. But let’s not pretend.
blert Says:
“It was the MEDIA and the Clinton Machine that elevated Trump and drowned Cruz in silence. Cruz won the Iowa caucus – and in a normal season would’ve had a decent showing in New Hampshire. The MSM went into hyper drive to boost all non-Cruz candidates. From the first to the last, Cruz was the fella they feared the most. For he was on target.”
Blert:
Nice to see that at least one other person agrees with me that the media was a yuuuggge driver in Trump’s success and Cruz’ downfall. Our hostess herself took me to task for that assertion.
Again, while they didn’t come right out and endorse Trump, they gave him hundreds of millions in free exposure, while ignoring Cruz, except when they were attacking him and/or repeating Trump’s lies about him.
In that blizzard of free PR were 24/7 repetitions of Trump saying “lyin’ Ted”, “he’s a RINO, for amnesty, New World Order, Council on Foreign Relations, Goldman-Sachs, his wife is ugly, his father’s a traitor” and the topper “he’s an illegal alien from Canada.”
Trump knew all along who his biggest competitor was, so he focused his attacks on destroying him. He employed Alinsky’s Rules #13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it” and #5 “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” against him multiple times in every speech and interview for over 8 months. As we’ve discussed before on this blog, Alinsky’s tactics may be despicable, but they are very effective. All the while the media amplified the attacks while pretending to be unbiased between the two.
Neo doesn’t go on Breitbart, but I did for many months and read numerous comments start with “I used to be for Cruz, until I learned about (insert Trump Big Lie here.)” with links to alt-right websites.
Many of course will say “Give it up, your guy lost.” No thanks. I’m not one to say I told you so, but even though I will suck it up and vote for the sleazy blowhard, I will continue to take every opportunity to shove that vile choice up the Hive nose of the alt-right, #AlwaysTrumpers, and early Trumpistas.
@blert – stop with the dilblert references already.
“MASTER” this, “MASTER” that.
As mentioned before, scott adams’ explanation for things fails at the point where he presumes to be the exception, the one immune, to the “MASTER Persuader” who reigns over all the rest of us “Meat Puppets”.
Of course, there’s never an explanation on how he happens to be so.
.
“1) No-one lost their career.
2) Everyone involved made a pile of money.
3) Mr. Loser went straight to the TOP of the banker’s favorites.”
Many of the claims you make wrt trump are suppositions / opinions that need something a little more than your say so.
.
There is one big error in that article:
It uses the S&P 500 index as the basis for comparison.
The issue is that the risk profile of the S&P 500 is far lower than that for a real estate developer.
A far more appropriate (and still significantly less risk than a RE developer) would be the NASDAQ Composite. On this basis, it would require trump to be far, far above the $13B the Forbes article suggests using the S&P 500.
The idea is that investors should be compensated for the risk they take on with a higher return, as ceteris paribus, who in their right mind would take the higher risk for the same payoff?
S&P 500 was probably used because many more folks would be familiar with the concept, which is enough to illustrate the point they are making.
“Meh, Sharon W, Spiral, Ymarsakar:
Are you familiar with a number of articles such as this one, which compare Trump’s return on his investments unfavorably with the returns he could have gotten with things like index funds over the same period of time?” [Neo @ 12:22 am]
There is one major flaw in these articles whose primary mission is to diminish Trump (remember, everybody has some agenda): that it, a person has to eat and live in the process on making money. So, they start with X dollars and finish with Y dollars and compare that to index funds. Yet in that time, Trump has lived a lifestyle that, by any measure, is opulent (read expensive). That life style is funded by money taken out of the equation. So Trump’s REMAINDER not his success is measured by the growth of his wealth.
As to the comparisons with other billionaires, the same idea is true. Is Gates wealth measured by money in trust which is not contributing to his lifestyle? Is Gates’ , or famously Warren Buffett’s, lifestyle costing more or less than Trump’s? I don’t now, but my point is that in any such comparison it is very difficult to assess whether or not one is getting an apples to apples comparison.
“Nor do I know whether you’re correct in debunking them. I simply don’t have the knowledge to say.”- Neoneocon
Blert is correct that the Fortune article you linked to is bunk.
Here’s a calculator that you can play with.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/investing/historical-returns-investing-calculator.aspx
But it really brings up a larger point. You know the direction Hillary will continue to take the country. With even one leftist supreme court justice in the mold of Sotomayor or Ginsburg the shift left would last for decades. Two or three picks would be worse.
And, of course, the left only believes in precedent when the ruling is of their liking.
I get that some conservatives are still ticked that Trump co-opted their favorite candidate- specifically Cruz.
Which Republican candidate did you support in the primaries?
Anyway, its difficult to decide which of the comments on this post are disgruntled conservatives, trolls or paid democrat operatives. At times it hard to distinguish.
At best I would hope a conservative, knowing the known knowns about Hillary would vote for Trump even with the known unknowns he represents.
I can see quite a few posters flunked high finance.
For they actually believe that a stock market index can be replicated in real life by anyone.
FACTS.
Indexes never pay taxes
Indexes never use leverage
Indexes never need to support life — or a family
Indexes (typically) never reflect dividends
They are benchmarks used to fill the news hole WRT what happened in the markets — for the general public.
Trump’s return on his investment is sky high.
We should all ‘fail’ so badly.
The Rubio line about Trump inheriting $200,000,000 was the biggest lie of the primaries — and he had stiff competition.
Facts:
You only ‘inherit’ upon death. Trump got rolling back in the 70s.
He was given a PMM ( purchase money mortgage) by Fred, his father, so that he could assume ownership of some flagging RENT CONTROLLED apartments in NYC. (Queens, IIRC)
Carlton Sheets would term this no-money down financing.
This is the ONLY way that one can shift assets to one’s son without paying INSANE New York and Federal gift taxes.
It’s IMPOSSIBLE to gift $200,000,000 without paying $600,000,000 in gift taxes — as well. Fred never had that kind of stash. The whole idea is absurd.
Donald Trump made his fortune by leaving Queens behind and jumping into rehabbing Manhattan commercial real estate. His first deals were insanely profitable, just off the charts. He caught everything right. This continued during the 70s which as we all might remember was a one-way real estate boom — especially the back half of the decade.
( BTW Carlton Sheets was making his first pile at this exact time in exactly the same way — crazy leverage. Donald was merely doing the same thing at 100 times Carlton’s scale. )
If Donald never had the pile to ever invest in the S&P — which is TRUE — then the entire ad hominem breaks down — doesn’t it?
The folks publishing this trash know full well it IS trash. It’s a political hit piece designed to ‘take down’ one of Donald’s signature business achievements. It appeals to our vanity, too. It’s a pure ‘put-down’, familiar in school yard chatter everywhere.
What some hothead has to say proves nothing. I contend that the major reason Trump got the nomination is that he was the only candidate to take a strong stand against open borders and lax immigration enforcement. If Cruz, Rubio, or Walker had done that, then I believe they would be the nominee right now and not Trump.
No, but so what? It’s not as if anyone commenting here knows how to critically evaluate Trump’s business record. Moreover, if the article is to be believed, then we know that Trump is, in fact, a rather “cautious businessman,” which doesn’t exactly help the narrative that he’s the sort of incautious person who will blow up the world.
thank you JJ. Your post allows us to learn something other than how hyper-astute a poster thinks s/he is. But then along comes “Spiral” at 4:32am. Could you comment back, JJ? and Spiral, could you comment on what JJ says at 11:05 pm? Could we all get more clear about what NAFTA did and TPP will/would do?
This blog was once a place where we could LEARN things other than how clever the posters are.
” “That’s the “F U” wing of the trumpistan party.” — Big Maq
I don’t think wallowing in intramural ridicule is the right thing to be doing at this point (if it ever is).” — Meh
Sorry, but there are folks who actually argue that is why they support trump — simply as an “F U” statement — why I put it in quotes as those are not my words.
“trumpistan” is my word. It is a play on words, a sort of portmanteau, meant to reflect the direction where those folks would like to take us — dysfunctional country.
I use “party” because it seems their ideas are far from the conservative principles the GOP said they stood for only one year ago, and too many, too easily, fell in line behind trump.
Not meant to ridicule, but definitely a touch of sarcasm about the destructiveness of that attitude / thought process in those who “didn’t seem to care” about concerns / warnings (that Matt SE spoke of) wrt to the consequences of trump, some of which we are seeing play out today.
Mind you, rather than “humorous” sarcasm, making light in a biting way, some prefer to be blunt about it…
““I tried in vain to make this argument to Trump supporters in the earliest days” Matt_SE
Stupid, stupid, stupid people, unwilling to agree with the obvious…” — GB
.
“the major reason Trump got the nomination is that he was the only candidate to take a strong stand against open borders and lax immigration enforcement” – Meh
Maybe we all go too far, some more hyperbolized (and less beholding to the facts) than others.
You’re changing the subject to the question of why Romney lost to Obama in 2012. My point concerning Romney was that the media successfully made one of the cleanest candidates to run for office an object of hatred and scorn in the eyes of many. Therefore, as I see it, nothing of significance follows from the fact that Trump has (predictably) been made an object of hatred and scorn this election cycle other than the fact that the people who feel this way are easily manipulated.
What is that supposed to mean? I don’t know this for certain, but I would imagine that the other candidates didn’t take such a strong stand against open borders and lax immigration enforcement on the grounds that the major donors supporting those candidates didn’t want them taking those positions for reasons of personal self-interest.
The allegations are obviously contrived. Why didn’t these people come forward earlier and collect a settlement? It’s not as if Trump didn’t have the money to pay them. On the other hand, it does make sense for people to come forward with phony allegations in the final weeks of a major presidential election if they’re paid to do so. I can believe that Trump was a serial adulterer who slept around (and he’s said as much), but he doesn’t have the track record of a sexual predator like that of HRC’s husband. We should instead be asking how an ostensible champion of women like HRC could remain married to a serial rapist like WJC.
“Would you allow him to babysit your grandkids?”–Bill
This is the kind of emotionalism I usually encounter in my discussions with Democrats. I don’t presume to “know” any politician or for that matter anyone in the public arena enough to make a certain judgment of who they really are. I will have an opinion based on actions and words. Yes, Trump has done bad things. Guess what? So have a number of people in my life, and because I knew them then, and now, and was privy to all facts and circumstances, I hold an entirely different opinion of them than anyone would who would judge them on their past behavior. Nonetheless, Trump has been an idiot during this process, but he is the “bad man” to use your terms who I believe will be held to account. You, and many, disagree. Fine. But based on Hillary’s actions and words, she is a “bad woman” (using your terms) who will most assuredly not be held to account. I have no problem disagreeing with you about this. It’s a guess and each of us must be faithful to our own conscience; just as Cruz (presently supporting Trump) has said.
“I am a stanch opponent of import tariffs, since import tariffs are simply a tax on the American people.
When Trump says he supports “renegotiating” NAFTA and when Trump says he opposes TPP he provides me another reason to vote against him.
Say what you want about Bill and Hillary Clinton, at least they are intelligent enough to support NAFTA and TPP, even if they say otherwise to their Bernie Sanders socialist base.
Trump’s opposition to these trade agreements is just more evidence that Trump is a socialist, not a conservative.”- Spiral
Spiral, how about dumping. Do you support tariffs when a country is dumping. Like China was with steel? I assume you’re in favor of that.
I work for a company that builds construction equipment. The company built a manufacturing plant in China 10 years ago, so some of the lines were re-designed using metric steel. We began importing metric steel, which is now subject to an anti-dumping tariff.
My company then contracted with a chinese firm to assemble the base chassis and ship this as finished goods to stay competitive. I can’t tell you exactly how many jobs were lost, but that’s just a small example of how “free trade” works.
My company relies on exports– most to Europe, but it is currency fluctuations that is a major driver of competitiveness in foreign markets.
So I have mixed feelings about Trump’s position. I do think NAFTA should be re-negotiated and don’t know enough about TPP to have an opinion.
In this case, the democrats have a point. Countries that have similar economies should freely trade. But countries with low wages and poor environmental policies means we’re just disadvantaging business here.
“I would imagine that the other candidates didn’t take such a strong stand against open borders and lax immigration enforcement on the grounds that the major donors supporting those candidates didn’t want them taking those positions for reasons of personal self-interest.”
Trump was for open borders in 2013. He found an issue to inflame the masses. I don’t believe a word he says about immigration. And his ideas (deporting muslims, building a wall and having Mexico pay for it) are stupid and often immoral.
“Anyway, its difficult to decide which of the comments on this post are disgruntled conservatives, trolls or paid democrat operatives. At times it hard to distinguish.”
I’ve been called a Hillary troll more than once, EVEN THOUGH I’M NOT VOTING FOR HER.
Look, Trump is a disaster, probably the stupidest thing the Republican party has ever done (and maybe the last thing it ever does). He’s not even a conservative.
The Trumpsters moralizing about those of us who begged and pleaded during the primaries for the stupid party not to nominate this guy for our “disloyalty”, “cowardice”, etc is really getting tough to take. Along with their threats. (this isn’t directed at you, Brian E – just some spillover frustration from me).
“At best I would hope a conservative, knowing the known knowns about Hillary would vote for Trump even with the known unknowns he represents.”
No. No. A trillion times no.
This man is too dangerous. Someone with his temperament and revenge-motive should not be given his own military, state police, nuclear arsenal, and his hands on the levers of the economy.
On a side note – I do agree with everyone who says comparing Trump’s current net worth (whatever that really is) against the S&P 500 or whatever is not a true comparison. It doesn’t take into account expenses, taxes, etc.
Trump’s a rich guy. He has verifiable business success. Doesn’t mean he’s qualified to be President.
<b<
This is all correct. Thank you, “blert,” for a more comprehensive list than my single example above @ 10:16.
Border enforcement and restricting immigration from countries that support terrorists is common sense, not immoral.
But the candidate who supported regime change in Libya and Syria (resulting in the current refugee crisis) and casually jokes about droning people she doesn’t like is not similarly “dangerous” (and/or in the grip of a “revenge-motive”) and can be trusted with control of our military?! At least with Trump we can hope that he won’t be the kind of disaster HRC was as Obama’s SOS. According to one article Neo recommended on this thread, Trump’s a rather “cautious businessman,” not exactly the type who would blow up the world out of a desire to get revenge on someone.
Blert ant T:
““Indexes never pay taxes
Indexes never use leverage
Indexes never need to support life – or a family
Indexes (typically) never reflect dividends”
That was a dodge. The subject was how to invest resources and maximize return. But the cult of Trump demands fealty.
“There is one major flaw in these articles whose primary mission is to diminish Trump (remember, everybody has some agenda): that it, a person has to eat and live in the process on making money. So, they start with X dollars and finish with Y dollars and compare that to index funds. Yet in that time, Trump has lived a lifestyle that, by any measure, is opulent (read expensive). That life style is funded by money taken out of the equation. So Trump’s REMAINDER not his success is measured by the growth of his wealth.” – T
“Indexes never pay taxes
Indexes never use leverage
Indexes never need to support life – or a family
Indexes (typically) never reflect dividends” – blert
And CEO’s don’t eat, live, and have expense accounts too? trump’s involvement in his companies have been between owner operator to chairman of the board to royalty recipient for using his brand. There is no clear delineation we can make here to do a true apples to apples. If anything, one can argue that trump’s “consumption” throughout may well have been extraordinary, perhaps egregiously so wrt the return that leaves for his other partners / investors.
And the underlying companies in the index don’t pay taxes too?
And, trump has the extra option to structure between his ownership and his personal to optimize on taxes – part of how he gets a write-off that may have lasted over a decade to zero out his taxes. A bankrupcty in one company in an index cannot be used as a writeoff on the others – they eat the complete loss.
The underlying companies use leverage, as trump’s companies have. Any debt leverage he had beyond that is available to investors too – only they have to choose to borrow to invest in the index. Fact is, they may not have access to the same ratio as he might have. That leverage is great in boom times, but bankrupting in bad times – which speaks to the added risk trump took on.
It is not clear if Forbes are using the Total Return value of the S&P 500, which includes dividends? If not, that means the basis they used for calculating the returns are understated. IOW, the $13B they point to is lower than it should be.
These arguments are reaching… REACHING for an explanation to come to the outcome you’d like it to be.
Meh: “But the candidate who supported regime change in Libya and Syria (resulting in the current refugee crisis) and casually jokes about droning people she doesn’t like is not similarly “dangerous” (and/or in the grip of a “revenge-motive”) and can be trusted with control of our military?!”
I’m not voting for her either.
“At least with Trump we can hope that he won’t be the kind of disaster HRC was as Obama’s SOS. According to one article Neo recommended on this thread, Trump’s a rather “cautious businessman,” not exactly the type who would blow up the world out of a desire to get revenge on someone.”
I think Trump will use the power of the government to go after his enemies. They are mostly domestic, as far as I know. He has a whole lifetime of demonstrating that behavior pattern. In the past he’s used mainly public insults, intimidation, and lawsuits. But he’s never had world-shaking power before.
I would like to vote R this election. I’ve voted R in every election since 1984. I’m probably going to follow Big Maq’s advice and vote R downticket to preserve a divided government, even though a lot of these spineless wonders were Trump supporters. But I just can’t vote for Trump. You guys will have to win without voters like me.
And Meh, to clarify, I don’t think he will nuke his enemies, and didn’t mean to imply that. But I do think he has a very highly tuned revenge motive – it’s been a large part of his self-destruction. Bait him, mock him, and he strikes out without thinking of the strategic implications. He’s done it over and over.
Regarding sexual assault, for example. It’s almost as if he’s offended that we would believe the women who have come out because they aren’t hot enough for him. Unbelievable.
I don’t know why many people are so sanguine about his mental stability. The thought of him having world-shaking power makes me extremely nervous. And the alt-right thugs that are riding in his wake scare the cr@p out of me. They can’t be given power.
“I think Trump will use the power of the government to go after his enemies. They are mostly domestic, as far as I know. He has a whole lifetime of demonstrating that behavior pattern. In the past he’s used mainly public insults, intimidation, and lawsuits. But he’s never had world-shaking power before.”-Bill
And those who have (and had) “world-shaking power” have done and are doing EXACTLY THIS. This is where Dennis Prager’s plea to understand that a vote for Trump is a vote against the Left comes into play. Again, it doesn’t matter what Trump said or did before…an R after his name makes him the open target of the Left. And if, per chance, that is not the case, as you and many believe, then “what difference does it make?” (haha!); the Left hold all the cards and all we would have is a prayer.
I was accused in an earlier comment of “not looking ahead”. No, indeed, as so many have pointed out, these “refugees” being brought to red state cities, etc. The entire game map will continue to change until the nation looks like California. You’ve been warned, by a Californian.
Big Maq Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 9:54 am
Trump’s travails at that time made the cover of Barrons.
That’s where the ‘suppositions’ hail from.
Later, when the corner had been turned, Barrons had more to say about the whole travail.
It was at that point that Barrons — and those quoted — made it plain that Trump had talked his way straight out of an implosion.
Trump sold // persuaded his banking syndicate that they could not bear to stop financing him. For, in short order they, themselves, would be on the bricks looking for work, their careers destroyed.
By Federal Reserve rules, once they move against his properties they have book a 100% loss on the loan — and charge it ALL to their own equity. His portfolio was so huge, that this would mean that 10% of their equity would evaporate.
They would then have to sell the properties when no buyer could finance them unless they were marked down horrifically in price.
The bank would then be stuck with a real loss instead of an ‘upside down’ loan to Trump.
The syndicate resolved to let everything ride — and to also advance about $10,000,000 per year to Trump — just so he could maintain his lifestyle. (!!!)
That’s master persuasion.
It was so amazing that it made the cover of Barrons and was the talk of the town for years afterwards.
I have to assume from your posts that you are quite a bit younger, or never followed the financial press.
All of these topics are ‘in my wheelhouse” — as they say in baseball.
Don’t you doubt it.
“Trump’s a rich guy. He has verifiable business success.” – Bill
Agree, in a sense. Many could have had the same starting point and blown it all.
But the point about the Forbes article is just how much a “success” he really is.
trump raises the idea that he is worth billions (in disputed and unverified amounts) as though that alone is proof of his acumen.
The S&P 500 challenge is an interesting basis of comparison, as it is essentially arguing that, having the same starting point, what essentially a “doing nothing” passive strategy should achieve.
trump’s bragging of his “billions” is like comparing the nominal price of a car today with the nominal price of a car in 1972 was, and exclaiming “How expensive cars are now today from 1972”. We all know that comparing nominal values gives a false sense of real change in values.
The question is, indeed, has all his action achieved more in value than other alternatives relatively easily available to him?
There is a fair argument to say, in fact, NO!
Bill,
Our next president is either going to be Trump or HRC. I admit that if you think they are both equally awful, then not voting for either makes sense. However, I am persuaded that the evidence/facts we have suggests that HRC would be a far more dangerous/destructive president than Trump. Therefore, I will vote for Trump with a clean conscience despite his many flaws. We have good reason to believe that HRC is both an unindicted felon and a warmonger who feels entitled to play God because it’s her turn (or some such). Trump may be a crass businessmen, huckster, and serial adulterer–but I don’t think he’s nearly as bad/frightening as HRC.
OM and Big Maq,
First of all, this is not a dodge, these are important components regarding assessing return on investment. Calling it a dodge simply reveals your laack of knowledge. Second, Big Maq, I personally resent your snark about demanding fealty. It’s amazing that you #neverTrumpers can not engage in a discussion with out condescension and snark (see my next post).
You post, Big Maq, BTW, makes my point. My point above was quite simply that in such comparisons (Trumps ROI-return on investment v. and index) one can NEVER BE SURE ONE IS GETTING AN APPLES-TO-APPLES COMPARISON. Ya get that?
That fact that much of what you enumerate (expense accounts, etc) can be true, but one never knows how businessman A has structured his affairs as opposed to business man B because without forensic accounting, all of these things remain hidden to the public eye.
FWIW I direct this comment specifically to “Big Maq. “huxley” and “Matt_SE”.
It amazes me that you cannot let a single Trump comment pass on this site without the need to insert your own condemnation or derogation as opposed to simply voicing your own point of view. Such posts come, more often than not with snark and condescension directed, especially most recently, at “Richard Aubrey,” “Irv Greenberg,” and “blert”.
The condescension and snark have convinced me that you consistently make a case for your current political opinion because you are all basically unsure of or uncomfortable with it. From my admittedly distant vantage point I see the arrogance of your comments as a blanket hiding much self-loathing of or lack of confidence in your own point of view. It’s as though you think that high snark equates with high conviction. “Matt_SE” is especially gratuitous with his snark, oftentimes offering only a sneering response to a point without any informational content whatsoever; one of his favorites is gratuitously, and repeatedly, thanking pro-Trumpers (which he continuously and disparagingly refers to as “Trumpkins) for nominating Trump in the first place. This is like a 50 year old man still kvetching about how his best friend stole his girlfriend when they were high school seniors; a 50 year old is well beyond high school and in this election cycle we are well beyond the primaries.
Now your responses will be something like: “Well, pro-Trumpers do it too! Why pick on us?” Most of the radical pro-Trumpers are no longer here. Those pro-Trump commenters that are still here are offering specific points often with minimal or no snark (note: not always), and rarely with the kind of gratuitous snark that I referenced above. But regardless, if that is your defense, then my analogy needs to regress from high school to the elementary school level.
One last comment. It’s not that snark is bad in and of itself. All of us here, myself included, have used it from time to time to make a point or vent a frustration. It’s a tactic, but when it becomes standard operating procedure it reveals the writer as tiresome, boring and it evinces a blinkered mind.
“All of these topics are ‘in my wheelhouse” – as they say in baseball.
Don’t you doubt it.” – blert
Sorry, but I do doubt it.
You didn’t even get the direction of the dividend issue right…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/10/20/is-trumps-refusal-to-say-hed-accept-the-results-of-the-election-the-only-thing-that-happened-on-earth-today/#comment-1803579
Obviously, you’re being emotional here. In truth, we don’t know what sort of politician Trump will be. The only person with a real political track record that we can evaluate is HRC and it’s a bad one. But for whatever reason, the facts concerning HRC’s track record don’t seem to bother you as much apart from the fact that you won’t vote for her.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hillary is an enemy of truth, justice and the American way. Trump is her enemy therefore he is my friend.
Trump is an enemy of polite society and most of its standards. I wouldn’t let him babysit my kids but even if he wanted to destroy this country he wouldn’t be allowed to; Hillary would. That’s why I’m voting Trump.
Sharon:
“The entire game map will continue to change until the nation looks like California. You’ve been warned, by a Californian.”
California is special but not that special.
There has been a saying “Don’t Californicate Colorado (Utah, Oregon, Washington, …)” that’s been around since the late 1970’s. Other states recognize the folly of California (and pursue their own sometimes). There is also the saying “Don’t mess with Texas.” But yes, don’t follow California’s example, other states have no intention of doing so.
“It amazes me that you cannot let a single Trump comment pass on this site without the need to insert your own condemnation or derogation as opposed to simply voicing your own point of view” – T
Take this discussion about the Forbes article.
Y’all want to deride it, making like the point they make is false, and then make statements as though you’ve proved your point.
Some even claim “expertise” in a sense, but then get a key point directionally wrong.
Come now. Can’t let something like that stand unchallenged.
I suspect that some of the people here (Neo included) just don’t like Trump and their personal disgust with his character makes it hard for them to objectively evaluate the facts that we have. I mean, we have hard evidence to the effect that HRC is both an unindicted felon and a warmonger who casually jokes about killing people! And yet many around here are scared of what might happen if Trump gains of the powers of the presidency! It’s unreal.
Big Maq,
Once again, my point flies right by you. “Challenge” is one thing. “Derogate” is wholly another. Secondly, sometimes the sanctimonious challenger is decidedly wrong because his information is faulty or mis-understood (like the comment by Omnivore above that claimed circumstantial evidence can not be used in a court of law).
If you want to make reasonable arguments do so, but I repeat, snark should never be the standard operating procedure. Having said that, I will also offer that IMO you do so less than the others.
Meh – Well said.
“I don’t know why many people are so sanguine about his mental stability. The thought of him having world-shaking power makes me extremely nervous. And the alt-right thugs that are riding in his wake scare the cr@p out of me. They can’t be given power.”- Bill
Because people that know him don’t hold that view.
Why are you so sanguine about Hillary’s mental stability? Who’s more likely, based on their statements, to get us in a shooting war with Russia?
And who showed incredible ineptitude in foreign policy demonstrated with Libya. We have actual, real world examples of what is the sort of judgment Hillary has. Good grief.
You can parse your conscience any way you want, but either Hillary or Donald will be the next president.
As an aside, did anyone watch the Al Smith dinner. Both Hillary and Donald traded barbs. Anyone that thinks Trump is a Clinton plant might want to re-evaluate after that. Trump was pretty pointed in humor. His barb about the Clinton foundation and Haiti pretty much silenced the crowd.
He did have a funny joke at his wife’s expense. She took it graciously. It went something like.
“I don’t understand it. Michelle Obama gives a speech and everybody thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. My wife give the exact same speech and they think it’s horrible.”
“Obviously, you’re being emotional here.”
Everyone’s a psychiatrist. . .
Trump was a disastrous nominee. My little vote will hardly matter (I’m in a red state – if he loses my state he’ll probably lose all 50).
Trump supporters are constantly telling me to basically toss aside everything I believe in (well, I guess it’s my fault – I did start commenting here 🙂 ). Their reason? This is the most important election in our history and if we get this election wrong we’ll never have another one. HRC will (magically) naturalize 24 MILLION immigrants who, because of their brown or black skin (I guess that’s how the reasoning goes) will vote Democratic (having nothing to do with the fact that the GOP’s only message to them has been “we hate you”). So we’re doomed, doomed, doomed.
We were doomed after 2012, if I remember correctly. Lo and behold, we found ourselves in 2015 poised to take on a tired, OLD Democratic party who’s two primary candidates were white septuagenarians. Meanwhile, the Republican field was bright, young, diverse. But due to his narcissism and his acumen (he does have that) Trump noticed the untapped “resource” of a bunch of REALLY ANGRY WHITE PEOPLE and he told them whatever they wanted to hear. He didn’t need a majority, just enough. Goaded on by principle-less ratings whores in the media like Rush, Ingraham, Coulter and Hannity and a white-supremacist alt-right contingent on several very loud websites he shamelessly smeared his opponents one by one and got the nomination. Because he’s a master persuader according to Scott Adams and other amoral scuzballs.
So here we are.
And I’m “emotional”. Well, probably a little bit. But if you think I’m not rational –
Oh, who cares. Not worth arguing about – I’ve probably posted 100 comments on Neo’s (excellent) site explaining over and over why he is unfit. Think whatever you want. This election will be over soon. Hillary will most likely be president, people of your ilk will continue to blame people like me for not getting on board like good brownshirts, and will continue to be victims to the big bad left and the evil MSM and all those brown and black people.
Meanwhile, I’m going to be searching for a party or even just some leaders who understand limited government, constitutionalism, civic virtue, and who are able to articulate these values to all Americans and who can outrun, outwit, out-plan, out-strategize the left. The GOP doesn’t believe what I believe anymore and doesn’t know how to win. Stupid party . . .
Sharon W Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 11:20 am
Hear, hear !
&&&
Those in swing states just can’t comprehend how warped voting becomes once non-Whites become even a seemingly small 5% of the voting base.
For they all vote in synch — and don’t care a whit about policy. They vote as a tribe, if you will.
This is a shock to Whites — who hail from all over Europe — a very fractious place.
To minority communities the logic is that of “Us versus Them” — period. Every other consideration is so far down in priority — it’s not a factor.
In Hawaii, the state government is, de facto, owned by the ‘Japanese tribe.’
BTW, they are alienated from both the Japanese in the States AND the Japanese in the home islands of Japan. (!) I will not post the slurs used by the Japanese against their own ‘cousins.’ ( Just too rude. )
Because the Japanese in Hawaii have 26% of the adult population, and they ALWAYS vote, and they always vote Democrat — and the nominee is a fellow Japanese-American, the race is always a blow-out.
There are White ghettos in Hawaii. So, for these areas token White representation slips into the legislature.
Because the Chinese are vexed by the Japanese, and vice versa, the Chinese in the Islands always vote Republican.
The Whites split their vote. It takes a while for White immigrants to discover that the Democrat party in Hawaii has absolutely no connection to that of the Mainland in the manner of the rest of the nation. Their politics is wholly insular.
Hawaii also largely sets aside Federal law, too.
For example, 100% of the State’s civil service secretarial pool was composed of Japanese born and raised in the Islands. The party practiced pure racial exclusion — and largely still does.
Similarly, State contracts are exclusively given to Japanese bidders if that is ever possible. And it usually is. The Japanese secretarial pool cranks out the paperwork. So their husbands know EVERY inside detail.
Consequently, it’s as common as sunrise for the wife to simply steer contracts to her husband, brother, uncle, in-law… etc.
This racial exclusion is absolute for all small State contracts. Of course, the winner has a crew that’s 100% Japanese — all born and raised in the Islands. ( He’d never hire a Japanese kid raised in the other 49 states. )
If you think this is supposition, chat it up with Japanese Americans who have attempted to make such a move into Hawaii. I will not print the foul emotions uttered by such adventurous souls here.
Hawaii politics is a simulacrum of our Republican Democracy.
I could run on and on about how many Federal non-discrimination statutes are violated en masse by the Hawaii system. You have your ‘heads up’ warning just from these teasers. I should think they’re enough.
Big Maq,
One last issue. On the issue of faulty information Above, you (believe it was your comment) decry the S&P index and claim that a Russell index is a more appropriate marker. In fact (and I am in the business) we use real estate investments in investment portfolios because they are decidedly Uncorrelated to stock-based market investments and their fluctuations.
“Because people that know him don’t hold that view.”
Link, please.
“Why are you so sanguine about Hillary’s mental stability? Who’s more likely, based on their statements, to get us in a shooting war with Russia?”
He is a Putin fan. He tends to be very complimentary of dictators and Putin has played Trump like a fiddle. So probably her.
“And who showed incredible ineptitude in foreign policy demonstrated with Libya. We have actual, real world examples of what is the sort of judgment Hillary has. Good grief.”
I think she’ll be a terrible president.
All about race and tribe, thanks alt-right. Go to the basest of motivations.
“snark should never be the standard operating procedure. Having said that, I will also offer that IMO you do so less than the others.” – T
Agree – while you point out those on our side of the argument, my observation is that the ones most heavy handed and harsh have been on the other side.
And, thanks.
But, some of it is in the eye of the beholder…
“Trump is an enemy of polite society and most of its standards.” – Irv
“Obviously, you’re being emotional here.” – Meh
Look, we (all?) do this in some light ways – giving our counterparts a poke or two. We all have emotional involvement in our arguments.
Thing is, I do want those who do acknowledge that trump is rather awful (even if they think he is 0.001% possibly better than clinton) to come together to do what we can afterwards to combat clinton.
Until then, I won’t let go of the conspiracy theories posted here, and “Master Persuader” posited here, and “F U” style arguments advocated here. I will poke fun at them, from time to time, as they are so far from reasonable as to be incredible as a real argument.
There are others who make interesting arguments that do need a serious response, and sometimes those same ones who also peddle in those other world theories. They do get an answer equally serious.
“Hillary will most likely be president, people of your ilk will continue to blame people like me for not getting on board like good brownshirts, and will continue to be victims to the big bad left and the evil MSM and all those brown and black people.”-Bill
This is the snark that T is referring to. The reason I’ve never stopped reading Neo (and dropped all but one other blog) is because this kind of name-calling by-and-large doesn’t happen. From your comments, I perceive you as a sincere man, however; this kind of diatribe attributed to those that disagree with you is disingenuous. None of us here, clearly positing that a vote for Trump is a vote against the Leftist cabal that has all but taken over our country, has in any way posed that kind of accusation to you (or Parker, or huxley, or Matt_SE). We’ve made our case, based on logic and reason as we understand it, while being accused of being “Trumpkins”, “Trumpists”, etc., utter rubbish, accusations in violation of the truth. Very “althouse-ish” in my view.
“One last issue. On the issue of faulty information Above, you (believe it was your comment) decry the S&P index and claim that a Russell index is a more appropriate marker. In fact (and I am in the business) we use real estate investments in investment portfolios because they are decidedly Uncorrelated to stock-based market investments and their fluctuations.”
Well the uncorrelation is true, as is precious metals, as one example.
But the point is still the same – passive vs active, nominal vs more comparable values.
We can argue about the best way to do all this comparison, but the end point is still essentially the same.
Bill Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 11:47 am
“Obviously, you’re being emotional here.”
Everyone’s a psychiatrist. . .
Trump was a disastrous nominee. My little vote will hardly matter (I’m in a red state — if he loses my state he’ll probably lose all 50).
Trump supporters are constantly telling me to basically toss aside everything I believe in (well, I guess it’s my fault — I did start commenting here 🙂 ). Their reason? This is the most important election in our history and if we get this election wrong we’ll never have another one. HRC will (magically) naturalize 24 MILLION immigrants who, because of their brown or black skin (I guess that’s how the reasoning goes) will vote Democratic (having nothing to do with the fact that the GOP’s only message to them has been “we hate you”). So we’re doomed, doomed, doomed.
&&
You are under a TOTAL misimpression of their point of view. You’re miles off, in fact.
The logic is tribal. The Chinese in Hawaii vote en bloc Republican. The Chinese in California vote en bloc Democrat.
The Cubans (Latino vote) in Florida vote en bloc Republican. ( This has been historically true, but may have changed. It’s the reason why Florida is a swing state.)
The Mexicans (Latino vote, again) in Florida vote en bloc Democrat.
The alignment — once started — endures — it just does.
You can see this by cruising ethnic neighborhoods. The political banners will be astoundingly correlated
Absolutely no amount of pandering and speechifying is going to break up the en bloc voting. For everyone in that bloc is from the same part of the world, culturally.
Whereas White America hails from all over Europe, a culturally fractured place, with deep roots and rivalries.
What you end up with is a White vote that is split wherever the population hails from all over.
When the White vote is single minded — Utah — you end up with en bloc voting all over again.
( It’s doubtful that Trump can carry Utah. He’s not only a Liberal Democrat — he insulted Romney — their favorite, favorite son.)
Since you don’t live in bizarro world — that of a Deep Blue state — I can understand why you might actually buy the narrative painted for you by the Democrat — MSM machine: that the GOP actively alienated minorities.
It’s an absurdity, since the GOP was founded on equal rights for minorities. The Democrats OWN slavery, and the expulsion of native Americans. ( Trail of Tears was Jackson’s baby. )
There was a time when Liberal Democrat was code for a fellow that voted and talked like a Republican. For the Progressive movement started within the GOP.
Teddy’s Bull Moose party’s official title was the Progressive Party. Remember that.
Sharon – my comment you quoted above is directed at those who have been telling me to “grow up and vote Trump”, “Put my big-boy pants on and vote Trump”, or belittling the value of a conscience, and the people above psychoanalyzing those of us who aren’t voting for Trump.
It wasn’t directed at you.
BM…
President Obama couldn’t control Hillary.
That’s a FACT.
She put Sidney Blumenthal back on the payroll — which she pledged the President she would not do.
The ENTIRE email server scheme was ginned up to hide her pay-to-play crimes.
Powell’s got her number.
She has a Will-to-Power index right up there with the worst tyrants in history.
Yeah, no-one could control them, either. Such fellas weren’t even much slowed down. Stalin and S. Hussein liquidated their entire legislatures, pretty much, because they only received a blow-out approval. ( 65% Ayes was nowhere near enough. ) So they were all purged — by bullets.
She’s NOT a self-limiting personality.
Read this and ponder:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264499/clinton-record-john-perazzo
What you’ll actually do is join in mass suffering while we all find out how bad, bad can get.
“He is a Putin fan. He tends to be very complimentary of dictators and Putin has played Trump like a fiddle. So probably her.”- Bill
That’s overstated, rather simplistic and I would say demonstrates you’re not a serious critic of Trump.
As to supporters who know him– Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie.
Here’s an article about celebrity apprentices. Not all are favorable of Trump but it’s probably representative:
http://www.etonline.com/news/194291_celebrity_apprentice_stars_sound_off_on_donald_trump/
OM Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 11:54 am
All about race and tribe, thanks alt-right. Go to the basest of motivations.
&&
Politics is dirty, emotionally dirty.
It’s not dominated by Plato — or Ted Cruz would be cruising to the White House.
The vast majority does not even follow events — and are immune to logic and reason — and are very happy with their decision process.
“We have actual, real world examples of what is the sort of judgment Hillary has. Good grief.” – Brian
Why is it that folks who come here arguing in favor of trump assumes those of us not on the trump train are arguing in favor of clinton?
Perhaps it is because the whole problem with the pro-trump argument is there is very little to base it on other than “not clinton”?
There is a fundamental failure to make a credible positive case for trump.
They never really tell us how all the ills they speak of that would come from a clinton win would be resolved with trump.
At best, they say there is only a “possibility” that trump “might be better”. And, that possibility rests on shaky assumptions wrt what they believe trump will do, being rather selective on a given speech amongst the multiple contradictions in his campaign.
If they do recognize any downside risk wrt trump (usually, only implicitly), they assume a GOP dominated Congress will suddenly find backbone to stop trump (the same people who surprisingly quickly fell like dominoes during the primary season), and that the press will foment such support (who couldn’t stop GWB’s 2004 election, nor the retake of Congress by the GOP. to say nothing of the “conservative” media), or that SCOTUS (with trump appointments) would suddenly find it in them to not defer to the executive (as in Obamacare).
The reality is BOTH are awful, and best we recognize it for what it is. It is a LOSE / LOSE election.
Oof Blert, that’s a low blow to Plato, who on his own testimony would much prefer to be left out of it altogether. After all, he watched his teacher be condemned and murdered by politics.
Besides, Ted Cruz, whose greatest teacher was also murdered by politics, still thinks himself a Christian, which we know Plato cannot possibly (think of himself); and yet Ted willfully entered the profession at a leisurely walking pace, in full control of his faculties (as I believe we ought to assume).
That’s overstated, rather simplistic and I would say demonstrates you’re not a serious critic of Trump.
Trump’s response to concerns about his admiring stance toward Putin is “he said nice things about me”.
I have friends in Crimea (well, they’ve been chased out of it at this point). That’s a peninsula on the Black Sea and is currently part of Ukraine.
Trump wasn’t even aware of Russian aggression there (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/31/politics/donald-trump-russia-ukraine-crimea-putin/)
I’m the one being simplistic?
Bill Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 12:11 pm
Sharon — my comment you quoted above is directed at those who have been telling me to “grow up and vote Trump”, “Put my big-boy pants on and vote Trump”, or belittling the value of a conscience, and the people above psychoanalyzing those of us who aren’t voting for Trump.
It wasn’t directed at you.
&&&
We ALL would love to stay clean — and have our ideal candidate on the ballot.
It’s obvious to just about every one posting that Trump was foisted upon us — for the express purpose of creating the dilemma that is making you gag.
We all get that.
It’s a turd sandwich — and we all have to take a bite.
A Trump vote is the ONLY blocking event that can derail Hillary.
I’d rather deal with a tropical storm than a category 5 hurricane.
Donald’s a blow hard. We all get that.
It also means that he talks big and moves small.
A President Trump can’t even launch atomics on his own. That’s an illusion largely created by Hollywood. It looks great on film, very royal and all that stuff.
There’s no psychoanalysis under way by any poster here.
Everyone understands the gag reflex.
It’s also wholly unnecessary to elaborate on Donald’s faults. The MSM has the 2-Minute Hate cranked up to eleven — 24 hours a day. ( cf ‘1984’)
It’s termed character assassination for a reason. For the assault almost entirely boils down to ad hominem after ad hominem.
When that’s not in play, the MSM is misquoting him or placing his words wildly out of context, as many are sarcastic comments.
IIRC the Clintons invited Trump to Chelsea’s wedding, or vice versa. In fact, he’s so close to the Clintons that MANY — right here — thought that his run for office was a sham to get Hillary into the office.
But, now, Hillary’s machine would have the nation believe that loud talk will end the world.
I’ll tell you what would do that trick. Imposing a no-fly zone over Syria. Hillary pitched EXACTLY that in the third debate.
!!!
And that is not the big news from the debate. Oh, my.
!!!
Putin is moving Heaven and Earth to finish his involvement in Syria before Hillary can take the oath of office.
Even he sees that going toe-to-toe with the USAF is a toe step too far.
He also can’t take the prestige hit of backing off.
Hillary’s position is the most EXTREME.
We are only an election away from DefCon 2.
Pray she — the REAL hot head — does not take us to DefCon 1.
“The vast majority does not even follow events – and are immune to logic and reason – and are very happy with their decision process.”-blert
In my own family/friend/professional sphere, many follow events and adopt whatever the MSM puts forth, and are indeed “happy with their decision process”. That is why I’ve used the recent example of my granddaughter on the playground–it is virtually the same thing with those who I’ve personally interchanged with regarding this election. The one that made me laugh, was my brother-in-law (formerly a Republican who has adopted his 3rd wife’s liberal positions because she has the million dollar retirement they are enjoying together). He can be counted on to post every affront about Trump in real time, while bragging of his support of Hillary, having taken a snapshot of his ballot before he sent it. Very infrequent “Facebookers” we have posted one thing about Trump (when the Dems decried the security issue w/regard to Hillary’s server) saying we are glad he shone a spotlight on the outright hypocrisy–“Are they personal emails or does this represent a security breach?” He responded “WWJD”to us, (a man who could give a rat’s ass WJWD if he even believes Jesus ever existed). True to form, dividing the populous into their segregated groups per the Leftist cabal, “Gee, I’m dealing with devoted Christians, I’ll really press in here”. Hilarious…and pathetic!
“As to supporters who know him— Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie.”
Brian E – I don’t find this persuasive. I apologize – my respect for Christie has always been low. Rudy I used to respect a lot (esp. after 9/11) but he’s been dropping for a long time as far as I’m concerned.
Regarding the link to what celebrity apprentices thought. It’s interesting – I read the whole thing – I don’t know why you used that as an argument that those who know him think he’ll be a great President. A number of them (I didn’t take stats) expressed how they were terrified of him being near “the button”. Several of them said he was a narcissist. Again, I didn’t tabulate, but it seemed like more than half were not pro his candidacy.
Blert: “It’s termed character assassination for a reason. For the assault almost entirely boils down to ad hominem after ad hominem.”
Lyin’ Ted Cruz
Little Marco
Low Energy Jeb
Crooked Hillary
Goofy Elizabeth Warren
Crazy Bernie
Trump has been the king of (not even very imaginative) ad-hominem.
Big Maq Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 12:29 pm
“We have actual, real world examples of what is the sort of judgment Hillary has. Good grief.” — Brian
Why is it that folks who come here arguing in favor of trump assumes those of us not on the trump train are arguing in favor of clinton?
&&&&
Nope.
It’s Game Theory.
If you don’t block her with a Trump vote, she’s IN.
A non-vote puts her IN. Her crowd has no qualms, none at all.
They’ll be egging her on, in fact.
Figure on Barry staying hyper active as a rabble rouser, doing the egging. That’s what Organizing for America is all about.
Then it’s a no-fly zone over Syria — oh, my!
A Trump presidency would almost certainly mean a take down of our wholly corrupt corporate media — which is insanely over concentrated into a few billionaire’s hands.
You have less than ten folks controlling the entire media landscape. They never appear on camera. ( much )
They are the man behind the curtain — and Trump is their personal and professional enemy. Their minions are in lock step. For their careers are hitched to the same horse.
You, with a conscience, have to at least neutralize a voter that has no conscience.
For no-one voting FOR Hillary can have scruples — any more than a fella voting for Trump in the primaries.
At the absolute bottom of scruples: Kasich. He screwed the entire GOP in the primaries — now he repeats in the general.
A good read. One of the travesties of Trumpism is the way the Christian right has jettisoned so many of the things they pretended were important (when a Democrat was in office, at least).
What it’s like to experience the 2016 election as both a conservative and a sex abuse survivor
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/21/what-its-like-to-experience-the-2016-election-as-both-a-conservative-and-a-sex-abuse-survivor/?postshare=3011477055898417&tid=ss_tw-bottom
For no-one voting FOR Hillary can have scruples – any more than a fella voting for Trump in the primaries.
This is a hideous over-generalization. I know a lot of Hillary voters – most of them millennials who are horrified at their choices this election season, but who will crawl over glass to prevent Trump from being elected. They have lots of scruples. They don’t, for instance, vote for sexual predators.
Another great move by the GOP – locking up the dying, old white voters and ignoring the ones who are going to set your destiny.
Since we have gaming and games to play, and as Berlin thought to have made a game, so we may amuse ourselves with Donald Trump and ask, is he hedgehog or fox?
In my opinion, (and viciously taking the opportunity to play first), I’d think I’d vote hedgehog!
For Donald knows one great thing!
Donald!
Bill Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 12:59 pm
Agreed.
Ad hominems are used because the ‘stinky’ works.
Turn on the TV — and take your fill of them.
Even your post about Trump using ad hominems IS an ad hominem argument.
You just don’t see folks arguing much about Trump’s stated positions, much.
Hillary’s positions are nightmares — war starters. Yet the MSM can’t find time to bring them up — even Fox. Fox uses its air time to re-babble their rival’s narrative — day in and day out.
Ad hominems are rarely used against Hillary — by any side.
Why bother? REAL reasons for loathing her are everywhere to hand. They are in surfeit.
That the polls indicate that this election is being decided by ad hominem attacks tells you all you need to know about the low state of humanity — and its thinking — such as it is.
“I know a lot of Hillary voters — most of them millennials who are horrified at their choices this election season, but who will crawl over glass to prevent Trump from being elected. They have lots of scruples. They don’t, for instance, vote for sexual predators.”Bill
And yet they can somehow overlook having Hillary–a woman who has denigrated the people her husband accosted take the position, thereby putting the sexual predator–Bill Clinton–back in the WH (another “twofer”).
My millennial sons don’t share their “horror”. They were Cruz supporters from the git-go and voted for him; but they recognize the wisdom of Dennis Prager’s position about opposing the Leftist cabal. They are my sons, and you’ll just have to accept my statement that I choose to live in reality and value truth above all, but I view them as people of courage and wisdom, compared to almost all their peers (thankfully not their fiancees) who are uniformly “virtue-signallers” and LIV. I’m only speaking of people I know personally…not in generalization.
Wait, you mean Cankles? Rarely? Really?
Personally, I much prefer the ad hominem “Mrs. Clinton”, since this appellation attaches a direct reminder of a stain she cannot possibly remove.
Bill Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 1:06 pm
For no-one voting FOR Hillary can have scruples – any more than a fella voting for Trump in the primaries.
This is a hideous over-generalization. I know a lot of Hillary voters — most of them millennials who are horrified at their choices this election season, but who will crawl over glass to prevent Trump from being elected. They have lots of scruples. They don’t, for instance, vote for sexual predators.
&&&&
Those assertions are laughably specious.
The only tabloid to print them was the NY TImes. Others were approached, all declined.
Yes, they are THAT absurd.
Pure lies.
We went through this with Mr. Cain. Gals were popping up everywhere with allegations. After the lawsuits were finished, they paid and paid — Mr. Cain.
EVERY last accuser was lying.
The same is true for Trump.
Unlike Cosby, Trump was his own drug. He’s not kidding. The gals in question WERE too ugly for him. He had stunning knockouts by the armful every where he turned.
Some of his accusers have an email trail a mile long — pleading with Donald to enter their lives — over and over. He wouldn’t even return their missives.
Unlike Bill Clinton, without exception, every gal that Trump has had a tryst with — and they were many — is a STUNNER — usually a Cover Girl.
Trump is levelling with you — and still you’re accepting smears as truth.
The weirdo in the sexuality department is Hillary.
She’s so obsessed with power that she stuck with a man that MOST women would’ve dumped. Bill is a serial rapist. There’s just no doubt about it. Paedophile Island only existed as a pervert’s paradise. ALL of the girls there were under age — way under age, even… drugged, too.
Fifteen-year old girls are not into sixty-year old burn outs, but drugs do make a man handsome.
Bill-
Regarding Trump’s admiration of Putin. He may have been played. But so were Bush and Obama:
“Vladimir Putin has managed a remarkable feat. He has successfully fooled two successive Presidents of the United States–who could not have had more different personalities and political beliefs–into believing that he was, or could become, a reliable, and possibly even a democratic, partner with the United States. In both cases, the U.S. ultimately became disillusioned, but reality did not dawn until well into each President’s second term.”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/12/us-comprehensive-strategy-toward-russia
Remember when Bush looked into Putin’s eyes and the Obama reset?
And Obama and Clinton are to blame for allowing Russia to re-insert itself into the ME. Given our policy toward’s Iran, you would think we were partners.
In the short term, we’ve been preoccupied and been slow to react to Russian aggression, and I’m not sure what we could have done in most of these instances. This policy paper does lay out a long-term strategy.
Here’s why you should support Trump:
1. Supreme Court nominations. Will be more conservative. Liberals consider the SC as the ultimate political power.
2. Border security. Both securing the border and our ME immigration policies.
3. Revive the economy. Trump as businessman understands business.
4. Replace Obamacare. We could have increased Medicaid coverage without killing the health care sector, since much of the increased coverage turns out to be Medicaid enrollees.
5. Drain the swamp in DC. That’s a pretty good metaphor. Wall St. has too much influence. Trump is not beholden to Wall St. and has the best chance of reigning in the excesses.
I suppose there’s more, but if even two of those were accomplished in 4 years, his presidency would be a success.
“Brian E — I don’t find this persuasive. I apologize — my respect for Christie has always been low. Rudy I used to respect a lot (esp. after 9/11) but he’s been dropping for a long time as far as I’m concerned.
Regarding the link to what celebrity apprentices thought. It’s interesting — I read the whole thing — I don’t know why you used that as an argument that those who know him think he’ll be a great President. A number of them (I didn’t take stats) expressed how they were terrified of him being near “the button”. Several of them said he was a narcissist. Again, I didn’t tabulate, but it seemed like more than half were not pro his candidacy.”- Bill
_____
Your argument was that he is mentally unstable. You don’t have to agree or even like either man, but their support certainly allays concerns in that area.
As to the ET article, I just thought it was interesting and genuine. There were people who had positive relationships with Trump and admired him. I would suggest those who were critical of Trump did so for political reasons. And some even said so– I like the guy, but he’d be a horrible president (for policy reasons, not because he’s some sort of mentally unstable person).
As to the narcissist meme. He’s a lot of things, but I don’t think he fits the classic definition of narcissist, but then I’m not a psychologist.
“. . .we may amuse ourselves with Donald Trump and ask, is he hedgehog or fox?” [sdferr @ 1:10]
My own opinion, they are not mutually exclusive. I have written that Trump’s real opponent is the DNC-MSM complex and any outrageous things he says cause outrageous media reactions which make Trump’s claims of “one against three” and a “rigged system” all the more plausible. It’s the old “give them enough rope and they will hang themselves” trope.
Having said that, I think Trump plays this game at a mediocre level at best. A real player would be able to do this surgically; Trump, OTOH, is more like a machete.
The fact that he has been successful at it (he’s still swinging and Hillary is not leading by 50 points) does not mean, however, that he will win. That remains to be seen on Nov 8th.
Bill Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 1:06 pm
For no-one voting FOR Hillary can have scruples – any more than a fella voting for Trump in the primaries.
%%
This is a hideous over-generalization.
Another great move by the GOP — locking up the dying, old white voters and ignoring the ones who are going to set your destiny.
&&&
You were saying something about over generalizations ?
Heh.
Alexander (or Henry) with a machete, oh yes:
T Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 1:50 pm
When you neutralize the bizarre Democrat bias in Reuter’s polling… you have Trump leading by an astonishing margin.
They’ve skewed their own tallies by 18 points.
Something’s not right.
It’s hard to ‘base line’ Reuters — because they’ve twice systemically changed their polling fundamentals.
So I just eliminate them as chaff.
NBC// WSJ is owned by the Clinton Machine. Yes, it’s bought and paid for. So it’s chaff.
Near as I can tell, folks are just not shifting their positions.
I don’t see that in person nor on the Web.
It’s not unreasonable to believe that Wikileaks is getting its dope courtesy of Moscow. Still, not one of them is seriously disputed by the Clinton Machine.
The word is that the very worst revelations are being held back for the final push, say the last two-weeks.
It’s what I’d do if I were Assange.
Of course, I expect that the NSA has all of the deleted emails. So the Machine and the White House are not much in doubt of what’s yet to come. Hence, the Kerry visit to London. The President sent him there expressly to address this ‘issue.’
Blert,
you may want to see this (link below):
What amazes me is that with polls looking like a shotgun scatter pattern (Sean Trend at RCP, by contrast, Gives Clinton an 87% chance of winning), how can anyone look at the polls and think they predict anything? Sure, in retrospect, we can look at them on Nov 9th and say X was the closest, but today who knows?
The link:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/10/suny-prof-with-reliable-election-model-predicts-87-chance-of-trump-win/
BTW, to those who will deride me for mentioning this poll as Trumpian fealty or a fantasy, I’m not saying it’s any more valid than any of the others. It claims an accuracy (through backtesting) of picking every presidential winner since 1912 (except fro 1960), but I have no idea how this poll measures or what it measures.
Again, my point is with such a wide disparity, who knows? And that has been characteristic of this entire election cycle.
Blert,
You wrote, regarding the charges of sexual assault against Trump: “Those assertions are laughably specious.
The only tabloid to print them was the NY TImes. Others were approached, all declined.
Yes, they are THAT absurd.
Pure lies.”
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-accusers-fact-check-20161019-snap-htmlstory.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/politics/trump-women-accusers/
http://www.businessinsider.com/witnesses-natasha-stoynoff-people-sexual-assault-claim-donald-trump-2016-10
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/13/497799354/a-list-of-donald-trumps-accusers-of-inappropriate-sexual-conduct
I could have gone on for a long time. There are a ton of links. Doesn’t mean any of this is true, but it does bring into question your assertion that only the NY Times printed any of the accusations.
An accusation doesn’t, of course, mean guilt. But it doesn’t help his case that he actually bragged about doing these things on tape.
Maybe everyone’s lying . . .
Who knows? No, one thing everyone knows about this election is Hillary is … and Trump is ….. 😉
t:
Regarding your link.
“Helmut Norpoth, a professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, has developed a model for predicting elections which, when applied, has correctly predicted every presidential election back to 1912 with one exception — the 1960 election.”
Just to make sure everyone understands – this model hasn’t predicted the winner in every election since 1912, sans 1960. It’s a model that’s been built to fit to the winner of every election since 1912. It’s a new model. It wasn’t around in 1912, or 1960, or 2008.
Doesn’t mean he’s not right. HRC is such a bad candidate, it’s possible somehow that the vast majority of the polls are wrong. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it though. In my opinion, only losers complain about the polls (Trump trumpeted all the polls big time when he was leading the pack in the primaries. They were accurate, btw).
“The projections for Clinton are all based on opinion polls, which are flawed because they don’t reflect actions, Norpoth wrote.”
I don’t even know what that means.
In every election in my memory, the opinion polls when taken in aggregate were very accurate in predicting the winner (even in the very close election of 2000, although that’s just my memory of things – I could be wrong). And they are getting better.
Who knows? This is a crazy election. Even almost everyone on this site supporting Trump says he’s their 3rd or 4th choice. Never have we had two more hated candidates. So maybe it’s all up in the air. Maybe he’ll win. I don’t know.
I hear a lot of folks saying that both of the candidates are so flawed that they can’t bring themselves to vote for either one. I understand that feeling but here’s what I don’t understand.
One of them is going to be the president and neither of them is worthy. So how about if we vote on the issues instead of the person.
Isn’t the Supreme Court worth voting for?
Isn’t immigration policy worth voting for?
Isn’t economic policy worth voting for?
Isn’t foreign relations worth voting for/
Isn’t the power of the federal government worth voting for?
Isn’t abortion policy worth voting for?
Isn’t the power of unions/corporations/private foundations worth voting for?
These two candidates have opposite positions on all of these unbelievably critical issues and a host of others. Don’t you think your vote isn’t important as to how these will be decided the next 4 years?
Admittedly neither one of them is going to do everything they say but the direction they will take these issues could not be more clear.
That’s why I’m voting Trump!
Irv:
What I understand is that you have made you mind up and do not consider the arguments valid that Trump statements on those issues are reliable and keeping with conservative values. I will vote for neither Trump nor Hillary. The country is not doomed on Nov. 8. If either of those two get’s elected. It is all about not giving up and accepting the “easy solution.”
We must have no part policy, since that is the point.
At least if we follow good ol’ Euclid, who taught us “A point is that which has no part”. So, we can call our necessary policy, “Null Set policy” since that would have no part whatsoever.
Good. Happy to be in agreement at last.
As a side note, a word of caution: chiliastic is not now and has never been about New Mexico ristras. In no way.
Long live New Mexico green chile!
“It’s a model that’s been built to fit to the winner of every election since 1912.” [Bill @ 3:19]
I think that is an important point. It doesn’t invalidate the poll outright, but it certainly does inject another question into it’s potential accuracy.
I can see it working several ways:
1) based upon past performances the poll has found certain consistencies in past elections and has capitalized on them to become a predictive tool. For instance, the insurance industry uses numbers going back ~150 years to calculate death rates. Even though life now is nothing like life 150 years ago, with the theory of large numbers they can predict death rates within about .25% for any age group;
2) It seems accurate because it is built on these past elections but this is a black swan election; meaning it is a blowout. And black swan’s can work both ways, it could be an unpredicted mandate for either Clinton or Trump; That’s the whole point about unpredictability;
3) even though it measures parameters that no one else is measuring, it’s simply incorrect.
Again, we shall see on Nov 9th when the results are in.
One side note about polls, I remember a number of years ago when someone suggested that we don’t even bother to vote anymore, just do the polling and let that stand as election results. Thank God that idea went nowhere What bothers me is that if polls become more accurate, that idea could take on a life of its own.
OM – I have no idea how your comment applies to my post. Did you not read my last statement? “Admittedly neither one of them is going to do everything they say but the direction they will take these issues could not be more clear.”
As mud, so clear.
Irv:
I don’t think that Trump will take the country in the direction that you hope for. Your mind is made up, but keep the positive attitude no mater what. The country is in for more hard times, regardless.
Had a conversation today with an acquaintance who was an early trump supporter. I mentioned before that the few that I know were becoming noticeably uncomfortable.
Today, he said he’s thrown in the towel – he now readily acknowledges many of the issues with trump, and thinks it was a big mistake not selecting one of the other 16 who could prosecute the case against clinton and speak clearly on what he would do.
To him trump only talks in headlines, but has nothing after that.
Btw, he does not have a hyperbolized view of what clinton will do – we share a similar view on what clinton will mean.
This is a lost opportunity.
“This is a lost opportunity.”
Might even call it a tootblan.
“. . . trump only talks in headlines . . . .” [Big Maq @ 4:24]
I would not dispute that. What people forget is that this is a campaign. In fact, this has nothing to do with governing and both Trump and Clinton are throwing sound bites to grab attention. It’s kind of like my morning e-paper (Instapundit). I read it with morning coffee and check it throughout the day. I read all of the headlines but only selected links.
Now the questions about Trump’s ability to govern are a separate matter.
To those that say they are conservative buy won’t vote for Trump because you don’t trust that he will keep his word, it’s almost like you think he should govern as an autocrat– like whether or not conservative policies become law are up to him.
But it’s likely that a conservative congress could pass good conservative legislation with a high likelihood that Trump would sign the bills into law.
Conservatives that refuse to vote for Trump, insuring a Hillary victory, defend their position by hoping a conservative congress could keep Hillary from doing too much damage.
Which is the more rational argument?
Brian E,
Ding! Ding! Ding! We Have a winner!
Why would Trump (liberal Democrat) not sign democrat bills or go along with a democrat congress? He sure doesn’t spend much time supporting or pushing to retain a Republican controlled congress. Why would that be I wonder? Because it’s all about Trump being in charge, or have you forgotten his statements that he wouldn’t mind being an “independent.”
Brian E:
Problem is that Trump seems to be going out of his way to ensure that Congress goes as Democratic as possible.
“Might even call it a tootblan.” – sdferr
Funny. Thanks!
And I see Trump going out of his way to defend himself against the people who are supposed to be supporting the republican candidate but will not.
Dear Lord, I can handle my enemies; please protect me from my friends. Julius Caesar comes to mind…et tu Brute?
Irv:
He and in particular many of his most avid supporters (I do not include you in this)—have gone out of their way to insult, revile, threaten, and shame them.
And the vast majority of those who will not support Trump but are on the right are most definitely supporting the GOP down-ticket.
Bill Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 10:52 am
We GET that.
You ARE a “concern troll.’
Noted.
Thanks for the visit.
OM Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 3:44 pm
Irv:
What I understand is that you have made you mind up and do not consider the arguments valid that Trump statements on those issues are reliable and keeping with conservative values. I will vote for neither Trump nor Hillary. The country is not doomed on Nov. 8. If either of those two get’s elected. It is all about not giving up and accepting the “easy solution.”
&&&
BUT.
BUT.
2016 Is a water shed election — like 1860 — which was MUCH more bitter.
DEMOGRAPHICS will assure this nation a one-party state.
It’s WHY this election is even close.
The Clinton Machine has California — 40% of the votes required — in its hip bag.
Gag.
This will ONLY proceed to the point when the Democrat party starts the 2020 election with 44% of the electoral votes “in the bag.’
The GOP then has to win an absurd number of the — so called — uncommitted states.
You are living in statistical fanaisy land.
Any Republican would need to attain an absurd ‘loyalty’ ratio to gain the White House.
Rome, the Ming, and many another dynasty have revealed that these moments are ONE SHOT events.
Like electing the Nazis — there’s no second ballot. EVER.
Electing Trump merely delays this event.
DEMOGRAPHICS are swamping the American polity with folks that ABSOLUTELY don’t by in to the US Constitution — and all the rest.
I’m in California. I see this DIRECTLY.
There’s no fussing about on this matter.
Many second generation Latinos HATE America.
They have been TAUGHT to do so.
This is true even when their parents are aghast, dismayed — and disown their sons.
(!!!)
Yup.
“What people forget is that this is a campaign. In fact, this (talking in headlines) has nothing to do with governing and both Trump and Clinton are throwing sound bites to grab attention” – T
Well in a narrow sense agree, but the big picture is that (normally!?) to get the policies he wants to govern by, he has to win over support in both Congress and in the public.
If he has a hard time doing so as part of his campaign, then it is entirely unclear how he will magically be able to once elected. (Alternative is to use executive action, of course)
Think about what’s wrapped up in how this perception of being a “headlines only” guy is made.
– Lack of strategic thinking. The more media attention he seeks for himself, the less attention there is on clinton and obama. The more he hits at the other GOP, the less he is hitting on clinton and obama. The more he is claiming the election is rigged, the less he is pointing to the problems with clinton and obama.
– Lack of discipline. Letting clinton and the msm drive the dialog.
– Lack of knowledge / details. Without systematically and repeatedly taking his key selling points and laying them out in sufficient logical detail he does not gain credibility.
– Lack of positive vision. The public were predisposed to vote against clinton, but they want to know what they will get – instead he fed the anger of a minority segment of the population rather than reaching out much beyond that “base”.
– Lack of organization. How many changes in campaign management? He claimed self funding, but it seems the campaign was starved of funds. Ground game / GOTV seemed a forgotten concern. All these question one of his key selling points – Competence!
Being stuck at the headlines level is a huge red flag for / is symptomatic of a poorly run campaign.
All these elements were in our discussion around the reason why he threw in the towel on trump. “Headlines only” is just a summary statement. That is, there is no there, there.
OM Says:
October 21st, 2016 at 8:52 pm
Reality injection.
IF he wins, we’ll have a Republican House, a Republican Senate.
So…
Your scenario falls apart.
That’s funny Blert. Thing Trump has said and things he’s done and polls as they stand now need a reality check. How droll, for a troll (not really). But funny. 🙂
Blert, serious question: what is a “concern troll”?
And, though you dismissed me, I plan on sticking around.
I hate this election season….
Bill:
Blert is basically questioning the honesty and sincerity of your opinions. A concern troll is a person who actually is in opposition to a person or position but goes about it by raising “concerns” that appear well meaning but actually are intended to undermine and subvert the opponent or position. To be disingenuous and to argue falsely. You seem quite clear in stating your beliefs and opposition to Trumpism. Blert seeks to discredit you. That’s my take. Now it’s time for the Blert show. 🙂
If Trimp wins he’ll have a republican congress which will force him to govern as a conservative. What’s bad about that?
Oh, that would be good except Trump would deal with the Dems and the left of moderate ‘Republicans.” Do you think Trump would stick to conservative principles when someone tried to “force” him to do something alien to his nature? He has said, after all, that he can get along with Chucky and Nancy. Just being realistic about the man, Irv.
And here is a dissenting argument that this isn’t the most important election in American history:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-this-is-not-the-most-important-election-ever/article/2605157?custom_click=rss
I know, that’s impossible!
Irving Greenberg:
Most predictions are that whoever wins, Hillary or Trump, the Senate will probably become Democratic.
And even if it didn’t turn Democratic, and Trump is also the president, why would those terrible, spineless GOPe members of Congress (according to Trump supporters, that is) force anyone’s hand in a conservative direction, anyway?
Irv,
“If trimp wins” nothing will stop him from being “trimp” or reverting to his NYC liberal roots. Trump is trump, like Popeye that is all that he is am. Sometimes, in fact often, it is advisable to get a clue.
I finally get it. Several of you can’t stand Trump and are convinced having him win would be worse than a Hillary win. I cannot understand your position. Your evidence seems to be based more on what you think of Trump as a person rather than a candidate. I can’t understand how anyone can think personality traits are more important than blatant unrepentant criminality. All the arguments fail to convince me even though I never wanted Trump to be the nominee. I truly hope my analysis of the consequences of a Hillary win are wrong but I’ve read nothing that makes me think it might be. Good luck to us all
Irving Greenberg Says:
October 22nd, 2016 at 12:21 am
Yes, yes.
It’s enraged speculation against a decades long, utterly horrific, track record.
The speculation trumps her history.
With Trump I get “spin the wheel.”
With Hillary i get the rack.
And that’s no stretch of the imagination.
Her “no-fly zone” pitch is a prelude to war.
Yet, none posit so.
Irving Greenberg:
It is not personal animus, not a question of “can’t stand” Trump, at least it’s not my impression of any of the commenters here.
When someone has no political history whatsoever (that would be Trump, who has never held political office of any sort), one must evaluate them on two dimensions: their personal history in other realms, and their character as revealed by their lives and words and history. Those who believe Trump is potentially more dangerous to the republic than Hillary judge him by those two standards to be mentally unbalanced, a con man who lies about nearly everything, narcissistic and only caring about himself, and with a history that indicates he is actually a Democrat very much like Hillary who is dissembling about himself and his political goals. They consider him unbalanced enough plus ignorant enough to be willing to cause wars or to cause them inadvertently, and more likely to do that than she is.
You don’t have to agree with any of this. You can think it’s far-fetched, ridiculous. But character is actually YUGELY important when evaluating a person running for the presidency, most powerful office in the land, who has no political track record of being in office and having any political power.
neo-neocon Says:
October 22nd, 2016 at 12:58 am
After DECADES of using Wareham’s typing scheme.
I am in awe.
Personalities — in maturity — can’t change.
Trump is NOT my favorite — not by a long shot.
But.
He’s NOT going to go off the rails.
HIllary has — in the 3rd debate — ALREADY demonstrated “off the rails” diplomacy.
If you wonder why the Arctic and Baltic fleets are sailing to the Med — Hillary’s no-fly zone is why.
Does not everyone see it ?
Neo – I think you said what I meant vs. what I said. I meant to include character in the term personality traits. Your analysis of his character is that he, backed by a contentious congress, would be worse for the country than an unrepentant criminal backed by a congress that would let her do as she pleases, legal or not.
To me that describes the situation in Venezuela which started as one of the richest countries in the world due to oil and became the poster child for Hillary’s kind of kleptocratic leadership.
We’ve seen that 8 years of that type of leadership has brought this country to its knees with:
social disorder, the breakdown of law and order with cities and states openly defying federal laws without repercussion,
foreign policy disaster after disaster with our friends distrusting and abandoning us and our enemies attacking us everywhere and laughing at our timid efforts to stop them,
doubling the national debt and an economy on the verge of collapse,
our educational institutions taken over by anti-American socialists,
our religious institutions and opposition political parties under attack by every corrupt agency of the federal government
any number of other crises so numerous that i can’t come up with them all.
I can think of no character flaws, short of suicidal insanity, that could be worse than hers and 4 more years of that type of leadership and I don’t consider him insane or self destructive.
I think we have all the signs that 4 more years of that and we would become like Venezuela today, a place too horrible to describe.
Trump doesn’t see it because Putin has said nice things about him, and “you’re a puppet!” 🙂
And of course no one sees that the House Majority Leader is actually a Democrat mole, no one except Trumpbart:
http://origin-nyi.thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/302315-breitbart-escalates-war-on-paul-ryan
Is that winning strategy for opposing the Democrats, by keeping control the Congress. Eh, nope.
I think Neo is correct, but misses some other important points, still about assessing trump as an office holder, given he has no track record of such to point to…
1) Personality / Character
Neo addressed, but there is one other aspect that is hard to gleen – motivation?
trump supporters pillory clinton’s motivations, but there is plenty of reason to believe trump has very similar motivations.
Just one example… His actions of late vs other GOP candidates hardly makes sense if he is so opposed to clinton.
2) Principles / Policy
– trump has dramatically changed from his past, without adequate / compelling reason why explained.
– Too often trump’s policies as written differs from what he has said about them.
– Too often trump has contradicted himself on his policies.
trump lacks a level of detail (more than usual for politicians) in explaining his own stances.
– trump often says things in a way as to be taken more than one way – people then “hear” what they want to “hear”.
Need we say more?
trump’s supporters assume much, but have little to base it on, thus we are left with “not clinton” as the biggest part of their argument.
3) Competency
– His hiring of “great people” three times to run his campaign.
– His self funding / fund raising, where the campaign seems starved for funds.
– His GOTV / ground game which seems an after thought, and outsourced almost entirely to the RNC.
– His inability to anticipate strategic action – e.g. Cruz’s work in CO to place supporters into the delegate roles.
– His lack of discipline on message.
– His inability to clearly and coherently articulate the whys and hows.
So we are supposed to put the power of POTUS in his hands where the issues and strategy (e.g. vs foreign foes) is much more complex and requires much more serious thought and consideration?
Were it not for the hyperbolical case against clinton, trump wouldn’t even be a consideration.
Evidently, it isn’t, for most people who might have swung to vote GOP this election.
Neo said:
“Most predictions are that whoever wins, Hillary or Trump, the senate will most likely go Democratic.”
Neo, you do realize you gave one of the critical reasons for voting for Trump?
And now the notoTrumpers are arguing that you need to have political experience to be fit to be president, and ignore that Trump employs 22,000 people in his various enterprises, built businesses across the globe, and understands the entrepreneurial spirit that built America.
The gruel is getting pretty thin.
Bitg Maq – Your 3 reasons sound to me like you’re saying he doesn’t act like a typical politician. He’s not doing the things politicians would do under these circumstances. That seems like a poor standard to judge him by. We nominated typical politicians the last 2 times and you see where that got us. Now we like him because he’s not like them. If he had been a typical politician he wouldn’t be the nominee.
As to your last statement I couldn’t disagree more. The case against Clinton is anything but hyperbolical. Her every action her whole life after college has proven what type of person she is. I won’t bother to enumerate the times she has acted immorally, illegally and against America’s interests to enrich herself and increase her power.
My judgement is that she is infinitely more dangerous to the country and the world than Trump would be. I would rather have a restrained egomaniac than an unrestrained megalomaniac.
Sorry for the typo Big Maq.
I’m assuming most of Trump’s critics here have never run a business or started one.
It’s harder than it looks. The knowledge and skills Trump has learned would be key to reigning in a bureaucratic leviathan that is the executive branch, which is what the President manages.
As to foreign policy, Washington DC is awash in experts. With Gingrich as a trusted advisor, I’m not worried about a foreign policy that will recognize historical relationships that still drive many of the world’s conflicts and an intelligent response.
I wish Trump would announce several candidates for key department secretaries so we could get a sense of the competence that a Trump presidency would bring to Washington.
Starting a business requires tenaciousness, creativeness, confidence, and other traits that will transfer to the presidency.
I’m assuming that a business is not a country, nor a political position that is supposed to serve the constituents. He can’t just fire us and replace us with H1B workers from wherever. Or can he?
Wait, that’s the dreaded 25 gazillion other “people” from other places who will be replacing us. Sorry I forgot the other message.
An often unstated core assumption is that Trump will do what he said today when or if he is elected. He will pay his creditors, he will keep his vows, he will act presidential, he will pivot. Right, still waiting.
OM,
President=CEO/Owner
Constituents=Customers
Executive bureaucrats=Employees
H1B workers=Legal immigrants
You sounded confused.
Have the constituents been well served by Obama/Hillary?
Have government employees been fired/laid off when demonstrated to be incompetent/crooked?
Trump was right to take advantage of the governing laws to his advantage while running his business.
Do you take deductions on your personal taxes?
I’m looking forward to finally have a president that has actually accomplished something. That’s why I don’t think Senators make good presidents and I would rather have a governor. Part of the reason I supported Kasich. I knew he would disappoint me in many areas, but I thought he would do some things well.
It’s no different with Trump. He’s going to be successful in some areas and be disappointing in others.
Look, we can’t blame Bush for allowing Russia gain influence in the ME, creating an Iran/Russia alliance that is going to wreak havoc. That rest squarely on Obama/Hillary.
Trump has said he will resist the urge to start a war with Russia there.
“Your 3 reasons sound to me like you’re saying he doesn’t act like a typical politician” – Irv
Well, that’s true in a sense, as those are key fundamentals to master, to persuade sufficient voters, and, ultimately, to win… at least, if we are assuming a democratic (not a reference to the party) type process for gaining power.
.
” We nominated typical politicians the last 2 times and you see where that got us. Now we like him because he’s not like them.”
There is going outside the box to find candidates, and then there is nominating someone who embodies those characteristics and capabilities to win AND govern in a way and a direction to change our country around.
“Not a normal politician” does not equate with “someone who can achieve what needs to be done”.
Besides, I reject the argument that essentially none the other candidates (but Fiorina and Carson) could have won, which seems your implication.
Head to head polling at the time was very strongly in the other candidates’ favor vs clinton. trump was the worst of all and Cruz’s showed some challenges, but still winnable. There is not much else one could point to as evidence to make a case that nobody else could possibly have won vs clinton.
.
“The case against Clinton is anything but hyperbolical … My judgement is that she is infinitely more dangerous to the country and the world than Trump would be.
You’ve contradicted yourself and make my case for me.
Have you had that amazing experience of wonder, utter mouth-agaped slack jawed wonder when listening to Donald Trump speak at length, extemporaneously and so eloquently on the profound influence upon his own thought of the political-economic teachings of the likes Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Frederic Bastiat, and then, redoubling his masterful bowling-you-over when he turns to move on to the teachings of their later admirers, men such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, James M. Buchanan et alia.? It’s such an awe inspiring thing to witness, isn’t it? Truly inspirational as to the core teachings of the classically liberal trust in the freedom of mankind to create human flourishing when loosed from bonds of servitude to the overweening and excessive powers of the state.
Or rather, more probably, been stupified at Trump’s singular devotion to his own father’s teachings about the uses of crony capitalism, regulatory capture, leveraged federal subsidies largess — and then all of that — further compounded with the inspiring powers of Norman Vincent Peale’s teachings on pulling the wool over the eyes of rubes?
Yep, it’s an astonishing thing to hear to all right. It’s almost up there in astonishment factor with his demands for the impeachment of that monster, George W. Bush.
Brian E:
Unfortunately, it’s not critical enough if you think he’s a loose-cannon madman and a Democratic one at that. That’s the problem for conservatives who don’t want to vote for him.
All I’ve been hearing here is a completely one-sided discussion. You talk incessantly about Trump’s shortcomings with nary a mention of Clinton’s. I persist in saying this is an either/or election. It means nothing to talk about one person without comparing him to her.
If you wish to convince that she would be better than he then you have to have to do a comparison and not just talk about him. I’ve tried to do that in most of my postings but the majority of the dissents only talk about him. In my opinion, one-sided discussions are not helpful in decision making.
Irv:
Are you kidding me?
There’s tons of people excoriating Clinton in the comments, and I’ve written tons of posts about her.
The reason she’s not discussed as much as Trump right now is that there is basic agreement on her. There is a bit of disagreement on just how very terrible, and whether a Clinton presidency would be the end of the republic or not. But otherwise, there is unanimous detestation of her and her policies. It’s been clear for years and years.
And there have been many many many discussions featuring comparisons of Hillary vs. Trump. It’s been incessant in the comments session for many months. I tried to explain some of the “Russian roulette” argument and what’s flawed about it here.
Go to the “Hillary Clinton” category and start reading if you want to see my posts on the subject. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because a great deal of the discussion has occurred in the comments section.
Irv, if someone here would be attempting to argue for the election of Mrs. Clinton, I suspect that proponent would get an earful of opposition from us all, or nearly all. Certainly I’d be troubling to make waves. But no such advocacy is present, is it? So we dispense with any need to do otherwise than what you see.
Neo – Sorry, once again I was unclear. I read you regularly and am familiar with most of those posts. I was referring to the current discussion thread where there has been almost no discussion about her.
Previous discussions are important but continuing the discussion on only one side seems irrelevant to me. What is the point in discussing Trump’s fitness without comparing it to hers? I have no interest in either one of them except for the fact that I have to choose one or throw my vote away in protest.
BrianE:
Confused? Look in the mirror. What does the phrase “consent of the governed” mean to you?
The president is NOT the owner/CEO of this country.
He serves at the will of the people for fixed terms subject to termination when he/she violates the Constitution (high crimes and misdemeanors). The President is to be constrained by Congress and the Judiciary, All good in theory, messed up increasingly in practice.
Trump is a businessman of some sort. Big whoop. He has shown gross incompetence in his OJT as a serious politician. But all will be well in his OJT as POTUS, because? He’s not Hillary.
BrianE:
And this mega-wise businessman is discovering that his chief asset; the “Trump” brand, is taking serious damage from his venture into presidential politics. Trump Hotels and properties have seen significant declines in traffic, so much so that the brand “Scion” is being substituted for “Trump” when courting customers in the millennials.
Doesn’t sound to me that he anticipated some obvious consequences of his behavior. Just sayin. 🙂
Trump’s ‘gross incompetence’ has gotten him closer to the presidency than anyone thought it would. Several of the polls show him ahead even though most show him behind. I really wouldn’t start counthig his loss until the votes are counted.
That “not start counting his loss until the votes are counted” sounds like good advice to no less than Donald Trump himself, doesn’t it Irv? He might could stand to knock off talking so much about an aftermath he cannot possibly reckon in the present, which is what his “rigged” harping seems to forebode, and simply go on about his winning campaign business.
S’blood, I’ve never heard a politician (and Trump is certainly a politician) jabber on so much about his own dim prospects in my life. Even the most pitifully failing campaigns I’ve ever seen have managed to put out an argument how they’re going to win, right up to the very last day no less, a time when acknowledging what most everyone else can say freely wouldn’t hurt their chances a whit.
His speech today at Gettysburg where he outlined his actions in his first 100 days certainly sounded like a campaign speech to me. It’s reminiscent of the “Contract With America” which got the republicans their first house majority in 40 years. I can’t imagine that anyone would think that’s not a good strategy for the last 2 weeks.
I think all his talking about a rigged election refers not only to voter fraud, which has affected elections in the past, but also to the supposed free press all coming down on one side of the issue as they have done since 1968. It’s his way of saying ‘we’re watching so be very careful about trying to cheat.’ What on earth is wrong with that?
It means nothing to talk about one person without comparing him to her.
If you people were actually serious about Clinton being the evil witch of America and that her election will destroy the nation, you would just shoot her or nuke DC with her in it.
Because you people are Not Serious, only pretending to be serious, is why you’re in the fix you’re in.
I have no interest in either one of them except for the fact that I have to choose one or throw my vote away in protest.
Which is how a slave talks. I see that this vaunted American exceptionalism and freedom which was supposed to have been passed to descendants in the blood, didn’t quite take in this generation.
That’s a lot of comments in 1 day, can’t even read all of them. To directly reply to the ones directed towards me:
Neo: No, I’m not familiar with that article or the topic. But the question of portfolio investment and diversity, is pretty standard fare for the rich and elites. If it is true what Blert said about Trum and his deficit crash with the banks, then the banks near New York were operating on the Trum brand or perhaps Trum’s ancestry. There’s a kind of rich and wealthy class structure going on there, in the NY area at least. They look out for each other. They get the government to bail each other out. The rules don’t apply to them, like Epstein, as much as they apply to peasants and commoners.
To T: I was quoting Sharon, the T you saw wasn’t your name but the start of a sentence that had been caught in the paste/copy. When I attribute quotations, it’s after the ” preceded by a -.
Irv:
Regarding Trump’s gross incompetence as a serious politician and the “rigged system” whine. It may depress Republican voter trun out hurting him and down ticket races, effectively giving more power to Hillary. But it is all about him after all.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/21/poll-45-republicans-say-theyre-unlikely-definitely-wont-accept-election-result-trump-loses/
” It’s his way of saying ‘we’re watching so be very careful about trying to cheat.’ What on earth is wrong with that?” – Irv
It is a pathetic waste of an opportunity.
That is an indulgence that takes the eye off the issues he needs to be pounding on.
It foreshadows losing.
It means we are talking about trump saying stupid things and not talking about clinton or obama.
It shows he’s not really thoughtful, and perhaps not serious about stopping clinton whatsoever, that he distracts all with this which has no bearing on his winning or losing.
Nothing at all is possibly wrong with that. Nothing.