Earlier quoted context omitted.
>turnout "Obama got 65.9m votes in '12, Romney 60.9m. Clinton has 59.3m, Trump 59.1m. R vote didn't go up; Dem vote went down. 6.6m missing votes." https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/796378238306160641
I sat out as a Sanders supporter. I am sure I am not alone. EDIT: 1. I viewed Sanders support of Clinton as forced/coerced, as in "We let you compete in the Democratic primary, now you owe us". EDIT 2: By agreeing to support Clinton, she adopted some of his left leaning policies (in show only though, such as not supporting fracking or the TPP). 2. Of course I voted down ballot. EDIT 3: Getting really tired of these H…
Donald Trump Is Elected President
661–670 of 1001 posts
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hillary focused her entire campaign on why people should stop Trump, at the expense of talking about why she should be president. I couldn't disagree more. This campaign was all about emotion, not rationality. Apparently facts don't matter and that's very hard to deal with.
> This campaign was all about emotion, not rationality. Keep thinking that and you'll lose the next election as well. Amongst Trump supporters I know it was about jobs, the economy, the wars and a feeling that politicians no longer represented them. I have no doubt there are some Trump supporters who are racist and sexist, but that doesn't win you the middle swing states and the rust belt (especially those states tha…
Aren't unemployment and the economy doing better now than 8 years ago? My impression is Trump just fueled the emotion of pessimism (things are awful, they were great before), without neither the facts to back it (because he didn't care) nor a plan beyond the old "the more you cut taxes, the better the economy".
Even for the people that think the economy is important enough that the racism and sexism should be ignored, that's still playing to their emotion.
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too bad you can't do basic math either. America has spent/committed trillions of dollars on two wars that it has lost . That money got us nothing but more terrorists to be afraid of. If that money was invested in a sound "socialist" manner we wouldn't have the level of despair that would incite millions of citizens to vote for a candidate who promised to "blow up the system". https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nati…
What do you mean by "lost"? You mean the nation building part? Because Afghanistan and Iraq didn't win those wars. The occupation and attempts at nation building are a different story.
Afghanistan is more unstable now that we've invaded. And the war in Iraq only created a fertile ground for Islamic State to rise from the ashes.
Remember what Colin Powell said: "you break it, you bought it". We broke it and have utterly failed to repair the damage done.
Back to you, goatlover, define "win" in these scenarios and tell me about the victories that have "won" these wars.
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#664I have a lot of thoughts, but here's one: Hillary focused her entire campaign on why people should stop Trump, at the expense of talking about why she should be president. In general, making the case against someone else rather than the affirmative case for yourself doesn't work. It's reaction versus action. It's undoubtably true now that there was a very real populist anger towards the existing political order, and…
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#665I think the election of Trump is also a backslash against the PC, SJW, safe-space, trigger-warning, micro aggression tendencies that have been spreading in the U.S. for the last couple of years. This has become too much and millions of Americans are fed up with it, they have now spoken out.
Which is ironic since Trump's supporters are the most PC, safe-space, triggered people I've seen. Clinton called some of them "deplorables" and there was such hue and cry. Point out that it's racist to criticize a judge based on his ancestry, or to propose banning immigrants based on their religion, and they got so tremendously offended.
I think this was Hillary's single biggest mistake. It was exactly what they were waiting for -- the "Washington Elite" telling them they were less than. It gave the outsiders a rallying call.
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
>turnout "Obama got 65.9m votes in '12, Romney 60.9m. Clinton has 59.3m, Trump 59.1m. R vote didn't go up; Dem vote went down. 6.6m missing votes." https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/796378238306160641
I sat out as a Sanders supporter. I am sure I am not alone. EDIT: 1. I viewed Sanders support of Clinton as forced/coerced, as in "We let you compete in the Democratic primary, now you owe us". EDIT 2: By agreeing to support Clinton, she adopted some of his left leaning policies (in show only though, such as not supporting fracking or the TPP). 2. Of course I voted down ballot. EDIT 3: Getting really tired of these H…
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
In all honesty: almost none. He just wanted to be president. Most of his time will be spend enriching himself by selling banal access and bloviating on the world stage. That's pretty awful, but not apocalypse-level awful. Of your list: The wall is a technical impossibility that everyone can recognize. There's no funding for a deportation force and the political optics of goon squads rounding people up is something co…
I don't think you understand how ego works. He wants to be more than just president, he wants to be a great president, that's in his nature. I truly believe he'll do what it takes to make himself into a great president. Do you think he wants to be remembered more as a George W. Bush or a Ronald Reagan? I'm about as worried about a Trump presidency as I am worried that I'll remember how to breath at night. Human Natur…
I'm not sure that I buy that from his history. His life is one of chasing adulation and attention. He built gaudy hotels in big cities, he never chased the real estate growth market in housing. He ran a reality show, not a media network.
He's a narcissist, not a despot. Fill his cabinet with fawning sycophants and give him a media organization or two at which to direct his rage and I'll bet anything he just sits on his ass in the oval office and waits out his four years.
I guess that's what passes for optimism today. But it's the story I'm sticking to.
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#668I doubt that, by consistently saying the same thing, anyone can be right for 24 years. The world changes; what is right 24 years ago may not be right today, and vice versa.
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
reddit user TPKM's comment on the sanders-would-have-won-thread: "Support for Trump, much like Brexit, was based upon an extremely widespread feeling that average people are not getting their fair share of the benefits of globalisation. This is neither a specifically Democrat or Republican problem, and people have been saying it one way or another for years. It was also the foundation of Sanders' campaign. The differ…
The reason people don't feel they are getting the benefits of globalization is because the benefits are not as direct as the costs. When prices for goods are lower, it is not obvious to the average person that this is because of globalization. When your factory job is shipped overseas, the cost is readily apparent. No one makes the connection between the lower costs for things and globalization.
So while the goods that are mostly part of discretionary spending (think clothes and electronics) are cheaper, the essentials that can't be outsourced have also increased in price (education, healthcare, housing)
Re: Donald Trump Is Elected President
#670I think we learned that fake news (used to pump up fake issues) is now a legitimate campaign strategy that works even on people who should know better. Trump won on a mountain of fake issues: Immigration: both conservative and liberal economists agree that immigration (illegal or otherwise) does not suppress wages and does not suppress job growth. https://www.cato.org/research/immigration http://business.time.com/201…