2016 US Presidential Election Thread Part VI

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Axver said:
I seriously can't believe Trump has successfully sold this to people. Of all the people in the race, he's the most tied to big money. Proof snake oil salesmen will always have a market.
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But he's not establishment, so it's easy to see why people are more drawn to him.

Oh Cobbler how have you got this far into US political threads without knowing about the electoral college! Friggin'. :tsk:

In short, Americans don't elect their president by a national popular vote. In each state, they vote for a slate of electors who are pledged to support a particular candidate. These electors, 538 in total (hence the name of a certain popular website), then vote for the president. Since it's a foregone conclusion in most states whether their voters will select a Democratic or Republican slate, the race basically comes down to a few large swing states. That's why we always hear so much about places like Florida or Ohio. It is possible to win the national popular vote and lose the electoral college - and this has happened multiple times.
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Ah I see. (and thaaaat's why that site is named like that.) I still don't really understand it though. I'll have to do more research.
 
"His supporters realize he's a joke. They do not care. They know he's authoritarian, nationalist, almost un-American, and they love him anyway, because he disrupts a broken political process and beats establishment candidates who've long ignored their interests.

When you're earning $32,000 a year and haven't had a decent vacation in over a decade, it doesn't matter who Trump appoints to the U.N., or if he poisons America's standing in the world, you just want to win again, whoever the victim, whatever the price." - Via Brian McLaren


http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2016-03-09/a-message-from-trumps-america


I thought this was an interesting take.


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BVS said:
"His supporters realize he's a joke. They do not care. They know he's authoritarian, nationalist, almost un-American, and they love him anyway, because he disrupts a broken political process and beats establishment candidates who've long ignored their interests.

When you're earning $32,000 a year and haven't had a decent vacation in over a decade, it doesn't matter who Trump appoints to the U.N., or if he poisons America's standing in the world, you just want to win again, whoever the victim, whatever the price." - Via Brian McLaren
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This is why I have said so many times that I don't understand the constant references to experience and resume that Hillary supporters bring up. So many people DON'T CARE.
 
BVS said:
"His supporters realize he's a joke. They do not care. They know he's authoritarian, nationalist, almost un-American, and they love him anyway, because he disrupts a broken political process and beats establishment candidates who've long ignored their interests.

When you're earning $32,000 a year and haven't had a decent vacation in over a decade, it doesn't matter who Trump appoints to the U.N., or if he poisons America's standing in the world, you just want to win again, whoever the victim, whatever the price." - Via Brian McLaren


A Message From Trump's America - US News


I thought this was an interesting take.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
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that's very dada idea. which scares me a bit.
 
establishment Republicans may be mean, but they aren't crazy.

The Bitter Pill #NeverTrump Is Struggling To Swallow: Supporting Hillary

As stopping Donald Trump from winning the GOP nomination becomes more of a long shot, the choice facing anti-Trump Republicans becomes more complicated. They despise Trump. But do they despise him enough to vote for Hillary Clinton, a figure that attracts a singular brand of hatred and opposition from the Republican Party?

That is the reality the GOP’s Trump foes are increasingly being forced to grapple with. For Republicans worried a Trump nomination could forever rupture their party, saying they would support Clinton instead is a particularly bitter pill.

Conservatives have long labeled Clinton a ruthless, power-hungry political-ladder climber, who will ruin the country while fronting the radical agenda pushed by moneyed interests on the left. Their hostility towards her has been on the party front burner for two decades -- from the HillaryCare wars of the early 1990s to the Benghazi witch hunt of today -- and a world without Republicans' entrenched hatred of her is almost impossible to imagine. Clinton even bragged at a Democratic debate last fall that "the Republicans" are the enemy she was most proud of having.

But it’s not just the growing likelihood that Trump will be the nominee that is making the choice of her as his alternative more dire. Recent weeks have brought scrutiny over his refusal to disavow KKK leader David Duke and allegations of white supremacists among his supporters. Trump's rhetoric has grown both graver and even more absurd, while the concerns about violence at his rallies have escalated over the last few days. It’s getting harder for Republicans to say out of one side of their mouth that Trump is a danger to the country, and out of the other that they would still support him as their nominee.

“I don’t know,” a beleaguered Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said this weekend when asked if he would support a Trump GOP ticket.

“I already talked about the fact that I think Hillary Clinton would be terrible for this country," Rubio continued, "but the fact that you are even me asking that question -- I still at this moment continue to intend to support the Republican nominee, but it’s getting harder everyday."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- one of Trump's fiercest critics during and after his presidential campaign -- has also struggled with the question, telling reporters on Capitol Hill Monday, "Call me after the convention."

"The one thing I would tell you for sure is I am not going to vote for Hillary Clinton," he said. Asked if it would be easier to oppose Trump in the general election if Clinton were not the Democratic nominee, Graham said, "I think so. In many ways people see her as the third term of Barack Obama. She is a very polarizing figure in her own nature."

Bob Inglis, a #NeverTrump former GOP congressman who lost his primary in 2010 against now Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), said in an interview with TPM Monday that nominating Trump will divide the GOP and lead to a breaking apart of the party. But, he cautioned, it should be seen as an opportunity by party leaders, not a schism to be avoided.

"What is going to happen here is that if Donald Trump is the nominee he is going to fly the GOP plane right into the mountainside. But what crashes and burns there is the cranky old party that may not be all that bad," he said.

For those who mean -- seriously -- #NeverTrump, a Trump nomination gives them three options: support Clinton, pray for a third party option or sit out all together.

“For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be,” Robert Kagan, a neoconservative intellectual, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that called Trump the “GOP’s Frankenstein monster.”

Neocon defenders of George W. Bush, like Kagan, have been among the most vocal in their opposition of Trump, who used former President Bush to ruthlessly mock his brother Jeb in the 2016 race. Many of them signed a letter calling Trump “utterly unfitted” to be a commander-in-chief whose election they would work "energetically" to block. But the neocons are split when it comes to voting for Clinton to do so.

Eliot Cohen, an alum of Bush’s State Department, called Clinton “the lesser evil, by a large margin,” in an interview with Politico. He added that a Trump presidency would be an “unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy,” and that, while he was still hoping for a third candidate, he would “probably” support Clinton “if absolutely no alternative.”

Max Boot -- a Republican who has advised a number of GOP presidential campaigns -- told Vox that Clinton “would be vastly preferable to Trump.’”

“I'm not wild about Hillary, and I think she has a lot of weaknesses,” he said, noting that Rubio was his preference. “But at least Clinton is informed and serious on foreign policy issues.”

Former Bush aide Elliott Abrams meanwhile said he would likely sit such an election out, comparing it the 1972 race between George McGovern and Richard Nixon.

"I may be in the same boat in 2016, unable to vote for Trump or Clinton,” Abrams told Politico. "I could never vote for Clinton under any circumstances."

Some moderate Republicans have had an easier time coming to terms with the fact that they might cast a ballot in Clinton’s favor. Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman has said she will support Clinton over Trump.

“While I certainly don’t want four more years of another Clinton administration or more years of the Obama administration, I would take that over the kind of damage that I think that Donald Trump could do to this country, to its reputation, to the people of this country,” she told Bloomberg. Former Republican senator and ex-RNC chair Mel Martinez (R-FL), meanwhile, told the Wall Street Journal he could have supported a Democratic ticket led by Vice President Joe Biden over Trump, but ruled out voting for Clinton.

That attitude leaves many Republicans crossing their fingers for some other alternative option.

“Who my choice may be if Donald Trump is the standard-bearer under the rules of the Republican Party, I do not know,” former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) wrote in an op-ed "I know it won’t be Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. And I know it will never be Donald Trump."

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) -- a leading Republican voice in the Stop Trump movement -- said he on Twitter was looking for “some 3rd candidate -- a conservative option, a Constitutionalist.”

Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense under Bush, told TPM through a representative that he agreed with Sasse.

Bill Kristol, another neocon, meanwhile, told the New Yorker that Dick Cheney-Tom Cotton ticket would be the “ideal,” and that he was “working on others that approach that high level.’”

Mitt Romney aide Kevin Madden told the Washington Post that in the event of a Trump nomination he would be “prepared to write somebody in so that I have a clear conscience."

More than just a matter of personal conscience, some Republicans believe their party has a better shot of surviving under a Clinton presidency than if Trump spends four or eight years as leader of their party.

“If forced into a choice between Clinton and Trump, I will prefer Hillary Clinton. The future of the entire conservative movement is at stake, and a Clinton victory over Trump might be the only hope of saving it,” conservative writer Tom Nichols wrote in The Federalist.

“Conservatives can recover from four, or even eight, years of Hillary Clinton,” he continued. Pointing to the wave of legislative seats the GOP won under Obama’s two terms, he added, “We might even flourish.”

The Bitter Pill #NeverTrump Is Struggling To Swallow: Supporting Hillary
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watch this ad

and if you don't care about how these people are exploited, there is something wrong with you

if you really care about this, there is only one candidate that will stop this exploitation, vote for Trump
 
corianderstem said:
Are you surprised? Remember, this is the man Jon Stewart went Full Rant on, after learning Trump ate his New York pizza with a fork and knife.
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I believe that was the very same rant that Stewart went off on him for having Famiglia and citing it as real New York pizza or something like that? Or was that George W. Bush?
 
Regarding the electoral college, its original purpose was to ensure that states with smaller populations would be guaranteed a certain amount of 'say' in elections, so that states with bigger populations couldn't just dictate everything to the states with fewer people.

I'm not sure you can say it worked though, because the states that have the most power in the electoral college - swing states Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, maybe even North Carolina, and party locks California(Dem), New York(Dem), Texas(Rep), and Georgia(Rep) - are all in the top ten states by population. So it's still the most populous states that wield the most power. Although it's possible that they could wield even more power and the less populous states even less power if presidents were elected by a popular vote.
 
It seems that most of you that take time to post in here think that Trump would be a bad President. Forefront at his campaign and still up front in his platform is to secure the border. To build a wall and prevent people and contraband from coming into the country not monitored.

There are three ways that people or contraband can come into the U S not monitored. Through our airports, our sea ports and harbors or across our land borders. Of the three, the land border is the least secure. Would it be ok US customs at the airports let 30 % of people get by customs without screening and approval? The port authority, coast guard and harbor patrol do a good job preventing contraband. If they had a 40% failure rate would you say that was ok??
 
deep said:
It seems that most of you that take time to post in here think that Trump would be a bad President. Forefront at his campaign and still up front in his platform is to secure the border. To build a wall and prevent people and contraband from coming into the country not monitored.



There are three ways that people or contraband can come into the U S not monitored. Through our airports, our sea ports and harbors or across our land borders. Of the three, the land border is the least secure. Would it be ok US customs at the airports let 30 % of people get by customs without screening and approval? The port authority, coast guard and harbor patrol do a good job preventing contraband. If they had a 40% failure rate would you say that was ok??
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Do you know how much shit is smuggled on cargo ships and airplanes?
 
namkcuR said:
Regarding the electoral college, its original purpose was to ensure that states with smaller populations would be guaranteed a certain amount of 'say' in elections, so that states with bigger populations couldn't just dictate everything to the states with fewer people.

I'm not sure you can say it worked though, because the states that have the most power in the electoral college - swing states Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, maybe even North Carolina, and party locks California(Dem), New York(Dem), Texas(Rep), and Georgia(Rep) - are all in the top ten states by population. So it's still the most populous states that wield the most power. Although it's possible that they could wield even more power and the less populous states even less power if presidents were elected by a popular vote.
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This makes no sense talking about power, the power should be with each vote. The US is not the UN with each state a member that should have an equal say. The electoral college gives way too much power to smaller states.

All those jerk-offs were doing in 1770s - 1780s is the same thing the jerk-offs are doing today. Trying to stack it where it works out in their best interest to the best extent possible. And leave a way to change it if they don't like it.
 
LuckyNumber7 said:
Do you know how much shit is smuggled on cargo ships and airplanes?
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I think it is safe to say that a lot more contraband comes over the unsecured border than what gets by authorities at airports and harbors.

Of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U S what per cent came over the border vs container ships?
 
Plus drug-smuggling operations that take place on the southern border very often use tunnels, which a wall would do nothing to stop. And most illegal immigration now is in the form of people come in legally via tourist visas and the like and then just never leave, which, again, a wall would do nothing to stop.

I have long felt that the true problem with immigration lies in the legal immigration system.

Financially, it can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars to get and keep a green card, much less become a citizen, when you take into account the base fees to file the paperwork, immigration lawyer fees, etc. People come over the border who have little money and are looking a better life, and I'm guessing that they often don't have the money to pay for the process of becoming legal. If you want to cut down on illegal aliens, don't price them out of the legal process.

The length of the process is also a problem. It takes years sometimes, people have a hard time finding out where in the process they are, what their legal status is at any given time. I have a relative who married someone from a different country(in Europe). Because of their marriage, she was able to come and stay right away, but from the time she started the citizenship process to the day she became a citizen, it was almost six years.

By many accounts legal immigration is a tedious, lengthy, confusing, and often prohibitively expensive process that I would think frustrates a lot of people into breaking the rules. I mean, come on, if there are people who have been here illegally for years and years, decades even, and they've never done anything illegal or wrong other than being here illegally, and they're clearly not criminals, then you have to ask yourself why they came illegally in the first place.

Hell, even if you come in with a tourist visa and you end up just wanting to extend it for a while longer, I'm not sure there's an easy way to do it.

I've felt for a while that the way you fix illegal immigration is by fixing legal immigration, and that doesn't have anything to do with a wall.

And even if the wall was the answer, I can't see any defense for supporting someone who promotes that idea by painting Mexicans as rapists and drug lords, and the idea that these illegal immigrants are one of the major reasons for the economic struggles of the white middle and lower classes. I just don't believe this at all and I think it incites bad things in the electorate.

I could go on.
 
deep said:
It seems that most of you that take time to post in here think that Trump would be a bad President. Forefront at his campaign and still up front in his platform is to secure the border. To build a wall and prevent people and contraband from coming into the country not monitored.



There are three ways that people or contraband can come into the U S not monitored. Through our airports, our sea ports and harbors or across our land borders. Of the three, the land border is the least secure. Would it be ok US customs at the airports let 30 % of people get by customs without screening and approval? The port authority, coast guard and harbor patrol do a good job preventing contraband. If they had a 40% failure rate would you say that was ok??
Click to expand...


You're absolutely right. He's the first ever to run with that as part of his platform, so my guess is he'll get it done. I mean he has a great plan; build a Great Wall and then bill the neighbors. All of the experts that have been dealing with this issue for decades, and all the TX governors agree; a wall is extremely feasible and the best solution given the terrain and this issue. Trump is a genius to be the first to promise this. He will make us great again.


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