Trump for President. Who's hopping on the bandwagon? Who's digging a bunker?

[rlock]

There's a guy in front of the White House that looks like bin Laden. He holds up a big scroll written in Arabic and rants in Arabic. My friends say he's a fixture there, been doing it for ages, he is completely nuts. But it demonstrates a degree of tolerance that he is allowed to carry on doing so. There are hundreds of Uniform Secret Service and other police around, none of them tell him to STFU or GTFO. We asked one of the uniform guys about him and he laughed, said the guy is just ranting nonsense and everyone knows it. Just another local "character".

It's true, on a public street, he can stand anywhere the public is allowed to be, and if he is not generating a noise complaint, making threats, or obstructing anyone, they have to let him stand there and rant. The White House is a magnet for crazies as it is.

One day someone will ask him what he wants, in Arabic, and the guy will probably say "net neutrality and publicly funded Skype phones !" :kev:

 

[FreeG]

What is that definition of "crazy"? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome?

Yes, tossing the elites out changes things. But history shows that it has always resulted in the system being run by a consortium of elites again. So, since you are only shuffling the deck, it makes more sense to choose the elite you are putting into power based on what good policy they are likely to promote rather than blindly tearing down the system and getting the luck of the draw at to what come out of it. You might get a George Washington or a Nelson Mandela, but can just as easily get a Robert Mugabe or Pol Pot. More likely in a developed democracy you will get pretty much the same thing as you had before but experience a decade of instability and lost economic opportunities as the fractured structure realigns itself.

Sounds like "Animal Farm"! (the book, not the cartoon) :-/

 

[FreeG]

Actually, American history is littered with politicians exactly like Trump. Just not recent political history. Trump is a return to the past era of blatant lying and demagoguery that slid away behind a mask of false concern and sound bites in the last few decades. Just because Trump has his own money does not mean that he isn't the front man for a powerful backroom political machine. The elites are not a unified bloc and there are constant battles shuffling power from one faction to the next.

I don't see how Trump has managed to make people forget that he has lived his entire life as a wholehearted member of the 1% club. A vote for Trump is the vote for elites. A vote for Hillary is a vote for a different faction of the elites. A vote for Cruz or the others would have been a vote for other factions of the elites and a vote for Sanders would be a vote for one more group of elites. You cannot get any traction in the politics of empires unless you have the support of the ruling class. And if the people rise up in revolt and cast down the elites, they just raise up a new group as elites. Napoleon Bonaparte was the result of the successful overthrow of the elites of France by the mob and the current state of US politics is a direct result of the US's successful revolution against British rule

Too true - when you read history on US politics in 1800's, it was worse than today! Outright, blatant lying to the masses: it was amazing anything got done (but not surprising a Civil War eventually occurred...). The story of living in Philly then DC back then makes you appreciate such things as plumbing, sewage treatment, and AC, that's for sure! But the President could also just saddle up & ride around the neighborhood by himself if he chose (Jefferson was particularly avoid-ant of portraying any image of royalty or specialty, tho he was a very complex cat and hard to summarize here).

The sadness of the situation is that I don't foresee any near-term bridging across the aisle or any attempts at compassion or compromise. Trenches are dug deeper and the "win-lose" atttiude grows larger, not only among most politicians but the voters too. I read comments about "progressive" and I can't believe I share citizenship with these people! (I'm more liberal than the average American). So incredibly hateful, racist, and ignorant, its shameful. And these are the folks who will vote for Trump - they seem to see him as someone (white male, particularly) who will stand up for "them" and push out those who are taking everything away from them (in their mind). Reading another book now on social disunity during WW2 - all that imagery of the country coming together to fight the evil Axis is bogus - the majority of people, from what I'm reading, especially the white males, were extremely un-welcoming of the changes that came over the homefront during this period, of the social privelege they felt they were losing. I sense (and fear) that this reluctance to embrace or at least accept change in society is just as strong today among the white males (predominantly, and their subservient wives, I suppose) .

Quick forum-rant over

 

[johnniejetpack]

Unwittingly, Trump and Clinton have given credence to the libertarian hopes. Gary Johnson is really the only choice left IMO. Its a shame that the libertarians have so many clowns that make headlines, it just hurts their chances for people to see them as a realistic alternative. What`s with the guy that wears a boot on his head???

start digging my friends....

 

[Tugela]

Neither Trump nor Hillary are ideal candidates, but I've thought all along: Hillary's going to win.

Unfortunate that Bernie Sanders couldn't clinch the Democratic seat, because then it would be a slam dunk that he'd win over Trump.

In the end, the USA won't vote Trump in.

Then again, they voted George Bush Jr. (absent-minded professor) for two consecutive terms!

No he wouldn't. He is being kept competitive by people who are going to vote Republican anyway. People are saying they will vote for him over Trump, but what they are really trying to do is stop Clinton getting the nomination. In the general election they will vote for Trump, even if Sanders is the candidate.

 

[Tugela]

There's a guy in front of the White House that looks like bin Laden. He holds up a big scroll written in Arabic and rants in Arabic. My friends say he's a fixture there, been doing it for ages, he is completely nuts. But it demonstrates a degree of tolerance that he is allowed to carry on doing so. There are hundreds of Uniform Secret Service and other police around, none of them tell him to STFU or GTFO. We asked one of the uniform guys about him and he laughed, said the guy is just ranting nonsense and everyone knows it. Just another local "character".

Wish I could post a pic of him!

Not after Trump becomes president. Then he will be taken out into the woods and quietly "disposed" off. There will be a lot of that if Trump becomes president. He is planning to sic the Justice Department on any news groups that are critical of him, for example. The US will turn into another Russia.

 

[Tugela]

I hated the very idea of that loudmouth ass-clown getting very far but the more I saw the Republican establishment shitting kittens over his ascension, the more that schadenfreude compelled me to hope Trump beat all their hand-picked candidates (especially Ted Cruz).

You're right, the public are reacting to the fact that their democracy's been basically poisoned by their 1%, so the people get zero say in their country's governance. In the US political system as it stands now, donors can literally pay for special political access and can buy custom-made legislation for your special interest's cause, regardless of whether it is good or bad for the country. Instead of preventing this, the US Supreme court made a ruling which put the official stamp of approval on what is corruption of the democratic process. The US voters have sought candidates that seem to be outside this process and might provide and antidote to it. Trump is a rude jerk with no inside voice plus zero governing experience, but he is self-funded, so people perceive him as having no puppet strings on him and give him their support. Maybe that assumption is a mistake, and if given power he'd fuck them over too, but in the meantime, they are really enjoying the fact that he puts a chill down the spine of their political orthodoxy. Sanders too - he's probably too radical/eccentric for most voters, but the hunger is there for someone who - unlike Clinton - is not seen as connected to the same 1% Wall Street interests. Sanders does not draw funding from such crooked sources; he has no friends at the nation's country clubs; he is not one of "them". Even if that is too simplistic, that is how supporters see him. So he continues to roll on, a jester in the Democratic court, mocking Hillary's coronation.

What do I prefer? Like most Canadians, I will just sit in the global audience and try to be entertained by what unfolds. :dizzy:
(Although if Trump does win, maybe the US military should hide that nuclear football somewhere where Donnie can't find it.)

That is a bunch of BS. Donors cannot dictate legislative agendas unless they literally have half of congress, half of the senate and the presidency funded through their efforts, and no one has that amount of money to spend on that sort of thing. Remember, not all lobby groups are rich people, most are actually organizations with some sort of agenda, both on the left and the right. And it doesn't matter how much money you have for your campaign, as long as you have enough to reach a certain threshold so as to allow your message to be heard. Once you reach that, more money doesn't help you more (as Sanders is finding out, ironically)

Americans are not happy with congress overall, but they are happy with their own representative. That is why nothing much changes in spite of congress's very low approval rating. The problem is not their own representative, but other people's representatives.

Sanders makes a big thing about campaign spending not because more money is bad, but because the way he raises money allows him to get his message out. He wants that to be the only method for raising money, because then it makes it more difficult for other people to get funded, and without money they can't get THEIR message out. So his position on the matter is very self serving. It has nothing to do with funding and everything to do with eliminating choice for the voter.

 

[Tugela]

If I were an American voter hungering for change I might vote for Trump since there is no foreign policy error that cannot be fixed with the application of a sufficient number of thermonuclear devices. But as I am not and do not want to be the recipient of such an error correction, I'd be happier if the voters selected someone else.

The problem occurs when other countries adopt the same attitude and start thowing them back.

 

[Tugela]

The media talking heads are completely flummoxed because no matter what shit they bring up on him and how hard they hammer it, the more popular Trump becomes. The American public sees the media as in the pockets of the elite and to some extent they are right....there are so many connected dots from large media organizations to members in the Democratic government.

ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, National Security Adviser.

CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.

ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to former Whitehouse Press Secretary Jay Carney

ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary

ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama’s Special Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood

CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to former Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.

Not saying that Trump is not a buffoon but he is unlike anything that has ever run for political office in America before. He doesnt act like any politician we have ever seen and the American public which has been screwed time and time again by the elite 1% and their media spokespeople are eating it up.

Actually, the American public HAS seen a politician like Trump....he is called Jesse Ventura.

 

[overdone]

One of the main reasons they,(powers-that-be), do not want Trump in the Oval Office as he knows where all the bodies are buried, he knows where their skeletons are located and they know that he knows they know...
Politicians around the World look after their own just as folks in their own neighborhood do, the way the USA is going it will start to look like a third world shitehole before you can say Ronald McDonald.
Im not a fan of any of them but at least Trump says what he means and means what he says and isnt that what we always wanted, somebody to call it what it is, the good, the bad, the ugly ??.

lol, you clearly haven't been paying attention

Trump contradicts himself on an almost hourly basis, pick a week and his stance on a subject is different than the last week/day/month/yr

calls it like it is, haha

like he's the best? like he's the smartest?

people who are, don't need to brag about it, others do it for you, or in Trumps case him when he pretends to be his fake pr guy

look at how many failed business ventures he's had, how he claims he's worth 10 billion, yet most say it's closer to 4, in a deposition in one of his many lawsuits, he's on record claiming he thinks his "brand" is worth 5+billion, lol

look at his "building" in Van, he doesn't own the "Trump" building there, he's managing it for the real owners

look into his University, his steaks, his unwillingness to release his taxes, yet saying everyone else should before, ect...

who runs a casino into bankruptcy? they're money machines

look at how may lawsuits he's filed, saw a report it's around 1900, he's been involved in over 3000, close to 3500

he's a trust fund baby for fucksakes

they don't want him cause he's a unstable, whining little bitch, who's skin is so thin he can't take a simple jab, need proof, look to the lawsuits

tells it like it is, hahaha

he's a walking lying sack of shit, always has been

he's a braggart

pretty much the exact opposite of a "telling it like it is" type :doh:

 

[Tugela]

One of the main reasons they,(powers-that-be), do not want Trump in the Oval Office as he knows where all the bodies are buried, he knows where their skeletons are located and they know that he knows they know...
Politicians around the World look after their own just as folks in their own neighborhood do, the way the USA is going it will start to look like a third world shitehole before you can say Ronald McDonald.
Im not a fan of any of them but at least Trump says what he means and means what he says and isnt that what we always wanted, somebody to call it what it is, the good, the bad, the ugly ??.

Actually, he doesn't. What he does is say whatever he thinks people (or at least those who might support him) want to hear. He makes stuff up. We have no idea at all what he really thinks. And if someone has a different opinion on some matter, he insults them, he belittles them, he threatens them.

Some people take that to be a sign of power, but it is really the mark of a little, insecure man.

 

[Tugela]

I watched his interview about the judge on CNN tonight. The guy was basically babbling. He kept on adding the phrase "under the law" into sentences, even though it had nothing to do what he was talking about. He did it at least 4 times.

This guy is an idiot.

 

[Larry Storch]

(snip)The US will turn into another Russia.

I'm thinking of a different country in Europe in the 1940's.

I watched his interview about the judge on CNN tonight. The guy was basically babbling. He kept on adding the phrase "under the law" into sentences, even though it had nothing to do what he was talking about. He did it at least 4 times.

This guy is an idiot.

I was listening to an interview with him on the "Trump University" lawsuit. He said that the judge shouldn't be involved in the case because of his "Mexican heritage". He was trying to imply the judge was upset because Trump's plan to build the wall.

He basically kept saying thee same thing over and over. :der:

 

[overdone]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if he wins the whole thing, I think he's going to really enjoy gutting Hillary!

I think you're right, he has his "African American Guy" now

the ball it is a rolling, all the way to the White House

he only needed one

 

[overdone]

spoke too soon, the black guy isn't a supporter, was just there for the clown show

 

[rlock]

That is a bunch of BS. Donors cannot dictate legislative agendas unless they literally have half of congress, half of the senate and the presidency funded through their efforts, and no one has that amount of money to spend on that sort of thing.

Naive. Of course they can; of course they do.

Actually, the American public HAS seen a politician like Trump....he is called Jesse Ventura.

The Italian public has too - they called him Berlusconi.

 

[Tugela]

Naive. Of course they can; of course they do.

Naïve. One guy can be bribed. Half of congress, not so much. That would be like herding cats.

Funding candidates does not guarantee that they will win nor will it guarantee that they will do what you want. The best it can do is to get them to listen to you. That is the great myth perpetrated by the anti-government types on both the left and right, it is BS spun to further their own agendas.

What really affects representatives are things that will get them re-elected. Money does not elect them, votes do. And doing things what the voters care about is what they will do.

 

[westwoody]

No need to bribe everyone, just the ones who run things.
Some members of Congress wield huge power, others might as well not even be there.

 

[Cock Throppled]

Naïve. One guy can be bribed. Half of congress, not so much. That would be like herding cats.

Funding candidates does not guarantee that they will win nor will it guarantee that they will do what you want. The best it can do is to get them to listen to you. That is the great myth perpetrated by the anti-government types on both the left and right, it is BS spun to further their own agendas.

What really affects representatives are things that will get them re-elected. Money does not elect them, votes do. And doing things what the voters care about is what they will do.

You're the naive one.

If money doesn't influence politicians why do they (and our own Premier) fight so hard to keep the big donors happy and the money rolling in?

Ever watch House of Cards (American)? The few wield extraordinarypower and bend the others to do their bidding. Big donors only need a few of the influential in their pockets or the heads of committees to get their favours fulfilled.

 

[leoghaire]

You're the naive one.

If money doesn't influence politicians why do they (and our own Premier) fight so hard to keep the big donors happy and the money rolling in?

Ever watch House of Cards (American)? The few wield extraordinarypower and bend the others to do their bidding. Big donors only need a few of the influential in their pockets or the heads of committees to get their favours fulfilled.

and they probably don't need all of them due to a fair amount of quid pro quo, you help me make my owner happy and we can make your owner happy