The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

How much you want to bet that the FBI indicts Clinton before June?
What about the DoJ?

She's finished if she gets charged with anything, and it's a miracle they haven't yet.
Obama and gang must be pulling some insane political strings to keep her in the race.

Bernie isn't finished yet - but if he doesn't start pulling some big wins soon, his average per state won't rise fast enough to win the nomination.

My bet that Hillary gets the nomination includes the chances of an indictment actually going through, preventing her from getting the nomination at all. My high stakes stand.

everyone in this thread should just watch the big short. it explains so much. .......soooooooooooo much.

Will the illuminati joke ever die out?

Joke?

@tunsel11 @cola_colin

x'D

Large rant:

Looking more at the news, I am bit at a crossroads.

It is evident that Trump isn't politically correct on a lot of social issues. He is notorious for switching his opinion on numerous issues which is why he has a horrible reputation for being outspoken and inconsistent.

His constant switching sides however means something though. Maybe my analysis is inccorrect, but does trump simply not care?

Perhaps its his business perspective that is leaking through on his perception. Of course these observations are stereotypical, but its prevalent. If we can recall last election, Romney was in this same boat, except he adhered to the strict conservative principles to obtain the Republican nomination. That was disastrous.

Trump is also doing the same thing in some regards, but the fact that he is so inconsistent in his message is giving him some Leeway. He is obviously not a conservative in any form and the Republican party treats him like cancer ,wishing to eradicate him.

If Trump could be summarized in one word, it would be uncertainty. While trump is a very intelligent individual, his constant switching shows humility that people find discomfort in when looking at a presidential candidate. I know this is strange, but perhaps his constant switching on stances shows that these topics are difficult to understand. And they are. The supreme court deals with the issues constantly...

For instance, Trumps stance on abortion was the most crazy chain of event I have seen yet. Perhaps his initial stance was the one he always believed in. Maybe it was the crowd he wanted to appeal to that moment, but I doubt it... I think he never truely thought about abortion entirely until that moment. (Note this example of abortion is merely showing Trump patterns and shouldn't be looked at as an actual issue for the respect of everyone on their stance).

Thus, Trumps lack of stance on issues merely means he isn't a well polished candidate. He is a genuine businessman at heart and he only cares about getting things done. Perhaps this is why white blue collar males like trump. They aren't a "minority" in society and they merely want a good paycheck at the end of the day. Social issues aren't generally on the highest priority


As an individual that originally supported Lessig, a younger and more refined Bernie sanders, my perspective on trump is strange. What would happen if a person like Trump got elected?

Some may predict an authoritarian regime filled with despair, but I doubt that. While Trump hasn't decided who to hire in his cabinet, it is evident that people like governor Chris Christie of New Jersey will get a position somewhere.... (attorney general). This is what a trump presidency would look like...

Thus, looking at Christie will lead to a better assessment of a Trump presidency. Christie is known for working across the aisle. In otherwords, he was able to negotiate with the south jersey Democratic "stronghold" that George norcross and Steve Sweeney held to get stuff passed. This is all regional politics but it will give you an idea of what a trump candidacy would look like...

Think "Camden"... one of the few post industrial cities that hasn't recovered in the USA (take a drive to Baltimore and then to Camden...). Look at what has been done to Camden over the past decade and see if there has been progress... This is what a trump presidency would look like on a federal level for domestic policy.

I guess its Machiavellian tendencies that people are concerned about. Prior cabinet members and advisors such as kissinger and Friedman most likely had a bad after taste for a lot of the population. The thought of having a presidency surrounded by these types of people could be a concern.

Rant over.

Because as we all know very intelligent individuals use phrases like "These people are stupid. These are foolish people. We're going to do it better. We're going to make it great. No one else can do it as well as I can. These are terrible deals. I am going to make terrific deals"

The most detailed plan Trump can give is "We're going to build a wall, and it's going to be big, and it's going to be great, and we're going to make Mexico pay for it."

Well apparently his slogans work. Does this say something about Trumps intelligence or the people that want to vote for him I wonder.

@walmartdialup no but seriously this is like hearing how people defend that humans aren't destroying nature and warming the planet up or that the moon landing was staged (all of which Drumpf has done incidentally).

you basically have a person saying : "ok ok I don't KNOW it won't go this way but what's to say it won't go that way, huh?" facing people who are saying "well this that and those pieces of evidence here point to this sort of subsequent direct reaction as backed up by this that and these accounts of recent history and this mini experiment you can reproduce here at home with control groups A and B right here."

please come back to the reasonable side.

we have cookies?
and we have cookies because we still posses the recipe and cook using it's aid and consul rather than to go with gut feeling and no expertise.

people vote trump because they're fed up with the established order.

And if you want to stop trump's steamroll, stop calling trump voters stupid. They don't care, and it's clearly not working.

Well it is easy to be fed up with the established order. Who isnt?

Calling people stupid directly sure isnt nice and they all have their reasons, but one thing is clear: Trump is a horrible candidate to support, no matter how much you hate the established order. I mean he is completely unreliable. Untrustworthy. Unstable. Today he says YES tomorrow NO and he really means it. The only way he might change the established order is by burning half the world to the ground.

I think they really really do as evidenced all around us.

I didn't say it was hard. But clearly the traditional political parties have an enemy in the populist parties. It means that things need to change to win people's favors back.

But this is different from saying Trump followers are stupid. The more the traditional parties sweat because of trump's popularity, the more people will see this as a victory.

If they cared about the whole "trump followers are dumb" campaign, Trump wouldn't be in the lead.

If Trump is all the things people mention (which I think he is, for the record), then people willing to vote for him are either at the end of the rope of desperation, horrible human beings themselves (I include in this non-American online folk who would "love" to vote for Trump because it'd be "funny". Yep, I've met folk like this), or completely ignorant about Trump, his motivations and policies.

Which, in the last scenario, makes them stupid with regards to politics, yes. I would shy from calling anyone an idiot across all walks of life, but it is a stupid decision to support Trump given the evidence against his credibilities.

(and I can't imagine who'd be desperate enough to feel the need to vote for Trump outside of the group that a) doesn't like immigrants and b) genuinely believes in the laughable concept of "white genocide")

I think most of them assume what many already do: that he can't push through his most ridiculous plans. So what's left is a man willing to change the nation for the better, listen to the people. A man who won't back down because companies bought him. (obviously from a supporter's position).

It also ignores that Trump has his own businesses, so technically he's owned by the whole Trump Enterprise. You can expect Berlusconi-style politics of self-enrichment. (i.e. less taxes for the rich, relaxation of rules for business owners, etc)

It's not that it's bad to call them stupid, or that you can't call them stupid. Rather, it's that the "trump voters are stupid" angle isn't working.

I don't think it was ever used as a tactic to beat Trump in the first place. It's a common sentiment people react with when told news of Trump's latest rhetoric.

At this point it's basically just a fact. It's not an angle. People who are willing to vote for Trump are either bigots, or completely uneducated about politics (i.e. stupid in the context of polling for a presidential candidate). Simple.