Presidential Race 2016 Predictions

[Vicomte13]

There is "good change" and bad change.

And the last "agents of change" elected by Americans--the Tea Party--shut down government (at a cost of $29 billion to American taxpayers) and threatened to default on the nation's debts (which would trigger a global depression the likes of which we've never seen).

Trump wonders why we don't just "take Iraq's oil?" and trigger a world war. Why don't we just slap 50% tariffs on Chinese exports (raising costs of goods to consumers whose salaries won't go up by 50%).

I really don't think he would survive the four years (lawyers are already collecting grounds for impeachment). And then what would happen? We'd have a theocratic Tea Party president.

The "undecideds" are college educated white men and suburbanites. I've lived in the suburbs among the college-educated for almost my whole life--and, except here in the anomalous South, they are much, much too bright to be taken in by a crude vulgarian like Trump.

He says he's selling you the shining city on the hill--but believe me, it's the Brooklyn Bridge!

What you say may very well be so. Obviously you're not going to vote for the man. But I think that the majority of the American people are going to vote for him and make him President nonetheless, because the majority would rather break things than let them go on as they are.

That's what I see.

Hillary would be elected in a landslide if the two parties had not worked synergistically over the past 40 years to impoverish and push down a huge mass of working class and middle class Americans such that they have lost hope and lost confidence in the system. That COULD have been forestalled by more balanced policies and more tempered remarks by both sides. However, both parties represent strong special interests, and the politicians of both parties are financed very well by these special interests. The working and middle classes are a special interest too, a numerous one, but they are not organized, and they don't have a lot of money. So they have been the victim of the strategic behavior of both Democrats and Republicans. Now they are suffering so badly that they are angry, and have decided that the status quo is killing them. And they're right. They still don't have political influence or money with which to fund anything, but they do have the vote, which is the power to destroy. And, because neither party took them into consideration for all of these years, they are going to use that power. By electing Trump, they are destroying the status quo.

It wasn't inevitable. It didn't have to come to this. The parties could have tended to the needs of these people and thrown them sops. But they did not. It's too late now. Trump's election will be because a huge sector of the American people have been badly treated by the government for too long.

Now, what happens after that - well - we'll find out. I expect that, whatever else happens, THAT segment of the population will get sops thrown to it. Indeed, the next two years, until the next Congressional election, will be seeing how far the Congress dares to resist the will of so many people in order to doggedly defend the better-paying special interests.

Just remember: Everything's ok, God is still in charge. If we're to get a chastening, it is well. We'll learn something from it. For starters, we'll learn not to ignore the interests of so many people!

 

[Tallguy88]

As much as the media shows Trump talking about Mexicans and the wall, that's a sideline in his speeches. His big talking points are about jobs and trade. Those are what's winning him big support among working class people in the Midwest. It's what he needs to focus on in the debates to hope to beat Hillary.

 

[Fantine]

As much as the media shows Trump talking about Mexicans and the wall, that's a sideline in his speeches. His big talking points are about jobs and trade. Those are what's winning him big support among working class people in the Midwest. It's what he needs to focus on in the debates to hope to beat Hillary.

But that's where he is most likely to lose on credibility:

• he built "Taj Mahals" and declared bankruptcy, leaving thousands of hardworking small businesses--and their employee--unpaid. He did it not once but six times (I always add that the seventh bankruptcy--his "moral bankruptcy"--preceded the rest.
• he wants to put 50% tariffs on exports from China and elsewhere. He says the jobs will come back to America. Only problem is that those factories that were staffed by people when they closed in America are now staffed with robots, lots of them. So we may get back the buildings ("may") but perhaps only half the jobs will come back. And, in the meantime (you can do the Math) the $50 pair of sneakers will be $75, the $500 laptop will be $750, the $25,000 car will be $37,500...
• Dozens of economists will drill so many holes into Trump's ill-conceived ideas---almost as many holes as frackers have drilled into the Oklahoma countryside. But most of us should know from experience alone what tax cuts for the 1% have done to our economy--made them greedier.

 

[Fish and Bread]

But I think it also should be kept in mind that Trump just needed to not come off as too...Trump-y? To seem more presidential. Some people think he managed okay with that.

Would you guys disagree with this? I wouldn't mind more input.

One thing I remember pointed out to several people prior to the debate, and which I still think is important to note, is that it's very important that the media and the voting public not judge Trump "on a curve" where we give him credit at a debate for not using any racial slurs, not acting in such a way or saying anything that qualifies as overtly sexist towards his opponent, not stuttering and throwing up on himself, and so on and so forth.

The truth is, on January 20, 2017, a new President is going to take office. The job is the same no matter who wins. Other world leaders aren't going to give Trump some extra slack because he's Trump. Neither are terrorists. The economy isn't going to just take a pause and not follow basic economic principles because Trump makes some horrible mistakes or needs time to get up to speed. Whoever the President is, is going to need to be ready.

If Donald Trump couldn't prepare properly for Hillary Clinton, he can't properly prepare for being the lead of the free world. And anyone who watched that debate would tell you that Trump was not adequately prepared.

There's been this notion floated ever since Trump was a "thing" that at some magical moment, he'd suddenly bare down, get serious, and act Presidential. Early on, people were saying that would start when he officially entered the Presidential race, then they were were saying it would finally happen when the primaries started and things got serious, after a while it switched to "when he's locked up the nomination", and finally it became "at the convention when he's the official nominee and things enter the stretch run". So far, that prediction has not come true once. I don't see why people would consider the idea that he's going to be a different person than the one he's shown himself to be his entire life all of the sudden if and when he takes office as President as credible. It seems extremely unlikely to me.

If you elect Trump, you'll get Trump. And that's a scary notion that should be keeping people up at night, especially those considering voting for him, who would bare some of the responsibility for whatever follows.

Oh, I think they know that. The reality of huge numbers of Americans is that things are bad, and not getting better at all. The society has moved on, leaving them behind, and there is no prospect for them if things continue on the same road. With Clinton, they will be getting continuity, and that means perpetual suffering and diminution. With Trump, they get an abrupt change, a shakeup of things.

Trump has aimed right at them, focusing on the loss of jobs and the loss of job security for a whole class of Americans, while another class of Americans has gotten richer and more secure.

Obviously that second class of Americans will look after their interests, as they perceive them, and vote for the status quo, which is Hillary. Equally obviously, that first class of Americans will look after their interests, as they perceive them, and vote for Trump to break the status quo in their favor.

The reason Trump will win is that the class of Americans that is disfavored by the status quo now exceeds the numbers of those favored by it.

Hillary is well-qualified to preserve the status quo. Which means that she offers nothing but more misery to the other half plus 2. Trump will break the status quo, which means he is disadvantageous to the 48.

Donald Trump actually does not represent the economic interests of his working class white male supporters. If they wanted someone who was going to help them out economically, they should have registered as Democrats and voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, because Bernie was genuinely a champion of the working class.

Donald Trump's tax cuts for the upper class, which would drastically increase deficits and the national debt, does not help working class people. Donald Trump talking about getting rid of the minimum wage does not help working class people. Donald Trump wanting to get rid of the Affordable Care Act does not help working class people. Donald Trump's surrogates talking about cuts to Social Security and Medicare do not help working class people.

When we look at Donald Trump's record in business, we see that he has a history of stiffing small business owners and contractors who do work for him. He's not been a good employer to those who work under him. He openly got excited about the wave of people defaulting on mortgages and losing their homes, because he thought he could make money off it.

The only thing that Donald Trump does that working class white men can relate to is that he scapegoats women and minorities. And some are happy to illogically blame those groups for all their problems in life. It doesn't mean that they are the problem, though, and it doesn't mean that Donald Trump using the government to attack those groups is going to make life any better for working class white men from an economic standpoint, though. Trump will just have to keep moving on to other scapegoats. And things could get very, very ugly.

Trump talks like a fascist demagogue and appeals to the ugliest parts of human nature. We can't risk taking a chance on a guy like that in our nation's highest office, at a time when the President yields unprecedented levels of unilateral executive power.

Heck, one thing that I've just really noticed in the last few days was how derisively he talks about people who are overweight, which is ironic, because the weight quoted for him on the Dr. Oz show qualifies Trump himself as borderline obese. But he's always trashing people for their weight- mostly women- but even in his answer last nights about Russian connections to hacking of national secrets, he raised the prospect of some person "who weights 400 pounds" having done it from his home while laying on a mattress. It's a not a very important issue in and of itself, but it shows how much of a bully Trump is, and how his first instinct is to belittle any out group he can think of. White men voting for him think that they don't fall into any out groups, but people have told stories of Trump making fun of poor people and homeless people and so on and so forth- I wouldn't be so sure that he truly gives two figs about his base. He may very well loath them, but see them as a means to an end.

There is "good change" and bad change.

Exactly.

the majority would rather break things than let them go on as they are.

That's really sad.

Just remember: Everything's ok, God is still in charge. If we're to get a chastening, it is well.

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with this.

We'll learn something from it. For starters, we'll learn not to ignore the interests of so many people!

How about that electing an unqualified fascist demagogue is a bad idea? Didn't we already learn that from the World War 2 era? I guess not.

As much as the media shows Trump talking about Mexicans and the wall, that's a sideline in his speeches. His big talking points are about jobs and trade. Those are what's winning him big support among working class people in the Midwest. It's what he needs to focus on in the debates to hope to beat Hillary.

That is a pretty sound analysis. The only part of the debate that the guy seemed close to being even with Clinton on was the first 15-20 minutes where he focused on trade issues (Although if you watched a feed where both candidates were on camera regardless of who was talking, you could see Trump from the get go appearing very derisive and impatient, and almost interpreting Clinton several times, like he couldn't stand waiting for his turn to talk or listening to what Clinton was saying. Later on, he started acting on those emotions).

However, the thing is, NAFTA was 20 years ago. I didn't agree with NAFTA when it was signed and ratified. I thought it was a mistake. However, it's not always a sound idea to re-fight old wars and revisit old policy the way Trump wants to, with outright repeals of things like NAFTA, because circumstances have changed.

Firstly, it's worth noting that America had been losing factory jobs heavily since at least the 1970s. So, while NAFTA may have hurried that trend along, it wasn't the cause of the trend, and it still would have likely continued on a more gradual basis.

Secondly, in the years since NAFTA, a lot of the companies that export to the US now have factories located in Asia. NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ross Perot may have been right about what he described as a "great sucking sound" coming from Mexico in terms of factory jobs, but he was right when he said it, in 1992. Over the years, the landscape has changed. Most of these factories have moved on, and repealing NAFTA in a vacuum would just make the factories that are still in Mexico go where all the others have moved on to, which still isn't the United States. And, actually, as much as Trump hates immigration, it'd make logical sense for him to want there to be some jobs in Mexico so people had something to make them want to stay there, but either he hasn't thought of that or he doesn't care to think of that.

Thirdly, the reason these factory jobs were valued was because they were union jobs that often paid $40 an hour with extensive benefits and pensions and paid vacations. Republicans have decimated unions over the years, in part through legal maneuvers and legislature. Trump has the same anti-union policies as his party. Even if we could bring back all the factory jobs we lost (Which we can't), they'd probably come back as minimum wage jobs with no benefits.

Fourthly, as others have noted, automation is a huge trend in industry. Some of the jobs we've lost don't even *exist* anymore, anywhere. Sure, we've lost a ton of factory jobs to other countries. But many jobs that used to be done by human beings are now automated or done in some way by robots. To the extent that jobs for humans are being preserved (other than in computer programming and in repairing and overseeing production equipment) in factory-base industries, it's often precisely because they are operating in countries where they can pay workers so little that they cost less than automating. Put those factories back in a first world country where you can't pay workers with pocket change, and you know what happens? It becomes cheaper to replace them with technology, and that's what would happen.

Fifthly, when you just go overturning something suddenly, it often results in chaos. Even if we presupposed that the ultimate result of overturning NAFTA would be a ton of good paying factory jobs with good benefits in the United States, which I *don't* think is the case, but even if it were, it'd take a while to happen. Factories wouldn't suddenly appear in the United States and be ready to go. There'd be a transition period where the factories would have to be built and staffed, and other factories overseas would likely start a process of gearing down, and during that time period you'd have extremely expensive goods and shortages of goods that could create a recession or depression both at home and abroad that would be hard to dig out of.

And there are a lot of other unanticipated possible consequences of reversing a 20 year old treaty just because it was a bad idea at the time. Sometime something can be both a bad idea at a given time, but also be a bad idea to try to undo later on.

Clinton came out against the TTP, which she needed to do, and she has done. It may or may not be sincere, but if she doesn't want a primary challenge from an angry Democratic primary electorate in 2020, a hypothetical President Clinton would have to stick with that promise. There were "No TTP" chants from the floor of the Democratic Convention this year interrupting many, many speeches throughout the convention. Those aren't random people, they are the heart of the Democratic Party. Clintons are nothing if not savvy about politics. Opposing the TTP is one campaign promise she'll have to keep.

 

[Vicomte13]

Donald Trump actually does not represent the economic interests of his working class white male supporters.

They don't agree with you, the males or the females. That's why we're going to get a chance to test if he really is this terrible fascist folks say he is.

 

[Fish and Bread]

They don't agree with you, the males or the females.

Do you know what the polling data is on white uneducated working class women? That's not a leading question. I know Trump is losing heavily among women in general, college educated women, African-American women, and Hispanic women. I haven't seen anything that specifically addresses the specific slice of the electorate that you're probably referring to- economically lower class white women without college degrees. That might be the one demographic segment of women that Trump is winning (or not). I honestly don't know and am curious because I do have an interest in this stuff that extends beyond partisianship (Following electoral politics might qualify as a small hobby for me).

Given demographic trends in general in this country, this may be the last Presidential election, or one of the last Presidential elections, where a candidate could conceiveably win simply by "running up the score" with the white male demographic (A category where Trump has a commanding lead) while losing heavily in most other demographic groups. In the future, its likely that candidates are going to need to have broader appeal. They may be able to win most basely on support from white men, but they'll also need a significant amount of support from at least a few other demographic groups- they won't necessarily have to be leading in the polls in those other groups, but they will have to lose those groups by narrower margins than they have historically.

If the Republican Party were more than just politicians, candidates, voters, donors, special interests, policy stances, and people working (And assets like buildings owned) directly for (pr by) the party (That description is not a knock. The Democratic Party could be deacribed the same way, as could most major parties in most countries with a similar style of government as the one in the US), and actually was an entity in and of itself thinking in the long term (Which is something politicians and voters typically don't do), I don't think Trump would have been nominated.

Win, lose, or draw; Trump is going to further solidify a certain image of the party that people have, and maybe even create the image in the minds of people who didn't previously have it. That image is going to be something future candidates on the party's ticket will have to overcome. What Republicans logically should have done is selected a candidate with more appeal to women and minorities, simply for the sake of its own longterm prospects for success, given the changing demographics of the country. I could easily see things reaching the point where Reoublicans are largely a regional party focused in the deep south with a few outposts of support in rural areas of the rest of the country that has seats in Congress and may even control one or both chambers, and has some success in local and state politics, but which just can't be competive in Presidential candidates unless the Democratic candidate is extremely flawed or unsucessful, and voters just blindly press option B.

White men are always going to be an important demographic, they just aren't as important as they once were in that respect, and that's a trend that's likely to continue.

I'm a white man, so I have nothing against white men in general, but I do know that when a President is elected, that person is everyone's President, and it'll be nice in a way to see Presidents have to have wider appeal to more demographics to get the job than perhaps they've had in the past.

That's why we're going to get a chance to test if he really is this terrible fascist folks say he is.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

 

[Fish and Bread]

By the way, for those who don't want to vote for Trump but are hesitating to support Clinton, because you're more conservative than she is, it may be worth noting that Republicans are virtually a lock to retain the House of Reoresentatives. That chamber of Congress was gerrymandered very significantly in the Repunlicans' favor to the point that people around the country could cast 5% more votes for Democratic House candidates than Republican House candidates, and Republicans would still have 10-20 seats more than Democrats. The next iteration of congressional restricting won't be in place until 2022, the Republicans pretty much are guaranteed control of the House until then unless there is real landslide support of Democrats for House seats. So, the Presidency is up for grabs, and the Senate is up for grabs, but a President Clinton would not have a blank check even if she won *and* the Democrats managed a narrow majority in the Senate. She'd still have to work with a Republican House, and if the Democrats get the Senate, they will hold it by what could be a single seat, meaning that given that short of every Democrat voting for a bill, it'll need to get some Republican support in the Senate, too.

So, a vote for Hillary is not giving her a blank check. She'll have to work across the isle to get things done. And where she can work more unilaterally, on foreign policy, she is a centrist who is actually closer to traditional Republican foreign policy than Trump is.

So, that's worth considering if you are a Republican who knows you don't want to vote for Trump, but would be worried if Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House simultaneously. You can vote for Clinton over Trump secure in the knowledge that your party will still retain at least the House and have to be taken into consideration.

 

[Vicomte13]

Do you know what the polling data is on white uneducated working class women?
...
Given demographic trends in general in this country, this may be the last Presidential election, or one of the last Presidential elections, where a candidate could conceiveably win simply by "running up the score" with the white male demographic (A category where Trump has a commanding lead) while losing heavily in most other demographic groups. In the future, its likely that candidates are going to need to have broader appeal. I'm a white man, so I have nothing against white men in general, but I do know that when a President is elected, that person is everyone's President, and it'll be nice in a way to see Presidents have to have wider appeal to more demographics to get the job than perhaps they've had in the past.
...
I hope it doesn't come to that.

I don't. I don't really think that an "uneducated" class exists in America. Everybody can read and write and compute at a basic level. Almost everybody, white people anyway, finished high school. That's not uneducated. The truly uneducated are the illiterate of the Third World. That doesn't exist here, other than in the form of immigrants (and not many of them either - most immigrants are from Latin America, and they all have universal public education systems also).

The bit about demographics may be true. But then again, if Trump wins there will be substantial emigration from the USA through deportations and self-deportation (as he cuts off social welfare benefits for illegals, the incentive, or ability, to stay will diminish). The Democratic Party has long touted the "demographic change" argument that you've put forward here, and it is true: if immigration continues as it has, the electorate will indeed change. But it hasn't changed yet, and the immigration issue is front-and-center as the reason for Trump's impending victory. The majority of Americans oppose the current immigration practices. They feel as though they are losing their country. They have made many efforts at trying to get it under control, particularly back in the W Bush era, but the Republican Party in Congress betrayed them on the matter (the wealthy donors to the GOP love that cheap exploitable labor). With Trump, they have somebody who has campaigned from the beginning on reversing the flow, shutting the border to illegals, mass deportation of people who don't have the right to be here - and that is music to the ears to the majority of Americans, particularly to the working class and lower middle class, who have lost their jobs and job security because they cannot compete with the Mexican wage rate. In Trump they have somebody who has, since the beginning, hammered on that issue. There is no reason at all to believe that, when elected, he won't do exactly what he has said. That will both make him wildly popular with the people who voted for him, and it will also change the demography of the country in a direction that increases his majority. In short: the demographic change to which you refer is not yet a done deal. I agree with you that if Hillary wins, it will be. But I think that it is because of that very issue that Trump will win the election, and stopping that trend is his signature issue. His election will be BECAUSE the majority of the American people do not want that demographic change, and have voted to stop it.

I know you hope it doesn't come to that, but I think it's inevitable. IF the Democrats had nominated an honorable person, say, Joe Biden, they would probably win this election, and the next one, get control of the Supreme Court, and the demographic change would have continue apace. But the Democrats have tried to foist Hillary Clinton off on the country. We all hear the meme of how terrible Trump is. The problem with that is that Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar. We all know that. She's corrupt. We all know that. She was incompetent as Secretary of State, and she has been sheltered from accountability by partisanship. Pointing fingers at Trump just doesn't work, because the alternative is an unindicted felon. Nobody but Democrats forgets that. Trump may be a despicable person, but so is Hillary. Her gross flaws remove the "look how bad HE is" card from the table for everybody but partisan Democrats.

But the real bottom line is immigration and the economic decline of the bottom half +2% of America that uncontrolled immigration and free trade have caused. That's why Trump was going to do well no matter what. The character flaws of Hillary Clinton are the reason that he's going to win.

I think it's inevitable, and therefore I look for silver linings. The best thing about Trump that distinguishes him from Hillary (and Obama), and also from the Republican Party, is that he understands that the neo-Cold War with Russia is utterly self-defeating for the United States. The President controls foreign policy, and he is simply going to pull the troops WAY back from Russia's borders, stop propping up the coup government in the Ukraine, cut a deal on spheres on influence in the Middle East, and make a peace-and-cooperation deal that will save the US (and Russia) a lot of money and a lot of stress. He will be ratcheting up the stress with China, but making nice with Russia. And that will work out to our best interests. Trump is right about this one, and foreign policy and military policy are the one area where the President has a very free hand. Congress and the Courts cannot STOP Trump from pulling back the troops and making peace with Putin. The President is sovereign in that regard. And that alone will work out to our benefit. So, there's the consolation prize: Trump's Russia policy is more intelligent than anything we have done since Reagan sat down with Gorbachev at Reykjavic and negotiated a nuclear arms reduction treaty - while the hawks in America hyperventilated that it was "FDR at Yalta" all over again. They were wrong. Europe will be a more peaceful place under Trump.

 

[Genersis]

One thing I remember pointed out to several people prior to the debate, and which I still think is important to note, is that it's very important that the media and the voting public not judge Trump "on a curve" where we give him credit at a debate for not using any racial slurs, not acting in such a way or saying anything that qualifies as overtly sexist towards his opponent, not stuttering and throwing up on himself, and so on and so forth.

The truth is, on January 20, 2017, a new President is going to take office. The job is the same no matter who wins. Other world leaders aren't going to give Trump some extra slack because he's Trump. Neither are terrorists. The economy isn't going to just take a pause and not follow basic economic principles because Trump makes some horrible mistakes or needs time to get up to speed. Whoever the President is, is going to need to be ready.

If Donald Trump couldn't prepare properly for Hillary Clinton, he can't properly prepare for being the lead of the free world. And anyone who watched that debate would tell you that Trump was not adequately prepared.

There's been this notion floated ever since Trump was a "thing" that at some magical moment, he'd suddenly bare down, get serious, and act Presidential. Early on, people were saying that would start when he officially entered the Presidential race, then they were were saying it would finally happen when the primaries started and things got serious, after a while it switched to "when he's locked up the nomination", and finally it became "at the convention when he's the official nominee and things enter the stretch run". So far, that prediction has not come true once. I don't see why people would consider the idea that he's going to be a different person than the one he's shown himself to be his entire life all of the sudden if and when he takes office as President as credible. It seems extremely unlikely to me.

If you elect Trump, you'll get Trump. And that's a scary notion that should be keeping people up at night, especially those considering voting for him, who would bare some of the responsibility for whatever follows.
...

I hate to be cynical here, but voters will be more likely to vote for Trump even if he just slightly improved his image superficially.

Some reluctant Republicans and Republican leaners are looking for excuses to vote for him, so to speak. It's a race between fairly unpopular candidates after all.
(Clinton should be looking to create a few more excuses for reluctant Democrats/Democrat leaners to vote for her too)
Honestly I think Trump has indeed done pretty well reducing his Trumpiness since the RNC, which I think explains much of the drift of support towards him over the last month.
That's how it looks to me anyway...

 

[LoAmmi]

They don't agree with you, the males or the females. That's why we're going to get a chance to test if he really is this terrible fascist folks say he is.

He will be. What's sad is that I think a substantial number of his supporters will be happy with it because they aren't part of the "other" group. He'll bring back torture, he'll go after the families of terrorists, and they will cheer him.

 

[Vicomte13]

He will be. What's sad is that I think a substantial number of his supporters will be happy with it because they aren't part of the "other" group. He'll bring back torture, he'll go after the families of terrorists, and they will cheer him.

We haven't stopped torturing people now: look at what the police are doing everywhere. What is happening right now is not happening on Trump's watch.

We have been drone striking the families of terrorists all over the world for the past 15 years. This has not been on Trump's watch.

 

[Albion]

We haven't stopped torturing people now: look at what the police are doing everywhere. What is happening right now is not happening on Trump's watch.

We have been drone striking the families of terrorists all over the world for the past 15 years. This has not been on Trump's watch.

That's what I've been thinking. If everything in the country is just fine and dandy...vote for 4 more years of it. If you think we could stand to make some improvements, vote for a candidate who wants to do that. This should be easy enough for anybody to understand.

 

[Albion]

.

 

[LoAmmi]

We haven't stopped torturing people now: look at what the police are doing everywhere. What is happening right now is not happening on Trump's watch.

We have been drone striking the families of terrorists all over the world for the past 15 years. This has not been on Trump's watch.

Trump has stated he wants the military to torture people. That would be a direct order that is not a direct order being given now. Changing the subject to the police is dissembling.

Trump has stated he wants the military to directly target the families of terrorists. To "take them out". That is a direct order that is not a drive order being given now. Changing the subject to current drone strikes is dissembling as the drone strikes being used now, to my knowledge, are not intended to kill the family of terrorists in order to "take them out". They are being used improperly in my opinion, but we're talking about a very different thing.

 

[Vicomte13]

Changing the subject ... is dissembling

Truth is, I'm an independent. Dissembling is lying. I don't lie for Republicans, or for Democrats. None of them are worth it.

You Democrats like to talk as though you get to set the agenda, determine what "the subject" is. That arrogance is one of the reasons why the people are going to jam Trump down your throats. You're in charge, and you have failed: THAT is the subject. The Republicans have been in charge, and they failed. THAT is also the subject.

And that's why you're both going to get a leader imposed on you that you hate, by the 52% of the population you despise. It's mutual.

 

[LoAmmi]

Truth is, I'm an independent. Dissembling is lying. I don't lie for Republicans, or for Democrats. None of them are worth it.

You Democrats like to talk as though you get to set the agenda, determine what "the subject" is. That arrogance is one of the reasons why the people are going to jam Trump down your throats. You're in charge, and you have failed: THAT is the subject. The Republicans have been in charge, and they failed. THAT is also the subject.

And that's why you're both going to get a leader imposed on you that you hate, by the 52% of the population you despise. It's mutual.

Dissembling covers misleading. Changing the subject is an attempt to mislead. Saying why be upset about government ordered torture when the police are doing stuff is misleading as it is giving the false impression that those two events are linked. It's not arrogance, it's the truth. We can talk about the police if you want as it is a good subject for our times, but I haven't heard Trump say he wants the police to torture. I have heard him say he wants the military to torture. That's why I hate it when people try to change the subject to cover the weakness of what they are saying.

I'm not a Democrat. Voted for the Green Party last election and wouldn't vote for Hillary if anybody but Trump was running.

More than willing to admit I was wrong if Trump is good. If Trump is bad, I hope every single Trump supporter owns up to their mistake.

 

[Vicomte13]

Dissembling covers misleading.

Given how much you dislike dissembling, you must really hate Trump to actually vote for the pathological liar Hillary.

 

[LoAmmi]

Given how much you dislike dissembling, you must really hate Trump to actually vote for the pathological liar Hillary.

Yes. You are absolutely correct.

 

[Albion]

Understood.

That is just about all that the Clinton campaign offers as a reason to vote for her, isn't it?

I can't remember another candidate for the presidency--of either party--who offered so little personally and, as a result, made the campaign almost totally about the need to hate the opponent.

 

[LoAmmi]

Understood.

That is just about all that the Clinton campaign offers as a reason to vote for her, isn't it?

I can't remember another candidate for the presidency--of either party--who offered so little personally and, as a result, made the campaign almost totally about the need to hate the opponent.

It's both sides. Very few people are really pro their candidate as much as anti the other. Poll after poll shows this and it's a sad state of affairs.

For me it's a choice between "more of the same" and "spirit of 1930s fascism" and, well, I have to go with more of the same.