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 Peregrine wrote:
And hasn't a recurring theme from conservatives been how Obama has abused his power and done too much through executive action? Why would any sane person expect Trump to be any different?

Yep. I think we've all laughed in the past about how both sides will swap their arguments based on who is in the whitehouse. When it's someone from team red then Democratic supporters will believe in containing the presidency, and that any expansion is a serious constitutional threat, and then if someone from team blue wins the office suddenly the Democratic supporters go quiet on those issues and Republican find a voice in making sure the president stays in check.

That joke isn't funny any more because it shows that people will buy in to that even when their candidate is Donald Trump.

I have to disagree here. I think the importance of justices gets mentioned quite a bit from the left, especially as an argument to vote for Clinton even if she isn't quite the ideal candidate. I think a lot of people on the left are well aware of the possibility of a republican president nominating a conservative justice and attempting to overturn every left-leaning decision in recent history.

I overstated, my bad. It isn't that the left doesn't understand, but on the whole less of them understand it as well or prioritize it as much.

 Breotan wrote:

As I said much earlier in the thread, Trump will find himself severely constrained as President. He's done so much to alienate the Republicans that it will be tough to get anything he wants done. No one in Congress seems to actually like the guy so there really won't be much of a "honeymoon" period. Oh, and Pence isn't entirely unappealing as VP.

This part I struggle with. Trump is the better presidential candidate because he's such a band candidate that he'll be ignored anyway? Or that you're expecting him to be impeached and be left with Pence who isn't as bad?

Even if Trump is ignored by all government departments, he's still going to be your ranting figurehead for at least 4 years. That could have a serious impact on public relations alone, and turn the presidency into a farce. He's still going to have to be briefed on all sorts of classified information; does anyone thing he'll keep it to himself and not act on it?


I appreciate that there are people who'd rather elect Mussolini than Clinton, but as an outsider I just cannot fathom how Trump can be considered at all. I genuinely can't think of a worse candidate. Kayne West, maybe?

Herzlos wrote:
I just cannot fathom how Trump can be considered at all. I genuinely can't think of a worse candidate. Kayne West, maybe?

Pfft, Yeezy only went $53 million into debt and has never declared bankruptcy.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Breotan wrote:
I said this was what the emotional side of my mind was feeling. The previous cartoon captured the logical side. Yes, the two together demonstrate intellectual dissonance which I've resolved by deciding to go with the logical side over the emotional side.

The logical side appears to have decided that a President Trump would have no power to do functionally anything, while a President HR Clinton would be able to destroy American life as we know it by dismantling half a dozen constitutional protections.

I think the logical side kind of took it in the shorts here if you decided that was a working stance.


President Obama had both the house and the senate, and still barely managed to squeak by a watered-down version of the republican's own healthcare plan, FFS.

 Breotan wrote:
I said this was what the emotional side of my mind was feeling. The previous cartoon captured the logical side. Yes, the two together demonstrate intellectual dissonance which I've resolved by deciding to go with the logical side over the emotional side.

Ah, I get you now. Cheers for the clarification.

He has to get them approved by the Senate first. It will be interesting to see what happens should he appoint "yes men" who will rubber stamp radical or unpredictable views.

He has to get appointments approved. But once that is done he has tremendous leeway to direct the departments. Sure, the directors might refuse or stonewall, and that might minimise his actions somewhat. But it's pretty incredible we're talking about anyone voting for a guy on the grounds that 'hopefully' government institutions will minimise his directives.

Gun rights are.

Then you'd better stop supporting absolutists on gun rights. Because every year the number of homes with guns in them drops. Highly influential minorities have a habit of becoming utterly irrelevant minorities very quickly. If I were you I'd want gun control settled as a political issue long before that happened. As long as you refuse any kind of deal on guns, avoid any kind of long term settlement, you leave the door open that a deal will be made when gun owners have little input to the decision. You want to make permanent deals while you have power, not when they do.

[quoteAs I understood it, two generations is 40 years, but I accept your point. Still, look how long Ginsberg and Thomas have been on the court and maybe you'll better understand my concern about younger, more liberal people being appointed.

 sebster wrote:

Anyhow, do you think that similar concerns and claims were made about Obama before he began his presidency? Do you believe that after 8 years of Obama as president, it was shown those fears were largely unfounded? That Obama wasn't in fact a radical set to take away people's freedoms, but a centre left politician who happily accepted the status quo of US institutions and legal protections.

Is it possible then, that those concerns are equally unfounded in the case of Clinton, but are made anyway, because it suits certain political interests to scare people about the Democratic candidate, whoever that Democrat might be, whatever beliefs that Democrat might hold?

I see plenty of posts on Facebook about "the country started to go downhill eight years ago" and stuff like that. Hell, one girl I went to high school with repeatedly stated that she thinks there will be open civil war in the US in the next ten years! There is a nasty streak of apocalyptic thought in the right wing.

 Polonius wrote:

 sebster wrote:

Anyhow, do you think that similar concerns and claims were made about Obama before he began his presidency? Do you believe that after 8 years of Obama as president, it was shown those fears were largely unfounded? That Obama wasn't in fact a radical set to take away people's freedoms, but a centre left politician who happily accepted the status quo of US institutions and legal protections.

Is it possible then, that those concerns are equally unfounded in the case of Clinton, but are made anyway, because it suits certain political interests to scare people about the Democratic candidate, whoever that Democrat might be, whatever beliefs that Democrat might hold?

I see plenty of posts on Facebook about "the country started to go downhill eight years ago" and stuff like that. Hell, one girl I went to high school with repeatedly stated that she thinks there will be open civil war in the US in the next ten years! There is a nasty streak of apocalyptic thought in the right wing.

well their religion is based on it, they're all sitting around waiting for the end of the world.

so people are really going to vote for trump because they think he'll get nothing done? He's sword to undo everything obama has done, and hell Obama still managed to get some stuff done with the most hostile house & senate ever. If trump get's in, let the witch hunts begin, he'll go around arresting innocent people and political opponents because he thinks their guilty.

https://twitter.com/TweTro/status/785995957431308288

" that would be bad.. I'd have to consider it "

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/785996687697252352

.. didn't they both dodge the/a draft ?

I see plenty of posts on Facebook about "the country started to go downhill eight years ago" and stuff like that. Hell, one girl I went to high school with repeatedly stated that she thinks there will be open civil war in the US in the next ten years! There is a nasty streak of apocalyptic thought in the right wing.

Indeed.

https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/785988000371052544

seems to sum it up quite well.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 sebster wrote:

Anyhow, do you think that similar concerns and claims were made about Obama before he began his presidency? Do you believe that after 8 years of Obama as president, it was shown those fears were largely unfounded? That Obama wasn't in fact a radical set to take away people's freedoms, but a centre left politician who happily accepted the status quo of US institutions and legal protections.

Is it possible then, that those concerns are equally unfounded in the case of Clinton, but are made anyway, because it suits certain political interests to scare people about the Democratic candidate, whoever that Democrat might be, whatever beliefs that Democrat might hold?

I see plenty of posts on Facebook about "the country started to go downhill eight years ago" and stuff like that. Hell, one girl I went to high school with repeatedly stated that she thinks there will be open civil war in the US in the next ten years! There is a nasty streak of apocalyptic thought in the right wing.

well their religion is based on it, they're all sitting around waiting for the end of the world.

so people are really going to vote for trump because they think he'll get nothing done? He's sword to undo everything obama has done, and hell Obama still managed to get some stuff done with the most hostile house & senate ever. If trump get's in, let the witch hunts begin, he'll go around arresting innocent people and political opponents because he thinks their guilty.

I think that's part of it, obviously. Another part is that for many Trump supporters, they have reason to fear a more egalitarian society. If you look at the polls, Trump does better with men, whites, Christians, the less educated, and the better off. Whites without college degrees have traditionally had enormous economic advantages, and they fear losing those.

"Whites without college degrees have traditionally had enormous economic advantages, and they fear losing those. "

-Thats certainly an interesting viewpoint.

 Frazzled wrote:

"Whites without college degrees have traditionally had enormous economic advantages, and they fear losing those. "

-Thats certainly an interesting viewpoint.

I can see the logic, you don't need a degree to be a mechanic, plumber, construction worker, and those are usually good careers to have.

 Frazzled wrote:

"Whites without college degrees have traditionally had enormous economic advantages, and they fear losing those. "

-Thats certainly an interesting viewpoint.

I think he means compared to non-whites of a similar education. Degrees typically level the playing field slightly by opening the doors for more specialised roles.

When an employer is looking for someone who is well versed in using a specific coding language to create programs to carry out specific, complicated calculations requiring advanced knowledge then they are less capable of arbitrarily restricting themselves by thinking "I want a white guy" as that would be potentially cutting an already small population from which to recruit down to almost non-existent.

I lost a much longer reply, but yes, I meant that even today, white men with a high school diploma are out earning and out competing black people with degrees, although it evens out in highly technical or professional fields, such as STEM and law.

But, surprisingly, fields where hiring is based on "fit" or "personality," white people seem to earn more. Huh.

I would posit that fundamentally it is less a fear of losing "white privilege" thing, and more that the jobs that many of those people used to work, things like factory assembly lines or coal mining and the like, simply aren't the viable lifelong careers that provided for their parents and grandparents, and that the ills of that are often blamed projected onto "others". The economy has changed such that livelyhoods that provided for two or three generations and became the expected norm are simply no longer possible, their social standing as "acceptable" work diminished, and many view that as something of a stolen dream or a "bait and switch" by society.

My cousin is a perfect example. His father, my uncle, has a great job, but was able to clinch that by getting in during the 80's when having a degree wasn't a huge deal. My cousin however wouldn't even be looked at by HR if he applied for the same positions his father got into because he wouldn't meet minimum quals today, and even if he did, they pay they offer has not scaled in a way that would allow him the same standard of living. This has heavily fed into him becoming an echo-chamber wall shouter. There are very good reasons why such positions don't pay what they once did and why qualifications minimums have risen (largely that employers can demand higher quality workers and pay them less given the realities of the market), but that's not what a 27 year old unemployed dude living at home wants to hear either, it's much easier to blame it on "illegals" or "liberals" and be angry.

All of these "white privilege" observations are spot on and are why Trump's motto, "Make America Great Again" resonates with that group, even when it flies in the face of empirical evidence that things are pretty great right now, i.e. 5% Unemployment; Strongest, best funded Military in the world; economic growth...slower than we'd like, but take a look around; no inflation; low interest rates; more Americans covered by health insurance than any time in history, etc., etc.
But the global labor/workplace paradigm has shifted and the affected want things back the way they were, in some -50's "Leave it to Beaver", $75./hr. union factory job, white bread fantasy bouncing around in their fear-addled heads.
They don't want to hear the truth. They don't want to take the medicine. They just want to be told lies, which they happily swallow, even when it's messenger is a gak bag of a human being.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I would posit that fundamentally it is less a fear of losing "white privilege" thing, and more that the jobs that many of those people used to work, things like factory assembly lines or coal mining and the like, simply aren't the viable lifelong careers that provided for their parents and grandparents, and that the ills of that are often blamed projected onto "others". The economy has changed such that livelyhoods that provided for two or three generations and became the expected norm are simply no longer possible, their social standing as "acceptable" work diminished, and many view that as something of a stolen dream or a "bait and switch" by society.

My cousin is a perfect example. His father, my uncle, has a great job, but was able to clinch that by getting in during the 80's when having a degree wasn't a huge deal. My cousin however wouldn't even be looked at by HR if he applied for the same positions his father got into because he wouldn't meet minimum quals today, and even if he did, they pay they offer has not scaled in a way that would allow him the same standard of living. This has heavily fed into him becoming an echo-chamber wall shouter. There are very good reasons why such positions don't pay what they once did and why qualifications minimums have risen (largely that employers can demand higher quality workers and pay them less given the realities of the market), but that's not what a 27 year old unemployed dude living at home wants to hear either, it's much easier to blame it on "illegals" or "liberals" and be angry.

Ironic that their party's repeated favoring of policies that funnel wealth to the top is a huge contributor to their economic difficulties.

Indeed, and they willingly buy into policies and politicians that are an active threat to their livelihood for culture war reasons...perpetuating such things for their own sake.

 reds8n wrote:

I see plenty of posts on Facebook about "the country started to go downhill eight years ago" and stuff like that. Hell, one girl I went to high school with repeatedly stated that she thinks there will be open civil war in the US in the next ten years! There is a nasty streak of apocalyptic thought in the right wing.

Indeed.

https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/785988000371052544

seems to sum it up quite well.

The fallout from what looks like a sure Trump loss (or should I say sure *victory* for jinx avoidance purposes?) will certainly be interesting.

It seems clear that Trump will challenge the legitimacy of the election in ways that no candidate has ever dared. HOWEVER, I don't see a majority of Trump voters getting revolution fever. That'll be reserved for the fringe elements. Partisan politics just dominate this country right now, and IMO there are plenty of people planning to vote for Trump simply because he's Red Tribe (with the fact that Hillary Clinton is the Blue Tribe candidate being the cherry on top). Those folks will dust themselves off and go back to work on Wednesday morning.

The U.S. has been described as a nation of laws, and our citizens generally have a strong belief in our laws and institutions. It'll take more than Donald Frigging Trump to change that. The Trump true believers may be another story. Although I suspect that we'll see 'outlets' emerge through which they can channel their emotion (a new Trump-led party?).

The U.S. has been described as a nation of laws, and our citizens generally have a strong belief in our laws and institutions. It'll take more than Donald Frigging Trump to change that. The Trump true believers may be another story. Although I suspect that we'll see 'outlets' emerge through which they can channel their emotion (a new Trump-led party?).

Bring it. They don't have the belly for it.
This is all just a scam now for Trump to start his own media channel (which will crater within a year).

I think it's worth noting (if this hasn't been said before) that the US election cycle is crazy. You basically have to vote on important seats every 2 years, on top of a presidential race that starts over a year before election day.

 Frazzled wrote:

The U.S. has been described as a nation of laws, and our citizens generally have a strong belief in our laws and institutions. It'll take more than Donald Frigging Trump to change that. The Trump true believers may be another story. Although I suspect that we'll see 'outlets' emerge through which they can channel their emotion (a new Trump-led party?).

Bring it. They don't have the belly for it.
This is all just a scam now for Trump to start his own media channel (which will crater within a year).

Yeah, that may be what he's thinking at this point. He's a buffoon, but can't be so much of a dolt for him to think he can win after this spectacular implosion.

 Frazzled wrote:

The U.S. has been described as a nation of laws, and our citizens generally have a strong belief in our laws and institutions. It'll take more than Donald Frigging Trump to change that. The Trump true believers may be another story. Although I suspect that we'll see 'outlets' emerge through which they can channel their emotion (a new Trump-led party?).

Bring it. They don't have the belly for it.
This is all just a scam now for Trump to start his own media channel (which will crater within a year).

No it's a scam to make sure Trump stays relevant in the news cycle for a good long time after he loses the election; allowing him to keep cashing in on self promotion, appearances, name recognition etc.

 Breotan wrote:

I will tell them the truth. I'll tell them I voted against Clinton. I believe that this political cartoon sums up my position (although clearly greatly exaggerated).

I just want to look at this thing for a moment.

First Amendment: The only thing that is really applicable is the citizens united thing, and that's only if you believe money=speech. But you also have Trump who has railed against big donars, and said he wanted to "open up out libel laws" so he could sue journalists.

Second Amendment: This I'll sort of give you, but with the realization that nothing will ever happen. When Obama and the D's held all three houses, they got absolutely nothing passed. Hillary is far more moderate than Obama, so I think it's pretty damn unlikely that anything will get pushed through, especially as the R's are projected to hold the house. And besides, Donald Trump is the one saying we have to keep guns away from 'bad people'.

Fourth Amendment: I know of nothing that she is supporting that would infringe apon the fourth. Besides, Trump is the one supporting stop-and-frisk and "monitering" Islamic communities. .

Fifth Amendment: Same for this.

Tenth Amendment: If you are an extremely strict literalist, then maybe I could see this, but that's true for pretty much every candidate for the last 150 years, so....



D-

 gorgon wrote:
Yeah, that may be what he's thinking at this point. He's a buffoon, but can't be so much of a dolt for him to think he can win after this spectacular implosion.

By all accounts, presidential campaigns never really consider that they might lose. You hear stories of Romney not even having a concession speech, when he was consistently 3-4 points down in all the polls.

It's a real bunker mentality.

Needless to say, I'm not going to be comfortable that Trump is in the margins until HRC hits 270.

 curran12 wrote:
Needless to say, I'm not going to be comfortable that Trump is in the margins until HRC hits 270.

I wouldn't get too panicked. There simply seems to be a ceiling to his popularity, in about the mid 40s. He's losing some of that even with the video and the debates (especially the first). We're also running out of undecided voters, and the third party folks were more HRC than Trump. I know that 3-4 percentage points doesn't sound like a lot, but it involves either winning over a huge percentage of the undecideds, or swaying people back from HRC, which seems unlikely at this point.

 Polonius wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Yeah, that may be what he's thinking at this point. He's a buffoon, but can't be so much of a dolt for him to think he can win after this spectacular implosion.

By all accounts, presidential campaigns never really consider that they might lose. You hear stories of Romney not even having a concession speech, when he was consistently 3-4 points down in all the polls.

It's a real bunker mentality.

The republican party of the last decade or so has been living in an otherworld echo chamber. When all the polls showed them behind, they made their own polls that fit their narrative, and then were flabbergasted they turned out not to reflect reality. Anyone remember Karl Rove melting down on Fox when he just would not accept the return results?

 Polonius wrote:

 curran12 wrote:
Needless to say, I'm not going to be comfortable that Trump is in the margins until HRC hits 270.

I wouldn't get too panicked. There simply seems to be a ceiling to his popularity, in about the mid 40s. He's losing some of that even with the video and the debates (especially the first). We're also running out of undecided voters, and the third party folks were more HRC than Trump. I know that 3-4 percentage points doesn't sound like a lot, but it involves either winning over a huge percentage of the undecideds, or swaying people back from HRC, which seems unlikely at this point.

Oh I'm not panicked, just uncomfortable. Like in a bus or airplane, I'm not content with the giant, gross racist next to me until he is off the plane/bus.

 curran12 wrote:
Needless to say, I'm not going to be comfortable that Trump is in the margins until HRC hits 270.

THAT!!!!!!!! Don't, for even a second, think this is over or in the bag for HRC.

I remember that Al Gore was 10 points, or so, ahead going into October and he lost to dubya. Nobody can be complacent about Trump and his chances. This thing isn't over. Get out and vote and send this asshat back to the cave he knuckle-dragged himself out of.

 BigWaaagh wrote:

 curran12 wrote:
Needless to say, I'm not going to be comfortable that Trump is in the margins until HRC hits 270.

THAT!!!!!!!! Don't, for even a second, think this is over or in the bag for HRC.

I remember that Al Gore was 10 points, or so, ahead going into October and he lost to dubya. Nobody can be complacent about Trump and his chances. This thing isn't over. Get out and vote and send this asshat back to the cave he knuckle-dragged himself out of.

Nah... Trump's toast.

But, if ya'll are that worried... that tells ya how bad of a candidate truly is...

Can you image a top ticket of O'Malley or Warren or Sanders? Trump would be KO'ed by now...

 whembly wrote:


Can you image a top ticket of O'Malley or Warren or Sanders? Trump would be KO'ed by now...

I don't know about O'Malley beating Trump. I live in Maryland and my roommate had no idea he was even running, and didn't recognize his name when I brought it up. The man was our governor as recently as *last year*. If he doesn't have instant recognition in his own state, hoe the feth is he supposed to win anywhere else?