[Terez]

Zoolanderis Derake, on 28 February 2016 - 01:17 AM, said:

I'm hearing a lot of mixed messages about evangelicals and Trump. Lots of talk about how much they're supporting him in surprising amounts -- I suppose this might be an easy evangelicals-as-hypocrites media narrative, but I'm pretty sure the not-actually-in-church-on-Sunday-but-self-defined evangelical contingent is as big as it is in other religions. In other words, the casuals. What I'm more surprised about is that the racism stuff is trumping even abortion, even as anti-choice fervor is at another crest. Like it's there, it's important now more than it has been since probably 2000, and people are still flocking toward Trump instead of the others.

I've heard that talk about "casual" evangelicals too, but I'm not buying it. My dad and stepmom are every-Sunday evangelicals. Dad leads the singing and stepmom plays the piano. They're hardcore. Stepmom is voting Trump. Dad favors Cruz but Trump is his second choice. I doubt they're atypical. They know Trump's past positions on abortion but they're confident that he'll stick to the GOP script on that issue.

[worry]

That's disheartening. The (conservative) hardcore evangelicals in my life happen to be Hispanic and still hate Trump. I really wonder what they're gonna do when it comes down to it though.

[Terez]

The final looks like 74-26, which is not much better.

[worry]

It's ~74 to 26%.

[Terez]

For the furriners, this article about the GOP Trump freakout has been the center of discussion all day (previous to polls closing in SC):

http://mobile.nytime...ican-party.html

[Andorion]

Terez, on 28 February 2016 - 03:18 AM, said:

For the furriners, this article about the GOP Trump freakout has been the center of discussion all day (previous to polls closing in SC):

http://mobile.nytime...ican-party.html

I really don't see anybody stopping him. But would Republicans in Congress reject him if he is elected? Would they block him and badger him like they did Obama? Maybe moderate Reps and Democrats have common ground here? Also is there any chance that the Republican party splits into two parties - institutional moderates and radicals?

[worry]

They won't have to reject him. They will walk all over him. He's a bloviator, and I have no doubt that as an executive he will push his weight around on his political enemies. But he doesn't have the mind or patience for actual government work, and w/ a presumably conservative cabinet and no particular reason to oppose congress, he'll be led around by the nose.

[Andorion]

Zoolanderis Derake, on 28 February 2016 - 04:45 AM, said:

They won't have to reject him. They will walk all over him. He's a bloviator, and I have no doubt that as an executive he will push his weight around on his political enemies. But he doesn't have the mind or patience for actual government work, and w/ a presumably conservative cabinet and no particular reason to oppose congress, he'll be led around by the nose.

If they can manipulate him so easily why are they so worried? Sounds like a dream for a GOP Congress to have a puppet president.

[worry]

Well I don't think everyone agrees with my prediction, but my reasoning is because he's seen as unpredictable. I don't think he is unpredictable or particularly radical; they're just such dim bulbs they can't imagine the nature of his slightly different con. Like even a St. Bernard knows a chihuahua is still another dog. They're not even that bright. On top of that they are both cowardly and greedy. Like YA Fantasy dark lord-level greedy. Without exaggeration. And Trump is probably not willing to touch the BIG things like Social Security and Medicare in his first term, which they want to dismantle, because he lives and dies on popular opinion. He'll give them 90% of what they want, but they require 100%.

[worry]

I suppose he is unpredictable in one way: he says opposite things at the same time fairly often, particularly regarding war. He'll bomb the terrorists and their families, reintroduce torture as a regular practice; at the same time, the Iraq war was a YUGE mistake and we won't be getting involved in foreign squabbles. He seriously talks out of both sides of his mouth on this topic all the time. What he's saying is "we hate brown people and want to do violence upon them" AND "I'm not gonna waste your money on fighting wars like GWB & Obama did" and as contradictory as those are, his fans eat it up. Especially if they have brown people in the US to beat up (protesters at the rally, random people on the street, no difference). I imagine this rhetoric isn't ideal for the military industrial complex and the oil industry, two of the biggest owners of the GOP -- and some Dems as well (feel free to think of it as you would the owner of a sports team).

[EmperorMagus]

http://youtu.be/B6zSy5lAxd0


Sometimes Donald Trump sounds like the better option for the rest of the world than any other candidate.
He is very less likely to fuck the world on climate change compared to other GOP candidates, at least he wouldn't be a billion dollar in debt to the Koch brothers and their friends. I don't entirely agree with playing accountant with lives, however, climate change IS the biggest disaster to ever happen to our race, and I'd prefer somebody not a Koch's bitch to try stopping it.

[Terez]

Andorion, on 28 February 2016 - 05:08 AM, said:

Zoolanderis Derake, on 28 February 2016 - 04:45 AM, said:

They won't have to reject him. They will walk all over him. He's a bloviator, and I have no doubt that as an executive he will push his weight around on his political enemies. But he doesn't have the mind or patience for actual government work, and w/ a presumably conservative cabinet and no particular reason to oppose congress, he'll be led around by the nose.

If they can manipulate him so easily why are they so worried? Sounds like a dream for a GOP Congress to have a puppet president.

Not sure I agree with worry's assessment, but in this scenario Trump's main drawback is that he makes the GOP look bad. He would be like our Ahmadinejad. They may be able to do lawmaking without him, but they can't control his mouth. Or his Twitter.

[Terez]

EmperorMagus, on 28 February 2016 - 10:54 AM, said:

Sometimes Donald Trump sounds like the better option for the rest of the world than any other candidate.
He is very less likely to fuck the world on climate change compared to other GOP candidates, at least he wouldn't be a billion dollar in debt to the Koch brothers and their friends. I don't entirely agree with playing accountant with lives, however, climate change IS the biggest disaster to ever happen to our race, and I'd prefer somebody not a Koch's bitch to try stopping it.

I have no idea where you get this impression about how Trump would be on climate change. Trump's stated beliefs:

Huffington Post said:

In the Hewitt interview, Trump goes on to complain about the government attempting to solve a problem that he doesn't think "in any major fashion exists." And he keeps talking:

Trump said:

And actually, we've had times where the weather wasn't working out, so they changed it to extreme weather, and they have all different names, you know, so that it fits the bill. But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we're doing to solve a problem that I don't think in any major fashion exists. I mean, Obama thinks it's the number one problem of the world today. And I think it's very low on the list. So I am not a believer, and I will, unless somebody can prove something to me, I believe there's weather. I believe there's change, and I believe it goes up and it goes down, and it goes up again. And it changes depending on years and centuries, but I am not a believer, and we have much bigger problems.

Trump may not be taking money from the Koch Brothers, but he is himself a billionaire and he probably has lots of friends with money in the multinational and domestic corporations that lobby against any kind of environmental regulation whatsoever.

[worry]

Terez, on 28 February 2016 - 02:06 PM, said:

Andorion, on 28 February 2016 - 05:08 AM, said:

Zoolanderis Derake, on 28 February 2016 - 04:45 AM, said:

They won't have to reject him. They will walk all over him. He's a bloviator, and I have no doubt that as an executive he will push his weight around on his political enemies. But he doesn't have the mind or patience for actual government work, and w/ a presumably conservative cabinet and no particular reason to oppose congress, he'll be led around by the nose.

If they can manipulate him so easily why are they so worried? Sounds like a dream for a GOP Congress to have a puppet president.

Not sure I agree with worry's assessment, but in this scenario Trump's main drawback is that he makes the GOP look bad. He would be like our Ahmadinejad. They may be able to do lawmaking without him, but they can't control his mouth. Or his Twitter.

I agree with this, but I don't think it lasts much past the election (and maybe not that deep into the general). Trump is ultimately ideologically indifferent. He's pro-Trump, and everything else is detail. The fact that GOP politicians are driven by the profit motive too is entirely compatible with Trump's own goals. They do the socially conservative stuff to please voters (I think that's what they're concerned with, but I don't think he'll actually hurt them any), do all the "fiscally" conservative stuff that is actually about becoming personally wealthy at the expense of most people, and there's not much anyone can do to stop them if they have both chambers of congress. Also I think there's more of Palin in Trump than he'd ever admit, and that means abdicating much of function of the presidency to cabinet and high level bureaucrats. I don't think he's mild like GWB, I think he's indifferent (including on the war issue), and it leads to the same thing and worse in the end.

[amphibian]

My father is convinced Trump is saying all this wild shit to get votes in the primary. Once that's over, he will move dramatically towards the center on most things. Father cites the multiple Trump properties in the Middle East as his "look at what he is doing, not what he is saying" proof.

It's an interesting perspective to me because he's fresh from a three week trip in South Asia, so the news gets filtered there in a different way. They are still concerned with the sheer wackiness of Trump and how the Republican segment is loving it. This unsettles the Nepali and Indian populations.

[Terez]

amphibian, on 28 February 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

My father is convinced Trump is saying all this wild shit to get votes in the primary. Once that's over, he will move dramatically towards the center on most things.

I believe I mentioned this earlier, but Trump is on the record saying he will do this, and that he recognizes he won't be able to get away with saying the crazy shit when he's actually president.

[Andorion]

amphibian, on 28 February 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

My father is convinced Trump is saying all this wild shit to get votes in the primary. Once that's over, he will move dramatically towards the center on most things. Father cites the multiple Trump properties in the Middle East as his "look at what he is doing, not what he is saying" proof.

It's an interesting perspective to me because he's fresh from a three week trip in South Asia, so the news gets filtered there in a different way. They are still concerned with the sheer wackiness of Trump and how the Republican segment is loving it. This unsettles the Nepali and Indian populations.

Terez, on 28 February 2016 - 10:57 PM, said:

amphibian, on 28 February 2016 - 10:44 PM, said:

My father is convinced Trump is saying all this wild shit to get votes in the primary. Once that's over, he will move dramatically towards the center on most things.

I believe I mentioned this earlier, but Trump is on the record saying he will do this, and that he recognizes he won't be able to get away with saying the crazy shit when he's actually president.

I was wondering the same thing. He can say literally anything to become President, but once there, can't he just do what he wants? He has no deep party affiliations, financially he is his own man, so he could do anything. I mean he could slide either way - totally crazy, or more sane

[worry]

That's very theoretical. In reality, he's a bad guy who will do what he can for himself. I mean on the literal crazy-to-sane range, he's probably more sane than not. On a good-to-bad president range though, he will bring a whole lot of pain to a whole lot of people, inside and outside the US. Think Berlusconi + Palin w/ more malice and a whole lot more power.

[Primateus]

MY GOD!! IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!!

Make Donald Drumpf Again!

This post has been edited by Primateus: 29 February 2016 - 11:02 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

John Oliver nails it again. He didn't even go into the racism etc...