News Donald Trump's Popularity To Date

[EveHarrington]

@hodge I completely agree Donald Trump is a revolting slug

Agreed!


I'm amazed/not amazed about the "left wing conspiracy" spin being put on all this.

The victimizer playing the victim.

Classic.

Some I know are hypothesizing that Melania's reply to People magazine was an attempt to distance herself from it all------but notice she's not defending him. Perhaps there is a divorce in the works. I mean I don't think Melania is an idiot. Rather I think she "married her father" as reports have said that trump is much like her own dad. Trump has repeatedly made her look stupid, from the plagiarized speech to cheating on her from the beginning. I doubt she was completely unaware of it all, but maybe the public humiliation of the cheating has tipped the scales.

 

[Justmehere]

Newt Gingrich had an interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC this morning. When she played a clip of Trump blasting one of his accusers, he said it was stupid and then said, “I’ve said this publicly, there’s a big Trump and there’s a little Trump. The big Trump is a historic figure. The big Trump beat 16 other people for the nomination. The big Trump is creating issues that make the establishment very uncomfortable,” the former House speaker said. “The little Trump frankly gets out -- is stupid. I mean, that comment just then is dumb. And I don’t defend him when he wanders off, I’ve told him over and over. You know, presidents have to be disciplined, and in that sense Hillary is probably better trained to be president, just because she's the most corrupt person to ever get the nomination of a major party." Newt Gingrich Says Trump’s Criticism of Women Accusers’ Appearance is ‘Stupid’


I can't even think of words. My jaw is on the floor. Again.

And in other news, a GOP office in North Carolina has been firebombed. No deaths. (Thankfully.) There have been on-going bomb threats and death threats to the GOP throughout this, and this first one that wasn't stopped.

 

[EveHarrington]

This cracks me up.

My aunt said Trump was on drugs cuz of all his sniffing. We shared a few family laughs. Now trump is calling for drug tests for Hillary! Oh-------My------God. The king of projection is making drug accusations. Without a Marion Barry crack cocaine hotel room video, or perhaps drug testing-----this is the closest we're gonna get to knowing if trump is on drugs.

I gotta laugh.

 

[hodge]

Our beloved Woody Guthrie had personal experience with Trump's father, and not in a good way.

Woody Guthrie -- I Ain't Got No Home/Old Man Trump by the Missin' Cousins

 

[joeylittle]

At the risk of opening up a link-fest...I wanted to share this interview, because I found it very interesting.

Dead Link Removed

This professor, through analyzing the presidential elections from 1860 to 1980, has devised an analysis tool that doesn't have to do with polls, debates, or any of those kinds of shifting, hard to quantify targets. Instead, it focuses on how well or poorly the previous administration has performed.

He doesn't purport to be able to tell the future, and he's clear that this particular election has the potential to be mold-breaking, because of it's large number of anomalies. In his words, regarding Donald Trump:

We have never seen someone who is broadly regarded as a history-shattering, precedent-making, dangerous candidate who could change the patterns of history that have prevailed since the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Which is an important point to remember, I think, and a strong one. While history tends to remember Lincoln as a great president, the fact is, it was much more complicated than that. And at the time, he was considered to be dangerous by a very large portion of the population. And, when you take an unbiased look at Lincoln, it's not so clear that he was wholly 'good'. I was struck by Clinton having picked up on something that is associated with Lincoln - the concept that presidential leadership requires speaking differently to different groups at different times, and that these messages will often seem contradictory when placed side-by-side.

(I'm paraphrasing in the extreme, but that's the gist; someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

The professor's other qualification to his current prediction (one being Donald Trump's unprecedented uniqueness as a candidate), is this:

It takes six keys [factors] to count the party in power out, and [the Democrats] have exactly six keys. And one key could still flip, as I recognized last time — the third party key, that requires Gary Johnson to get at least five percent of the popular vote. He could slip below that, which would shift the prediction.

I'm not trying to start any kind of pro- or con- debate here. I thought that the article was fascinating, the parallel between Trump and Lincoln smart, and the inclusion of the third-party candidate aspect as interesting, in regards to potentially being a predictive factor in election outcomes.

Ultimately, the guy is a historian - and is more than willing to acknowledge that his whole thesis might get shattered in this election, which I appreciated.

 

[scout86]

I'm going to say that I think Lincoln WAS 'dangerous' to a major segment of the population. But I think that was, ultimately, for the good of both the nation and humanity. Trump? I think he's dangerous to the whole nation AND humanity. There might be some parallels in some ways, but not in any ways that matter. Which doesn't mean I don't see the validity of this guy's argument. I can see where, people being people, the things he's picked out matter. And I wonder what they found when they looked at elections earlier in the country's history. It would be interesting to know how many elections there were where his keys didn't work.

 

[EveHarrington]

At the risk of opening up a link-fest...I wanted to share this interview, because I found it very in...

Read the comments?

There are a LOT of disgruntled men who comment about liberals SLASH feminist cults.

Yes, women wanting rights is a liberal idea that must be squashed at all costs!

It's kind of sick how there are so many misogynists out there who cannot handle the fact that women are people, too, and as such have rights.

 

[joeylittle]

And I wonder what they found when they looked at elections earlier in the country's history. It would be interesting to know how many elections there were where his keys didn't work.

I'm not sure why he started with 1890. I do know that everything past then has turned out the way his keys predicted (including the ones past 1980)

Read the comments?

Honestly, no. I am avoiding comments sections these days (for some of the reasons you mentioned)

 

[hodge]

I know this thread is about Trump, but can't resist responding about Lincoln. I did a book about him in 2007-08 and toward that end read every major biography and tons of other contemporaneous sources as well as scholarly assessments up to the early 21st century. I'm curious to know what you mean, @joeylittle, about him not being wholly good. Well, okay, probably very, very few or none of us are wholly good, but I never detected anything wrong about him personally except for maybe his penchant for occasionally telling off-color jokes (I read a couple of books solely about his humor and rarely found anything I was offended by). But he was a huge jokester and mostly tended toward the homey, rural and corny, as well as self-deprecating humor. Trump is incapable of that. I wonder if he even has a sense of humor. (In that way also, he reminds me of my mother. I wonder if that's a narscissitic trait?)

I had no hard and fast opinion about Lincoln personally when I started research for the book. I knew he did good things and that only a good heart could come up with the words of his speeches. I also knew he suspended habeus corpus, which was not a good thing, but perhaps necessary at that time, and it didn't do lasting damage to our democracy. By the time I was halfway done with the book, I had fallen in love with him. As have most who have studied Lincoln's life and work.

 

[joeylittle]

I'll answer briefly, so as to not take us too far off course on this thread. I agree, @hodge, that Lincoln was a phenomenal statesman, an excellent lawyer, and led the country through an incredibly difficult and painful civil war. His speeches are incredible to read.

By saying he's not wholly good, I am mostly recalling W.E.B. DuBois' 1922 essay Again, Lincoln - where he references the fourth lincoln-douglas debate of 1858, and the statement Lincoln made at the time regarding integration. Later, lincoln did change his stance. But in the 4th debate speech, his meaning and words are very clear, that he was against integration and, indeed, against equality between the races. Since DuBois' essay contains the quote, I'll link only to the essay, here. (I'm sure you're familiar with it, just am including it in case others would like to check it out).

DuBois is also clear on the notion of 'all good' or 'all evil' as being a dangerous one when applied to all people, but leaders in particular.

Ultimately, whether or not Lincoln was right to keep the Union together - I often wonder. And it was altogether a very polarizing time, with strong public opinion running both ways. So, to sum it up, my comparison does not have to do so much with Lincoln (the man) and Trump (the man), but rather two candidates, each in their own ways capable of moving and motivating great numbers of people to their respective causes - and also capable of making statements and then reversing them. The suspension of habeas corpus and the detaining of dissenters are both cited as examples of constitutional dictatorship, which Lincoln did, for a time, invoke. As you said, he had reasons, I don't doubt that. It's just the fact of it that is worth remembering (I think).

 

[hodge]

I agree, @joeylittle, with you and DuBois. I feel the same way about his stances on race relations, but also wonder how much of that is my temporocentricity? I don't know. I'm sure better minds than mine have grappled with this. And, as you note, he did kind of come around, for example, inviting Frederick Douglass to the White House as an honored guest at one gala -- was it his second inauguration? I'm not sure without looking it up. (Though, if I remember correctly, Lincoln himself had to come to the door to bring Douglass into the house, as the guards didn't want to let him in).

I never thought about whether he was right to keep the Union together, but now you give me pause. I wonder. And yet, practically speaking, when you look at the divided parts of our country on a map, how would that work? We'd have parts of one nation on the East Coast, West Coast and scattered states in between, and parts of another nation . . . well, you get the idea. I wouldn't want to imagine the consequences of being balkenized. But now that you said that, I do wonder.

Perhaps this election will be more of a test of our Union than any other since the Civil War, and that includes the 60s. Ain't it great to live in interesting times? :confused:

I also don't want to derail this thread. If there's more you want to say and others, too, maybe I'll start a new one. This is an interesting discussion.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I'm not pro anyone so also not debating but this, but Trump's die hard followers, is scaring me. What I'm hearing out of my dad isn't just opinions. It reminds me of how cult leaders gain followers. "He will save the world".

I think hearing my dad speak about Trump is what's triggering me as it reminds me of this.

My question is why now? I know, or I believe, he tried to run prior. But why now is this happening? Pick a time where our country is indeed in need of saving in many ways and preach correctly and boom, there you have followers. Die hard followers.

It's freaky how close this is on how cults gain their followers. I said it way early in and I still have the opinion, I don't think Trump's populatrity is a phenomenon at all. We as a country are in a dire need of change and saving, he was just the "big guy" that stood up and said just the "right things" to get very fed up people to follow him...at any cost.