News Donald Trump's Popularity To Date

[Stickler]

Link Removed

Came to post above link, because the racism in Trump's campaign is getting real naked and ugly...but...

In essence, if they want the money from people in this country, then the laws change so that they have to establish sales records and thus taxation, for this countries citizens, regardless their offshore interests. Many EU countries have done this already through a threshold taxation system...

...Our entire government is essentially functioning as what they would call in my U.S. Politics course as a captured agency.
We're an oligarchy.
So squeezing those who are not the .01% as much as possible is the order of the day here.
...Since Americans ( well, not-so-savvy republican-type white americans ) kind of worship the insanely wealthy for some bizarre reason, and blame the poor for being poor?
They are willing to scapegoat nonwhite folks, foreign folks, non-Christian folks...oh, and the people who are too disabled to work! for their economic suffering...
Rather than look and note "Oh! All the money's getting vacuumed up by the insanely wealthy and stashed in tax dodges! That's why we don't have any!"

Our country is collectively behaving like a person with a personality disorder.
But you probably knew all that, because people in other countries actually pay attention.

 

[Ed Norton]

Ye ah!

 

[RussH]

Maybe it brings out more Americans to vote IF trump makes it as candidate?

The turn out has been record numbers, and Trump is taking credit for that.

I am not so sure that it is Trump's running that is bringing out the numbers, or if it is a backlash against Obama and the Democrats.

 

[Kintsugi]

@LuckyDuck and @Justmehere An interesting article about some of Trump's "crazy" ideas: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-realistic-ways-donald-trump-can-accomplish-his-crazy-goals/

So there's this nice little island off the east coast of Canada....

@shimmerz -ville, anybody? :woot:

On the subject of Trump being a product of Obama lashback: http://www.mediaite.com/online/pres...-blamed-for-trump-fueled-republican-crack-up/

I've literally been spending the last three years talking to people, saying, "Who do the Republicans have, now? What do they have? Who will run? Who is their new man?" (no, I was not willing to consider that they had a viable woman) Well... I knew Jeb and Rubio would take a run at it, but I hadn't heard much buzz there. And then, as if from the depths of a nightmarish fever dream, Trump emerged. I didn't want to believe that THAT was where the GOP's nominee crisis would end up, but here we are, nearly a full year later, and in the fullness of my retrospect, this sort of insanity seems somehow inevitable.

I am hoping that the people will not allow themselves to be blindsided by a snake oil salesman come November, but for the GOP, I can only hope they are taking this situation very seriously when considering where the future of their party lies.

While I didn't see Trump coming, I did see a Sanders coming, and no matter his odds at the nomination, he has done exactly what I hoped from a Sanders figure--brought a historically vigorously independent candidate to the main stage and caused pause among party loyalists.

This partisan dichotomy is a seriously broken system, and I really am keen to see it come to a close. I do not understand why we can't have a republican president and a democratic VP. I don't understand why independents aren't taken seriously until they draw lines in the sand with one party or the other, resigning themselves to a contrived set of principles that exist on a spectrum but are conflated to a box.

The founding fathers are turning in their graves. Here's a decent article about that: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/20/wesley-pruden-partisan-politics-as-the-founding-fa/

And a quote from that article that suggests I might be right about the grave-turning:

Thomas Jefferson...vowed that “if I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

 

[hodge]

Yeah, I think Trump definitely has a personality disorder, as well as narscicism. He is vile. He is hateful. He is like Hitler, no kidding. What kind of candidate kicks people out of their events for speaking against them? Trump, that's who. If you don't know anything else about him, that alone is enough to shun him from our political life forever. Though he's said much, much worse things.

 

[hodge]

Ha, so Trump cancelled his rally in Chicago tonight because of protesters. Woos, just like most bullies are!!!

 

[LuckyDuck]

Well, the cracked article had a few more questions pop up: will he use his own money? My guess is no...

Does he understand how unrealistic his goals are? I think so. He's promised much in the past and delivered... mediocre quality? It sounds like he's up to his regular antics. By the strictest legal term he is a politician. Probably the loosest as well. This is where the business world meets political. Promises are worded the right way to make America great again. And that could very well be a wasteland. But that's according to Trump.

Who wants to come grab a brewski with me when the shit all blows over?

LD

 

[hodge]

Time for brewskies is when Trump is out of the picture and we safely have a Democrat in the White House.

 

[hodge]

He is so incredibly vile. It pains me to see how many of my fellow Americans back him. We are in danger. The only thing I grab hope onto is my husband's (a political geek) and other wonks who say he won't win without the Latino vote. I don't see how he could get those.

 

[LuckyDuck]

He is so incredibly vile. It pains me to see how many of my fellow Americans back him. We are in danger. Th...

I'm up for that. How about a thread of what we're driking after elections have passed? Alcohol is optional, of course. Coffee is after all my second favorite liquid on this here earth. Nevermind the liquid methane found on other planets...

LD

Edit: responded to the wrong post, but you get the idea.

 

[Justmehere]

Soap box/venting post ahead.

There are now riots happening in two states. Trump rallies were canceled due to violence between his supporters and protesters, and riots broke out. Reporters have been detained, many citizens have been hurt, police have been wounded, at least 32 in one city have been arrested, charges have pressed against Trump's campaign manager for assault...

Trump is not even officially nominated by any party to even be the candidate for any office, and already the violence (which Trump has been calling for) is beginning.

Remember Goodwin's Law? Where if you compared someone or something to Hitler and the Nazi's to make a point, you automatically lost the debate?

Oh, those were the days.

Now we actually have growing reasons to legitimately compare someone to Hitler, and it still doesn't even win over anyone. People are just voting for him more. It's fascinating and scary.

Trump doesn't even mind being compared to Hitler. When asked if being compared to Hitler gives him pause, Trump responded by saying no, and moves on to praising the idea of internment camps.
(Link Removed)

So many see the path we are on, and yet the country just keeps marching down this path. As I type this, I feel crazy. Like are we seriously having this happen? Is this really real life? Is this where we are really at?

This will likely get worse before it gets better.

I am reading what's happening in GOP circles, and people are actually posting that the violence tonight is going to make them vote for Trump all the more. Ugh.

I have only been a part of one "protest" in my life, and that was after 9/11. Myself and others from my church in the mid-west, we went and stood around a local Islamic center (who invited us), and we held daisies and sat around the perimeter on 9/12 and 9/13, to help them feel safe to gather and worship. We didn't hold signs, but we made our presence known, and used our right to assemble (the right to protest) to encourage peace and safety, not hate. The Islamic center had been vandalized after 9/11, and the solution was not more violence against the idiots who vandalized the center. At first, some people yelled at us for doing this, but other people joined us. The antagonism and hatred did not stop, but it also did not win. On that day, love won.

If Trump was president, I would go protest his desire to limit freedom of press, freedom of assembly (to protest), freedom of religion (banning people based on religion), etc, etc. If he starts the internment camps he says he wants, I would do whatever I peacefully could do to stand up against that.

But there is no solution found in beating up Trump supporters. It just makes them dig in their heels more! It is making Trump more popular! People are writing things like "Trump we need you all the more now."

Violence for or against Trump solves nothing.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

...ok, soap box/venting session over.

 

[hodge]

Loved your rant, JMH. And you ended it with one of my very favorite MLK quotes.

I've also been involved in non-violent protests. It's not easy, cause you can get people who are involved who want to get violent in some way and it was my job to try to calm them down and talk them out of it. Blah, not easy when they've been drinking.

I am really appalled at how many people like Trump. Is it a backlash for racists who resent that a black man has been President for two terms? Somehow, I think it's more than that. But I don't know. This is something historians will have a field day with someday, while in the meantime we have to live with it. And somehow prevent this vile man from becoming president.