Figured I'd go ahead and make a thread for this since the conversation's been dominating the FFA recently and it's probably irritating a lot of people who don't care. Standard rules apply, i.e. try to keep things civil and on-topic.

To kick things off: after Rubio's crushing defeat and Kasich's "ok, yeah, but what next?" performance in Ohio, coupled with Cruz's utter lack of wins in this recent batch of primaries, I read that a lot of establishment Republicans are kicking around the idea of basically saying fuck it with the RNC and letting Trump have that nomination while themselves picking an establishment Republican guy to run as a third-party candidate against Trump. I guess the logic is that, while they know it'd cost them the general election, it's better than leaving the party in the hands of someone they really don't want being the face of it for four years.

Yeah, things never really change, but the fracturing of the Republican party into Trumpists, establishment types, evangelicals and libertarian-leaning types, as well as the schism that seems to be appearing between establishment Democrat politics and a growing number of people wanting a more progressive candidate, makes me wonder if America's long-running two party system is finally coming to a screeching halt.

The whole thing has been a mess from the beginning... I saw that one of the most searched phrases for Google in the past month is "Move to Canada." Which doesn't sound too bad at this point

Donald Trump's pro-violence stance is fucking scary. If he wins, I'm kind of concern on how much damage he could actually do. I don't know enough about politics, but I know we've got a ton of smart and educated people on this board, so maybe somebody has a better perspective on that situation?

For those who don't think Trump is a racist - well, even if not, he's run his campaign on portraying that which is outside the US borders as the enemy. If you want to call it xenophobia or just go with plain old hateful, you can't deny the swell in minorities feeling persecuted or violent acts happening at his rallies. He's not good news no matter how you spin it.

Trump is the best present that democrats will receive on these elections. Hillary Clinton has the presidency in her hands, she just need to keep calm and make no stupid things.

Sanders is the biggest(and best) surprise , no chances of winning against Hillary but its a sign that something is changing there.

On the other hand, Trum is another sign that Republicans are going mad. If Cruz is the best they have , wow, its just terrible.

It's amusing how we've gone from "Trump has supporter ceiling" to "Trump can't win the election." Just a reminder that again, voter turnout on the Republican has eclipsed the Democrat side. Trump received more votes than Hillary in Ohio even though he got second place in a 4 man race and Hillary won her race. Also in Florida, Trump got the almost the same amount of votes as Hillary in a 4 man race vs a 2 man one. Those are both swing states that are quite possibly going red in the general assuming Trump gets the nomination. If clinton doesn't pick Sanders as her VP, enthusiasm on the democrat side will be ridiculously low.


I keep hearing this narrative, but in fact some exit polls with Hispanics in Florida have indicated that Trump has won 38 percent of the Hispanic vote to Rubio's 40 percent. Granted, I've seen some other polls have that number around 3 in 10 or close to 30%. But still, it's a sizable block esp. for a 4 man race (well a it's a 3 man one now).

I can't speak for everyone of course, but in my experience many conservative Hispanics like my father who have come here legally very much feel that everyone should go through the same process and not get amnesty.

That's not all it's about though. He should have said that and left it at that then. But instead we get "Islam hates America," and "the immigrants are killers and rapists." He's running on an anti-political-correctness theme, but you need political correctness enough to have a nuanced discussion without those kinds of radical words. Words matter. What he says has been affecting people in the wrong ways. The wording I'm talking about inspires fear and creates an us versus them mentality that helps no one. I hesitate to say his supporters are racist for the reason you mention, but there's plenty wrong in what he has said.

What boggles me the most on Drumpf is how people like him cause he's "honest" yet he says more bullshit and flat out lies than anyone I can think of. He flops on issues constantly. He said he didn't know anything about white supremacist David Duke after Duke came out and gave Drumpf his support, but like a week earlier he condemned David Duke. He constantly tells supporters at rallies that "in the good ol days these protesters would be leaving on a stretcher" and then he has the balls to say he doesn't incite violence. His campaign is based off of xenophobia and people who think he's a successful businessman. There's zero substance. "Mexico's gonna pay for the wall." "How?" "They will." It's genuinely fucking baffling that people actually buy into this shit.

I come from a super conservative, modern Republican family (my aunt was super into those fake planned parenthood videos last summer) and they probably hate Drumpf more than me. And that's saying something.

Oh yeah, even on the ridiculous, silly things, there's lies - like he says he'll pay for legal fees of those who attack the protesters at his rallies, then yesterday he comes out saying he didn't know he would do that.

And he said he supported torture and killing the families of terrorists in the Middle East, but went back on that too. There's just nothing to say.

You know, I've been watching CNN about this lately and (maybe I might be exaggerating a bit here) but what Trump's doing literally borders on fascism. Just a couple of days ago I saw him make his supporters make this "loyalty oath" to him that reminded me of the Nazis' "Holy Oath". And it seems to exist this devotion to him among his supporters that again is very characteristic of fascism.

The media, right and left, bias against Trump is amazing. But maybe its true there is no bad press. We will see. If Trump supporters were doing what they could to stop Bernie Sanders rallies they would be calling them brownshirts. Yet when you get the chaos we had in Chicago its not held against BS as at all. And if you try to attack Trump on stage you get a spot on CNN to explain your balanced viewpoint. Trump is the total failure of the Republican establishment and they are terrified. It would be a riot if he did win the Presidency to listen to the political elites meltdown.

What will be interesting is how the Bernie supporters will react to accepting that Bernie will not win. I've been hearing a lot of about him running as a 3rd party, or his supporters writing him in. I'm finding that a lot of the Sander's supporters are not interested in Hillary at all, they seem to hate her nearly as much as any Conservative. Which is a valid point as she is a vile empty person.

Have you listened to Sanders supporters go on about "the revolution"?

This may have been the case when Trump was a blip on the radar and everyone thought Cruz or Rubio would get the nomination, but lately I've seen a lot of hardline Sanders supporters begrudgingly admit that they'll vote for Hilary if it stops Trump. Hopefully that carries.

Mob mentality is an inevitability when you get a bunch of people jacked up on adrenaline in a tight spot. What makes this different from any other candidate from any party is that Trump is actively endorsing it.

Seems to me, more like Trump is just taking a jab at the Republican party. Remember at the start, they made such a big show about him declaring loyalty to the party, now they seem ready to throw him under the bus. I think this loyalty oath to Trump thing is just a playful send-up of that situation.

Maybe to Trump and his administrators, but that's a moot point if his followers actually believe it.

The actual quote here is: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Of course, the media spins that as if he is talking about all Mexicans or all immigrants, but the context is obviously about illegal immigrants as he later said and as this video of that statement should hopefully make clear. The numbers on this kind of thing is not checked very well, but I have seen estimates that about 30% of the murders in the US are committed by illegal aliens. "As for Islam hates America," I don't believe that's an accurate statement outside of the Middle East (India, Indonesia, etc. have a large Muslim population). Someone should dig up numbers I suppose; I can only find 10 year old polls.

It'd be nice if people stopped using "fascist" as a synonym for someone they don't support.

You're behind the times, man. He went back on his going back already (actually he may have re-gone back). Two debates ago he talked about bringing back waterboarding and worse than waterboarding and killing terrorists' families, and the moderators reminded him that these things are illegal and how will he order soldiers to break the law, and he quipped something about how, when he orders someone to do something, they just do it. Then a couple of days later in some interview he went back on it and said he respects the law and would never order anyone to break the law when asked again about his stance on this issue. Then, a few days after that at the next debate it was brought up yet again, and he was right back to let's do worse than waterboarding and kill their families stuff.

I honestly think he's just got some huge team of people telling him what to say and he just can't keep all of that shit straight, so constantly forgets where he's currently meant to be standing on any particular issue. Doesn't even matter at all though; basically everything about the guy that makes him unsuitable as a presidential candidate by any standard, historical measure is exactly why people are coming out in droves in support of him. He could probably literally kill a guy at a rally and still become the nominee.

The way in which he wants to kick all Muslims out of America has been compared to Hitler's treatment of the Jews by many. And he actually quoted Mussolini on Twitter.

Phew, where do you people get your news from?

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," a campaign press release said.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/ ... migration/

Obviously a temporary ban and that was in response to Paris attacks.

To clarify, you're more than welcome to criticize that proposal. Just you know, criticize the right thing to begin with.

Be that is it may, it's illogical and implausible. How do you do that, anyway? Ask them if they're Muslim and send them home if they say yes?

It's also a fact that a very small percentage of Muslim people are extreme in any way, so to ban all of them from coming here makes no sense and wouldn't solve anything. Also, we have seen more domestic terrorism in the past ten years than foreign terrorism in the United States.

Background checks of course. It's really not hard to find someone's religious affiliation if there are good records. And if you don't have good records, well why would you be let in legally to begin with? If the ban is just temporary until we have a good way to vet people, I really don't see a problem with that. Especially since we should be presumably vetting people well in the first place.

It is true that non-Islamic attacks outnumber Islamic attacks, but the death toll seem to be quite close (45 vs 48) since 9/11. Presumably, the proportions are heavily in favor of Islamic terrorists simply because the US barely has any Muslims and there are plenty of right-wing people.
http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extr ... tacks.html

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any solid numbers regarding far left terrorist attacks since 9/11. I actually think that those numbers are incredibly small (if any) in the last decade or so.

I do agree that the threat of terrorism and ISIS is totally overblown though. This is a problem that is much more relevant in Europe than it is in the US. There are many other more important issues to worry about here.

surely that ban is are blatantly unconstitutional?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

I didn't say he was a fascist because I don't support him, I said it because of the way he's acting.

^Define fascism and explain how Trump's proposed policies are in line with that ideology.


Not likely. The government generally does not grant the rights from the bill of rights to non-citizens (ex. Guantanamo Bay) and is allowed to exclude immigrants on whatever basis they want.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-el ... al-n484981

If you read my first post again, all I said was that he reminded me of fascism because of the whole "oath" thing and the cult of personality around him, that's all. I didn't say he was a fascist, just that he reminded me of things that are common with fascism.

lol.

Trump has policies, though? I thought his entire thing was anecdotes and veiled attempts at racism whenever actually grilled or asked about anything. I haven't read or heard much, truthfully, but that is what I've read.

^Sort of. He's flip flopped on a lot of stuff (so has Hillary and Cruz though). There's his website which has his positions which he's mostly been sticking to so far. His trade stance has been consistent since at least the 80s.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions


You said that what he's doing "literally borders on facism" which is silly. Bernie very much has a cult of personality too as well as any other popular figure. Are they all suddenly "bordering on facism?"

Perhaps not outright facism, but there's certainly a strong authoritarian tone unlike what we've seen in any other candidate for any party (and coming from a party that once favored small government, no less.) This article provides an engaging overview:

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/tr ... itarianism

Trump's proposed healthcare plan: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/ ... are-reform

The first point is to repeal the healthcare mandate - which is the only issue I care about. I know Trump is hyper polarizing all across the planet but if I vote this year, he's the only person saying this. It's a pretty basic stance; you should not be forced to purchase something you don't want.

It's an interesting article, but I don't believe Trump's rise is due to some kind of deep desire for authoritarianism (I think that has already existed for a long time honestly). Rather it's just that he represents an anti-establishment movement and a pretty nice "f you" to the GOP. Conservatives have been shafted hard by the GOP in recent years. The tea party movement (remember that?) basically lead to nothing and some of those guys even became friendly with establishment (like Rubio). Hardly anyone in the Republican base was excited for Romney in 2012.

The republican party hasn't been small government for a long time. What they did to Ron Paul in 2012 is proof of that (he's the reason why the "winning 8 states" rule exists). I'm not convinced that Trump meaningfully any more or less authoritarian than other the other candidates. Hillary also supports neocon wars, NSA spying, increased government regulation, etc. Bernie wants to increase taxes on everyone and give universal healthcare and tuition-free college. Those are authoritarian stances. Trump's most authoritarian stance is probably deporting illegal immigrants, but on the flipside he also wants to cut the EPA and department of education as well as taxes, deregulate healthcare, etc. He basically takes some moderate stances mixed with some hard right ones which is weird in our political climate but not really more authoritarian than usual. It's true that Trump has a more commanding presence than most candidates, but that was true of many other famous presidents not too long ago (Reagan, LBJ, etc.).

it is actually a very amusing thing for an outsider like me to read all about this total freakout concerning Trump. The guy is a genius politician - and a huge part of his genius is how he denies this denominator and cringes at it. The racism, misogyny, and overall bigotry is there to appeal to a certain demography. The guy is a demagogue and he makes it obvious. And i cant fathom the retardedness of the Hitler comparisons. The guy is a diva, he will say whatever people want to hear to get to the white house. But once he gets there he will go with the flow, just like Obama did.

Hillary is great at being for something, until she needs to be against it. Or vice versa. Its a politician thing. She's good at being a politician. Can't say what she she has really accomplished but she's good at staying in there.

I know a lot of hard leftists and it seems every election its Democrats vs Fascism to them.

I also said that "I might be exaggerating a bit"!

I'm not sold on Trump, *but* it has nothing to do with his Wall of Mexico or temporary Muslim embargo. These things will affect the daily lives of so few Americans, that it's frustratig to see so much attention pointed at these issues. What worries me about Trump is his long history of corporate bankruptcies, and organized crime associations. I remember when more people's support or skepticism of Trump came from these economic matters.

Am I alone in wishing the conversation about Trump was not limited to "we love him cause he's not PC! Silent majority silent no more!!" vs. "we hate him cause he's mean to the chosen minority victim group du jour! Racists for Trump!!"

A valid point. The issue is that people believe what he says. They think he's such a good business man who can "get us out of debt" and they think he's so smart because of how confident he is about his career. The truth is that he has been involved in more business blunders than successes. I'm not sure if it's 100% true or not, but I have heard from several media sources that his tax plan sounds good because it will reduce taxes for the average person, yet it will also make people like him richer, which is the underlying goal.

It's difficult to know what's true in the news these days. Most news sources are either promoting a certain political agenda or just reporting speculative bullshit with no factual basis.

Indeed! Some of his successes have come on the heels of "restructuring debt". ie, fudging the numbers to pretend the debt isn't really there. The government is already doing that!

So according to the poll numbers so far, it looks like it's going to be Hilary Clinton vs. Donald Trump (unless something crazy happens). My question is, who do you think each of them will choose as a running mate?
Honestly for either one it could make or break their chance at winning. A lot of people think it will be other people in the race for either side, i.e. Kasich or Cruz for Trump and Sanders for Hilary. It doesn't seem like it would affect Trump's campaign as much as it would for Hilary. Picking Sanders as her running mate could make supporters of Sanders vote for her or deter people who don't like him.

Indeed, all this. This was the bhig thing with Trump in the 80s. This is why when he was announced as a candidate, I thought to myself, "they can't be serious, nobody trusts this guy, least of all blue collar America". It seems people have short memories.

Trump is certainly a successful businessman. Sure, he has had plenty of failures, but he's also had plenty of successes and has a pretty high profit margin. And before anyone brings up the S&P argument (which is silly, hindsight is 20-20 argument to begin with), those numbers would only come out to be 2.3 billion which is less than than the various estimates of his net worth (2.9 or 4 billion). Even if you assume his wealth is only due to his 40 million inheritance from his father, becoming a billionaire from that is certainly impressive by any accounts.

Now the mob tie thing, I actually was not aware of at all. I'm surprised something like that isn't reported more often; I guess that means they are saving that as ammo for the general. Actually that could be really damaging to his campaign if it has any legitimacy since that means both Hillary and Trump would have committed felonies (what an election).

I only agree with a small amount of Trump's policies (that applies to almost everyone else though), but I'm supporting him because I think his presidency would either be really, really good or really, really bad. With Hilary, you're guaranteed more of the same (i.e. bad in my opinion). To his credit, he is largely self funded (about 70%) and about 20% come from small donations. Contrast that to other candidates which very much depend on huge donations from not-so-ideal places. If Trump can actually reverse the trend of globalization and bring back some manufacturing jobs to the US, I think that would be huge for the working class. Many towns were destroyed by NAFTA and other similar agreements.


I think the best move for Hillary would be to pick Sanders to try get the independent and youth vote. I don't know if Sander would even accept it or if she's going to pick some other long-time Democrat instead. Trump's running mate would be interesting. I don't think he is going to pick Cruz (certainly not Kasich) since Cruz went all out against Trump not too long ago. He would have to pick someone who's anti-establishment and would shake him up. The best choice I can think of would be Jim Webb (remember him?). He would solidify the blue collar vote, military vote, and bring political experience as well as be anti-establishment enough to keep his image in tact. Of course, a cross-party ticket like that seems pretty unfeasible and I don't know if Webb would even accept it, but the benefit to his campaign would be pretty enormous.

It is painfully obvious that anyone who actually supports Trump is a hopelessly stupid person. Like, really, really fucking stupid. There is no middle ground here.


No he doesn't. He has fans, sure. But he doesn't cultivate and encourage any kind of "cult of personality". Trump is narcissistic as fuck so of course he does.

But then again, I am telling this to a Trump supporter, who is by definition, brain-dead.