US Elections: My religion Trumps yours

[Crazydog7]

8 years of a twitter war.  God help us. 

[Martell Spy]

Well, Trump has spoken about corruption in our politics, and we finally have an answer to what his plan is to confront it. As I've noted before, he only ever talks about the corruption, never about what action he intends as President to do about it. Well, here it is. 

Trump Hopes to Purge Civil Service of Liberals, Allow CEOs to Serve in Government Part-Time
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/trump-hopes-to-purge-civil-service-of-democrats.html

 

 

[Crixus]

Great piece on Trump that interviews his ghostwriter: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all 

Terrifying, his observations on Trump's propensity to lie, his limited attention span and his hunger for fame/power.

 

[Happy Ent]

Honest question about the US voting process: When you will cast your vote for President in November,

1. Which candidates are on the ballot?

2. How was that decision made?

(For instance, are there regional differences? How is the order determined? Etc.) A link to a concise description is fine.

[Fez]

Trump once again promised to make it more likely that a literal nuclear war occurs.

Quote

 

Amid the drama unfolding at the Republican convention on Wednesday night, Donald Trump's campaign faced a new controversy when the New York Times published an interview with Trump in which he outlined a foreign policy vision that broke sharply with U.S. tradition.

Most notably, Trump suggested that the U.S. wouldn't defend NATO allies like the Baltic states against Russian aggression if they haven't "fulfilled their obligation to us."

Trump has repeatedly made the case that most of NATO's 28 member countries are not making the requisite financial contributions for their common defense, and he's said in the past that "the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves."

Throughout the interview, the Republican presidential nominee seemed to reject core assumptions of U.S. military and foreign policy thinking -- including foreign troop deployment and advocating for civil liberties -- and argued for an unprecedented global retrenchment, frequently framing his argument in economic terms. Though he said "I would prefer to be able to continue" existing international agreements, Trump later explained that "this is not 40 years ago." He also suggested that the massive expense of maintaining an international order that is contributing to trade losses for the U.S. "doesn't sound very smart to me."

 

The post-WWII consensus, and especially the post-Cold War consensus, was entirely designed to prevent another war and, as an added benefit, protect and advance US interests worldwide. And Trump wants to abandon all that and allow a Russian advance into the Baltic that could easily spiral out of control.

His candidacy is a clear and present danger to the safety and security to this country.

[The Marquis de Leech]

9 minutes ago, Fez said:

Trump once again promised to make it more likely that a literal nuclear war occurs.

The post-WWII consensus, and especially the post-Cold War consensus, was entirely designed to prevent another war and, as an added benefit, protect and advance US interests worldwide. And Trump wants to abandon all that and allow a Russian advance into the Baltic that could easily spiral out of control.

His candidacy is a clear and present danger to the safety and security to this country.

To be fair to Trump (dear god, that was a hard five words to type), the problem is in large part NATO itself.

Say you are US President, and Putin invades Estonia. Are you going to start WWIII on behalf of Estonia? If yes, the world as we know it ends, if not then NATO is inherently worthless.

This is different from the actual post-WWII consensus - had the Soviets been invading, say, The Netherlands, WWIII is happening whether you like it or not.

[Fez]

8 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

To be fair to Trump (dear god, that was a hard five words to type), the problem is in large part NATO itself.

Say you are US President, and Putin invades Estonia. Are you going to start WWIII on behalf of Estonia? If yes, the world as we know it ends, if not then NATO is inherently worthless.

This is different from the actual post-WWII consensus - had the Soviets been invading, say, The Netherlands, WWIII is happening whether you like it or not.

Yes, you have to, and you have to hope that Putin pulls back when he sees that NATO is moving in. Otherwise, as you say, NATO is worthless, as indeed are all other US commitments and wars very quickly start springing up everywhere anyway.

And even if you actually wouldn't commit, you don't go loudly pronouncing that fact and inviting the invasion to occur.

[Altherion]

Indeed, the issue was expanding NATO to the very border of Russia and doing so via the conversion of former Russian/Soviet provinces which not only contain a substantial number of ethenic Russians, but also have absolutely no chance of defending themselves if a conflict with Russia should occur.

Also, I would not use the phrase "advance US interests" here; NATO's expansion did very little for the average American.

[Fez]

22 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Indeed, the issue was expanding NATO to the very border of Russia and doing so via the conversion of former Russian/Soviet provinces which not only contain a substantial number of ethenic Russians, but also have absolutely no chance of defending themselves if a conflict with Russia should occur.

Also, I would not use the phrase "advance US interests" here; NATO's expansion did very little for the average American.

Nonsense, it did an enormous amount. NATO is one of those lynchpin international institutions, along with the EU & UN and others, that has ensured no hot wars between great powers in over 70 years. And this continued peace has helped America consolidate, protect, and expand its oversized impact on the world economy; an impact that made it the most prosperous country on earth.

And while that prosperity hasn't been spread evenly, that's not NATO's fault and even so it has still helped all Americans. The average American has one of the easiest, most comfortable, high-cost lifestyles of any average citizen in the world. 

I agree that NATO should not have expanded as far as it did. But there's no going back from that, it happened.

[TrackerNeil]

8 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 She's not entertaining or particularly engaging. She's not an effective storyteller. She's not funny or charming or very relatable. 

I'll go out of my way to listen to an Obama interview for instance. Earlier this week I listened to the Marc Maron WTF podcast that featured Obama. It was nothing earth-shattering, but it was entertaining. The man was funny, responsive, open, and ultimately interesting for the better part of an hour.

She simply doesn't have the same gift for communication that some folks do. It's not something she needs to be pilloried for, it's just the simple truth. She's not someone that I'm going to go out of my way to listen to. She's just kind of boring.

As Karaddin said, almost nobody compares to Obama. However, GWB was an absolutely terrible speaker, yet the media narrative was that he was "folksy" and "plain-spoken." If Hillary Clinton were a man, I suspect her demeanor would not be robotic and cautious but "steady" and "considered." 

[Altherion]

21 minutes ago, Fez said:

Nonsense, it did an enormous amount. NATO is one of those lynchpin international institutions, along with the EU & UN and others, that has ensured no hot wars between great powers in over 70 years. And this continued peace has helped America consolidate, protect, and expand its oversized impact on the world economy; an impact that made it the most prosperous country on earth.

And while that prosperity hasn't been spread evenly, that's not NATO's fault and even so it has still helped all Americans. The average American has one of the easiest, most comfortable, high-cost lifestyles of any average citizen in the world.

You are conflating post WWII NATO and post Cold War NATO and also giving it more credit than it deserves. The reason for the lack of hot wars between great powers is not so much any particular alliance as the threat of mutually assured destruction. Also, if our lifestyles were so great, I rather doubt so many people would be supporting Trump and Sanders.

[Rory Snow]

14 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

Are you sure, though?  You argued in favor of Trump because you believe he has more integrity of sorts (that he truly believes these things he says), as well as on your belief that he genuinely intends to make the things better:

I did not argue in favor of Trump. It was only an objective assessment. A direct comparison between his honesty and that of Clinton. Being superior to her in an integrity contest is akin to being the taller than Tyrion Lannister. Sure you can reach a slightly higher shelf but it doesn't mean you should circulate your resume around the NBA.

10 hours ago, Altherion said:

14 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

Can you explain what you believe is behind why "establishment" politicians are afraid of Trump?   That is, I'm asking if you wouldn't mind articulating what you believe it is about him that they are afraid of.    

As an adjacent issue, could you also articulate why alarming the "establishment" in that way is such a self-evidently good thing?  

The answer to your second question is that the only way people like that ever share is if they believe that the alternative is worse (there are some exceptions in the form of philanthropy, but I mean on a systemic scale). If they're not scared, they'll just keep squeezing and squeezing the rest of us until we do something that scares them.

Your first question has several possible answers and I think each of them is true to some extent, but I believe the main one is that he is demonstrating to them that their days in power may be numbered. For example, the Republicans made a big deal of "true conservatism" and Trump has decisively shown that in fact most of their constituents couldn't care less about it. Or consider political correctness. Given the First Amendment, it is difficult to control speech in the US and the elites believed that they had done a decent job of keeping certain ideas out of public discourse. Then, in comes Trump and shows that in fact a substantial fraction of the country will in fact support somebody who has been labeled (and not always unjustly!) by every derogatory word in the media's rather limited vocabulary.

Long story short: the establishment is practically by definition made up of the people who are best off under the status quo which Trump is disrupting.

Not sure I can say it better than Altherion did. But consider this from a pragmatic point of view, Democrat politicians hate Trump, ok that's to be expected, but so do Republican politicians.. why is that? It's certainly not his policies, or because he's rude and unpolished, it's because they, and I absolutely mean both parties here, are riding a gravy train and they don't want it upset. Get elected into Federal government and you can write your own ticket, but Trump doesn't care about any of that, his ticket is already written. Plus he's a loose cannon, he'll say anything  at any time especially about folks that don't play along with him, which means all the dirty little secrets in Washington are at risk of getting exposed the moment Trump would be elected. All the nepotism, phantom jobs, and golden parachutes.. and that's just the little stuff. Every cheat and hidden bonus, payoff, benefit or bribe could be out in the open at any time. Defense, infrastructure and medical contracts bought and paid for. We are talking literally hundreds of billions (or more) of stolen and wasted tax dollars here. The current political system is designed to allow these abuses and exploitations and Trump is the first candidate in my memory that the politicians are afraid won't play along. Folks thought Obama was in danger of assassination because he's black, but not me, him being black works for the politicians. But Trump? He'd be lucky to survive 2 years in office and if he goes down, I'd bet my life it's gonna be an inside job.

[Fez]

37 minutes ago, Altherion said:

You are conflating post WWII NATO and post Cold War NATO and also giving it more credit than it deserves. The reason for the lack of hot wars between great powers is not so much any particular alliance as the threat of mutually assured destruction. Also, if our lifestyles were so great, I rather doubt so many people would be supporting Trump and Sanders.

I'm not conflating anything, NATO is what it always has been. I agree that its overexpanded, but that can't be undone, and it plays the same role it always has. MAD is not the only reason there's been no hot wars. If MAD is all you've got, countries will be fearful and isolated and any little misunderstanding could spark things off. The Cuban Missile Crisis could've easily gone a different way, and if most of the West was in a multi-sided Cold War, events like that would be happening semi-regularly. Eventually a mistake would be made.

Its the international organizations and treaties that bind us together and make these things unthinkable. Yes, its not just any one specific one; its all of them, working in concert. But they reinforce each other, and if the US reneges on one of them, it means it can renege on all of them and that makes all of them worthlesss.

Also, Obama's approval rating is above 50%, and there's nothing more status quo than the sitting President. Pretty much the only people who disapprove of Obama are Republicans doing so for partisan reasons. But the thing is, there's been plenty of interviews of delegates at the RNC this week who have all said some variation of the same thing "The economy's terrible and its Obama fault. Yes, things are going really well actually in my community, but that's because of virtue [X] that we have; it has nothing to do with Obama." People like the status quo a lot more than they'd admit.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

NATO will fall to pieces if one of its member states is directly attacked by another State and NATO fails to respond to the attack.  I agree bringing the Baltics in was foolish.  Nevertheless "an attack on one is an attack on all" is meaningless if we just allow the Baltics to be conqured by Russia with no attempt to stop a Russian attack.

[IheartIheartTesla]

After the shambles of the GOP convention, we should see peak Trump, which is about equal to Hillary. I imagine the DNC convention should give her a modest bump (if it is 0 then I would get worried), and the race will go into a 3-4 point lead for her that will be relatively stable over time (slight post-debate flutters notwithstanding).

I'm not sure whether this time the registered to likely voter switch will aid the Republicans in the polls,,,,,we'll have to see.

[Cas Stark]

I don't see how it's conceivable that Trump can win with almost no state level campaign structure and so many establishment GOP figures, including GOP governors who would have access/control to existing GOP state organizations basically sitting on their hands.  If he should win just on the sole strength of his twitter feed and media appearances that would be truly unprecedented.

[Fez]

2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

After the shambles of the GOP convention, we should see peak Trump, which is about equal to Hillary. I imagine the DNC convention should give her a modest bump (if it is 0 then I would get worried), and the race will go into a 3-4 point lead for her that will be relatively stable over time (slight post-debate flutters notwithstanding).

I'm not sure whether this time the registered to likely voter switch will aid the Republicans in the polls,,,,,we'll have to see.

I'm curious to see if Trump will get any bump. If this were a just world (which we know it is not) his numbers would go down after the wider electorate got a first hand view of this madness.

Peak Trump may have already happened, while Clinton was dealing with the fall out from the FBI announcement. Its important to note though that even as the race has gotten tighter over the past few weeks, its almost entirely because of Clinton's numbers going down. Trump's numbers have not gone up. So hopefully those are all voters that Clinton can get back with a good convention, especially with a nationally-televised full-throated endorsement by Obama (which he's already done multiple times, but none of them have gotten the publicity that his convention speech will get).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ok, Cruz is making his prep for 2020 speech.

And he just endorsed The Wall.

Freedom will bring back jobs and raise wages.  Ok.

That line induced maximum levels of cringe. 

That said, Ted Cruz is a sucker. He made Trump look like the bigger man. 

[Altherion]

42 minutes ago, Fez said:

I'm not conflating anything, NATO is what it always has been. I agree that its overexpanded, but that can't be undone, and it plays the same role it always has.

I think there is a pretty good argument to be made for NATO's role being quite different before and after the end of the Warsaw Pact and I'm sure you've read of it elsewhere (it's probably too off-topic for this thread). Furthermore, your statement about the expansion being impossible to undo is not entirely accurate, but Trump doesn't appear to go that far -- all he wants is more money from the protectorates.

Quote

Also, Obama's approval rating is above 50%, and there's nothing more status quo than the sitting President.

Ah, but consider who comes next. There's about a two thirds chance that it will be Clinton who is similar to Obama, but worse in several ways and better in none (at least that I can think of). The remaining one third is that it will be Trump who is a wild card if ever there was one. On average, Obama looks pretty good by comparison.

[DanteGabriel]

So, uh, Ted Cruz just doubled down on last night. He was live, taking questions from some audience, and saying he wouldn't be a servile puppy to Trump after the personal attacks, especially on his wife and father. Sweet Jesus, I am rooting for Ted Cruz -- maybe in the same way that one might have rooted for Wormtongue knifing Saruman, but still. Ted Cruz's singular assholishness has made him a socially useful figure for once in his life.