U.S. Elections 2016: It's Not A Lie, If YOU Believe It

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 I swear he's legally insane...

 

Sweet Limping Christ, the man is a fucking loon.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I think there's three redeeming features of this mess:

• It's better for Hillary's nadir to be now, rather than a month from now.
• It eliminates complacency, both from the campaign itself, and from people who might vote third party because they think Hillary is going to win anyway.
• It means that Hillary can spin the debates with herself being the underdog. Previously, Trump would only have to turn up and not drool to "win" - now with the media portraying Hillary on the ropes, she can reassert things.

Meanwhile, the fundamentals of the race (popular incumbent President, OK economy, more diverse electorate than ever before) favour Hillary. People need to stop panicking.

[The Anti-Targ]

47 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 I swear he's legally insane...

 

Sweet Limping Christ, the man is a fucking loon.

Seems to me like it would be his side who would take the guy out. After 8 years of trying to force him to revoke his validation of the birth certificate they finally give up and take him out using a precision plane crash, and then put someone in place who is sympathetic to the birther cause who will revoke and reverse the validation.

It is quite an incredible coincidence though and really good fodder for conspiracy theorists. The chances of dying in a plane crash are incredibly low, the chances of being the only person to die in a plane crash is even lower. And the chances of the one of the person who would reignite the birther conspiracy theory dying in a plane crash during the presidential election campaign must be on the winning the lottery sort of level.

[Neds Secret]

Somebody should have told Trump when he was still a child that it does not matter if you win or lose its how you play the game. If in order to win you have to lie, cheat and  steal then you have not really won. Trump would lie about anything to get a bump in the poles, but Trump is so careless with the truth then per the Op you have to ask if Trump actually knows when he is lying  anymore.

[James Arryn]

On September 14, 2016 at 3:45 PM, mormont said:

What is the cause, then? When Trump says that Clinton 'just doesn't look Presidential', what does he mean by that? When he compares his health to hers using masculine-coded language (eg referring to his superior 'physical stamina', despite being older than she is and presenting no specific evidence of his physical fitness), is he not evoking gender stereotypes? And why did he 'throw it out there' in the first place and why did it get traction even before this incident, if not because of those same stereotypes?

Trump, like any bully, knows what he's doing. He latches onto weaknesses, and he sees being female as a weakness. (Just ask Carly Fiorina.) He didn't just randomly alight on this topic. 90% of his campaign is based on gender: specifically, his gender, and his masculinity. He plays to masculine stereotypes literally all the time: strength, pride, power, dominance, even his actual penis size. He disparages emotion, feminism, and women's rights: the only times he speaks approvingly of women are about their looks. His attacks on Clinton are coded towards the fact that she's a woman and therefore 'weak'. This is no exception.

 

Well, a few points.

First, you're ascribing 'code' where it's not needed to explain behaviour. His saying he's more robust, stronger, prouder, better...all that, he does that all the time, with everyone. He always compares others unfavourably to himself, he always brags and belittles. He did it in the Republican race too, against men.

Penis size is a perfect example; it came up in the GOP race, when again he was competing with men...but you're somehow attributing it to sexism vs. Hillary. In other words, there is no need to find reasons for Trump being Trump, and the fact that you're seeing it there might be because you're expecting to. 

This thing with seemingly making it a binary, ie for Clinton or sexist...I don't think it's true, nor is it helping her cause, but it's mentioned a lot as though self-evident. It maybe comes across more strongly to me when I actually want her to win very badly, and find that assumption counter-productive.

Second point, is Trump himself sexist? I think undoubtedly. But that does not mean that anything he does is effective because of sexism. He's probably racist too, but his health flag vs. Hillary isn't working because of racism. They are correlative. In order for it to be causal it would need to be effective because of same, and that's not something we know.

Lastly, I am finding the whole 'media hates Clinton, it's not her fault....probably sexism' diatribe really frustrating and self-defeating. Winning the media over is for a politician as directing an offence is for a quarterback. If you're bad at it, whether or not it's your 'fault'...and that's an excercise in subjectivity right there...you're not going to be too successful at the job at hand, and it begs the question as to why/how you came to be in the position in the first place. That committed supporters of X agree with each other that X's unpopularity is not X's fault is really beside the point, and admonishing others for not getting it isn't a battle worth winning. Popularity is kindof in the job description.

Clinton's gender might be an extra handicap, as Obama's race was, but attributing all failures to that one aspect is neither helpful nor accurate. Do you think 'Obama's a communist' was a effective because of racism? Muslim and African, yes...but the GOP would call any D candidate a commie, and it would be effective regardless of race. And Obama was good enough at the popularity thing to win in spite of the obstacles. 

In fact Clinton has been pretty lucky IMO. Against a normal candidate she'd be getting killed, and a less unpopular candidate would be wiping the floor with this borderline insane ticket the Republicans are running. It's more a comment on the US than Clinton that it is this close, I agree...but that's the baseline we're dealing with. And she's struggling with a lot of unforced errors and questionable choices, and her personality is directing a lot of that IMO. 

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Neds Secret said:

Somebody should have told Trump when he was still a child that it does not matter if you win or lose its how you play the game. If in order to win you have to lie, cheat and  steal then you have not really won. Trump would lie about anything to get a bump in the poles, but Trump is so careless with the truth then per the Op you have to ask if Trump actually knows when he is lying  anymore.

Well, I was told that as a child, but I've subsequently discovered that the only thing that matters for many people is winning, however you achieve it.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Well, a few points.

First, you're ascribing 'code' where it's not needed to explain behaviour.

But it is absolutely the correct explanation of that behaviour. It's 100% accurate to say that all of that language is masculine-coded and that in fact Trump's campaign and his entire public persona for his whole career has been based on masculine-coded behaviour - or to put it more bluntly, on him bullying, boasting, and acting as what people like him call an 'alpha male'.

Donald Trump absolutely believes that he is better than you because he is more of a man than you are, and that's about gender. It's not a refutation of that fact to say that he believes this about men as well as women. It's still about masculinity and so it's still gender-coded and sexist.

2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Second point, is Trump himself sexist? I think undoubtedly. But that does not mean that anything he does is effective because of sexism. He's probably racist too, but his health flag vs. Hillary isn't working because of racism. They are correlative. In order for it to be causal it would need to be effective because of same, and that's not something we know.

You've missed my point. The health stuff is being presented in terms that are undoubtedly about gender. Look at how Trump talks about health issues (and has done all along). He's clearly been implying that as a woman, Clinton can't be as strong, as tough, as vigorous as he is.

It's not that the health flag works because of sexism. It's that the health stuff is a cover for sexism.

2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Clinton's gender might be an extra handicap, as Obama's race was, but attributing all failures to that one aspect is neither helpful nor accurate.

Is anyone doing that? That seems to me to be a straw man.

 

[TrackerNeil]

6 hours ago, Neds Secret said:

Somebody should have told Trump when he was still a child that it does not matter if you win or lose its how you play the game. If in order to win you have to lie, cheat and  steal then you have not really won. Trump would lie about anything to get a bump in the poles, but Trump is so careless with the truth then per the Op you have to ask if Trump actually knows when he is lying  anymore.

I would argue that, in politics, it is exactly about whether you win or lose. Winning means you get your way, and if you didn't win honestly...well, remember all the doubt about the 2000 election? None of that kept GWB from aggressively running this nation into the ground.

[Ormond]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It is quite an incredible coincidence though and really good fodder for conspiracy theorists. The chances of dying in a plane crash are incredibly low, the chances of being the only person to die in a plane crash is even lower. And the chances of the one of the person who would reignite the birther conspiracy theory dying in a plane crash during the presidential election campaign must be on the winning the lottery sort of level.

A-T, would you please pay attention to the date on that Tweet? This did not happen "during the presidential election campaign" -- it happened back in 2013.

[sologdin]

8 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

I think there's three redeeming features of this mess:

• It's better for Hillary's nadir to be now, rather than a month from now.
• It eliminates complacency, both from the campaign itself, and from people who might vote third party because they think Hillary is going to win anyway.
• It means that Hillary can spin the debates with herself being the underdog. Previously, Trump would only have to turn up and not drool to "win" - now with the media portraying Hillary on the ropes, she can reassert things.

Meanwhile, the fundamentals of the race (popular incumbent President, OK economy, more diverse electorate than ever before) favour Hillary. People need to stop panicking.

for serious.  comport selves as though UK in WWII, kids:  keep calm & nuke trump.

[Tywin et al.]

A little off topic, but why is Larry Kudlow taken seriously? He's been making the media rounds lately and what he's advocating for seems completely insane. 

[Tywin et al.]

Like father like son? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-holocaust.html?_r=0

[Ormond]

As for Hillary Clinton and sexism---

Although I would agree that sexism is not the sole reason for Clinton's problems (I do not think the pneumonia things was handled well at all), she is in an awful Catch-22 with many voters (and probably some in the media) simply because she so obviously wants to be President.

There's research showing that women politicians who are perceived to be "power-seeking" are seen negatively by voters, while men who are equally "power-seeking" are not seen in the same negative way. Simply being politically ambitious goes against the "nurturing" and "communal" feminine stereotype, which leads women who are politically ambitious to be seen as uncaring, which further leads to voters reacting with anger and disgust toward them. And women voters are just as likely to have these reactions as men voters are. 

For many voters out there, they have to perceive a woman running for office as being completely altruistic in her reasons for doing so, and not personally wanting power at all, for them to feel comfortable voting for her.  That's completely unfair to women, but I think it will take quite a while and things like this being discussed openly in the media for the average person to overcome their knee-jerk reactions against women who have high power motivation.

http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/price-power-power-seeking-and-backlash-against-female-politicians

 

 

[Tywin et al.]

36 minutes ago, Ormond said:

As for Hillary Clinton and sexism---

Although I would agree that sexism is not the sole reason for Clinton's problems (I do not think the pneumonia things was handled well at all), she is in an awful Catch-22 with many voters (and probably some in the media) simply because she so obviously wants to be President.

There's research showing that women politicians who are perceived to be "power-seeking" are seen negatively by voters, while men who are equally "power-seeking" are not seen in the same negative way. Simply being politically ambitious goes against the "nurturing" and "communal" feminine stereotype, which leads women who are politically ambitious to be seen as uncaring, which further leads to voters reacting with anger and disgust toward them. And women voters are just as likely to have these reactions as men voters are. 

For many voters out there, they have to perceive a woman running for office as being completely altruistic in her reasons for doing so, and not personally wanting power at all, for them to feel comfortable voting for her.  That's completely unfair to women, but I think it will take quite a while and things like this being discussed openly in the media for the average person to overcome their knee-jerk reactions against women who have high power motivation.

http://gap.hks.harvard.edu/price-power-power-seeking-and-backlash-against-female-politicians

 

 

Who was the last candidate who didn't obviously want to be president?

Even in your thoughtful and well written explanation of sexism in politics, you fell victim to the phenomenon you were trying to explain.

[TrackerNeil]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who was the last candidate who didn't obviously want to be president?

I know, right? It cracks me up when I hear someone criticize Obama or Clinton or whomever for having a big ego. What retiring, modest person tries to become the leader of the free world?

[The Wedge]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who was the last candidate who didn't obviously want to be president?

Jeb!

And probably Trump.  He wants to be ELECTED president, but I don't think he wants to BE president.

[sologdin]

as bill blum wrote in rogue state regarding the united states:

Quote

There's a sort of Peter Principle at work here. Laurence Peter wrote that in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Perhaps we can postulate that in a foreign policy establishment committed to imperialist domination by any means necessary, employees tend to rise to the level of cruelty they can live with.

HRC can live with quite a bit, i bet.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

What about Ben Carson, I am still convinced Dr. Giggles used his campaign for book promotion - and maybe get a gig at conservative events as speaker (or sedative), or a speaking role on Fox News.

[maarsen]

31 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I know, right? It cracks me up when I hear someone criticize Obama or Clinton or whomever for having a big ego. What retiring, modest person tries to become the leader of the free world?

Me. Slowly but surely,  one post at a time.  Bwahahah!!

[TheKitttenGuard]

The most infuriating aspect of this new Birther episode is Trump bragging he got Obama getting to release his B.C. No one feels to state Obama did not need to release it and point to the Implicit Racism of the statement.

It will be nice the Press is forceful in stating the Clinton Campaign had nothing to do with those supporters.  It is not nice showing the more ugly side that still reside in the Democratic Party. It will show though that the Party rejected it and the Birther found comfort on Right Wing Entertainment/Media complex and that gave air for Trump's Birtherism.