Senate The 2016 General Presidential Election

For a long time, I've listed the idea that Trump is temperamentally unsound as one of the many, many reasons he shouldn't become president, along with a Republican sweep of the White House and both houses of Congress, a conservative led Supreme Court for another generation, and a lot of other issues.

Now, I have become convinced that Trump's temperament alone fully disqualifies him from the office. A 5-day twitter tirade that goes on during all hours of the night to attack a beauty contestant who he had already humiliated years ago. He can't restrain himself from pursuing a petty vendetta at the most crucial point in his presidential campaign. This guy is unhinged. This is like handing the keys of a jumbo jet to an airline pilot who is certifiably insane. So what if you think the other pilot available may be shady or cuts corners? The first pilot is simply dangerously incompetent. Any reasonable person would choose the second. It's a no-brainer. There's no reason to overthink this one.

Really, at this point, it's pointless to keep talking about political positions when it comes down to who you should vote for in this presidential contest. Trump could be the Democratic candidate, libertarian candidate, socialist candidate, whatever, and he would still be fully disqualified. Period. Full stop. I would volunteer to stop him even if he agreed with me on every issue. This man obviously and undeniably poses a danger to life and welfare in the US and the world just by the very nature of his character.

 

According to him though he has a great temperament.

He has the best temperament, a YUGE temperament. It's a beautiful thing his temperament and he will make America Great again with his totally amazing temperament as it's the best thing on the planet.







Until 3am in the morning when he starts tweeting.

 

I feel like this will be an unnamed former mod in a while...

http://aplus.com/a/grain-of-saul-support-hillary-clinton

 

dp4m, but that article of their amazing discovery that a candidate for the highest office actually thought ahead what he would say is not one of them.

I wonder where the Bernie backers are today? Maybe they are hiding out in their basement as Hillary suggested?
Apparently, the deplorables basket keeps getting bigger. Now includes Bernie supporters.

 

So it's going to be another "What difference" and "basket" clip eh?

Reading the full quote she says:

Many of his supporters are new to politics. True.
Many are children of the recession. True.
Many did not get the jobs they envisioned. True.
As a result, some are living with their parents. Also True.

She isn't delegitimizing them. She actually is explaining why they feel the way they do. They feel let down by the past administrations and politicians in general and Bernie is talking about the things they want to hear. And she basically goes on to say it's understandable that they would want to be part of a political movement and feel they can get the change they want. Hillary is no stranger to that and neither is Bernie. But she's also well aware of the reality and so she then states that while she knows that everything they want is not attainable (hence why she pushes affordable over free college for instance) she also doesn't want to crush their spirits.

But yes, let's go with her calling them uninformed basement dwellers because that's clearly what she really meant.

 

Nonsense. I read what HRC said, and she was understanding and supportive of them and many others.

 

Yes what she said is nonsense. And you seem to be in agreement with her that Bernie supporters are people in their moms basement. Congratulations on stereotyping a group of people who don't back your candidate.
Read the whole thing again and tell me that the line "they were led by false promises" isn't typical Hillary condescension.

 

It's not condescension.

That was easy. Anything else?

 

Well, yes it was. If you call his supporters people living in their mom's basement being led by false promises while you are somehow not offering some of the very same promises now in the General, then yes, you are condescending.

Just as Trump supporters seem to carry the personality traits of their preferred candidate, so do the ardent Hillary supporters.

 

I simply don't find it condescending.

 

edited: I edited that out for taking personal jabs at people who are simply into a candidate I am not. I shouldn't do that.

Fair enough point KnightWriter.

 

I don't think it was condescending, but I understand why others might feel that way.

I think she was just trying to acknowledge how disillusioned Millenials feel, not attempt to stereotype them. Certainly not in the way that Trump does with those he doesn't like.

Her comments, and how they are being received, are very much an example of how as individuals, we often see what we want to see.

And speaking of Trump, he has all but promised to bring up Hillary's marriage in the next debate, his reasoning being that it will "unsettle" her and women voters in general, driving them to him.

Um, really, Donald? Do you really want to bring up problems in one's marriage? I mean, didn't Ivanka file a police report accusing you of rape, or are you going to trot out Mr. Bannon to claim that you can't rape your wife again?

 

All of that stuff he threatens to bring up is just proof he has nothing left to offer yet foolishly thinks his own character isn't an issue.

He is clearly rattled by even the suggestion of his insults towards the Miss Universe contestant, yet instead of acknowledging them and admitting fault and moving on, he doubled down and now promises more ugliness on top of the ugliness he has already inserted into this campaign.

 

How is "false promises" either supportive or or understanding? Or how about " we just need to, you know, go as far as, you know, Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel"? That seems to say pretty plainly that people didn't know what they were talking about or what they wanted.

She said, literally, that half his supporters were too stupid to figure out what he was even talking about.

 

Which is true. So what's the problem?

EDIT: Also, I'm in Florida for a week so I've gotten my first actual Trump ad!

 

The problem is the Clintonites' desperate effort to gin up anemic voter enthusiasm in key demographics, because even though they have the margins over Trump, they don't have the needed turnout to ensure victory.

 

I essentially feel like this is my interaction with Wocky:



And I'm voting Hillary Clinton for him, and he'll give me contempt of court anyways...

 

EDIT: never mind

 

At no point did she call his supporters stupid. She knows, better than most, about the idea of protest and trying to change the world. She's done it. And she's run up against reality on more than one occasion. She has also seen what happens when politicians fail to deliver on their promises and how people lose faith in the process. What she says is probably about as honest as you can get: Sanders supporters are frustrated. Things didn't turn out the way they had hoped. They want change and they are excited to be part of a movement for change. None of that is a bad thing and Hillary states as much. But she also wants to be frank with them and focus on what CAN be accomplished and work her way up. It's a lot easier to set an achievable goal and the move on to the next one (ie: affordable college vs. free college for all). At one point in the audio she argues it's better to under-promise and over-deliver as opposed to raising expectations too high and then disappointing when reality catches up. It's not that different from President Obama who stated that change takes time and that it won't come easy, it won't come quick, and it might not happen in his presidency or the next. Hillary is focused on what she can achieve now and making that a reality. But just because she knows that's the reality doesn't mean she wants to squash all hope for young voters. She says as much: I don't think you tell idealistic people, particularly young people, that they've bought into a false promise. You try to do the best you can to say, 'Hey that's his view. That's what he's offering you. But here's another way, where actually we can achieve a lot of what we have said starting Day One, and make a real difference in people's lives.'"

So to get this idea that she disrespects or condescends to Sanders and his supporters is not accurate. She gets exactly what they want and respects that but she knows that they are likely to be disappointed. So she would rather present to them feasible ideas that can be done and work her way up. I don't equate that to saying is supporters were too stupid to figure out what he was talking about. It's more like they have more faith in government than government can deliver at this time. And rather than risk their losing faith in it entirely, she would rather find the middle road and work towards better solutions. I believe you've referred to that approach as pragmatic. And I suppose that's what she's being in the released audio.

 

Yodaminch, I understand what you're saying, but I simply don't think that is what's on audio. It's part of it, yes. But she goes further than that. When she's saying that people have "no idea what that means" she's doing more than saying one has to be restrained in their promises. That's not just talking about how difficult it is to achieve real change. It is mocking their very desire for change, much as the "Saint Hillary" article that famously mocked her, and which supporters rush to cite as a reason for her guarded interactions with the press. That particular comment has nothing to do with strategizing, nor does it have to do with appealing to anyone. It's a direct assessment of the intelligence and understanding of people that don't agree with her. The fact is, she doesn't give them any credit.

There are a thousand criticisms to make of a shift towards a more Scandanavian model of a more robust social safety net. She could have said she doesn't think it's politically achievable. That American culture as a whole is too skeptical of such ideas. She could have cited their own difficulties in adjusting to the challenges of the modern global economy. Anything. Instead, the criticism she chose is that people who back Bernie Sanders are too naive and uneducated to know what they were actually asking for. That criticism doesn't fit in with the "pragmatic" model you are presenting at all, that I can see. Unless you want to try again explaining that part?

 

so NYT has published Trump's tax returns from 95. Old news but still really interesting news. My 1995 adjusted gross income was a lot higher than Donald Trump's!!!! (his was negative $900 million.)

 

I don't disagree, actually. I feel like electing Trump right now would be the final domino needed to set off a chain of events that could end in a very bad place for everyone. Right now, things are very bad, but they're kind of bad within known parameters. I have no idea what the alternative would look like, and that scares me. It'd be like Reagan getting elected in 1980 with full-blown dementia from the outset.