2016 US Presidential Race - Mod Warning in OP

MightyMandarin

20Cent wrote: »

It's not the democrats job to sort out the republican party, they should be hammering them on the fact the party has become a joke. The republicans need to decide what they stand for and what they want because the current mixture of extremes is not doing them any good. They need to recognise demographics have changed and they will never get the presidency fear mongering and attacking.

It's not, but it's equally not their job to tar them all with the same brush when they almost hate each other as much as they do the Democrats. I still think that the Tea Party wing of the party will split and become its own, but that'll only happen if the real Republicans stand up to them and their nonsense.

ancapailldorcha

MightyMandarin wrote: »

It's not, but it's equally not their job to tar them all with the same brush when they almost hate each other as much as they do the Democrats. I still think that the Tea Party wing of the party will split and become its own, but that'll only happen if the real Republicans stand up to them and their nonsense.

Neither faction will want this to happen as it will both weaken the party and split its vote thereby handing victory to the democrats. Tea Partiers might not like Christian fundamentalists but they both despise the left even more.

Wibbs

oscarBravo wrote: »

I used to wonder why so many people supported Trump. It slowly dawned on me that - leaving aside the rump of his supporters who are, let's face it, outright racists and misogynists - the trick is, quite simply, self-deception.

Very much so. It has puzzled me the level of support for Trump. I can understand the hard of thinking brigade, but this is even among folks I know to be pretty clever people. My take now is that on top of the self deception there is a large amount of projection. It seems a large enough segment of the electorate are jaded with the current political setup so are looking for alternatives. Along comes Trump. For me his real masterclass is not saying anything of policy substance at all. The headline grabbing outrageous stuff is advertising and as you say appeals to the racists et al. He's otherwise a constantly shifting blank canvas that the otherwise not daft, but politically jaded can project what they want a candidate to be.

walshyn93

oscarBravo wrote: »

I used to wonder why so many people supported Trump. It slowly dawned on me that - leaving aside the rump of his supporters who are, let's face it, outright racists and misogynists - the trick is, quite simply, self-deception.

Trump himself gives masterclasses in this all the time. He'll say something, and then claim that he didn't say it, and that it's outrageous that anyone could possibly claim that he said it.

Let's take your first claim: "He didn't insult war vets, he insulted a war vet." On the face of it, this seems plausible. True, he insulted one rather prominent veteran, John McCain. Now, if he had insulted McCain over his political leanings, or his voting record, or, hell, his dress sense, your point might have some validity. But, no: he claimed that McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured. That's insulting to every soldier who's ever been captured, and it takes a breathtaking act of self-deception to believe otherwise.

Similarly, his remarks about Kelly or Fiorina. He suggested that nobody could vote for Fiorina because of her looks. Again, you can hand-wave all you like about how this is "just" him insulting one woman (if you carefully ignore all the insults he has thrown at other women), but if you're going to pretend that it's not symptomatic of a deep-rooted misogyny, you're not fooling anyone but yourself.

But let's leave all that aside for a second. The wider point here is that we're talking about a candidate for president of the USA who doesn't seem to understand any form of debate other than insults. It really is a horrifying reflection on American society, and on modern society in general, that someone like this can be seriously considered a contender for head of state of the world's most powerful country.

Think about the field day certain commentators have had every time Joe Biden made a gaffe. Now imagine that it's not the VP we're talking about, but the president; and that it's not accidental misstatements, but boorish and offensive bragado. Imagine further that it's not something that crops up every couple of months on a slow news day, but every time he opens his mouth.

Is that the president America wants? Seriously?

He was insulting John McCain not anyone else, because John McCain attacked him. It's not self-deception to say I don't believe he actually doesn't like people because they were captured, that would be an illogical criteria. He was just getting at McCain because the two don't like each other. Put it this way, if someone said "I don't like people who get sacked" and you have been sacked, is that really going to make you think that person doesn't like you or are you just going to dismiss it as not being a serious comment?

This is what people like you don't get. They think that everything a person says defines them and candidates who think like you allow their statements to define them. It's why Romney lost. It's why Republicans keep losing.

As for attacking Fiorina on her looks, he knows what draws the crowds to his rallies. If he holds rallies like comedy gigs more people show up, creates a perception of masses of support and gains him publicity. But it's notable how conservative women become the darling of the liberal media once Trump attacks them. The View attacked Fiorina in a similar way long before and didn't apologise. It's just jokes at the end of the day.

People who say "he can't" do this that or the other. !He can't debate without insults" are really letting themselves down. The man is extremely intelligent and knows what works and what doesn't. Doing what the other candidates are doing clearly isn't working. He understands what wins primaries and is following the script perfectly. He could talk seriously about the issues as he has demonstrated many times when he is one on one with a hostile reporter and he will eventually, once the field has been cleared of all the riff raff. If he starts talking facts and figures now he becomes like one of the other 16 candidates. i.e. boring. He loses steam and other catch up with him. When it's down to two you'll see a different Donald Trump. As Trump says, the polls don't lie, and he has already begun to change his persona gradually to a more grandfatherly demeanour. The man's a media genius.

walshyn93

Wibbs wrote: »

Very much so. It has puzzled me the level of support for Trump. I can understand the hard of thinking brigade, but this is even among folks I know to be pretty clever people. My take now is that on top of the self deception there is a large amount of projection. It seems a large enough segment of the electorate are jaded with the current political setup so are looking for alternatives. Along comes Trump. For me his real masterclass is not saying anything of policy substance at all. The headline grabbing outrageous stuff is advertising and as you say appeals to the racists et al. He's otherwise a constantly shifting blank canvas that the otherwise not daft, but politically jaded can project what they want a candidate to be.

Of course it can't because he actually has policies. It just can't be. These people must have some psychological block.

MightyMandarin

walshyn93 wrote: »

Of course it can't because he actually has policies. It just can't be. These people must have some psychological block.

What are his policies? Building a wall, bombing ISIS and stealing their oil etc. are not exactly ideas formed through a well thought out plan with proper costings, consequences etc.

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

So that's still no evidence about Mexico yeah? Good to see your claims are just as baseless as Trump's, Walshy.

Oscar adressed your point on this already, and he's right; if you really believe that you're deceiving yourself.

They're not designed to prevent dead people from voting, they're supposedly designed to prevent voter fraud. The problem is, that's not why they were made. Between 2004 and 2012 over the course of all the national elections when 350m total votes were cast, the number of cases involving voter fraud was 86. Yes, 86. Of all the problems that could be addressed, this was the one the GOP went after. So what could possibly be the real reason? Making sure the poorest people with no drivers license, passport and certainly no college ID couldn't vote? Surely not..

There's no hard evidence available to me and you to prove that Mexico is pursuing a clandestine soft-deportation strategy for crime reduction but the fruits of such a policy are evident in US crime stats.

In 2009, when the the Center for Immigration Studies attempted a comprehensive look at the issue of immigrant crime, CIS ran up against the data problem.

The problem of immigrant crime rates is under-reported because illegal immigrants aren't classed as illegal or legal immigrants for the purpose of the crime stats. Illegal immigrants are treated like native citizens by the crime stats.

Problems with data collection and contrary results characterize information about the link between immigrants and crime. A new estimate from ICE’s Secure Communities Initiative and data from the 287(g) program tend to show high rates of immigrant crime. This directly contradicts earlier academic research based on census data and other demographic and generic crime reporting data. A comparison of the 2000 census and government estimates shows how difficult it is to draw conclusions about immigrant criminality. Results from the 2000 census imply that only about 4 percent of prisoners in jails and prisons are immigrants (legal and illegal), but the new ICE estimates show it is 20 percent. What’s more, an audit by an outside firm of eight million inmate records paid for by ICE found that about 22 percent of inmates are immigrants. But questions remain regarding all of these numbers.

Rape rates are so high in some areas that police departments have stopped trying to prosecute statutory rape.

ICE deported over 860 sex offenders from the state of Texas during the first half of FY 2014, 27 percent of who were convicted of sex crimes against children. According to ICE, Texas has removed more than 2,000 sex offenders every year over the past three years.

Centers for Disease Control have reported Hispanic children are seven times more likely to give birth between the ages of 10-14 than white children or 1.4 out of every thousand to 0.2 per thousand.

Now I'm going to ask you to use you brain for a second. Do you really think that Mexico doesn't know that putting an arrest warrant out for someone is going to push them to flee across the border? How many of these are sought for extradition back to Mexico? The answer is virtually none. Mexico doesn't concern itself, and sees America as a pressure valve for its crime problem. To say otherwise you have to believe a whole bunch of nice things about the Mexican government that just aren't true.


If the dead people comment went over your head you clearly don't understand the problem of voter fraud in America. I'm glad to see people are still getting their figures from the TV show the Newsroom. Totally flawed stats. Based on the number of people who got caught not the number of fraudulent ballots cast. If there's no ID laws you can't catch them.

MightyMandarin

walshyn93 wrote: »

There's no hard evidence available to me and you to prove that Mexico is pursuing a clandestine soft-deportation strategy for crime reduction but the fruits of such a policy are evident in US crime stats.

And there we have it, zero solid evidence to prove your notion that Mexico sends its criminals to America. Now tell me that Trump's claim about the Mexicans wasn't referring to a subset of them or in the context of Mexico sending them here, which of course has been proven to be false.

johnnyskeleton

Mod Note:

Walshyn93, please don't resort to personal attacks on other posters.

MightyMandarin

walshyn93 wrote: »

Totally flawed stats. Based on the number of people who got caught not the number of fraudulent ballots cast. If there's no ID laws you can't catch them.

There's even more stats if you look for them. Here's a Washington Post article referring to them.

Kansas' secretary of state examined 84 million votes cast in 22 states to look for duplicate registrants. In the end 14 cases were referred for prosecution, representing 0.00000017 percent of the votes cast.

A 10-year 'death audit' in North Carolina turned up a grand total of 50 instances in which a vote may have been attributed to a deceased person, most likely due to errors made by precinct workers.

These are some of the stats produced by some states, and what's even better is that a Wisconsin district court judge struck down the voter ID law, saying

"The evidence at trial established that virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin. The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past."

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

What are his policies? Building a wall, bombing ISIS and stealing their oil etc. are not exactly ideas formed through a well thought out plan with proper costings, consequences etc.

Renegotiating trade deals, something he has been talking about for over 20 years. Ending visa programs that are used to displace American workers.

Yeah, taking away ISIS oil doesn't need to be costed it's the first thing they should have done. You can't let a group like that control oil fields it's a non-runner.

He's big on tax reform. He wants a flat tax. Wants to get rid of all tax breaks except for 2 which apply to people who earn under 50,000.

He wants to actually do something about the debt and is pretty open about cutting spending. He doesn't favour the Obama plan, which is to grow the country out of debt with cheap money and government spending. That's unsustainable.

More important than all that is if you vote Trump you get Trump. If you vote Hillary you get Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Rupert Murdoch. I wouldn't have any of those as president. Would you?

Lastly, he's honest about his lack of a 14 point plan. Here he explains what a lot of jaded political people feel about 5 point plans and 4 step plans.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/10/26/trump_answers_request_for_specifics_14_point_plans_dont_work_you_have_to_be_flexible.html

Wibbs

walshyn93 wrote: »

Of course it can't because he actually has policies. It just can't be. These people must have some psychological block.

No, he flim flams all over the place. It would not be an exaggeration for one to go through his political pronouncements (and personal funding of) of the last decade and with some easy editing make him out to be a Democrat, or Republican, or Liberal or Libertarian or… His "policies" are an ever moving target, which makes him hard to pin down to much of any substance, which as I pointed out IMH makes him a blank canvas for projection among the some of the jaded electorate. I don't know whether it's by design or nature, but it's clearly effective.

nokia69

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walshyn93

Wibbs wrote: »

No, he flim flams all over the place. It would not be an exaggeration for one to go through his political pronouncements (and personal funding of) of the last decade and with some easy editing make him out to be a Democrat, or Republican, or Liberal or Libertarian or… His "policies" are an ever moving target, which makes him hard to pin down to much of any substance, which as I pointed out IMH makes him a blank canvas for projection among the some of the jaded electorate. I don't know whether it's by design or nature, but it's clearly effective.

You can say the exact same thing about any candidate, especially Hillary Clinton. It's all become about personality. The debate the other night was about whether you wanted to vote for a governor or a senator. The reason Trump seems like a blank canvas is because he's a centrist populist. His social policies are populist, but who cares anyway, and his economic policies are centrist. His foreign policy is hawkish in some ways but not others. He's not a Lindsay Graham type interventionist. He's not into nation building. He's into protecting America and until someone attacks him he's not going to attack them. Which perfectly explains his positions on ISIS.

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

There's even more stats if you look for them. Here's a Washington Post article referring to them.





These are some of the stats produced by some states, and what's even better is that a Wisconsin district court judge struck down the voter ID law, saying

Tomorrow you'll probably be saying "every civilised country on earth has bans on guns" but today you won't listen when I say "every civilised country on earth has voter ID laws".

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

And there we have it, zero solid evidence to prove your notion that Mexico sends its criminals to America. Now tell me that Trump's claim about the Mexicans wasn't referring to a subset of them or in the context of Mexico sending them here, which of course has been proven to be false.

Yeah there was zero solid evidence for every scandal before it broke. Do you really expect Mexico to be open about this policy?

But he's a question that should prove my point for me, do you really believe the Mexican government would not do this, and if so why? How is it in their interest to keep criminals within their borders?

MightyMandarin

walshyn93 wrote: »

Tomorrow you'll probably be saying "every civilised country on earth has bans on guns" but today you won't listen when I say "every civilised country on earth has voter ID laws".

That's grand, don't address the point but instead stick to your ad hominem attacks.

nokia69

Wibbs wrote: »

No, he flim flams all over the place. It would not be an exaggeration for one to go through his political pronouncements (and personal funding of) of the last decade and with some easy editing make him out to be a Democrat, or Republican, or Liberal or Libertarian or… His "policies" are an ever moving target, which makes him hard to pin down to much of any substance, which as I pointed out IMH makes him a blank canvas for projection among the some of the jaded electorate. I don't know whether it's by design or nature, but it's clearly effective.

This dude has been blogging about Trump from the start and he calls Trump the master persuader because of the way he is slowly winning people over, he claims its a kind of like hypnotism

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/138279819081/master-persuader-scorecard-on-the-trumpless-debate

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

That's grand, don't address the point but instead stick to your ad hominem attacks.

That is addressing the point. That's not an ad hominem attack. Why should America be unique in not having voter ID laws?

MightyMandarin

walshyn93 wrote: »

Yeah there was zero solid evidence for every scandal before it broke. Do you really expect Mexico to be open about this policy?

But he's a question that should prove my point for me, do you really believe the Mexican government would not do this, and if so why? How is it in their interest to keep criminals within their borders?

Except there is no scandal. Even if there was, you have no evidence to show it will, so why do you attack the Mexican Govt. with baseless claims?

No, I don't think the Mexican govt. would encourage criminals to go to the US because if the US found out and your 'scandal' broke, then there'd be severe repercussions for the Mexicans.

How is it in any countries interest to keep criminals within its borders?

MightyMandarin

walshyn93 wrote: »

That is addressing the point. That's not an ad hominem attack. Why should America be unique in not having voter ID laws?

You made the point about the poster, not the post. Why aren't you going to address the evidence I put to you?

walshyn93

20Cent wrote: »

It's not the democrats job to sort out the republican party, they should be hammering them on the fact the party has become a joke. The republicans need to decide what they stand for and what they want because the current mixture of extremes is not doing them any good. They need to recognise demographics have changed and they will never get the presidency fear mongering and attacking.

So essentially Americans are being out-voted by foreigners who left their countries because their countries were not nice places to live. You expect Republicans to give up on the people who made America what it is and sell out to socially dysfunctional cultures the way the Democrats do? What you're saying is that the Republicans actually have some conviction in their beliefs and they should change that.

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

You made the point about the poster, not the post. Why aren't you going to address the evidence I put to you?

Evidence of what? That it's extremely difficult to catch voter fraud after the fact and prevention is better than a cure?

walshyn93

MightyMandarin wrote: »

Except there is no scandal. Even if there was, you have no evidence to show it will, so why do you attack the Mexican Govt. with baseless claims?

No, I don't think the Mexican govt. would encourage criminals to go to the US because if the US found out and your 'scandal' broke, then there'd be severe repercussions for the Mexicans.

How is it in any countries interest to keep criminals within its borders?

No there wouldn't be any repercussions because it's totally deniable. What they're doing is not pursuing criminals once they cross the border, how can there be any repercussions for that?

It's not in any countries interest to stop its criminals from leaving, which is exactly why you need a secure border.

This is the fallacy that some people fall into. They demand that everything be proven to them by the authorities and completely surrender their own faculties to the government. Until a government agency says this is happening you won't believe it.

Mexico does not pursue criminals when they cross the border unless they're a threat to national security like El Chapo. Petty criminals, they let them go. They wash their hands of them. You can scream "no evidence" all you want but it won't change the fact that it's happening and there's nothing to stop it.

Brian?

walshyn93 wrote: »

20Cent wrote: »

It's not the democrats job to sort out the republican party, they should be hammering them on the fact the party has become a joke. The republicans need to decide what they stand for and what they want because the current mixture of extremes is not doing them any good. They need to recognise demographics have changed and they will never get the presidency fear mongering and attacking.

So essentially Americans are being out-voted by foreigners who left their countries because their countries were not nice places to live. You expect Republicans to give up on the people who made America what it is and sell out to socially dysfunctional cultures the way the Democrats do? What you're saying is that the Republicans actually have some conviction in their beliefs and they should change that.

Add your reply here.


The "people who America what it is" were foreigners who left their home countries were "nice places to be". They were Chinese, Italian, German, Irish, English, Spanish, Mexican, Cuban and many more besides. That's not even including the millions of African slaves forced to build the USA.

The USA is a nation of immigrants with no homogeneous culture. It's never been a white Anglo Saxondale Christian nation - never.

20Cent

walshyn93 wrote: »

So essentially Americans are being out-voted by foreigners who left their countries because their countries were not nice places to live. You expect Republicans to give up on the people who made America what it is and sell out to socially dysfunctional cultures the way the Democrats do? What you're saying is that the Republicans actually have some conviction in their beliefs and they should change that.

Everyone in America besides the Native Indians left their countries. The increased Hispanic vote would be a good one to go for but they don't seem interested, quite the opposite. Hope they do remain the party for the white right winger they won't see the inside of the white house without addressing that.

nokia69

20Cent wrote: »

Everyone in America besides the Native Indians left their countries. The increased Hispanic vote would be a good one to go for but they don't seem interested, quite the opposite. Hope they do remain the party for the white right winger they won't see the inside of the white house without addressing that.

W Bush did try and increase the parties Hispanic vote but in the end they will keep voting Democrat because thats the party that panders to them

walshyn93

20Cent wrote: »

Everyone in America besides the Native Indians left their countries. The increased Hispanic vote would be a good one to go for but they don't seem interested, quite the opposite. Hope they do remain the party for the white right winger they won't see the inside of the white house without addressing that.

George Washington was born in Virginia.

If you want to make that point you have to go back even further, because the Native Americans didn't spring up out of holes in the ground they crossed from Asia.

walshyn93

Brian? wrote: »

Add your reply here.


The "people who America what it is" were foreigners who left their home countries were "nice places to be". They were Chinese, Italian, German, Irish, English, Spanish, Mexican, Cuban and many more besides. That's not even including the millions of African slaves forced to build the USA.

The USA is a nation of immigrants with no homogeneous culture. It's never been a white Anglo Saxondale Christian nation - never.

For most of American history the overwhelming majority of immigrants came from Europe, particularly Western Europe. A culture largely homogenous with the US on most substantive things. The number of Chinese was minuscule as was the number of Cubans who were mainly concentrated in Florida. The difference was these immigrants all tried to fit in and eventually succeeded. Now they're being told they don't have to you can vote for us right now if you want and don't bother learning the language or assimilating.

Republicans actually set a standard for people to reach to be accepted in society. Democrats want a society without any standards for anything.

20Cent

nokia69 wrote: »

W Bush did try and increase the parties Hispanic vote but in the end they will keep voting Democrat because thats the party that panders to them

You mean the party that respects them and doesn't call them criminals and rapists?