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Serious US Election Thread (read post #2014)
- Thread starter Bughouse
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Well breaking the law seems to be a prerequisite to running for office in 2016
Good point.
Too bad that a person who worked with Trump for 18 months says that he could be a threat to civilization. Can you say the same about Trump.
Either way, we'll clearly have to be very critical of whoever becomes President. That is extremely clear.
Well, at least if you're to be nominee of either major party.
thesecondbest
Just Kidding I'm First
One candidate: occasionally forgets a few things and acts goofy too often. Two governor's on the ticket.
Jill Stein: a doctor who is anti Vax. Has a VP candidate who called Jesuis charlie racist. 0 government experience.
Hilary Clinton: mired in scandals, is a neocon on foreign policy, has decent policies but would rather call you sexist and racist than discuss policy. 2 senators and an SOS on the ticket.
Trump: loud mouth who says some decent stuff but probably has no clue what he is saying. Like a monkey on a type writer. 1 governor on the ticket.
Gary/bill has the most governing expertise, most moderate policies, and is easily the least divisive candidate. Has the best foreign policy, will end the drug war, and will not be authoritarian guaranteed. That's why I like them the most. Trump and Hillary have said and done shit way more outrageous than Gary has. The media will only ever report negative stories on him because the two parties control it. Don't be brainwashed.
How dare you forget Jill Stein. How much crazier does she have to be until you remember she is running too lol
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/warrant...candidate-jill-steins-arrest-in-north-dakota/
posted this before, but just to help with the joke
Johnson seems like a guy I'd have a drink with, but Libertarian policy is imo extremely flawed. The most blatant example of this is their official environmental policy, which argues that the market will self-regulate the environment. Given what happened in the late 1800s before Roosevelt, I'm inclined to disagree.
Fortunately, he has zero chance of winning. He might take Utah if Romney endorses him, but that's not super likely.
Fortunately, he has zero chance of winning. He might take Utah if Romney endorses him, but that's not super likely.
A friend of mine, historian, social researcher, and genius young academic who I admire greatly (guy became better than me at Japanese after living in the countryside for a year) put it best:
@"Guess I'm having another Aleppo moment":
This guy is a joke. But the consequences of young people voting for him are not. Despite the core of Donald Trump's support coming from old white men who have no real stake in the future, it would be a cruel irony if he was elected because the group of people who have the most to lose decided to throw their votes away.
Does anyone else think the Cuba thing could have a real impact in Florida? Older Cubans are a reliable Republican voting bloc, and they HATE anything to do with the Castros. There's a very real possibility that Cuban Republicans abandon Trump, and losing their support could potentially cost the GOP Florida, which would make the electoral math very difficult.
thesecondbest
Just Kidding I'm First
What is with this fuck old people movement? Why do you think old people are worse voters? If you make this argument them wonder what would happen if you couldn't vote after turning 60.
Don't call me a weasel even though I acted like a complete weasel to appease powerful political people- James Comey 2016
the latter part of this post is beating up on a strawman that doesnt exist - Chou did not suggest prohibiting old people from voting, nor has anyone (in a serious sense). If you come in here with links attempting to show there has been a person who has made a serious argument against old people voting, i will ignore it; i am referring to "serious" government people wrt serious government policy, an area in which old people voting is seen as unchangeable (mostly bc their right to do so is enshrined in the U.S Constitution). However, i will try to explain friendly-like the elements of chou's post you find objectionable.thesecondbest said:
There is no way to determine who is a "better" voter. if you wanted to do this, youd have to look at one of two things, the first being "who votes for the candidate better for the country", a concept that, given we cannot know the outcome, comes entirely down to political views, basically if their vote agreed with yours, and the second being "who votes for the candidate better for themselves", which is probably easier to measure with some degree of objectivity but obviously still politically influenced and an abdication of civic virtue and such. i fear our political views are opposite one anothers on the ol' spectrum, so we'll lead with the second one as it can be looked at more objectively.
Donald trump is pitching an atavistic vision in ways both overt and nearly overt. "make america great again". "law and order" (1960s, highly super really racist). ["trade sucks dick"] (harkens back to an isolationist period in U.S history, brackets to indicate this is a summary of Mr. Trump's views). "take the oil" (medieval concept of the victor taking the spoils). ["retributive torture - i like that, it's good"] (not gonna look it up because it is sad and disturbing to me, but supposed to be a thing of the past). "illegal mexicans are overwhelming our country and raping our women" (um the 1860's maybe?). ["i wouldnt be opposed to using nukes"] (Kennedy was the last one to get into brinkmanship, but thats mostly because he had to; regardless, 1960s). "stop and frisk" (the most modern element of his policy, mid-2000s; problem here is the practice is racist ineffective and unconstitutional).
You get the point. Even if you agree we should torture for fun while getting our oil rigs going in-out-in-out in a nuclear wasteland that used to be where millions of muslims lived, theres no doubt trump wants to go back. I probably only needed his slogan, honestly. This gets to Chou's description of his voterbase - old white men. Circling back to our look at voters voting for the candidate who best serves them, this group supporting trump makes sense - in the 1960s, these people enjoyed tremendous relative advantage that we've chipped away at since then. to them, regressing is good.
this is not the case for a lot of young people. digging in to stop the progression of time is not free - it comes at the cost of money and worldwide blood. it would be possible, probably, through the levying of heavy taxes and threats to fill our factories and mines again, but for how long? automation is killing jobs faster than china is, or will soon, and thats tough to stop. you can get the hoses out again for BLM protestors, but that's heinous (to me) and untenable (for you, if you dont find it heinous). you can kill thousands of middle eastern innocents, and i guess not pay, except for the blood on your hands.
i guess i havent sufficiently elaborated, but you get the point i hope: the long-term of trump's plans is awful in nearly every case, including on the debt. this gets to chou's point, specifically "with no real stake in the future" - it is ok to have longterm bad plans if you are 60 years old, because very soon you will cease giving a fuck. if you're young, you need to live with consequences for longer. trump getting elected will have the most severe negative long-term effects and as such needs to be avoided, by young people. a vote for gary johnson is in essence a vote for trump - it's a protest vote that's essentially a vote for nothing, because gary johnson is unqualified to be president and does not represent anything the liberal young people voting for him want.
I guess the previous para relies on the assumption that you agree with everyone who has ever studied trumps plans and find them to be bad. im not sure you do so, so i might ask you consider this objectively: to THEM, the other young people, who find trump so abhorrent, does it make sense to vote for someone who enables him while not embodying your beliefs? if you believe mexicans are ruining us, and mitt romney is running and doesnt care that much against mexicans, against bernie sanders, who is abhorrent to you, wouldnt you vote for him over no one?
An unrelated point i have been thinking of: hillary clinton has an advantage in that her scandals are p much all out there. manodelrey and skitty will still be beating eachother off while crying about james comey until the end of time, but all the ammunition is there for both sides, unless judicial watch has some shit they can spin. Clinton, however, has a whole basket (lol) of unrevealed trump scandals she can toss out to gain an edge - see alicia machado coming up in the debate out of nowhere for a lot of people. just something to think about.
thesecondbest
Just Kidding I'm First
> says there's no serious fuck old people movement
> calls old people racist
OK?
But what makes you think old people don't care about the future? Do you think your grandparents care about your future? of course they do! So why would they vote for policies they think are bad in the longterm?
I agree stop and frisk is stupid, but don't assume all old voters are just craving for a racist to run.
Also when you say a vote for Gary is a vote for Trump, realize Trump supporters will tell you a vote for Gary is a vote for Hillary. It's neither; a vote for Gary is a vote for Gary. So convince me that Clinton is better, not that Trump is bad.
Of course grandparents care about the future. They just obviously care about very different things than the grandkids whose futures they purportedly are trying to improve. I'm pretty sure the majority of young voters these days have grandparents whose views they find to at best be out of date and at worst racist/sexist/etc. It's a generational divide.
Like my grandparents refer to my aunt's friends as "crazy lesbians" and think that Obama is a Muslim. They've said some pretty racist things about my cousin's chinese wife.
The great irony of course is they assured me last year at thanksgiving that they thought Trump was a profound idiot and they would never vote for him (they supported rubio) and now they're enthusiastic supporters of him. Amazing what partisan hatred of the opponent does.
Like my grandparents refer to my aunt's friends as "crazy lesbians" and think that Obama is a Muslim. They've said some pretty racist things about my cousin's chinese wife.
The great irony of course is they assured me last year at thanksgiving that they thought Trump was a profound idiot and they would never vote for him (they supported rubio) and now they're enthusiastic supporters of him. Amazing what partisan hatred of the opponent does.
He actually never called old people racist, the only mention of racism in his post was calling stop and frisk racist (which it is), and implying that the "law and order" statement is a reference to the pro-segregation faction during the 1960s (which is arguable but it isn't much of a stretch to think that some people interpreted it that way).
What he actually said was, "This gets to Chou's description of his voterbase - old white men. Circling back to our look at voters voting for the candidate who best serves them, this group supporting trump makes sense - in the 1960s, these people enjoyed tremendous relative advantage that we've chipped away at since then. to them, regressing is good."
This is objectively true. White people were extremely privileged in the 1960s, and white people that experienced the 1960s are old. Its not a coincidence that old white people are voting for someone whose language is reminiscent of an era in which they held a distinct advantage, whether or not that makes them racist wasn't even relevant to the point. That was either a nice strawman or an astounding display of a lack of reading comprehension though.
There were also 0 places in shrug's post he said old people don't care about the future, in fact there were 0 places in chou's post where he said old people don't care about the future, what chou said was, "Despite the core of Donald Trump's support coming from old white men who have no real stake in the future." Which is again true, I'm sure the vast majority do care about the future but most will also be dead before the true impacts of the election are felt (esp. w/ respect to economic impacts). Again this was either a strawman or an incredible display of lacking reading comprehension.
Re: the vote thing, a voter that would have voted for Bernie Sanders voting for Gary Johnson rather than Hilary Clinton is essentially a half vote for Trump (it doesn't actually add anything to Trump's total but it does remove a vote from Clinton) the same is true for the opposite (ie a typical republican voter going Johnson is a half vote for Clinton). In the context of millennials voting for Johnson as a protest vote, people who otherwise would be very likely to vote for Clinton, while it isn't a vote for Trump, it is a clear advantage for him for these people to be voting for a candidate with essentially no chance to win.
If someone watched the debate and came to any conclusion other than Clinton would be a better president than Trump I don't think there is any actual way to convince them. Not only did Trump manage to give non-answers to the majority of the questions (which isn't surprising because if you've actually followed his campaign he has no plan for actually accomplishing any of his promises), but while giving his non-answers he was significantly less truthful than Clinton (from NPR's fact checker). Trump's lack of policy is also apparent when you look at criticisms of Clinton, which as far as I've seen, are nothing to do with actual policies and everything to do with various scandals, which given she hasn't been arrested, are either exaggerated or Hilary Clinton is literally the Godfather. As opposed to Trump who is being attacked for his policies in spite of the fact he has his own scandals (fraudulent university, not paying people (both in business and for his campaign)), which he drew extra attention to by stating a judge of mexican heritage couldn't be unbiased in the trump university case and by saying small business owners he owes money to don't deserve the money (on live television during the first debate). I'd rather have the Godfather with some semblance of a plan be the president than someone with no plan and who is pretty much the opposite of the godfather.
Every time I think Trump has done too many dumb things to possibly still be in the race and Clinton seems to be pulling away...she calls Bernie Sanders' supporters 'basement dwellers' and 'baristas'.
I'm not sure whats worse, the fact that you very clearly didn't read the article, or the fact that given what Clinton actually said, that was the headline they came up with.
Shoutouts Russia Today for wonderful journalism and to you for contributing to this thread with a well thought out post from a very clearly non-biased source.
It's always the anti Trump people here getting angry and willing to use personal attacks while debating lol. Being able to stuff as many personal insults in your post as possible doesn't make your points any better.
That being said, if I had to choose between a person who said a woman "liked eating" 20 years ago or someone who ignores security procedures on purpose and lead to the death of 4 Americans in Benghazi, I'd choose the former. I care a lot more about Hillary Clinton's deadly actions and policies that she supports such as NAFTA and the TPP than Donald Trump's harsh words. I also think it isn't right to try to scare those voting for a 3rd party candidate into voting for yours, people have the right to vote for who they want to, no matter if they have a major chance of winning or not.
That being said, if I had to choose between a person who said a woman "liked eating" 20 years ago or someone who ignores security procedures on purpose and lead to the death of 4 Americans in Benghazi, I'd choose the former. I care a lot more about Hillary Clinton's deadly actions and policies that she supports such as NAFTA and the TPP than Donald Trump's harsh words. I also think it isn't right to try to scare those voting for a 3rd party candidate into voting for yours, people have the right to vote for who they want to, no matter if they have a major chance of winning or not.
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sounds about right
(Clinton has been mostly cleared of any wrongdoing in Benghazi like...9 times now?)
EDIT: also...did you just call NAFTA and TPP deadly?
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