The 2016 Presidential Election Trainwreck

[byu71]

The LGBT community isn't holding a gun to anybody's head. They have influence because a significant portion of the population agrees with them.

I am not sure a significant number of the LGBT community gives a crap about BYU and their honor code.

It's like Kapernick and his sit down protest. Look at all the attention it gets. What percentage of the athletes and crowd are sitting down.

In the grand scheme of things, he is a back up playing football. Now if Arnie sat down during the national anthem, it would mean something.

Since you sympathize though with their stance against BYU, perhaps you can enlighten me as to why they should give a crap about BYU.

[Northwestcoug]

I think the D's f'ing it up goes way beyond picking Hillary Clinton. It is the overreach, arrogance and hubris of the Dems ruling elite class and their progressive voices. It is painting anyone who is frustrated with the federal governments mismanagement of immigration as racist. It is turning Michael Brown's mother into a campaign pawn. This is ridiculous and the left has held the Presidency and forced this agenda on many people. There are folks who don't like Donald Trump but are frustrated that the left wants to dismiss their legitimate concerns and keep screaming "Donald Trump is a racist!" The left seems to think that Drumpf being a bigot gives them the right to totally ignore many of the legitimate concerns for people that he absurdly seems to represent. Hillary is a shitty candidate for sure, perhaps even worse than Drumpf as amazing as that might be but as this election moves along there is something at hand here above and beyond Drump vs Scold. There is a fundamental frustration with the folks in charge and they seem to have brought much of it upon themselves.

Take a look at this piece from Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...d-trump-228649

They can't figure out why Obamacare has not won over the masses. Here is the reality about Obamacare - it made those who were paying for health insurance pay more so that the folks who were outside the system could get in. The majority of voters were already in the system and the promises that Obama and his team had to make to get the disenfranchised in were obvious lies to get enough of those already in behind their cause. It might be the right moral choice, as far as the uninsured due to pre-existing conditions, but the arguments put forward were lies and now in their echochamber the liberal elites just can't figure out why they are not hailed as heroes. This is an example, IMO, that folks are just fed up with the guys in power. It is how a semi-reasonable semi-good candidate, such as Barack Obama, was able to create such a huge victory in 2008. Folks were pissed at the overreach of the right and now they are pissed at the left.

I think your last statement has merit, but I think the 'overreaches' that the right and left see are different. Obama rode a wave of huge voter discontent, mostly propelled by the war. He took a reasonable position that the war in Iraq was a mistake, and that it was continuing to be mismanaged. We know that the democratic voters overwhelmingly agreed, but without looking at the numbers, I think he persuaded a significant percentage of independents and centrist republicans.

In my opinion, what the Trump supporters see as overreach by the left is more visceral and abstract. The bathroom wars and other social causes are certainly fueling their discontent, but when they enthusiastically support an obvious conservative fraud like Trump, there's something else going on. I think a sizeable proportion of the right is fed up with a lot of the country moving away from their opinion. They are tired of losing important social and political battles. No one in the current republican leadership who can win the nomination is as ideologically pure as they want. So they support the guy who throws a few bones their way (the wall), but more importantly he's willing to get dirty and insult the people they loath. They are supporting an obvious democrat who has a national spotlight and isn't afraid to insult Clinton. With all the other battles they are losing, Clinton being attacked by a national figure counts for something.

[Goatnapper'96]

I think your last statement has merit, but I think the 'overreaches' that the right and left see are different. Obama rode a wave of huge voter discontent, mostly propelled by the war. He took a reasonable position that the war in Iraq was a mistake, and that it was continuing to be mismanaged. We know that the democratic voters overwhelmingly agreed, but without looking at the numbers, I think he persuaded a significant percentage of independents and centrist republicans.

In my opinion, what the Trump supporters see as overreach by the left is more visceral and abstract. The bathroom wars and other social causes are certainly fueling their discontent, but when they enthusiastically support an obvious conservative fraud like Trump, there's something else going on. I think a sizeable proportion of the right is fed up with a lot of the country moving away from their opinion. They are tired of losing important social and political battles. No one in the current republican leadership who can win the nomination is as ideologically pure as they want. So they support the guy who throws a few bones their way (the wall), but more importantly he's willing to get dirty and insult the people they loath. They are supporting an obvious democrat who has a national spotlight and isn't afraid to insult Clinton. With all the other battles they are losing, Clinton being attacked by a national figure counts for something.

That only explains Trump winning support from the right. Perhaps that will be enough to win the election but given that there is a small minority on the right who don't like Trump, I am convinced he has found appeal with folks outside of traditional conservative circles. Those folks are not so enamored with him insulting folks the right loathes or taking on Hillary Clinton. There is something else about Trump they like. I think the one attribute that group has in common is fatigue with the left. Essentially, the left had 8 years to deliver on their promised Shangra-La and I think they are running out of ideas. The hardcore amongst them will continue to throw out the obstructionist and racist arguments but if the polls are to believed, I don't think the masses are buying it anymore.

[PaloAltoCougar]

John Oliver is often annoying, but I mildly enjoyed his comparison of lies/scandals by both candidates. What really resonated with me was his likening a politician's lies with raisins in a cookie (a detestable practice!), starting at about the 20:00 mark.

[youtube]h1Lfd1aB9YI[/youtube]

[Color Me Badd Fan]

That only explains Trump winning support from the right. Perhaps that will be enough to win the election but given that there is a small minority on the right who don't like Trump, I am convinced he has found appeal with folks outside of traditional conservative circles. Those folks are not so enamored with him insulting folks the right loathes or taking on Hillary Clinton. There is something else about Trump they like. I think the one attribute that group has in common is fatigue with the left. Essentially, the left had 8 years to deliver on their promised Shangra-La and I think they are running out of ideas. The hardcore amongst them will continue to throw out the obstructionist and racist arguments but if the polls are to believed, I don't think the masses are buying it anymore.

Tribalism begets more tribalism. I don't think the transgender and gay rights stuff is even that big of a deal to people, and Trump has never really shrunk away from being a social liberal as it relates to those issues.

But Black Lives Matter and multiculturalism (immigration) is a whole other story. In the face of facts that caused a grand jury to choose not to indict the police officer -- grand jury that had a lot of blacks on it and black eyewitness testimony that played a big role in exonerating the officer -- BLM and the media still choose to use it to paint a narrative of constant oppression of black people in this country. That's insane.

[Jeff Lebowski]

John Oliver is often annoying, but I mildly enjoyed his comparison of lies/scandals by both candidates. What really resonated with me was his likening a politician's lies with raisins in a cookie (a detestable practice!), starting at about the 20:00 mark.

Dude, that is nuts. Oatmeal raisin cookies are the best.

[Moliere]

Oatmeal raisin cookies are the best.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Flystripper]

Dude, that is nuts. Oatmeal raisin cookies are the best.

gotta back the Dude on this one

[Eddie]

Dude, that is nuts. Oatmeal raisin cookies are the best.

Sure they are.

Oatmeal raisin cookies are the best...right after chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, snicker-doodles, ginger snaps, homemade oreos, and sugar cookies. (though not necessarily in that order...)

[Northwestcoug]

That only explains Trump winning support from the right. Perhaps that will be enough to win the election but given that there is a small minority on the right who don't like Trump, I am convinced he has found appeal with folks outside of traditional conservative circles. Those folks are not so enamored with him insulting folks the right loathes or taking on Hillary Clinton. There is something else about Trump they like. I think the one attribute that group has in common is fatigue with the left. Essentially, the left had 8 years to deliver on their promised Shangra-La and I think they are running out of ideas. The hardcore amongst them will continue to throw out the obstructionist and racist arguments but if the polls are to believed, I don't think the masses are buying it anymore.

That could be, though it just doesn't feel that he is moving a lot of independents his way. I saw a poll the other day that showed about 90% of Trump voters are very enthusiastic for him, while about 80% of dems were enthusiastic about Clinton. I tend to believe that most of his increased support has come from conservative voters who were not enthusiastic about the last two republican nominees and didn't vote. But that's just my guess.

On top of this, I think we are also seeing a major shift in conservative ideology towards nationalism, and away from the traditional fiscal conservatism. Other than a tax cut, Trump isn't even offering lip service towards conservative fiscal policy. That used to be the rallying cry of the right, and now there's a big 'meh'. To me, this is further support of the right just wanting someone to yell and throw punches at the left.

[Jeff Lebowski]

gotta back the Dude on this one

Truth bomb.

[Omaha 680]

gotta back the Dude on this one

I also agree IF it is a quality recipe. There are a lot of crappy oatmeal cookies out there. In contrast, it's tough to mess up a choco chip cookie.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I like both, raisins or not.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Among the greatest of life's disappointments is sinking one's teeth into what one believes is a delicious, warm chocolate chip cookie only to discover those dark things are raisins. Vile. Might as well be fruit-flavored maggots.

[myboynoah]

Among the greatest of life's disappointments is sinking one's teeth into what one believes is a delicious, warm chocolate chip cookie only to discover those dark things are raisins. Vile. Might as well be fruit-flavored maggots.

A real truth bomb.