The 2016 Presidential Election Trainwreck

[BlueK]

I'd love to read up more on any research that has been done on the demo and psychographics of trump supporters. Anyone have any links?

[old_gregg]

I'd love to read up more on any research that has been done on the demo and psychographics of trump supporters. Anyone have any links?

www.nascar.com

[Joe Public]

This family makes the Clintons look discrete.

https://twitter.com/ivankatrump/stat...92146484580352

I didn't realize Durrant is consulting for the Trump campaign.

[BlueK]

We need a website to help Mormons with their transition away from the Republican Party. If you also can't stomach the dems, it really is ok to be LDS and Libertarian.

Maybe a podcast.

Trump really has nothing of value to offer a practicing or non-practicing LDS person.

[Topper]

If you truly believe this, you lack the imagination I've long attributed to you. Be assured I'm not voting for Hillary either, but I don't believe she's been the unmitigated and unprecedented disaster in foreign policy you describe. From a substantial number of critiques of her performance I'd guess the Rotten Tomatoes rating would come in around 60% or so--fairly workmanlike but neither a disaster nor an unprecedented triumph.

But enough about Hillary and back to the l'homme de l'heure. On foreign policy (putting aside his idiotic pronouncements on The Wall), some of my favorite quotes by le Drumpf:

On whether the armed forces might refuse to kill the families of terrorists and perform torture "much worse" than waterboarding:

They won’t refuse. They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me.

When questioned if he might not want to reconsider that last response:

I’m a leader, I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it.

Last night (and apparently he knows more about the system than his unschooled background might suggest):

Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.

On making our NATO allies pay more (this should be especially comforting for Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians):

They should pay us, pay us substantially, and they will if I ask them. If somebody else asks them, they won’t.” [This was in this week's Time, and the writer responded with "Why is that exactly? Why does he think he is uniquely able to do what others could not?"] Why is it? I don’t know. It’s just different. It’s like, why is it Jack Nicklaus won so many golf tournaments? Right? Why is it that Babe Ruth could hit more home runs than all the teams in the American League…. It’s just something special.

And on his key foreign policy advisers:

I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.


Heaven help us.

I have no doubt the GOP is about to experience a Barry Goldwater disaster. If for some reason, there are enough stupid rednecks to vote him in, I, perhaps because I can't believe anybody is that damn stupid, believe he will delegate that to somebody else. What I know about his work habits suggest he delegates most things, despite what he says.

We might as well agree to disagree, because other than cheering, diehard Democrats, I haven't read anything suggesting Hillary even did a journeymanlike job in her role as Secretary of State. She has no natural instincts. I was involved tangentially in an international deal (at a very minute level) where she was used to get something through the processes, and it didn't work whatsoever, despite the huge fee she charged. Her advice was horrendous. You are being very charitable.

Are there some things she didn't screw up which most people couldn't screw up? Yes that is true, but a robot could do some of those things. It's like saying, if PAC and Topper identified themselves as football recruiters for the University of Alabama, could they sign some top notch recruits? Well of course we could despite not having a clue what we are doing. That doesn't mean she did a passable job. In every instance, where critical instincts may have achieved a different outcome, she failed. You seem to be averaging the easy A with her Fs to give her a Sixty which in school is a failing grade, btw.

[Commando]

Huh? Trump just said Ted Cruz shoulda endorsed him b/c then he'd be in better shape in 4 years if he runs. It's as if he knows it's Hilary time!

[Topper]

Agreed

Double agreed.

I believe that Trump, if by some nightmare were elected, would be assassinated. Thus, his VP is more important than any other. If the choice were between Kaine and Hillary, I'd take Kaine in a heartbeat. He has some measure of reasonableness which I forgot Democrats at the local level possess.

[Maximus]

Double agreed.

I believe that Trump, if by some nightmare were elected, would be assassinated. Thus, his VP is more important than any other. If the choice were between Kaine and Hillary, I'd take Kaine in a heartbeat. He has some measure of reasonableness which I forgot Democrats at the local level possess.

the likelihood any president is assassinated is less than the likelihood trump would end up being the best president of all time

[Topper]

We need a website to help Mormons with their transition away from the Republican Party. If you also can't stomach the dems, it really is ok to be LDS and Libertarian.

Maybe a podcast.

Trump really has nothing of value to offer a practicing or non-practicing LDS person.

For those with Socialist leanings, they should register with the Socialist Party or the Green Party. We should encourage LDS to walk away from the mainline parties. If the main parties could be broken into more parts, better representation could occur. If we just break apart the GOP, then the Dems become the de facto rulers. Not a good thing, we need to break apart both parties simultaneously.

[wuapinmon]

I'd love to read up more on any research that has been done on the demo and psychographics of trump supporters. Anyone have any links?

https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p25-1141.pdf

[BlueK]

For those with Socialist leanings, they should register with the Socialist Party or the Green Party. We should encourage LDS to walk away from the mainline parties. If the main parties could be broken into more parts, better representation could occur. If we just break apart the GOP, then the Dems become the de facto rulers. Not a good thing, we need to break apart both parties simultaneously.

Good point. I agree.

[Moliere]

I'll admit that as a non-low-income earner, I wouldn't mind seeing Hillary as president. She's good to corporate America, specifically on the financial side of things. Sure, she'll take her corruption cut, but there will be plenty left over for people like me.

[BlueK]

Nothing we were taught in school about why the two-party system is better than what other countries have holds true anymore. Like if you had multiple parties it would be chaos and nothing would ever get done. Really? Our system is broken. Americans have to vote their way out of the chaos by beginning to vote out of the two major parties. If anything, 3 or 4 viable parties I think would actually ensure the winner would have some incentive to listen to more than one voice. Hell, for most Americans what we really have is a one-party system within their district where only one point of view will ever be listened to or even tolerated to some extent. I doubt even 20% of Americans live in a congressional district where both parties have a reasonable chance of winning. It's teaching us to bow down to which party is in charge where we live and any dissent is unacceptable. And compromise with the other side is evil.

[Topper]

I'll admit that as a non-low-income earner, I wouldn't mind seeing Hillary as president. She's good to corporate America, specifically on the financial side of things. Sure, she'll take her corruption cut, but there will be plenty left over for people like me.

Will she raise taxes which will slow the rate of investment? Will she eliminate carried interests which will piss off my few hedge fund clients? What will she do to eliminate 409 problems? What will her spending be given all the new programs she says she wants? Is she completely opposed to Friedman monetary ideas? She is most likely a supporter of neo-Keynesian spending.

My wages are peanuts but I would hate to see her there and the regulations she will implement will create monopolies favoring large industry titans, her donors, over small to medium-sized clients.

Is she in favor of universal banks, as opposed to former split of commercial, asset and balance based banking, against investment banking? Is she in favor of some the new FASB changes (CECL changes) or the IFRS forced adoption by SEC reporting companies?

Why would you say that?

[Topper]

Nothing we were taught in school about why the two-party system is better than what other countries have holds true anymore. Like if you had multiple parties it would be chaos and nothing would ever get done. Really? Our system is broken. Americans have to vote their way out of the chaos by beginning to vote out of the two major parties. If anything, 3 or 4 viable parties I think would actually ensure the winner would have some incentive to listen to more than one voice. Hell, for most Americans what we really have is a one-party system. I doubt even 20% of Americans live in a congressional district where both parties have a reasonable chance of winning.

I like the idea of at least four, maybe six parties.

We could have two major parties that strike alliances with one or several of the smaller parties. That way, different interests would be addressed. If government slows down to obtain consensus, instead one party just bulling itself through as the Dems do, then we would have a better represented government. I agree with your analysis.