The 2016 Presidential Election Trainwreck

[BlueK]

Most people correctly see no difference between the two.

Neither does the political system. A vote for means the same whether you love the guy or have to go through extreme mental gymnastics to pull the lever for him. Trump will thank you either way and take it as 100% approval for everything he has ever done or said. Is there anything he has ever said or done that should have us conclude otherwise?

[Pelado]

I sat down to consume a polish dog combo at the Costco foodcourt last Saturday. The elderly gentleman across from me, a veteran, asked which ward I was in, having noticed my BYU attire. He also asked about the presidential campaign. When I expressed disdain for both major party candidates, he looked incredulous. He insisted that Trump would be a far superior choice to Hillary. I elaborated on a few reasons why Trump is at least as bad a choice and then, having finished the combo, excused myself from the table.

He graduated from the University of Utah.

[BlueK]

I sat down to consume a polish dog combo at the Costco foodcourt last Saturday. The elderly gentleman across from me, a veteran, asked which ward I was in, having noticed my BYU attire. He also asked about the presidential campaign. When I expressed disdain for both major party candidates, he looked incredulous. He insisted that Trump would be a far superior choice to Hillary. I elaborated on a few reasons why Trump is at least as bad a choice and then, having finished the combo, excused myself from the table.

He graduated from the University of Utah.

I just find it a little curious that so many folks who grew up in a more libertarian type society and government in America (before government was involved in so many aspects of our lives) would tend to gravitate toward one of the most authoritarian political figures of the last half century.

[Commando]

I sat down to consume a polish dog combo at the Costco foodcourt last Saturday. The elderly gentleman across from me, a veteran, asked which ward I was in, having noticed my BYU attire. He also asked about the presidential campaign. When I expressed disdain for both major party candidates, he looked incredulous. He insisted that Trump would be a far superior choice to Hillary. I elaborated on a few reasons why Trump is at least as bad a choice and then, having finished the combo, excused myself from the table.

He graduated from the University of Utah.

OLD GREGG WAS RIGHT!!!

[Jeff Lebowski]

Is unwashed masses a code word for uneducated or an entirely different group that says they will vote for Trump.

Let's see, unwashed, stupid, uneducated, racist, mysogonist (sp), authoritarians are the groups of people who vote for Trump fit into. Any others.

Passive aggressive Trump apologist.

[BlueK]

If there was any possible way McMullin could emerge from this mess as the next president, I would applaud that. I like the libertarians and even like Johnson, but he's not in the position to do this, and I'm disappointed with him in this campaign for his obvious lack of preparation. He was a different candidate four years ago. Anyway, it doesn't matter in terms of my vote because I don't live in Utah.

However, McMullin I think is the guy who sounds the most level headed and I think would actually be best able to help the country heal from this painful election. And it would happen not as a coup but by exactly following the Constitution. I would like to see neither Hillary nor Trump get to 270, with Hillary getting more of the popular and electoral votes so that Trump doesn't have any logical basis for claiming he actually won.

[byu71]

Passive aggressive Trump apologist.

Good call

[Maximus]

McMomentum is dead

[BlueK]

McMomentum is dead

wow. Very curious shift in polls there at the very last minute. But does Utah have early voting? Hmm, so it does.

[hostile]

wow. curious shift in polls there at the very last minute. But does Utah have early voting?

Yes.

[BlueK]

Yes.

So depending on margin of error and what votes are already in the system, and how attitudes might shift further in the next few days based on whatever other surprises we have before Tuesday, it could still end up close.

[Maximus]

Donald losing close is the worst possible outcome. trumpers will be even more promenant in the party

[old_gregg]

Donald losing close is the worst possible outcome. trumpers will be even more promenant in the party

he could win bro

[Northwestcoug]

Preach, Brother Frum:

I have no illusions about Hillary Clinton. I expect policies that will seem to me at best counter-productive, at worst actively harmful. America needs more private-market competition in healthcare, not less; lighter regulation of enterprise, not heavier; reduced immigration, not expanded; lower taxes, not higher. On almost every domestic issue, I stand on one side; she stands on the other. I do not imagine that she will meet me, or those who think like me, anywhere within a country mile of half-way.

But she is a patriot. She will uphold the sovereignty and independence of the United States. She will defend allies. She will execute the laws with reasonable impartiality. She may bend some rules for her own and her supporters’ advantage. She will not outright defy legality altogether. Above all, she can govern herself; the first indispensable qualification for governing others.

So I will vote for the candidate who rejects my preferences and offends my opinions. (In fact, I already have voted for her.) Previous generations accepted infinitely heavier sacrifices and more dangerous duties to defend democracy. I’ll miss the tax cut I’d get from united Republican government. But there will be other elections, other chances to vote for what I regard as more sensible policies. My party will recover to counter her agenda in Congress, moderate her nominations to the courts, and defeat her bid for re-election in 2020. I look forward to supporting Republican recovery and renewal.

This November, however, I am voting not to advance my wish-list on taxes, entitlements, regulation, and judicial appointments. I am voting to defend Americans' profoundest shared commitment: a commitment to norms and rules that today protect my rights under a president I don’t favor, and that will tomorrow do the same service for you....

I appreciate that Donald Trump is too slovenly and incompetent to qualify as a true dictator. This country is not so broken as to allow a President Trump to arrest opponents or silence the media. Trump is a man without political ideas. Trump's main interest has been and will continue to be self-enrichment by any means, no matter how crooked. His next interest after that is never to be criticized by anybody for any reason, no matter how justified—maybe most especially when justified. Yet Trump does not need to achieve a dictatorship to subvert democracy. This is the age of “illiberal democracy,” as Fareed Zakaria calls it, and across the world we’ve seen formally elected leaders corrode democratic systems from within. Surely the American system of government is more robust than the Turkish or Hungarian or Polish or Malaysian or Italian systems. But that is not automatically true. It is true because of the active vigilance of freedom-loving citizens who put country first, party second. Not in many decades has that vigilance been required as it is required now.

Your hand may hesitate to put a mark beside the name, Hillary Clinton. You’re not doing it for her. The vote you cast is for the republic and the Constitution.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/dont-gamble-on-trump/506207/

[frank ryan]

he could win bro

God help us all.