2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins

Status
Not open for further replies.
Having a look at the Virginia GOP exit poll... yeah, this state becomes safe Democratic if Trump or Cruz is nominated. Florida ones will be interesting in a couple of weeks.
 
adexkola said:
I think Hillary winning against Trump is far from guaranteed. If Trump can rally voters in the Rust/Bible belts, Appalachia, San Joaquin Valley, Wall Street WASPs.... pockets of America that aren't as thrilled with liberal policies as the more mainstream coasts, and Hillary fails to bring in Bernie millenials, BLM voters, etc.. it could be close.

Trump would need to a lot more post nomination in order for that to happen. This also assumes he is as smart as Reagan was, mobilizing the majority in the South to come out and vote behind the banner of State Rights.
Click to expand...
California and New York are solid Democrat states and the bible belts will go Republican anyway. It's places like Florida that Trump will need to convince.
 
DiseaseOfTheAge said:
In fairness, Hitler probably also said "It's nice and sunny today", which is a sentiment many of us have shared at some point. Taking things out of context isn't really necessary, when the bloke's already advocating Muslim ID cards etc.
Click to expand...

Hitler was finicky about weather conditions. If he saw a dew on his front lawn he refused to leave the house.
 
Ubik said:
Yuge difference between winning a plurality of the GOP selectorate that has moved hard right and a majority of a nation that has a majority of moderates and liberals as well as significant numbers of minorities in swing states. Apples and oranges, much like the Labour membership and the country at large here.
Click to expand...

Yet polls last night showed Trump did better with moderate conservatives - the very conservative voters went for Cruz.

Trump is best understood, and will run as a populist rather than a politician of the hard right. On trade and immigration he has a powerful message which resonates with voters well beyond the Republican base.
 
Trump as National Security Threat
By Benjamin Wittes Wednesday, March 2, 2016, 10:44 AM

I don’t, as a rule, endorse political candidates. I don’t do work for campaigns. I have never given a dime to a candidate—for any office. I have never signed up to be an adviser to one either. I try, rather, to play more or less the same role in policy debate whichever party is in power in both the executive and legislative branches, and I offer policy counsel to any officer-holder or candidate who comes my way, regardless of party, on the same terms.

But with Donald Trump now the unambiguous front-runner in the Republican field, there’s a question I think readers of this site need to consider seriously: Is the putative GOP standard bearer a national security threat?

I ask this question not with the snarky intent of landing a political punch, but in deadly earnest. Never before in my lifetime has either political party been led by a man with such an unusual combination of—from a national security perspective, anyway—terrifying liabilities. Individually, each would be grounds for concern. In combination with one another and as embodied in a single political figure of extreme charisma and proven attractiveness to a significant swath of the electorate, they are a toxic brew that I have no doubt makes this country less secure. They do this, I suspect, even if Trump is not ultimately elected President but merely becomes the Republican nominee.

Let’s start with the fact that Trump displays a near-total ignorance of international policy, military affairs, and intelligence and counterterrorism policy. Ignorance in a politician is often more norm than exception, but Trump’s ignorance is of a particularly proud variety. He’s not just going to mouth off bombastically about what to do in different parts of the world, but he never even pauses to fortify the bombast with facts or rudimentary knowledge. He is an unapologetic yahoo who quite literally has no idea what he’s talking about much of the time. He appears to have no interest in learning anything either about the complex international security environment in which the United States has to operate on a daily basis. And that is a very dangerous thing in a man who would be president.

Second, Trump has done more than any single person to undo two presidents’ earnest and consistent protestations that the United States is not at war with Islam. I have my doubts about whether Guantanamo has really been a major recruiting tool for the enemy. I have no shred of doubt, by contrast, that a promise to bar Muslims from the United States by this country’s president would be a major recruiting tool for the enemy. It certainly would be if I were running ISIS or Al Qaeda! These groups are premised, after all, on civilizational confrontation between Islam and the West. What better evidence could there be that the West is locked in a battle to the death with the umma than the insistence by the President of the United States—or even the Republican nominee for President of the United States—that no Muslim should be allowed to enter the country? What better way to make it impossible for critical Arab and Muslim allies to work with the United States? Why on earth would any sane Muslim cooperate with the law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or military of a country that would exclude him from its shores on the basis of his religion?

Third, compounding this problem are Trump’s open promises to commit war crimes. I suppose it may be possible to “bomb the shit out of them” in a fashion that entirely comports with the law of armed conflict. It is not possible, however, to use interrogation procedures—as Trump has promised to do—much harsher than waterboarding without committing war crimes. Nor is it possible to target terrorists’ families without committing war crimes. So not only is Trump promising a civilizational struggle against Islam and the barring of Muslims from America’s shores, he is promising to conduct that civilizational struggle in a fashion that violates the most basic norms to which this country has committed itself. Even those who led the CIA’s earlier efforts in coercive interrogation are appalled. Consider these comments by former CIA chief Michael Hayden, as quoted in the Washington Post:

During his appearance on “Real Time,” Hayden cited Trump’s pledge to kill family members as being among his most troubling campaign statements.

“That never even occurred to you, right?” [host Bill] Maher asked.

“God, no!” Hayden replied. “Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act.”

“That’s quite a statement, sir,” Maher said.

“You are required not to follow an unlawful order,” Hayden added. “That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”
Surely, when a candidate is talking in a fashion that raises questions—from a former general and head of both CIA and NSA, no less—about whether the military would be forced to defy the commander in chief, we are in a land in which it is fair to discuss the national security implications of the man’s election.

Fourth, even as he endeavors to undo the Bush and Obama administrations’ commitment to separating this country’s engagement with Islam from its struggle with its enemies. Trump openly flirts with America’s actual adversaries. I don’t know what to make of his repeated kind words for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but I think it’s fair to say that Trump has compromised himself with them. He has shown that for all his tough talk, at least where dictators are concerned, he’s actually a bit like a loud barking dog who dissolves in slobbery affection the moment some treat or praise gets thrown his way. Putin is not a fool. He has noticed, I’m sure, that he has gained a would-be client strongman in Trump, and that he has bought him unbelievably cheaply. He has noticed, I am also sure, that with only a modest amount of public ego stroking—a few stray words, really—he bought himself an ally at the top of the GOP field. He has had to pay a lot more, hard cash actually, for his European political allies. Trump likes to boast of the great deals he makes, but he sold himself to Putin for a pittance—and that has national security implications too.

Fifth, this point has an obvious domestic analogue: Trump's recent unwillingness to repudiate support from David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan. Praise Trump even a little and he is putty in your hands. This is a profoundly dangerous quality in an American president.

Sixth, then there is the small matter of Trump’s—there’s no polite way to say this—evident clinical symptoms. I’m not a psychologist qualified to make a diagnosis, but it simply has to be signifcant that it’s hard to have a serious conversation about Trump without using words like egomania, grandiosity, or narcissism. I have never heard a politician spend a fifth as much time congratulating himself for being ahead in polls, for winning debates (whether or not he actually won them), for making great deals, or for being popular. His self-regard routinely crosses over into what I can only call the delusional. He promises to win voting groups that can be expected to vote against him by wide margins—as when he promises to build a giant wall to keep out Mexicans (who, please remember, are all rapists) yet simultaneously appears to think he will garner significant Latino support. This point is clearly related to the prior two points: His need for constant validation of his self-regard appears to fuel his inability to think ill of anyone—from a foreign dictator to a domestic white supremacist—who obliges him with praise. It is not in the national security interests of the United States to have such a man negotiating with people who can be expected to know at least as I do how much a little flattery will buy.

Finally, Trump’s entire candidacy is predicated on a weird kind of magical thinking that has no place in serious policy discussion generally but is particularly dangerous in the national security sphere. Trump does not propose policy ideas. He identifies and promises outcomes. We’re going to do a lot of winning. We’re going to smash ISIS. We’re going to have great trade deals. We’re going to be tough. We’re going to bring back jobs. We’re going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it. We’re going to make America great again. He never proposes a modality for achieving any of these things. They're going to happen by force of personality and force of will.

Trump got in trouble this past weekend for retweeting a quotation from Mussolini. But the quotation in question was not the Mussolini line that Trump’s candidacy actually embodies.

My nomination for that dubious honor is the following: “Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power.”

This is Trump: promising outcomes without programs, promising to do by force of personality and will what a country cannot do through policy or democratic deliberation. It is a lie in all spheres. But in the national security space, it is a particularly pernicious lie. Our tools are too dangerous for cults of personality. Our problems are too hard to wish away with magical thinking. The stakes are too high to permit magic to eclipse persuasive thought and analysis. And the relationship between our tools and tyranny is too intimate to allow demagogues anywhere near the decisions the national security apparatus has to make—or the machineries with which it makes them.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/trump-national-security-threat
Click to expand...
 
Will Absolute said:
Yet polls last night showed Trump did better with moderate conservatives - the very conservative voters went for Cruz.

Trump is best understood, and will run as a populist rather than a politician of the hard right. On trade and immigration he has a powerful message which resonates with voters well beyond the Republican base.
Click to expand...

The recent trade deal made with many countries on the Pacific Rim was opposed by many trade groups and unions. NAFTA (brought in by Bill Clinton; surprised Trump hasn't hammered Hillary on this) decimated manufacturing in the US. As far as I know he's the only one speaking on it.
 
Will Absolute said:
Yet polls last night showed Trump did better with moderate conservatives - the very conservative voters went for Cruz.

Trump is best understood, and will run as a populist rather than a politician of the hard right. On trade and immigration he has a powerful message which resonates with voters well beyond the Republican base.
Click to expand...
Cruz is a undeniable true believer, that Trump can match (and beat) his scores among self defined highly-conservatives in states like Georgia, Virginia, Alabama and Oklahoma amongst said selectorate is big enough for him. Conversely, Trump's scores on whether GOP voters would be dissatisfied with him as a candidate for the most part runs at close to (or over) 50%. You have sitting GOP Governors and Senators coming out publicly and saying they wouldn't vote for him in a general election. There may be anti-establishment feeling within the GOP, but there's also a good portion of their voters that get along with the establishment, and they would be quite willing to desert the party in the short term.

And you're right, he would run as a rightwing populist, but that's a platform that unquestionably contains clear elements from the hard right, and they're the things that are gathering him support.
 
Romney apparently going to give a speech against Trump (without endorsing anyone...). The Donald may be taking to twitter soon after.
 
Raoul said:
Carson out of the debate on Thursday apparently.
Click to expand...
There was a story that if he got out now, the Republican establishment will back him to in the Flordia Senator campaign, to fill Rubio's vacant seat.

Other big rumour this morning is that Cruz could be Trump's Runing mate. Odd that seems to me.
 
Canuckred64 said:
There was a story that if he got out now, the Republican establishment will back him to in the Flordia Senator campaign, to fill Rubio's vacant seat.

Other big rumour this morning is that Cruz could be Trump's Runing mate. Odd that seems to me.
Click to expand...

Cruz thinks he's the chosen one - no way in hell will he be No.2 to the devil. Now, a Supreme Court Justice....that's the Lord's work!
 
Neutral said:
Cruz thinks he's the chosen one - no way in hell will he be No.2 to the devil. Now, a Supreme Court Justice....that's the Lord's work!
Click to expand...

Cruz might be better poised to make a run at the White House in 2020 or 2024 if he has been Trump's VP. He is still young enough to do that.
 
Canuckred64 said:
There was a story that if he got out now, the Republican establishment will back him to in the Flordia Senator campaign, to fill Rubio's vacant seat.

Other big rumour this morning is that Cruz could be Trump's Runing mate. Odd that seems to me.
Click to expand...
I could see Carson as trumps running mate... Though surely Chris Christie gave the trumps rump enough of a kissing last week to be frontrunner
 
sun_tzu said:
I could see Carson as trumps running mate... Though surely Chris Christie gave the trumps rump enough of a kissing last week to be frontrunner
Click to expand...

I think Christie has a better chance of being Attorney General than VP if Trump wins. Christie being from New Jersey does not add anything to the ticket geographically. Carson dosen't add much to the ticket either, maybe some evangelicals and Cruz woukd do better with them than Carson and give Trump a boost in Texas and States that border Texas.
 
What's CChristie's angle?
Job in Trump Administration or Trump Organisation?
 
Nobby style said:
Yeah it must be that liberalism that attracts Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin and Phylis Schafly, Ted Nugent, Maine governor Paul LePage, David Duke and his KKKers, NASCAR, Jean Marie Le Pen, Joe Arpaio, Micael Savage, Alex Jones . . . hail the sneaky liberal Donald Trump!
Click to expand...

They are all gullible morons. Anyone who knows anything about Trump is fully aware what his policy positions are. He is using the GOP as a vehicle to get the Presidency. Once he gets into power he will go back to his usual liberal positions.
 
Raoul said:
They are all gullible morons. Anyone who knows anything about Trump is fully aware what his policy positions are. He is using the GOP as a vehicle to get the Presidency. Once he gets into power he will go back to his usual liberal positions.
Click to expand...

Well, glad you see through it.

So what exactly are these "liberal" positions, and how many are there compared to his overwhelming fascistic tendencies? And who are some of his liberal supporters?
 
Raoul said:
They are all gullible morons. Anyone who knows anything about Trump is fully aware what his policy positions are. He is using the GOP as a vehicle to get the Presidency. Once he gets into power he will go back to his usual liberal positions.
Click to expand...
If you could not phrase it as if it's inevitable that'd help my peace of mind.
 
Who's Carson likely to back, then? Cruz maybe?
 
Nobby style said:
Well, glad you see through it.

So what exactly are these "liberal" positions, and how many are there compared to his overwhelming fascistic tendencies? And who are some of his liberal supporters?
Click to expand...

Abortion, health care, planned parenthood, tax breaks for the wealthy, free trade /protectionism - he has taken liberal positions on each of these over the years when they have consistently been opposed by both establishment and conservative Republicans.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tr...epublican-on-economics-since-nixon-2015-12-14
 
Raoul said:
Abortion, health care, planned parenthood, tax breaks for the wealthy, free trade protectionism - he has espoused each of these over the years when they have consistently been opposed by both establishment and conservative Republicans.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tr...epublican-on-economics-since-nixon-2015-12-14
Click to expand...

Abortion . . . said he´s pro life since 2011. People changing or "evolving" does´t mean they are masquerading. Wanting to repeal Obamacare and save medicare is not all that liberal. He´s ok with planned parenthood except abortions . . . quite moderate. His tax positions are moderate as well, or at least not being right wing enough for maybe your liking does not mean "liberal." Free trade protectionism and outsourcing are complaints of the tea party too.

I´d say he´s moderate at best on a few poisons, and that´s it. Would you like me to name the huge list of his very conservative stances, the part of him that Ann Coulter et al love? It would be massive.

Putting his appeal to the aforementioned list of hard core right wingers as simply, they are "gullible morons" is extremely simple and lazy.
 
Nobby style said:
Abortion . . . said he´s pro life since 2011. People changing or "evolving" does´t mean they are masquerading. Wanting to repeal Obamacare and save medicare is not all that liberal. He´s ok with planned parenthood except abortions . . . quite moderate. His tax positions are moderate as well, or at least not being right wing enough for maybe your liking does not mean "liberal." Free trade protectionism and outsourcing are complaints of the tea party too.

I´d say he´s moderate at best on a few poisons, and that´s it. Would you like me to name the huge list of his very conservative nature, the part of him that Ann Coulter et al love? It would be massive.

Putting his appeal to the aforementioned list of hard core right wingers as simply, they are "gullible morons" is extremely simple and lazy.
Click to expand...

Well its true. He's a liberal opportunist who is using the GOP as a vehicle to rise to power. He may not be a consistent wing nut leftist that impresses our resident Sanders connoisseurs, but the fact that the establishment and conservative wings of the GOP power structure have rejected him speaks volumes about the true nature of of his politics.
 
Will Absolute said:
Yet polls last night showed Trump did better with moderate conservatives - the very conservative voters went for Cruz.

Trump is best understood, and will run as a populist rather than a politician of the hard right. On trade and immigration he has a powerful message which resonates with voters well beyond the Republican base.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he's actually doing better in states with open primaries than only republican ones it seems but still he is unpopular with general election electorate.

Also on immigration polls show that most of the country doesn't actually agree with his deportation or banning policies. Even the gop base is divided in places like Virginia etc.. Only Alabama last night even in GOp voters agreed in majority to deport all 12 million people.
 
I wonder if Bill is pissed off with her.
He broke a rule surely he knows about - campaigning within 150 feet of a polling station. (He went inside). He used a bullhorn, and his security blocked access to some voters. Of course, as is to be expected, the local DNC guy said it's not a problem, and I don't think Sanders will appeal. But knowing that it's going to go on social media, etc., was it really worth the few hundred votes?

This is in addition to his "we're all Africans" and other funny statements.
 
Raoul said:
Well its true. He's a liberal opportunist who is using the GOP as a vehicle to rise to power. He may not be a consistent wing nut leftist that impresses our resident Sanders connoisseurs, but the fact that the establishment and conservative wings of the GOP power structure have rejected him speaks volumes about the true nature of of his politics.
Click to expand...

Imo he's more of an unprincipled opportunist, the consummate charlatan whose conservatism now is as self-serving as is liberalism was then. Some of his old liberal views aren't so convenient currently but he is politically astute enough to know that a complete evolution\conversion to GOP purist wouldn't wash.
Trump is a textbook NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) nutter who wears all the subtypes- from elitist narcissist to unprincipled- with equal facility. Wikipedia should lead with a mugshot of Trump rather than Caravaggio's Narcissus.
If the dnc wasn't such a closed shop to political outsiders, I could easily picture Trump outflanking Bernie on the left and if amnesty had traction he'd be its champion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.