Donald Trump for President Thread

[harry]

From my perspective, it seems petty. Complain when you don't get your own way sort of thing. If it continues then it would just generate such a whining culture in the west that just weakens us on the whole.

I am all for protesting in numbers. I believe in the right issues it can be effective, so don't get me wrong i don't believe against protesting. I just think there is a whining culture creeping into western society where protesting when you just don't get the result you want is a little weak culture in general.

It's not creeping in mate, it's been here for a while It's just that recent events have magnified it.

 

[ToffeeDoug]

Before people take to the streets to protest at how awful democracy is because they didn't get the outcome they wanted, they'd be better off pointing the finger at the Democrat supporters who didn't go out to vote this time and helped hand the election to Trump.

 

[mezzrow]

I visited the S****front forums once a few years ago (as a trolling liberal, of course). It was the most inhumane hateful horrible online community i've ever witnessed. It was also hugely active and the posts, while abhorrently racist and utterly disagreable, were well written, revealing most members to be probably educated middle-class. Probably all Trump voters.

Most probably were. Never been there, no desire to go there, but you were doing God's work. Still, if you go, go prepared, and clean up after.

When someone points at obvious racists and makes associations that link genuine non-racists to them by common association with some candidate or platform or policy that the obvious racists are clearly using opportunistically to promote their racial theories, you cut yourself off from those non-racists who are still willing to communicate. Seeing those guys in your corner isn't a happy event, but focusing solely on the virulence of the haters to peel off support from members of polite society has its limits. It is easy to peel off support (or admission of support) by said association. The cost is low, it is very effective in today's society, and it is self-reinforcing. Most people have no desire to stand up to that heat for fear of being labelled, and I think you have to be pretty secure in your own beliefs to even try to make any other point against that effort that doesn't consist of virtue signalling as fast as possible to avoid the taint of association. By indulging yourself in this way against people of good will, you throw the baby out with the bath water.

When it is aimed at me, my instinct is to hold up a mirror and ask the accuser what he or she sees now.

You may think you are doing God's work, but in doing so you can often miss the point that is hidden behind the racial facade. That said, seeing the self-described "race realists" around is a lot like finding you've stepped into a giant pile of doggie doo on your way to Lourdes for the cure.

It is just as unsavoury as it sounds.

 

[SpongeBob brown shoes]

Political equivalent of the league table based on possession

So she won the possession?

And still performed shabite, she's basically martinez

Merrican blues should of seen it coming

 

[abelard]

Most probably were. Never been there, no desire to go there, but you were doing God's work. Still, if you go, go prepared, and clean up after.

When someone points at obvious racists and makes associations that link genuine non-racists to them by common association with some candidate or platform or policy that the obvious racists are clearly using opportunistically to promote their racial theories, you cut yourself off from those non-racists who are still willing to communicate. Seeing those guys in your corner isn't a happy event, but focusing solely on the virulence of the haters to peel off support from members of polite society has its limits. It is easy to peel off support (or admission of support) by said association. The cost is low, it is very effective in today's society, and it is self-reinforcing. Most people have no desire to stand up to that heat for fear of being labelled, and I think you have to be pretty secure in your own beliefs to even try to make any other point against that effort that doesn't consist of virtue signalling as fast as possible to avoid the taint of association. By indulging yourself in this way against people of good will, you throw the baby out with the bath water.

When it is aimed at me, my instinct is to hold up a mirror and ask the accuser what he or she sees now.

You may think you are doing God's work, but in doing so you can often miss the point that is hidden behind the racial facade. That said, seeing the self-described "race realists" around is a lot like finding you've stepped into a giant pile of doggie doo on your way to Lourdes for the cure.

It is just as unsavoury as it sounds.

fair enough, but when "genuine non-racists" lash out at people with legitimate concerns about "obvious racists," rather than the "obvious racists" themselves, it further emboldens the latter, and doesn't exactly convey the impression that "genuine non-racists" are "still willing to communicate"

the view is perhaps a bit different when you've encountered "obvious racists" in person rather than in abstract

 

[mezzrow]

fair enough, but when "genuine non-racists" lash out at people with legitimate concerns about "obvious racists," rather than the "obvious racists" themselves, it further emboldens the latter, and doesn't exactly convey the impression that "genuine non-racists" are "still willing to communicate"

the view is a bit different when you've encountered "obvious racists" in person rather than in abstract

I have the opportunity to meet genuine racists and do battle with them all the time in real life. I grew up in a world that was entirely racist in nature in the de jure sense as well as the de facto, unlike most of you. I was taught the error of that from the age of three or four, most of which lesson was conveyed by word and deed by a dear black woman who was Willie Mays' second cousin if she was to be believed, and I do and did believe her. Those racists aren't here in this forum, so that's not the message I need to emphasize here. That's a different fight that I've been engaged in for fifty years or so. We are on the same side in that fight.

Make no mistake.

That's just not the ONLY thing that this is about. If you are asking yourself how Americans can be so racist as to have elected Donald Trump, it is because they are not what you think they are, in general. Some are, but it's not the percentage represented in the arguments I see here.

It is not 1957 any more. I remember 1957. In the South. In Montgomery Alabama. I was there. It is a different world today.

 

[bflefc]

Don't agree with these protests. He won so move on.

This. I think he's an utter trumpet, but the scumbags out protesting now are bigger trumpets. They need to respect democracy and make it work - ie ensure he doesn't get re-elected next time.

 

[bflefc]

Ok, I'm not having this hackney'd 'both sides told lies' stuff. I've said many times, when the presidential debates were analysed for truthfulness, Clinton told lies around 30% of the time, which is bad. Trump told lies around 90% of the time. I'm not here to suggest that politicians are honest, but only the blind could not see a huge difference there.

On the second point, I'd love to know what you think the answer is, as I'm sure you're not advocating that it's fine for politicians to lie just so long as the biggest fibber is one you voted for. We should demand better from all candidates.

I'm not advocating anything of the kind. But you're a deluded fantastist if you think any politicians don't tell lies.

My answer? We have to stick with basic democratic values: if we feel that a current government/leader/politician can't be trusted, they shouldn't receive our votes next time and we should back the more trustworthy candidate.

 

[abelard]

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09...ly-finding-the-polling-place-was-a-challenge/

This situation is sure to be "great again" in four more years

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The Right might provide more satisfying scapegoats, but what is the actual Conservative solution to this? ^

Lost your job as a trucker to self-driving cars? We'll take away your healthcare and drive up the cost of education further still, in order to fund still more tax breaks for the one guy who owns the machines that replaced you. Unemployed, Homeless, debt-ridden, and stripped of access to social or financial capital, we're confident you and your lot will finally stop being so lazy and just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps already.

I don't know what Trump is proposing as his policies don't appear to have been shared or scrutinised much at all. In terms of the UK though it's disjointed. I mentioned two government papers highlighting the need, but having spoken at various times to the education select committee chair, the DWP and the DoE in the last month or so on this topic, I'm not sure they get it at all. Everything is geared very much at 5-21 year olds, with very little time, money or attention given towards helping people retrain, relocate etc. The government's fund for helping people whose jobs have been lost in this way stands at around £1.5m, which doesn't really stretch very far.

I can't help but feel there will be a lot of rather angry people in a few years time when their lives haven't been improved despite the grand promises of Trump, Farage et al.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm not advocating anything of the kind. But you're a deluded fantastist if you think any politicians don't tell lies.

My answer? We have to stick with basic democratic values: if we feel that a current government/leader/politician can't be trusted, they shouldn't receive our votes next time and we should back the more trustworthy candidate.

I'm not sure how that stacks up with recent experience though? As I said, in both presidential debates, 90% of what Trump said was proven to be a lie, yet he's the president of the United States on the back of it. I'm not suggesting that politicians don't lie, but more should be done to ensure that they don't.

I mean campaigns typically go on for several months, so it hardly seems too much to ask that a regulator of some kind analyses what candidates are saying, and if it's a lie they are forced both to issue an official retraction and to then stop using that lie from that point on. We have this level of accountability in most other aspects of our lives, but not one of the most important. It's bizarre.

 

[USABlue]

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09...ly-finding-the-polling-place-was-a-challenge/

This situation is sure to be "great again" in four more years

I didnt get a letter telling me where to vote either, i checked my city's website.

 

[abelard]

I don't know what Trump is proposing as his policies don't appear to have been shared or scrutinised much at all. In terms of the UK though it's disjointed. I mentioned two government papers highlighting the need, but having spoken at various times to the education select committee chair, the DWP and the DoE in the last month or so on this topic, I'm not sure they get it at all. Everything is geared very much at 5-21 year olds, with very little time, money or attention given towards helping people retrain, relocate etc. The government's fund for helping people whose jobs have been lost in this way stands at around £1.5m, which doesn't really stretch very far.

driving up tuition fees doesn't help either

I can't help but feel there will be a lot of rather angry people in a few years time when their lives haven't been improved despite the grand promises of Trump, Farage et al.

i think you're probably right - the trouble is, where to go from there? in the US at least, Republican politics are a self-fulfilling prophecy. the worse they make the government, the angrier people get about the poor quality of government, and the more they respond to an anti-government message.

American politics has a habit of normalizing people who once seemed vile and utterly unacceptable - Nixon, Reagan et al. Could Trump be made some day to seem moderate? Brace yourselves...

 

[mezzrow]

Lost your job as a trucker to self-driving cars? We'll take away your healthcare and drive up the cost of education further still, in order to fund still more tax breaks for the one guy who owns the machines that replaced you. Unemployed, Homeless, debt-ridden, and stripped of access to social or financial capital, we're confident you and your lot will finally stop being so lazy and just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps already.

Point taken, and this is just as true for a journalist, or systems architect, or porn star, as it is for a truck driver. (Oxford comma debate to follow someday elsewhere...)

To use a facile shorthand, we enter the leading edge of the Singularity, and what we will meet on the other side is something you currently have no map to understand in its scope and impact. Stick and move. As a species, we have never experienced anything like what we're facing.

That's what makes it Singular.

edit - that's also what makes it frightening...

 

[Neiler]

Im not a Trump fan to be honest more for his humanitarian and social policy/opinions.

However i will say this Irelands premier is a school teacher, Britanins worked for the Bank of England, someone who is self made billionaire obviously has some economic savy about them. I think its important to be open minded.

Now i dont like Trump, but everytime i read something on social media i think people just are liking him because its the cool thing to do rather then knowing the first thing about him or his policies.

Brexit is in fact Britains very own Trump vote so as far as i can see both countires have done exactly the same thing just different ways of doing it.