"I’m about to fly to Paris and shoot ‘em in the head myself!" - Anti-Muslim rhetoric ramps up..

The country survived GWB and Nixon. It survived the Clinton sex scandals and Iran-Contra and Abramoff. It will survive this too. If anything, he's going to be able to do a lot less damage because so much of the country doesn't take him seriously.
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Survive in what sense?

Nixon's campaign strategy led to the Reagan administration ( tax cuts for the rich, Iran/Contra, racism) which seems to have been the tipping point of the current decline (loss of the middle class, ballooning of the public debt, expansion of the prisons, rapid expansion of lobbying and associated corruption, etc). GWB ( continuation of bad stuff, plus ruinous war ) was the culmination of that progression at the time, and set the stage for the current scene. This is a progression, and Trump is the latest and farthest stage. We have "survived" the various drops in this staircase to shithole, but not unharmed. We can't keep going down this way without taking more damage. The farther we go, the longer the climb back and the more damaged the climbing abilities. At some point a transition is likely, into a different phase of US political organization - through one of those "exit only" doors in the stairwell, to push the metaphor. If , say, the body of Trump's supporters, or Cruz's, that is to say the core electoral support of the Republican Party, simply denies the legitimacy of any other candidate elected over them, and "de facto secedes", the country will change both radically and abruptly.
 
And more about Muslims. I think he has a legitimate point about the problem. I've gotta give him credit for his honesty...

 
Personally:
I fear that Hillary Clinton is a war mongering whore of the military industrial complex.

How about Martin O'Malley?
 
Bowser said:
I think people are craving real change, which is what Trump seems to offer.
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Exactly - and "seems" is the important word there. He's different! He's not politically correct! He says what's on his mind! He's not part of the establishment! At least he seems that way.
If you're a home owner with a family and a steady job, and you are comfortable with the way things are, vote for Hillary.
If you are 20-something, still living with your parents, have no real prospects for the future, vote for Sanders.
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And if your world consists mainly of reality TV and professional wrestling, vote for Trump. He will put on a far better show.
 
Bowser said:
And more about Muslims. I think he has a legitimate point about the problem. I've gotta give him credit for his honesty.
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And there is certainly data that show that black Americans are more likely to end up in prison. Do you think that the KKK has a legitimate point about the problem? Can you give them credit for being honest?
 
​

Sculptor said:
Personally:
I fear that Hillary Clinton is a war mongering whore of the military industrial complex.
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Sure, compared to chaste idyll. But compared to Dick and Bush? Not so much.

Part of the question is whether we view the Democratic nomination, or Democrats in general, according to the short or long terms.

The proposition that the world is about to go to war on a massive scale doesn't help the consideration, I admit. But to use the basic Democratic divide, it's one thing for me to say, well, why not Martin O'Malley, and in that case I'm getting a political creature I recognize. Same thing with Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders? But even without the latest Daa'ish headlines I'm still of a mind that we could lose more than we gain if the Democrats win the White House and blow it. All things considered, given the way Republicans are behaving, and given the fact that the American people are not in a mood for a liberal revolution, it's true that I need a Clinton this time.

Because any Democratic president is going to face a bully Congress led by Republicans determined to prove their thesis that government does not and cannot work. Any day that's the reality, Hillary Clinton's case for the presidency only gets stronger. And if the world really is about to have it out with Daa'ish, then yes, we need the hawk who knows how to outmaneuver Republicans on their own field. It's not that Sanders can't make the case, but the GOP really, really wants a Clinton presidency, and the flaw in their calculus is exactly why I want it, too.

We're in a period during which the first task for my political team is to hold the line. We've heard what's coming if we don't; Republican voters are pissed off, and they're coming for "America" itself.

And, yes, this time it's that bad. Donald Trump's protofascism might be spectacular, but as Josh Voorhees↱ noted for Slate, last month:

There's evidence to suggest Donald Trump and (to a lesser extent) Ben Carson actually enter this particular debate about national security with an advantage, and there's little reason to believe that will change in the short term. But there's another reason to doubt that Republican voters will run en masse toward a moderate GOP candidate in the wake of Paris: There isn't one.​

And while Carson might have slipped over the last month, the analysis isn't wrong; Republican presidential contenders intend to challenge the heart of American freedom. And Republican voters don't seem to mind. This time it really is that big; Republicans hope to win a defining election, and the first priority is to hold the line. We aren't winning any big gains on these issues; we simply cannot afford to lose. Nor can the nation; this time it really is that big.
____________________

Notes:

Voorhees, Josh. "GOP Establishment Candidates Are Squandering a Chance to Show Some Sanity on Refugees". Slate. 17 November 2015. Slate.com. 14 December 2015. http://slate.me/1QnC4CC
 
Bowser said:
And more about Muslims. I think he has a legitimate point about the problem. I've gotta give him credit for his honesty...

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None of the solutions he has proposed, to anything, could be implemented. But that doesn't matter, to his fans, because he makes it OK for them to think like simpletons. Anyway, his star is on the wane I think, now. I feel sure Iowa is a significant pointer. As the other nutcases fall by the wayside (Carson fading badly now) others will benefit rather than The Chump. (Mind you, Tez Crud is a nutcase too, but slightly less overtly offensive.)
 
Bells said:
Trump is merely echoing what voters on the Right want. It is the reason why Cruz, for example, did not denounce him.
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Isn't it strange how prone so many voters can be to throwing the baby out with the bath water? Before America starts firing shots at anyone of any stripe, would it not make more sense to cut them off from all lifelines to the US market first? By all indications I've seen to date, high-level officials in the Pakistani government actively conspired to hide Osama Bin Laden from US eyes, ears and drones for several years - a situation so dangerous that it prompted President Obama to risk a nuclear war with Pakistan rather than give advance notice of the famous Navy Seals raid on their soil - and yet Donald Trump tells us that it's American Muslims who deserve to be punished for it and advocates war crimes in response.

I've been thinking lately that if you asked US voters the following question, either an outright majority or a disturbingly large minority would answer no:

Would you be willing to have paid and continue paying two or three times the price for gasoline as well as most of the products you'd normally buy at a store such as Walmart, if such sacrifices were sufficient to prevent the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing Iraqi and Afghan wars, while drastically enhancing the growth of human rights and weakening of dictatorships across the globe?
 
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iceaura said:
Survive in what sense?
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In the sense of continuing improvement. It's easy to look at the last six months and lament how far we've fallen, but look at it from a larger perspective. In the last lifetime (80 years) we have:
-made it legal for blacks to marry whites
-made it legal for gays to marry
-passed a law that prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin
-passed a law that prohibited discrimination against women in schools
-elected a black president
-seen several female vice presidential candidates and one potential female presidential candidate

So from a high level perspective we are moving in the right direction, even if we see short term setbacks (like Trump.)
 
sculptor said:
Personally:
I fear that Hillary Clinton is a war mongering whore of the military industrial complex.

How about Martin O'Malley?
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Don't know who he is. I became averse to politics for, I guess, mental health reasons. Sometimes I find it hard to watch the news too. That interview with was the only Trump was the only one I watched.
 
Bowser said:
I think there's more there than simply racism. I like his approach to trade.
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And that argument is an echo of how we found ourselves in this mess to begin with.

Why would you have people ignore the bigotry? It's a big problem.

We keep making bad decisions for our society because someone can frame a neat short-term "trade" or "business" argument, and what this sort of thing gets us is what we saw when Bear Stearns fell and the rest of Wall Street followed.

War and peace, crime and punishment, freedom and necessity: That we make bad decisions in favor of a short-term bauble does not mean we made a good decision. That we attain any given bauble does not mean the path we followed is a good one.

And given that the "real change"↗ Trump supporters want is a throwback to the earlier times and ways that led to this problem, I would suggest bland distraction an insufficient response.

For thirty-five years at least, I've heard Republicans tout their business and trade credentials; the whole time, that argument has favored the white collar at the expense of the blue collar. One of the most unchanging statistics over that period has been the average American's real wages, which have remained stagnant at best. And yet, here they are, "craving real change", and wanting more of the same.

War and peace, crime and punishment, freedom and necessity: Futility is the Republican promise.

It's one thing to say they're craving change; the rest is a matter of definitions. They want to change this course, so that the rich stay rich, the white stay white, and the Christians stay in charge. There really isn't any part of the Republican platform that doesn't require your manner of rhetorical sleight in order to sound good, and we see the worst elements in high concentration gathered in the Trump campaign.

No wonder you want us to look away from all that.
 
Once upon a time, an American president (Garfield) discovered an original mathematical proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (unique from the hundreds of other methods of proof known at the time), in addition to fluently speaking multiple languages and possessing an astounding range of other extremely intelligent characteristics. When's the last time a US president had a Ph.D. in anything, an undergrad science degree, or at least some sort of meaningful exposure to undergraduate-level college mathematics?

The US needs to find a leader with both the technical abilities and qualifications to lead effectively and efficiently, while possessing the charisma necessary to win sufficient numbers of ADHD votes. It doesn't seem like either party plans to run such candidates this time around, nor at any time in the foreseeable future.
 
CptBork said:
Isn't it strange how prone so many voters can be to throwing the baby out with the bath water? Before America starts firing shots at anyone of any stripe, would it not make more sense to cut them off from all lifelines to the US market first? By all indications I've seen to date, high-level officials in the Pakistani government actively conspired to hide Osama Bin Laden from US eyes, ears and drones for several years - a situation so dangerous that it prompted President Obama to risk a nuclear war with Pakistan rather than give advance notice of the famous Navy Seals raid on their soil - and yet Donald Trump tells us that it's American Muslims who deserve to be punished for it and advocates war crimes in response.

I've been thinking lately that if you asked US voters the following question, either an outright majority or a disturbingly large minority would answer no:

Would you be willing to have paid and continue paying two or three times the price for gasoline as well as most of the products you'd normally buy at a store such as Walmart, if such sacrifices were sufficient to prevent the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing Iraqi and Afghan wars, while drastically enhancing the growth of human rights and weakening of dictatorships across the globe?
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That's a really good point and yes, it is an interesting question as to what they would prefer. I feel disheartened to believe they would opt for the cheaper petrol.
 
Bells said:
That's a really good point and yes, it is an interesting question as to what they would prefer. I feel disheartened to believe they would opt for the cheaper petrol.
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I just can't see anyone being elected on a promise of "I'm going to raise your taxes, and virtually every other product and service you buy will cost significantly more, especially gasoline. Many companies will be forced to restructure or close their operations, and many of you will lose your jobs as a result. In return, you'll receive the only possible chance for a lasting global democratic peace, an immense blow to Islamic radicals and their supporters worldwide, and a meaningful non-violent deterrent against the encroachment of nuclear-armed dictatorships."
 
Survive in what sense?
In the sense of continuing improvement. It's easy to look at the last six months and lament how far we've fallen, but look at it from a larger perspective. In the last lifetime (80 years) we have:
-made it legal for blacks to marry whites
-made it legal for gays to marry
-passed a law that prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin
-passed a law that prohibited discrimination against women in schools
-elected a black president
-seen several female vice presidential candidates and one potential female presidential candidate

So from a high level perspective we are moving in the right direction, even if we see short term setbacks (like Trump.)
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Riding on the coattails of the forty years after WWII, we saw some continuing improvement in non-economic matters even as the economic improvements backslid starting in 1980. But the setback that is the rise of fascism to a central factor in American politics started with Nixon, not Trump, and the reversal of the trend toward continual improvement started with Reagan. This degradation and cooption of the Republican Party is not a short term setback, but a long growing and increasingly dangerous feature of American politics.

If the Republican Party had not fallen to the W&Cheney level, how much of a chance would Obama have had? Sarah Palin, for chrissakes.
 
CptBork said:
I've been thinking lately that if you asked US voters the following question, either an outright majority or a disturbingly large minority would answer no:

Would you be willing to have paid and continue paying two or three times the price for gasoline as well as most of the products you'd normally buy at a store such as Walmart, if such sacrifices were sufficient to prevent the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing Iraqi and Afghan wars, while drastically enhancing the growth of human rights and weakening of dictatorships across the globe?
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Guaranteed cause-effect relationships like that don't exist in politics or economics, so I'm more disturbed by the party dedicated to asking and answering such pointless fantastical questions "yes".
 
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What?

No, no, the first part is pretty clear. It's the part after the word "so" that doesn't make sense.
 
CptBork said:
Once upon a time, an American president (Garfield) discovered an original mathematical proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (unique from the hundreds of other methods of proof known at the time), in addition to fluently speaking multiple languages and possessing an astounding range of other extremely intelligent characteristics. When's the last time a US president had a Ph.D. in anything, an undergrad science degree, or at least some sort of meaningful exposure to undergraduate-level college mathematics?

The US needs to find a leader with both the technical abilities and qualifications to lead effectively and efficiently, while possessing the charisma necessary to win sufficient numbers of ADHD votes. It doesn't seem like either party plans to run such candidates this time around, nor at any time in the foreseeable future.
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What was the quote from the news room from the bitching monologue " we used to aspire to intelligence not belittle it"
 
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